How One Brand Is Taking On Personal Care Giants

Welcome to this edition of the million Dollar Mastermind podcast. This is where we pick the brains of high achievers from all walks of life and get their hard earned real world insights on winning. I'm your host, Larry Wydell.

Hello, everybody. And we're talking with David Simic. He's a return guest. We only bring back our most popular guests. I'm just kidding. But you know, it's hard when you get the response that David got the first time. That hard not to bring him back. And we should have brought him back a long time ago and I guess 2021, we're looking up, looking back and seeing when that was. So your company has been on the move, David.

Congratulations, Larry. Look, I'm as shocked as you. No, but I, we all, humility aside, I get to work with an amazing team and we've, and we've hired professionals from Nestle and Unilever and l' Oreal and all these just amazing companies that we have the privilege to work with and talk about.

So let's get people who are not familiar with the first episode, let's get them up the scale about your company, Soapbox, and just some of the basics so they, they can kind of follow the bouncing ball here. Yeah.

So it's, it's great to be back. We have grown. We've tripled since 2021. And Soapbox is a mission driven personal care company. We thoughtfully make each one of our shampoos, conditioners, deep conditioners, body washes, liquid hand soaps, lotions, potions right here in the United States with natural ingredients. And then every time someone buys one of our products, we donate a bar of soap to someone. We are approaching our milestone of 40 million bars that we've donated to local homeless shelters and food pantries. And if you're listening, you may know this, you may not, but food stamps in the United States don't cover hygiene products. So one of the most requested items within food pantries are actually hygiene items. And then especially with the homeless shelters that we have the privilege of working with, if they have a shower program for their clients, the usage rate of soap is so much higher than like a winter coat because you're just taking care of clients on a daily, a weekly basis of where you're helping them achieve that level of health.

Yeah. So if you have a bad attitude towards a homeless person that has a little bit of a body odor around you, there's a reason for that.

Yes, there is.

No one's giving them any soap. It's not that they're enjoying that. And so you're plugging a tremendous gap and we're going to hit, let's hit a bunch of these things right off the bat. You were the largest producer of wooden American flags in the United States here on the board of directors of Flags of Valor. Where did that come from?

It's one of those interesting things where like, I just wanted to give back and I also wanted to help out other companies that I thought had a great cause. And this is a veteran owned company that employs veterans that basically creates shadow boxes as well as other types of wooden products that celebrate, you know, how amazing this country is. So absolutely love working with them. Also have the privilege of being on Orchestra of the Americas, which is this beautiful tapestry of inviting artists that often get overlooked in places all over the world to be a part of some of the best symphonies and artistic talents all over the world. It really is, it's, it's an amazing organization. So I'm moving all up in the world, Larry. I'm getting invited to boards.

Wow, amazing. Now you've employed more than 70 veterans, raised over a hundred and over a million dollars for veteran charities.

Larry. I don't, I don't, I, I don't get to take any of that credit. That's totally Flags of Valor and, and the amazing leadership team there. I just get to help them navigate Amazon and how to grow their retail sales. And I'm just a, I'm a humble board member.

With the shadow box thing. For people who don't know if you have a family member who died in service and they have a military funeral, they have you get a flag folded up in like a triangle and then like, what am I going to do with this? You put it in a, one of those shadow boxes and I have one of those for my father, a Vietnam veteran. And there's a lot of those around the country and a lot of them on display, I'm sure. So it gives you some pride, I'm sure, to be involved in that. Now talk about how you grow up and get yourself involved in a company that is oriented with a mission like this.

Well, I think first off, I don't want to let this pass by. Thank you so much for your father's service. And to answer your question, I think I like to be a part of mission driven organizations, whether at a board level, whether at an advisory level, whether I'm a small time investor, emphasis on small, and especially here at soapbox like each. I think business can do good. I don't think business can necessarily replace the social fabric or safety net that government and or other organizations provide. But I do believe that better business can make a better world. And I think business can be great and I think business can do good.

David the thing that about business is it's touchy feely is good, but you got to be able to produce, you got to be able to do things, sell products, make. People are not going to keep buying it. And that's growth comes because you do a good job and you have a great product and you stay on the attack, you stay on mission and you continue to compound and you guys show it's one thing to have a success. We used to talk about in our company people who came in and came out of nowhere and they shot right up the leaders bulletins and they were, they were doing incredible things no one had ever seen before. And then two months later no one ever heard of them again. So we used to, we used to call it the Disneyland of shooting stars. So you guys are, according to what we have now 16 times larger than you were in 2017 when you had to lay off half of your staff. And you have done a bounce back that's like epic and become one of the fastest growing, I guess seven it says the seventh fastest growing company in the D.C. area, which is a big tens and tens of millions of people and companies. And so it's a big, big darn deal to be that much of a. In a growth business which is a staple. You're not. You didn't come up with a new radio or iPhone or something. I mean you, it's in a staple but still you're the fastest growing in the seven, the top 10 anyway. And that doesn't happen by accident. When you say you're up three times that's we had the last podcast. What does that mean? What is your, how do you keep up with volume?

