The Exchanges

Q Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's the year 2000, and Monica is ready to launch a new line of upscale and elegant cleaning products. And her first task? Finding someone to make them.

A So the guy who used to cut my hair had an Aveda salon, and I said, hey, Meg, I got this idea for putting stuff into bottles. I didn't tell him the concept. I said, who do you, do you know anyone? I mean, I didn't know anybody in this business. Do you know anyone who knows anything about putting liquids into bottles? And he goes, you know what? I got a, I cut the hair of a fragrance consultant. I'll, I'll call her and see if she can call you. Well, he did, and I met with her, and she said, here's what you got to do. And so she kind of walked me through the whole process. You know, you got to build a fragrance profile, which is not unlike a marketing profile. You know, who's your demographic? What's it supposed to do? What's, what, what are your big ideas, et cetera, et cetera. And then she said, you got to go find this manufacturer out west of town. Go find them. They'll help you too. So I go out there, it's called Boomerang, and it's a bunch of ex-employees from Uh, the Redmond hair care business. They, they pulled their ESOP funds after that company was sold and started a manual, a contract manufacturing facility.

AI assessment note: “So I go out there, it's called Boomerang, and it's a bunch of ex-employees”

Q And so you were gonna, and, and let's, so you have the, you've got the funding to kind of, Get this manufactured. But, but tell me about, um, let's first talk about the bottles. What, what was so special? Were they plastic bottles? Were they glass bottles?

A They were called PET. I don't know what that stands for, but they were these beautiful, clear bottles that usually reserved for, uh, food or personal care. You know, they were not typically used for cleaning products. They were very upscale. So I found this guy who became a bottle distributor for us. And Ray would bring me so many samples. I think he too, he felt sorry for me, but he also thought, well, I don't know, this might work out. I'll give her some free bottles. So he gave me a bunch of bottles to work with so I could dummy up some products and take these small little brown fragrance bottles into these meetings so I could share, hey, this is what we're trying to do. Here's how it's going to look. Here are the aromas, you know, so people will get a sense of this is what this is going to look like on shelf.

AI assessment note: “They were called PET... beautiful, clear bottles that usually reserved for, uh, food”

Q What about like Williams-Sonoma? Was that, uh, was, were you, did you guys approach them?

A So Williams-Sonoma, it's an interesting story. So that January, before we shipped our first product, I saw on the back of their catalog, our concept. They had lavender dish soap, hand soap, candle, and I literally hit the panic button. I'm like, oh, crap. They're in this, they're in this business, and if anybody can do it, these guys can. So lo and behold, fast forward to this houseware show, our first houseware show in Chicago, and we have A hutch. That's all we have, a hutch, and all of our product. William Sonoma sees us at ABC Carpet Home when they're doing their trend trips. They come and say, hey, would you make, we love what you're doing, we love your fragrances, we've tested your products, we've used your products, would you make this for us? Wow. So they want, uh, and they were having problems with their vendors getting their dish soap made. They were, they couldn't fill out, they couldn't fill their supply line. So we're like, oh my God, this is awesome. So anyway, we have to go out and have a meeting in San Francisco. And I thought to myself, okay, when we come back and show them our dummy product, how this is going to look, I'm going to fill this table because they're very creative. They're very Consumer focused. I thought we're going to build a huge display here, just like to see it in a store because that's how their minds work. Cause I thought, let's put on your …

AI assessment note: “They come and say, hey, would you make... would you make this for us?”

Q So, did you, I mean, after that ended, after your time building that brand ended, did you just shut it out of your life, or did you continue to follow what they were doing?

A Oh, no, I continued to follow, and, you know, to this day, I go into a store, and I straighten out the bottles on the shelf. I mean, I'm always counting. I'm always, like, looking behind and pulling up product, you know, if it's not, I can't help myself, and my girls do it, you know, in high, they were in high school with their friends. I used to pay them a couple, you know, Like, some, like, 10 dollars. Go and get all the shelf, pull up the product from behind the shelf, and they say, mom, I still straighten out the product on the shelf. He said, can't help yourself. It's like, you're, you're children. You gotta make sure they look good.

