Jul 15, 2019 · 59m · how-i-built-this
EO Products: Susan Griffin-Black & Brad Black
Susan Griffin Black · 20m spoken Guy Raz · 20m spoken Brad Black · 10m spoken Leah Heifetz · 1m spoken
0:00 / 0:00
gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of How I Built This, Susan Griffin-Black and Brad Black recount how they bootstrapped EO Products into a $50 million natural personal care brand through patient organic growth, self-taught manufacturing, and an enduring business partnership that survived financial hardship and personal divorce.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Guy holds 38.5% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Guy as informed peer 3.1 Guest teaching 2.1 Guest disagreement 0.5 Guy pushing back 1.1
speaking balance: gold is Guy, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 33:53 Susan rejects the premise of wanting to get rich
Susan directly pushes back against Raz's suggestion that they secretly aimed to become rich, asserting that money had never been her personal motivator.
Hardest push from Guy ▶ 36:41 Guy Raz challenges the transparency of their guerrilla marketingRaz playfully challenges the founders on their DIY phone campaign to Whole Foods, calling it a transparently obvious tactic.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 25:38 Susan breaks down the nature and finicky sourcing of essential oilsSusan educates Raz on botanical chemistry, explaining that essential oils are volatile liquids rather than oils and detailing why synthetics replaced them.
Guy holds their own ▶ 42:42 Guy Raz contrasts typical VC growth strategies with slow growthRaz demonstrates industry fluency by outlining standard venture-backed scaling playbooks and questioning why EO deliberately chose the opposite route.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Guy as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Guy pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Live Show and Summit Announcements | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Guy Raz delivers an introductory monologue and sponsor announcements outlining the live show and introducing the slow-growth ethos of EO Products. | |
| Brad Black's Early Venture: The Maniac Clothing Brand | 3 | 1 | 0 | 1 | Brad recounts founding his apparel startup Maniac in San Francisco, admitting it was driven more by lifestyle than profitability. Raz asks straightforward narrative-advancing questions. | |
| Susan Griffin-Black's Departure from the Yuppie Lifestyle | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Susan discusses walking away from her affluent lifestyle and first marriage, articulating feeling disconnected from yuppie materialism. Raz probes gently about why she left. | |
| Susan's Time at Esprit and Exposure to Sustainability | 4 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Raz demonstrates familiarity with Doug Tompkins and Esprit, while Susan details meeting environmental pioneers and discovering her instinct for product design. | |
| The Neal's Yard Apothecary Discovery in London | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Raz notes the geography of Neal's Yard Dairy and remarks on essential oils being seen as hippy-dippy in the nineties. Susan describes her sensory epiphany smelling lavender oil. | |
| Partnering with Neal's Yard and Launching US Wholesale | 3 | 2 | 1 | 2 | Raz questions why Neal's Yard founder Romy Frazier would trust Susan despite her lack of capital. Susan clarifies that her apparel distribution contacts provided practical credibility. | |
| Early Operations and Collaborative Garage Hustle | 3 | 1 | 0 | 1 | The co-founders describe their early garage work and mutual support before officially teaming up, explaining net-30 terms and separating their entity from Neal's Yard. | |
| The Birkenstock Breakthrough and Gravity Feed Innovation | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Susan and Brad share the pivotal 10,000-unit Birkenstock gift kit order and how Brad automated packaging by rigging a gravity feed system. | |
| Learning Formulation and Transitioning to an Independent Brand | 3 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Susan educates Raz on the chemistry of essential oils, pointing out they are botanical extracts rather than true lipids and detailing why French lavender is superior. | |
| Founding EO Products and the Bloomingdale's Order | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Susan details naming the brand EO Products out of label-space necessity when fulfilling an inaugural order for Bloomingdale's holiday catalog. | |
| Minimalist Aesthetic, Marriage, and Financial Struggles | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Raz presses on whether getting rich was an underlying goal. Susan rejects the premise, stressing that survival and payroll were the real concerns rather than wealth. | |
| Mid-Roll Intermission and Podcast Promotion | 3 | 2 | 1 | 2 | Raz humorously calls out their blatant guerrilla customer calls to Whole Foods. The founders recount nearly failing after losing Mervyn's before receiving a rescue order from TJ Maxx. | |