Well, I think, I think there's a lot of really great, a lot of really great questions in there. Soapbox has been able to outpace competitors because of one, one big reason and that's because the team here has refused to give up. We've just decided to that we're gluttons for punishment. And no matter how many times we get punched in the face, we're going to keep on going after this and taking on the L' Oreals and the Unilevers and the PNGs and the Colgate Pomolos of the world. I very much believe, and I know our team believes that you can do well by doing good And I think that great businesses have a mission to them and that their consumers know that there's a purpose to that. I don't think that, that. Now what I mean by that is I don't think every business needs to have a charity, but I do think that people when they're buying, especially consumer, when they're buying a consumer brand, they have to realize that this product is authentically of its brand. And, and what I mean by that is we, we have focused so much on like time and money and effort in making sure that we make phenomenal products. And I really genuinely mean this. Like, phenomenal products that don't have parabens and don't have phylates or silicones or harsh sulfates or EDTA or dyes or any of this type of junk. And then we get. And we test again and again and again and again. I mean, like I have about 200 of these little testing vials of everything in my shower at any time, much to my like, wife's chagrin, because we just test and we test and we test again and then we take it to a broader audience. And, and I think for us it's, we believe that if we can make a phenomenal natural product at an affordable price, that the product itself is going to do with a lot, a lot of the heavy lifting. And then it is our role being a conduit of that consumer choosing to buy our product and then us upholding that consumer's choice to then donate that bar of soap. So we really just view ourselves as we're the in between of a consumer making a decision to help someone else. But in order to do that, we need to make a great product that that consumer falls in love with.

The thing about great companies, it's kind of like bodybuilding. The heavier the weights you lift, the stronger you get. The more the muscles grow, the bigger the challenges, the more your team develops. And you like a lead, you like to follow, a leader that has a background of facing, standing up to some really strong headwinds and not getting blown over. And you talked about, you and your team have made decisions that you're just not going to get knocked down. What comes along now you're in the darn soap business. You're doing good for mankind. You're employing veterans. Who are these people coming out of the woodwork. They're trying to, to create problems for you and make your life miserable.

How does that happen, Larry? I think it's great. I want that competition as a consumer, right? I want to have as Much choice and I want there to be a very, a very intense battle for my dollar on a daily basis. I think that's wonderful and I absolutely want that to continue in our free market system. Specifically, like who's coming for us? Like yeah, we're taking market share. Like we're at, at some retailers we're a top 10 brand and we're the only privately held brand within that top 10. And like these are, these are not like we have the bestselling biotin shampoo in the world's largest retailer. Like of course that's pissing off l'. Oreal. Right.

And, right.

And, and they're paying way more people than we are to try to like squash us. So.

Yeah.

So I look at this and I go, I want to be David versus Goliath. And not just because my name's David, but I, but I want to take this on and really try to disrupt an industry and prove that mission based businesses aren't just a fad, but it's the future of business and it's better business.

Yeah. Now tell, tell people who are coming up the ladder and wanting to have the initial splash of success that you had. The kinds of challenges you get, where does the competition. Because the competition gets pissed when you take market share. And they, you know, we did it at financial services and they, I remember I went to north, I won't, you know, they ran headline stories and without making a phone call to check anything and the attorney general of the state ran five year investigations and everybody said you guys run investigation and they weren't investigating anything. But it was enough to stop us, you know, give people the jitters, you know, to deal with. So I'm kind of familiar with it. But how do they come at you in that? How can people expect challenges? Have you got a product, you're feeling good about it? And where do they come in? They try and brand it the same way. They come up with a cut job price. They come up with something that make it seem like it's a better deal or what. All the above. Yeah.

Alan, I think as you said earlier, like it's shampoo, it's soap, it's math. We didn't create this super amazing new AI tool. We, we, we basically reinvented possibly one of the oldest products of mankind. And essentially competition in CPG or consumer product goods is going to come down to them boxing you out with major retailers because they're going to go to that retailer, they're going to put their money on the table, they're going to say instead of allowing this upstart brand to get this shelf space, we'll pay 200, you know, per SKU or we'll guarantee the sale or like if this doesn't work, we'll pay for 100% of the markdowns or whatever it might be. And when you have that type of balance sheet of these multi conglomerates, international companies, you can do that like you can absolutely force out young startup competition that is really taking off. I think that the way that, the way that we view this and what I would say to any listener who's starting any type of company is there's, there's a quote that leaves that lives rent free in my head that I think about a lot and that is most people overestimate what they can do in one year and they underestimate what they can accomplish in 10 years. And that's not me, that's, that's Bill Gates. And I think about that often because when we're creating strategy and when we're laying out our goals, consumer takes time. Like I think of Richelieu and Shea Moisture and how they sold their brand for almost a billion dollars to Unilever and that was a 30 year journey for them. And I think of Ryan at Method and that was a 20 plus journey for them. And I think of various different CPG founders and how long it takes in order for a brand really take off. And like you have this like 10 year overnight success, you get better at it, right? Like, you get like. I feel like there's a lot of muscle memory that I have in terms of decisions that we make now that it's just like, oh, this feels really comfortable. Whereas like 10 years ago this would have been crippling in terms of the amount of stress that certain decisions would bring. But to anyone who's starting out, I would, I think you're absolutely going to be blindsided by the things that you don't expect within a year. But I think if you set ambitious goals and you surround yourself with people who are smarter than you and then I think the most important ingredient is having the self awareness to realize the areas that you're weak in in order to surround yourself with people who are stronger in those areas that you can achieve amazing things with a longer term perspective.