AI assessment note: “Oh, no, I continued to follow, and, you know, to this day”

Q Right, ok. And, and when it comes to strategy, I, I'm, I'm assuming you guys, I, I think you guys initially wanted to get Caldria into gift shops, right? Like, like shops where people buy, you know, homewares and, and, and, and things like that.

A Yeah. Like ABC Carpet and Home out of New York, for example. At the time, we, that was a major coup for us. We got in there. They had a, they had a kitchen area where I had that, all these upscale kitchen gadgets. So that's the other thing we looked for. Could we be, you know, saddled up next to upscale kitchen, upscale gift? Because we could definitely make our product giftable, you know, because the bottles were so beautiful, and it was kind of a new category. So, um, Slowly over the, you know, one or two years, I finally had all the rep groups set up. And then we started going, having a booth at all these gift shows. Atlanta was a big market. New York was a big market. Texas. Um, and so what we learned really quickly was that the coasts were very good for us.

AI assessment note: “Yeah. Like ABC Carpet and Home out of New York, for example.”

Q to come in, and if you, it's like Sephora, some of these companies, you go in, if you don't make it, they're not going to bring you back in, and so you agreed, hey, let's, I mean, I think I would too, it's Target, but why didn't they sell there? I mean, were you just not able to bring your mom to enough stores? Like, what, what was the problem?

A I just think the whole problem was not enough brand awareness, right? For Target. And the other thing that I really tried to do, and it didn't happen, was I tried to have those Target stores in the same market as a, as a Whole Foods. So I had concentration in a market that people would see it. Oh, if I went to Whole Foods, I saw Mrs. Meyers. Oh, if I go to Target, I'll see Mrs. Meyers. And that didn't happen. We couldn't control the stores, the 200 store test. Um, and so I had no market concentration. We had zero brand awareness. We were so premature with the brand, we didn't really know what we were doing, so I saw the numbers every week, and I decided, we gotta take ourselves out. So, I mean, I went over to Target, and I said, you know what, we're not ready for you. I thought, I'm gonna kick myself out, because I want back in.

AI assessment note: “the whole problem was not enough brand awareness, right? For Target.”

Q Yeah. So, at what point did you feel comfortable re-approaching Target? Like, what was the metric that you were using?

A Oh boy. I don't know if I remember having a metric. I just remember thinking, I think we're in enough stores, you know, and they, they often asked us to come back and provide an update of how the brand was doing. So I'd go back, you know, every six, nine months, pitch all the new products, tell them what we're doing. I never asked for a PO. I thought, no, I'm going to, you know, let them ask me. So a couple of years later they said, okay, do you guys think you're ready? And I, I did think we were ready. Because we were in a lot more stores. I can't remember the number of stores, but we were probably in, you know, several thousand stores by then, and in all of the major upscale grocery stores. And that's, you know, Target likes, likes it if brands are in places like that.

AI assessment note: “I don't know if I remember having a metric.”

Q someone's head. Like I see that and I think of like Judy Jetson, you know, or, or I, I, I think of, oh, that's that. Um, evokes a certain image in my mind, right? And, and I think that was a point, but that's risky, right? Because there could be backlash. There could be people saying, hey, wait a minute. What are you, what are you doing playing into stereotypes?

A Right. So much for women's lib. And so, and at the same time, this was my mother joyfully accepting her role in life. And so we just embraced that. And this designer I worked with who did all the packaging, Werner design work, Sharon Werner, she, when I approached I knew her from other projects in Minneapolis. She goes, oh my God, this is my mom. She just totally got it. And so we, as we were creating the design, we had all these mood boards with all these little icons from the fifties, because we kind of wanted to make the packaging look like Thelma could have made it in her basement. You know, the bottles weren't too slick. The labels weren't too slick, but slick enough, you know, so it had a kind of a retro sophistication, if you will. You know, it's not like you have to be that person in an apron cleaning your house. You don't, it's that you, we, you have the authority of a domestic mentor, and she's real.

AI assessment note: “this was my mother joyfully accepting her role in life. And so we just embraced that.”