| Purchasing a Factory and Resisting Venture Capital | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Raz asks why they avoided venture capital. Susan explains how private equity forces natural brands to compromise quality, such as cutting expensive rose oil. | |
| Navigating Divorce While Remaining Business Partners | 4 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Raz expresses astonishment at their ability to remain co-CEOs and amicable partners after divorcing in 2007. The founders explain making a conscious choice for their family and business. | |
| Launching the Everyone Brand and Mainstream Expansion | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Susan and Brad describe creating the 'Everyone' line to offer affordable natural care in response to buyer demand and family feedback, adjusting formulations and margins. | |
| Ongoing Partnership, Mutual Respect, and Defining Success | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | When asked whether hard work or intelligence drove their success, Brad humorously reframes that they are simply 'great not going out of business people.' | |
| Episode Outro: EO Products Today | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Raz closes the EO Products profile and features Leah Heifetz of Barnacle Foods in the 'How You Built That' segment, discussing harvesting Alaskan bull kelp. |
Statements from this episode (17)
Brad Black's early activewear brand sold to Nordstrom but never profited
“We would peddle our wares, and we sold to Nordstrom, and we sold to the hardcore rock climbing shops, yet we didn't really ever make money”
Susan Griffin-Black sold her San Francisco boutique for $12,000
“I did for a short amount of time, and then I sold that to my partner at the time for 12,000 dollars.”
Griffin-Black funded Neal's Yard US wholesale by charging 50% upfront
“Well, essentially, I tried to put a plan together for retail stores, and I could see that that would never work because you needed people who were very well versed in all of these alternative modalities in aromatherapy and homeopathy, and I was running out of …”
Birkenstock ordered 10,000 foot care gift boxes for $32,000
“Someone introduced me to the marketing person at Birkenstock, and she said, why don't we do a little foot care kit, like gift with purchase, of like a little foot, foot salt, and a little foot soak, and so we did a prototype, and she gave us an order for 32,00…”
Fragrance industry adopted synthetic scents for cost and consistency
“The reason that people stopped using them and went, To synthetic fragrance, you know, was because it was way less expensive. And it was consistent.”
Griffin-Black scaled Neal's Yard US sales to $500,000 before parting ways
“We got it up to a certain level of sales. I think it was half a million in the U.S., but we could still see how we could do it ourselves, and do it for Less money because, you know, all of that shipping and do it our own way. So we gave them six months to find…”
A 1995 Bloomingdale's catalog order prompted the creation of EO Products
“So in 1995, Bloomingdale's called and said, will you make us Four essential oil blends for our holiday catalog. I know, we said sure, and we had to think of a name for the company then, and these were very small bottles, so, you know, we didn't have a lot of r…”
Bloomingdale's initial 1995 holiday catalog order from EO Products was $15,000
“It was, I think 15,000 dollars.”
Bloomingdale's only ever placed a single order with EO Products
“It crushed it, but crushing it from the other side, I think they ordered once.”
EO Products founders lacked financial stability for their first 18 years
“You know, we did not have, we didn't have money really for the first 15 to 18 years.”
EO Products' accountant advised the founders to shut down the company
“Our accountant was like, you know, he did advise us to maybe fold and get a job.”
EO Products secured a $65,000 lifeline order from TJ Maxx
“We got a 65,000 dollar order from TJ Maxx.”
Griffin-Black: Private equity ruins natural personal care brands by cutting quality
“Everything I saw, and that we saw, of companies that took private equity money, and especially if they sold the majority, They didn't have control anymore, and I, we always joked that the first thing they would do is take that rose essential oil that costs 850…”
EO Products founders chose to remain co-CEOs after getting divorced
“I think we decided there's no reason to, like, you know, take down the house. I mean, our personal relationship wasn't thriving. Our business is. Our kids are. So what is the best way, you know? And we understood our options. We could have sold. We could have …”
EO Products lowered prices by simplifying formulas and cutting profit margins
“We use many of the same ingredients, however, instead of using a rose, essential oils, we may keep it to citrus. Or instead of putting in a lot of extracts, which are expensive as well, we would, you know, do a much smaller amount. So we simplified formulas. I…”
Brad Black: EO Products succeeded by simply not going out of business
“We're not such great business people. We're really great not going out of business people. We haven't had the luxury to go out of business or not to make it work. There's never been a choice not to be successful, not to make it work.”