So I'm going to say a couple of things and get you to respond to it. First of all, what I hear you're saying, which is what a lot of us have to tell ourselves when we start, is like, this is not a sprint. It's a marathon. And you got to be ready for the long haul. Now, that's a lie, too. Okay, that's a lie, too, because the thing is, in the beginning, it is a sprint because you better. You better be working around the clock to get something put together in a short period of time. But you better be ready to keep compounding. Once you get your toehold on the mountain and you get those first sales and the first product and you start to figure out what you're doing, you got to be ready to shift gears, you know, second gear, third. You know that you don't have 20 gears on a little Fiat you don't want to be, but you do have on an 18 wheeler, a cab of an 18 wheeler, where they're pulling these. These big trailers, and sometimes two or three of them hooked together. You need a lot of gears if you want to get up to Unilever size. They've, they've gone through a lot of things. But talk about this, It's a big breakthrough when you realize that. So I want you to speak about this, but I'm going to tell you, I'm going to do the team side, too. There's a big breakthrough for us when we realize we got to make it happen. If we're the leader, we ask to be the leader. We work to be the leader. Now get off your butt and lead and stop running and whining. And I tell people all the time, this idea that billionaires don't bitch or the winners always are positive is the biggest lie in the world. But the thing is that winners get depressed, complain, whine. They just don't do it that long. And while they're whining and complaining, they're thinking about, how can I get out of this? And their bounce back is just amazing. So don't ever believe a successful person when they're whining and complaining and down, it's just like they got punched in the jaw by Mike Tyson. They're going to come back. You know what I'm saying? That that sting will wear off. And Evander Holifield got hit in the jaw a couple of times, too, but he came back. And so the thing is, winners go through all of those emotions. They just don't stay there. And, you know, it's a matter of gather themselves and come back. And so at some point, you've got to say, I gotta be worth following if I'm going to be the leader of anything that amounts to anything. And I'm probably going to have some amazing challenges. Along the way. So when one comes, don't be shocked. So that's one stage. But the other deal is I got to have a tea, I got to put some good people together because we're in competition for market share, whatever it is, and they're not going to give it up to me and us easily. We might win some, but they're going to come back next year. I want to knock us. You know, you don't win the super bowl every year. And so in terms of putting together team, you got to have quality people, as good a people, as as many positions as possible so you can go out and be competitive because it's not just up to you. So I, I've dumped a whole lot on your head to comment on, but I know you're up for it.

Well, it's. We'll find out.

But, but I think the, one of.

The things that, that really rung true that I think is people are talking about it more now is that there's this. The number one thing that I've seen in successful entrepreneurs in the past 15 years that we've been doing this, the one that separates people who get it done and those who quit is grit. It's a like a second helping of grit that somehow that person has accumulated. I don't believe that's a at birth type of thing. We do see that there are much higher levels of founders that have some type of learning disability or grew up in a very difficult childhood or something happened to them that showed them that they can take one in the face and still survive. And there's this really weird like almost kind of Ted Lasso esque optimism that I have that it must be like insufferable to my friends and family and my business teammates and my co founder where we might experience some massive setbacks and I'll lick my wounds and within about an hour I'm like, so what now? What? Like right, let's do this. Like, do you believe that this is something worth fighting for? Yes. Cool, let's fight. And, and I think, I think that it's just unreasonable. Like there is an unreasonableness with founders, especially early stage founders that are just gonna will their way to make something that shouldn't exist in the marketplace happen. And, and I think one of the things that has really blown me away in having a front row seat in so many other successful entrepreneurs journeys, a lot of them way more successful than mine is they just have the ability to eat.

Yeah. Where do you, how would you explain your ability to do that? Because it's got to come down to core belief that at the bottom of the hole there's going to be a way to bounce and climb back out. You know what I'm saying? There, there was somewhere down in there, someone's going to leave me a clue, someone's going to holler down the hole an answer. Someone's gonna. Somehow they'll be. One way to look at it is if you're in that thing is like you're only one idea away from a complete turnaround in a business. Any situation, one idea. But sometimes it is like Ecclesiastes says in the Bible, there's nothing new under the sun. Whatever depressing thing we've gone through, millions of people have gone through it and survived. So keep looking up, keep looking out, seeking. You'll find but where you get this is the whole thing. You're only beat when you stop asking questions. You stop coming forward. You just give up entirely. And that's why it's so stupid to do that. But if you keep asking questions, you keep meeting new people. In fact, the dumbest person you might meet today might have the perfect answer to your situation. The answers can come from just about anywhere if you keep your mind open. Have you found that to be true?

Larry, I think you're scratching at something that we recently did a not a culture reset here at Soapbox, but we definitely did a reminder. And I think what's really like, a lot of people have said this, a lot of people who are way more prolific than that I am have talked about how like the Netflix culture deck has been such a pivotal moment for high achieving teams. And what's interesting is our early culture values unknowingly were very similar. And I'm not saying that like we did something better or more drastic or whatever. It's just, it's really interesting as like reading no Rules Rules and, and really looking at what Reed did and, and the whole Netflix team. It's, it's remarkable. But what we've always had at Soapbox is we've always said we are open, honest and professional with each other. And essentially what that means is direct but kind. We want to create an environment where politics do not take over. People having the ability to speak freely and to speak candidly about bad ideas and if they're hearing bad ideas. So in many meetings I'm told I'm an idiot. And in honesty, that's a good thing, right? Like, I, I want a consistent barrage of my ego, especially when I'm wrong. And I want people to feel safe within our team to know that they're going to be rewarded and praised for always putting the company's interests above anyone's ego. So that's open house professional, right? And like I said, like, the Netflix culture deck is so much better in terms of articulating everything that I just said.

Now when did you find out about that and why did that ring a bell with you?

I think a lot of team management is about empowering that team so that they can perform at their best. And I think this only works with high performing teams. Right, like this. This doesn't work in every team environment and that's just because you need people who are incredibly motivated to do their best at work. And this is articulated better by others. But like with freedom comes responsibility, right? And high performing people want to be there. They want to work, they want their work to have purpose and meaning. And I think what's so interesting is when you look at a lot of compensation surveys, people want to get paid a lot of money, but what people really want at work is they want purpose.

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So many people, I've seen this over my career. People would hear of a new system. Everyone's always looking for a new system. A system's going to be the answer. And a lot of times it is. But it only if it comes in with what you have in into a situation where everyone is set up to do something great and everyone is unifying around the idea we want to do something great. We don't want to just exist. We don't want to be average. We don't want the numbers come out and get beat by. We want to be somebody, we want to amount to something. We want to be proud of where we work. And so then when you bring in a system into that kind of environment, it's like the mentality is that we're going to do something great. This is going to Help us do something great rather than, okay, this is going to do. This is going to make us great. The system is going to make us great. The system is never going to make you great. You got to make yourself great. And if the system is helpful, great, that's wonderful. But it's because you used the system, and that's up to the leader to kind of set that expectation. I've seen so many times we can have people copy the things that are working, the flows, the systems, the thinking in parts of the country. It's just, they're just having popcorn growth and take that, install it in another part of the country. And they had the same kind of dishwater numbers they've had for the last 20 years. And so it's like, what's the difference there? Well, it's that expectation. And I want to mention it, David, because it's so easy to miss. It's so easy for the leader to miss the fact that I haven't set the expectations here that we want to do something great. I want to do something great. Are you with me or not? And I can remember when we turned our organization around in 1980, we went from recruiting like 50 people in a year, and we recruited 1800 the next year, 7200 after that, 15,000 the year after that. And I started all that off with a meeting where I said, here's what I'm going to do. Who wants to go with me? And either get with me or get out of my way, because I'm going. And so the thing is, the leader has to set, has to set the charge to let people know what you're all about there. And my best friend came up and after it was over, the meeting was over. Larry, you're not going to do, you're not going to do anything. Great. Everything's going to be the same. I looked at him like, you're dead to me. You're dead to me. He was my next door neighbor, the single most talented person in my organization, but he wasn't with me. And so he just got left in the dust. And so the thing is, the leaders have to, at some point, you got to set the tone and you got, let the people know I'm going with or without you. And have you had moments like that?

Oh, yeah. But I think, I think that there are. I'm an optimist. I've been an optimist my whole life. I believe in people. But ask. And I used to. I was a teacher through the Teach for America program. There are people who will never get it right. I mean, there was. And it's kind of interesting, right, because I, I do believe in the potential of every person. But there are people that, they do not have good intentions. I think they're few. I think they're very rare. But I also think that there's a lot of people who don't want to work that hard, and that's okay. Right? Like, not in our organization. Right. That's not the type of people that we attract. And also, I very much believe that a few bad apples will absolutely rot in the bunch. So I think, I think servant leadership is about setting the tone, modeling the tone, and working really hard to light that fire in each and every person. But there are some people who just. The wick isn't there or the gasoline isn't there or whatever.

As a leader, you gotta be smart enough to not just be a Pollyanna. And you gotta wake up and say, what am I seeing here? I want to believe, but like you say, there are very few rotten to the core, just evil people out there. Very few. But there are some. But there are a good number of people that are excited about other things other than work. And where they put their energy is into family or community or whatever. And they just go. They work so they can make some money, but what they're thinking about during the day is not their job. And so we've got to be aware that we, we got to have people that are with us to some degree. They're going to water us down.

I can't believe I didn't talk about this back in 2021, the last time I was on the show.

But we actually.

It's so fitting on Million Dollar Mastermind to talk about. I ask a question during. When we interview everyone a part of our team to join our team. I called the million Dollar question and I ask them, sobox is going to give you a million dollars every quarter, adjusted for inflation for the rest of your life. You don't have to show up for work. You don't.

What do you do?

And what's interesting is you get to learn a lot about someone. And most people say if they have any debt, take care of the debt, then they take care of their family, then they take care of their parents, then they go on vacation. And that's usually the standard response, some amalgamation of those four first things. But then I just keep asking, I'm like, you get a million a quarter, like, what do you do? And all the people who say, man, I just want to sit on A beach or. I want to. I always love cooking. I want to go. I want to really learn how to cook, and I want to. And anything that's not related to why we're hiring them, we don't hire them. It's not a bad thing.

Right?

Like, it's just when people tell me, they're like, man, I love cooking. I've always wanted to be a chef. I was. I'm like, I asked them in the.

Interview, I'm like, why aren't you a chef? Like, why are you applying to be.

A supply chain analyst within our team? Like, that seems like a real big dismiss in terms of what. What you say you love and what you're getting paid to do for the majority of your waking moments in life. This doesn't add up. So the biggest success that I've seen with, with talent management is when you find someone who loves their job so much that they do something similar to their job when they're not working.

Yeah. And they'll do that because they're thinking about it when they're not working right now. It's in their mind.

Right. And when, Lara, when you get people who are so.

And.

And the other thing is, is that, like, look, hey, that also means that you got some weird people on your team. Right. If you got an accountant that loves building spreadsheets in their free time and color coding them, they're probably going to be an interesting mix during the company party, right?

Yeah.

But that's the beauty, right? It's now. It's like, now it's empowering each one of each of these people that you have a part of this beautiful tapestry of your team to really, like, nerd out on the things that make them a superhuman and lean into that and say, like, okay, well, this is what you love doing. Let's harness that. I want to put as many resources that we can afford behind making you the best at this, and that's because.

You understand your success is going to trigger off your team. It comes down to the team. It doesn't matter how hard you work. And this other the team. And you're to some extent going to be affected by the weakest link. I mean, they could be weak because they're new. That's one thing. But weak because they just don't care is that really can't be tolerated. And you as the leader, Owen, to everybody else on the team, David, to notice that. What I notice about one of the earliest lessons I had of the first. My first decades, how did business is when I Get and be around top CEOs in New York and get behind closed doors. And we would, I know a lot of the same people that we would be talking about, or you'd be considering different people for different jobs. And I was at that stage more like the Pollyanna. I'm always a great guy. He'll be great for that. He'll be great for them. They're like, yeah, but you know, and then I could say, oh, that's why they're CEO and not me. They saw something about the intent, the ability to deliver or the toughness. And we owe it to our team to have the right people in the right place. And if it is not right to go in there and somehow correct it, either make an attitude adjustment, shift some people around, try some other things, and if it all else fails, get somebody else helps in there. And so that's one of the biggest jobs for us, is to have people on the field that everybody else on the field is confident giving their best for. They're playing for each other. And if there's somebody rotten out there, it's just not going to be as tough, they're not going to be as resilient.

What you're talking about reminds me of the classroom and I think what's so interesting. And so I was a middle school teacher. I didn't want to be a middle school teacher. That's where they placed me. But I was a middle school social studies teacher and I taught in a 10 by 10 block radius in Philadelphia that had the highest crime, murder and poverty rate in Philly. So it wasn't was that great of a place in terms of demographics that were reported on paper. But I loved my families and I loved my kids and I love that neighborhood. I still love that neighborhood. And I think about how my kids, my fifth and sixth graders would be the first to pick up the moment that I was inconsistent with any of my students and that if I set a rule or an obligation, I had to make sure that that was levied fair and consistently. And I think the other thing that was really interesting is so you, you start to learn so much about human behavior when, when you're a teacher. And the other thing that I jokingly say is that like adults really don't mature past middle school. We just get better at hiding it. Right. The emotions are still the same. So there's a lot of things where it's just like praise publicly, discipline privately. There's a lot of things in terms of. But then how do you also have a culture of, of fairness, inclusivity, and making sure that you're bringing about this level of candor so that good ideas can come from everywhere in the organization, regardless of where they are on the totem pole. But, man, I just think what you do as a leader, how you model things, how you're fair and consistent. And I think, as we were saying before, the ability just to. Is to take a pounding and just consistently be out in front saying, we're going to take this hill and follow me. That is, that is so incredibly important.

I talk to people who write, people who do different things, but one of the things that you'll find is like the prolific writers, they're writing every day. Jerry. This comes up from time to time. Jerry Steve, Jerry Seinfeld. His advice to up and coming comedians is write every day. Never let there be a day you don't write. I won't get into all of that because I mentioned it quite a bit, but Stephen King, he gets up in the morning, he writes every day. Isaac Asimov had wrote 400 books, but they said, how do you do it? He said, well, eight o' clock in the morning, I'm at my typewriter. And he said, it's not always great. But I don't worry about that because he said, if I keep typing, within about 30 minutes, my brain's going to say, this is a bunch of crap. Now start writing something good if I'm going to be associated with it. Let's get our act together here. But part of this as a leader is when you say, like today, what happens is your world closes in when things go back. You know, you get. Shocking news comes in. You know, Unilever did this. They did what those sons of it. And something totally knocked your knees out from under you. But it's hard to think at moment like that when you're in charge of 800 people or a thousand people, or you've got all these commitments and everything like that. There's going to be a tomorrow. But what you got to say to yourself is, great, unbelievable. But tomorrow I'm going to be here and we're going to be working. I don't know what we're going to be working on, but tomorrow, guess what? And the day after, we're still going. That may have been a body blow, but so what? We're going to be. We're still going to be here tomorrow and probably going to come up with a pretty dirt. I don't know what a good idea is, but tomorrow I'll probably have a pretty Good idea what it is. And so you've got to have that, that can give you your resiliency. Talk to us about the advantages of having a co founder like you did.

Oh well, first off, I am beyond, beyond lucky to have someone like Dan as a co founder. So. So in the early days of Soapbox it was Eric, Dan, Stephanie and I, and Stephanie and Eric, pretty early on in the journey said, you know what, the startup life is not for me. Stephanie wanted to go get her jd, mba, Eric wanted to start a family and Dan and I just, we forged on. And I think statistically speaking, co founded startups have a longer survival rate or a higher survival rate. I think a lot of that comes to it. It's much better when you're able to find someone who complements your weaknesses with their strengths and then you're able to bounce ideas off someone, you're able to work through problems together. There's so many different things that Dan does better than me and then I'm just incredibly grateful to have him consistently be a part of this. And I think what's interesting is like man, Larry, I've been work married to this guy for 15 years, right? Like you want to talk about really getting to know someone, there's all the surface level stuff like I know how to order form at every type of genre food restaurant you can imagine. But I think what's also really interesting is like when you just trust someone that much. And it's not like we still don't debate and it's not like we still don't check each other's work, but when I know that he's going to put his all in to make sure that whatever we're doing is successful, that's the type of trust I'm talking about.

Did you start with that? How long did you know Dan before you got started?

We were, we were friends in college, but we weren't close. I think the big thing that really impressed me with Dan early on is that his ability to just work through and solve problems quickly was extraordinary. And for me I was just like, well, who do I want to be in the trenches with? I want to be with someone who can just work. So I was so impressed with his ability to consistently just solve problems and skyrocket over any type of challenge that came our way. And then it was really interesting because we both started really just leaning into each other's strengths. And I think what's happened over the years is that we've been able to absorb a lot of each other's strengths and then being super vulnerable to your listeners because I feel like that's, that's where the real growth happens. We've gotten to a place where now we believe that we can do a lot of what the other person does and that's caused friction. So just like, like a 15 year marriage, like an actual marriage. Like we both went to like co founder counseling and that. And that was.

Yeah.

And that Larry. Yeah, it was really good. It was, it was really, really good.

Pet owner counseling or something. You know, I mean as far as a niche.

Yeah. You know, you know I first I.

Kudos both of you for being willing to do it.

Thank you for saying that. It was something that we both, we both learned a lot from. But you don't always exhume the stuff that happens and calcified over 15 years. Right. Those moments where someone might really shows.

It shows a maturity on both of your part that you were willing to do that. And what was the first light bulb that went on for you when you went in there?

Would you say how much I hurt him?

Really?

Yeah.

How did that make you feel? I feel like a TV reporter.

But anyway like shit like. And I don't even know if I can say that word on this. Can I say that word is that you just did. Awesome.

Great.

Well I was going to say this earlier we were talking about grit. I was just like man, I'm an above average shit here. Like I am like that's. I'll take that to my grave. But no, I mean it's when you really. And I think this is something where like counseling opens up a space where people can say the things that they might otherwise not say if it's just YouTube. And I give him a lot of credit for coming prepared and with that level of honesty and I hope that he felt like I did the same. And man, we just re unpacked some nasty stuff and we are way more effective now.

Now is that something that feel will be useful to do on a regular basis or that was a reset and now you're good for another 10, 15 years.

Well, I'll tell you what Larry. I think probably what's going to happen is we're our future is that and most consumer product good startups. This is what happens is you become so irritating to the conglomerates that eventually you just get bought. Someone someone comes along and says you're really pissing me off. What is a number that makes you mine? So I don't know if we're going to be doing this for the next 10 to 15 years. I think also that is in congruence with our mission because there have been other mission driven companies that keep their mission intact even through acquisition. That's really exciting. And that's something that we look at and say, look, there's a pathway here where this helps solidify that this one for one thoughtful ingredient made in the USA can exist beyond just us running it. So, so that's exciting. For any of your listeners who run businesses with a significant other or a family member or business partner that you've been with for a while, I encourage you to have the courage to ask your business partner if, if there's some stuff that's calcified over the years and you might, you both might not be prepared to do that alone. And that's where I think, like, you don't need to go to some co, founder or special counseling that's going to charge you more. Just go to a family counselor. They're prepared to deal with it. Because I guarantee you, Larry, the stuff that exists between business relationships is often the same stuff that exists between personal relationships.

Yeah. And it'll make you better, it'll make you more aware. The awareness in one relationship extends into others. So it's something that'll do you good. And one of the secrets of putting yourself through the entrepreneurial process is the fact that the improvements you want, the rough edges that get knocked off you along the way, hopefully and extends into other areas of your life in terms of enriching other areas of your life. Now, beginning with the end in mind, do you, Stephen Covey's right that you're more, you're stronger. If you're beginning right off the bat thinking of where is this headed? If we look at a company, you're smart to think beginning, middle, and there's going to be an end. Maybe an end when I die, maybe an end of some other kind, but a successful end. What would a successful end look like and something for? Would it be productive for you and your co owner, co founder to have those discussions and to say to yourself, okay, let's say we knock it out of the park in five or 10 years and they come in here and they give us $100 billion each. And we say, well that's a little low, but we'll take it.

And then I like your style, Larry. That's wild.

Then you say, we'll take 18 months to buy the yacht, tour the world, this, that, the other. But then let's come back and do something great again. Because either you say We're a great team, so let's do it again and let's. What would we do? You know, have some brainstorming about what would we like to do if we had the chance, May never get it. Would that be a productive thing for you to do in terms of lightening your. Would that complicate you? Would that make you weak or would that give you energy?

No, I think that. So Dan and I have both planned out the next couple years and what's going to happen, what we think is going to happen. I think one of the most insightful things I ever heard about business plans for startups is they become out of date the moment you hit print. And I think for most, for most things it's like, look, it's, it's good to have a plan, it's good to put in that preparation and forethought. It's not, it's going to go to shit. Like it's not going to, everything's not going to according to what you've laid out in your 300 page booklet. But I think for us, for me, I'll be doing this till I'm dead. I, this is, I love it, Specific plans.

I agree with you. But in terms of conceptual ideas, like, for like right there, you've already thought it through. You're going to be doing this one way or the other, you're going to be doing this and that. That's like saying which part of the country do I want to live in? We used to have expand, you know, expand people out around the country opening offices and all. And it's like where would you want to go? Like a trainee coming up. Like if you get promoted that level, you get the opportunity where in the country you want to go. And they go like, oh, I don't, whoa, whoa. They've been never fallen. Like I said, it's not that complicated. North, south, east, west, you want to go the east coast, west coast, you want to go to Canada, you want to go to Florida where it's hot. And then where it always, it always would wind up either where they grew up or where their wife grew up or where the wife grew up. Being a male or female who you're talking to, usually it's, it's pretty simple if they thought about it. But just thinking about it can give you, make you more clear headed about your future as ideas because ideas go past us all the time and as you're thinking of things like how could you do this? Maybe in a different form, maybe a little bit more Refined more, this, that the other, more to your skill set, things like that. So I was just curious of you to let yourself think, think along those lines in the same. Sounds like you have a little bit, which is all you should do. I was just looking at it's. Why is it a problem to look down the road? I don't, I think it's smart to look down the road and just say be prepared.

Oh, I completely agree. Right. And, and I think one of those things that's, I think it is good. I mean back to the Bill Gates quote, right? Like I think most people overestimate what they can do in a year and they underestimate what they can do in 10. And that just goes to. If you play them in 10 year increments and you say I don't know necessarily how all these data dots or data, all these data points on this plot chart are going to get me to where I want to go. But I know that that's the direction I want to head. And for us it's really interesting. So let's say that we get bought by a consumer focused private equity firm or a strategic or whatever it might be, there's going to be some type of earn out and then that earn out what happens then. Right. Like so, so I'm a CEO of a company that's, that's doing around 50 million in retail sales right now. We're really excited about that. We're really excited about what we're able to move into next year. We think we'll grow by anywhere from like 25 to 32% next year, which is going to be a lot of fun. But now can I be, can I grow and evolve into being a CEO of a hundred million dollar company or a $250 million company? That sounds, that sounds really challenging and really exciting for me. Like that's something that I want to learn how to evolve and push myself into doing that. And I think or it's that PE or strategic say thank you so much for your time and effort. Like we're going to go in a different direction.

Thank you.

And then I go do it again. Like that's so, so I'm open to either direction. And I think that equally both of them are compelling. I think what's, what's interesting for me and I've been thinking a lot about this is like what is enough? Like what are the things and to me enough is when I'm around amazing people building an organization that helps other people realize they're wide and for soapbox it's really, to me that's a, that's such a straight line in terms of how it fits within my core compass. Because everyone needs access to basic hygiene, right? Like basic hygiene allows you to, from a homeless shelter perspective, it allows you to have a sense of dignity, it allows you to stay healthy. And then in the 65 countries that we work around the world, like I don't know their names and faces but I know for a fact that we've saved lives. I know that our consumers by choosing to pick up a shampoo a couple inches down the shelf instead of buying like the major mass brand, that they've legit changed lives because we've seen it in the data. Like I know for a fact that we've seen a 92% decrease in diarrhea related illnesses for a six month study in certain provinces of India, that we have worked hand in hand with Rotary International in helping them build and increase the efficacy of hygiene distribution. Right. Like, and then the other crazy thing Larry is that like we see school attendance rise because people, kids aren't home sick and then we see acute respiratory diseases drop. And like all of these things where it's just like I don't necessarily like, I don't know like little kid X or little girl Y. Like I don't know exactly who that our customers have saved, but I know that we have like if you just look at the statistics, like 40 million times the great amount of like implementations and projects that we've done through a sustainable community driven or community driven way. Holy, holy wow. Like I know that, that for effect. So in other words, like that to me is like let's do that again, right? Like how can we build a much bigger organization that tries to solve those type of issues while at the same time creating products that people love.

Well, I think you've done a great job of giving people a picture of the satisfaction that you're getting from enriching your life that you wouldn't have expected maybe when you, you got started and serving on the boards and the thing you've done with the, the flag and the veterans and talk about now for you personally, how was this? You start off your school as a middle school teacher. You have certain limited horizons. I mean I'm financial, you know, and you can impact kids and make a difference and be the teacher they talk back 30 years later. He made a difference in my life. So there's a chances to impact people there, but there's very much limited on what you want to be able to do the time discretion, income discretion, where you're able to do things with you and your, you have, you know, you mentioned your wife. You have kids.

I am two weeks away from our newborn.

Oh, good. Congratulations. Congratulations. Do we know what it's going to be?

Little baby boy.

Oh, congratulations. Well, your life is just really getting ready to change. Yeah. I want you to think about this conversation the moment the door closes and your wife and the baby get you pick them up at the hospital and you close that door. And now it's the three of you in the cocoon together. It's just like somehow light bulbs go on in your mind about how life is going to be different. But how have you been able to enrich and enjoy your life as a person that. From the success so far in, in the coming. Well, I started thinking how, you know, how have you been able to enrich your life, do things with you and your. Your spouse and everything that you wouldn't have been able to do as a middle school teacher and in perspective of how long you've been in so box.

Totally. I. Well, Larry, that's a really great question. People ask me all the time, was being a teacher harder or was being an entrepreneur harder? And I would say that they're both equally hard, that they're, that they're different levels of stress. Being a teacher has a lot more physical stress, and it definitely is more. It's. It's hard like it is. I don't know if. I don't know if enough people know how difficult it is being a teacher, especially managing 30, 35 kids in a classroom, and all of them are emotional ticking time bombs in one way or another, especially middle school, because, like, the boys are. Or the boys and girls aren't using deodorant yet. So they're smelly. So there's smelly. Taking time, moms. But I think. I think what's really interesting is that money can buy you happiness, but money can buy you freedom. And that, I think, is. I do believe that teachers should be compensated more. I think we need to. And there's a great debate about how do we effectively measure teacher effectiveness in order to attach that pay to that. And I don't. I don't have the answer to that. Right. And I think another really interesting thing about Teach for America is you go in with all these, you think the answers, and after you do it, you just walk away and you don't know anything. Like, it's just, it's. There's so many different contradictions, and you, you're so black and white going in, and then it's just a sea of gray when you come out in terms of what are the right type of policy decisions in terms of. But there is one thing that's consistent to what we talked about that is that absolutely rings true, and that is the leadership of schools really will set the tempo and dictate the effectiveness of the school. And I got to see that firsthand because we had a phenomenal principal. But to go to the second part of your question, I've had way more freedom in being an entrepreneur than I would have if I stayed a teacher. That's a personal decision that I made. I took a lot more risk, and thankfully it's paid off so far. But, you know, I. I would say that I don't know if I would be the leader I am today if I hadn't learned a lot of leadership by being a middle school teacher. That was so formative in so many different ways. And it's an experience. I learned trade for all the tea in China.

Yeah. It's kind of like your graduate degree in leadership and problem solving and thinking on your feet.

Oh, yeah, A thousand times over. You want to talk about failing every day? Yeah. You go, you go teach in the inner city.

You're gonna get.

You're gonna get your ass handed to you day in and day out.

Wow. Well, thanks so much. This has been great. And I've already got a list of questions we'll get into the next time we talk. But I. We won't overdo it this time. But thank you for your time. I'm really proud of your company. Proud of you and your co founder and your approach and your mission and the fact that you stayed on track. And I think the success of it has proven that the market agrees with you. So did you. You want. You were going to give a special offer our guests?

Yeah, we absolutely did, Larry. Yeah. So first and foremost, this has been an absolute honor. Please know there's a whole, there's a whole team that makes this happen here at Soapbox, and I often joke around that my, my job is just making sure that everyone gets coffee. So, hey, it's kind of works in our benefit. It's like increased productivity through drugs. But, man, I, I really appreciate your kind words and I'll make sure that the rest of our team really understands the weight, given all that you've done and all that you've accomplished and all the amazing people that you've interviewed on this show. And speaking of which, for all your listeners that have hung in here and you're still here. We have an amazing gift for you guys. It's just MDM25. Whether you're a loyal soapbox customer or this is the first time you ever heard about it, just go to Soapbox Co or you can Google Soapbox Shampoo. You'll find us. But 25% off your whole order. Thank you so much for hearing about our journey, our mission, and we look forward to you trying our amazing products.

Fantastic. And do you have a last word to send our budding entrepreneurs or our current and future million dollar earners something to help them stay on track or to keep their focus razor sharp?

100%? I do. And that is grit is everything.

And you see that. You've seen that played out over and over again.

A hundred percent. I'd say a lot of this just comes down to entrepreneurship is really hard and there are some really dark days. And you need to be able to believe in yourself, believe in your team and believe in that vision in order just to pick yourself up and, and continue to run up that hill.

Yeah. And again, thanks again. I've got a whole lot of questions to get into next time, but we will.

Three years, we'll, we'll save it and.

Maybe we'll have so much growth we'll have to do it in two. So thanks so much for joining, Dave.

Thank you, Larry.

Bye.

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