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Eric Ryan

Partner, Greycroft · 5 appearances on the record.

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founderinvestorexecutive

Eric Ryan is an entrepreneur and investor who co-founded consumer brands including Method, Olly, and Welly. He is currently a Partner at Greycroft, where he co-leads consumer investment strategy.

39statements → 14claims → 5claims resolved → 100%fully supported → 4.03/5average certainty → 1.64/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 20said about them ↓

5 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 3 not yet assessed 6 not checkable as stated how the 14 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 13 assertions · 3 opinions · 18 insights · 4 disclosures · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 14 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 5 are resolved, 3 are not yet assessed, and 6 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Eric argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Ryan: Method created the first inverted dish soap dispenser
“The dish soap that we did, which was the first ever inverted dispenser, so it comes out of the bottom.”
Eric Ryan Oct 12, 2020 ▶ 36:31 method: Adam Lowry & Eric Ryan (2018)

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Eric Ryan on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

Everything Eric Ryan said on How I Built This that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Insight
Ryan: Manufacturers must fund retail clearance discounts for discontinued products
“And it's expensive to launch a new product. It's really expensive to discontinue. Because when you see something on shelf that's being discounted for the store to get rid of it, the manufacturer is funding it.”
Eric Ryan Oct 12, 2020 ▶ 44:35 method: Adam Lowry & Eric Ryan (2018)
Insight
Eric Ryan: Co-founder partnerships are like marriages without makeup sex
“And you're doing this as a partnership, and I always tell people it's a lot like a marriage, but it's even harder because you can't have makeup sex. So you've got to find alternative ways through it.”
Eric Ryan Nov 22, 2018 ▶ 6:37 Method's Adam Lowry And Eric Ryan At The HIBT Summit
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ryan: Method Co-Founders Did Therapy Together
“We did therapy together.”
Eric Ryan Nov 22, 2018 ▶ 8:58 Method's Adam Lowry And Eric Ryan At The HIBT Summit
Disclosure
Ryan: Method modeled its first bottle on a Norwegian camping bottle
“We didn't have a lot of, you know, money to do custom tooling, and so I started looking for stock bottles, couldn't find anything I really liked. So I had this camping water bottle from Norway that I had found. Just a really simple kind of bullet design with t…”
Eric Ryan Oct 8, 2018 ▶ 16:36 method: Adam Lowry & Eric Ryan
Insight
Pitching Busy Store Managers Is Excellent Startup Sales Training
“And it was the best training, because we didn't know how to sell, and you had 30 seconds to pitch. And so it really helped you learn how to sell the product.”
Eric Ryan Oct 8, 2018 ▶ 21:05 method: Adam Lowry & Eric Ryan
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Method Printed Co-Founder Eric Ryan's Personal Cell Phone on Every Bottle
“We didn't have a customer service number, so my cell phone was on the back of every bottle”
Eric Ryan Oct 8, 2018 ▶ 24:51 method: Adam Lowry & Eric Ryan
Disclosure
Ryan: Method recruited designer Karim Rashid with equity and lower fees
“We were able to convince him to do it for a lower fee, because he really believed in the project, but also with equity.”
Eric Ryan Oct 8, 2018 ▶ 30:16 method: Adam Lowry & Eric Ryan
Assertion Supported
Target granted Method an initial 90-store retail test
“And so Target gave us a 90 store test to basically prove ourself out.”
Eric Ryan Oct 8, 2018 ▶ 32:45 method: Adam Lowry & Eric Ryan
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Method Co-Founder Drank Toilet Bowl Cleaner to Prove Non-Toxicity to Press
“And it was a toilet bowl cleaner. And so we both took a shot at the toilet bowl cleaner”
Eric Ryan Oct 8, 2018 ▶ 39:34 method: Adam Lowry & Eric Ryan
Insight
Product Manufacturers Must Cover the Cost of Retail Shelf Clearance Markdowns
“And it's expensive to launch a new product. It's really expensive to discontinue. Because when you see something on shelf that's being discounted for the store to get rid of it, the manufacturer is funding it.”
Eric Ryan Oct 8, 2018 ▶ 43:11 method: Adam Lowry & Eric Ryan
Opinion
Ryan: The cleaning category was a massive "sea of sameness"
“We saw a really big category, which was a sea of sameness, and we started looking at the category and started to see some opportunities.”
Eric Ryan Nov 22, 2018 ▶ 1:48 Method's Adam Lowry And Eric Ryan At The HIBT Summit
Assertion Supported
Ryan: Method divided co-founder roles between inside and outside the bottle
“Very simply, Adam's inside the bottle. He understood that the chemistry, the chemical engineering the sustainability behind it, and I was outside of the bottle, which was the design and the branding of it.”
Eric Ryan Nov 22, 2018 ▶ 3:42 Method's Adam Lowry And Eric Ryan At The HIBT Summit
Opinion
Ryan: 1990s Cleaning Aisle Was a Large 'Sea of Sameness'
“I just started looking at the cleaning aisle and saw that it was such a big category, but a sea of sameness. Like, everything looked and smelled the same. The brands were pretty dated, and so that was kind of the clue of, dig here.”
Eric Ryan Oct 8, 2018 ▶ 7:02 method: Adam Lowry & Eric Ryan
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Eric Ryan: Dot-Com Startups Raised $40M on 40-Page Business Plans
“We had friends who are raising forty million dollars on forty-page business plans and bragging about a million dollar per page for a raise or doing these lavish launch parties, which seems so ridiculous now to spend funds on a launch party.”
Eric Ryan Oct 8, 2018 ▶ 13:51 method: Adam Lowry & Eric Ryan
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ryan: Method Founders Personally Hand-Delivered to 30 Bay Area Stores
“What we did, we built up these 30 stores, and we called it our paper route, so every morning we'd take turns driving to each store, counting how many you sold, replenishing it, writing up an invoice”
Eric Ryan Oct 8, 2018 ▶ 24:33 method: Adam Lowry & Eric Ryan

The other half of the tape: Eric Ryan's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 14 times in 8 episodes on How I Built This. 6 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Guy Raz 11Tim Brown 3

Statements about Eric Ryan, by other people (6)

Insight
Brown: Consumers do not buy sustainable products; they buy great products
“People don't buy sustainable products. They buy great products.”
Tim Brown Jun 10, 2019 ▶ 47:08 Allbirds: Tim Brown & Joey Zwillinger
Insight
Lowry: Co-Founder Therapy Helps Navigate Divergent Stress Responses
“I'm a big proponent of that because it's what helps you understand this, like this situation that we just talked about, where when things get stressful, Eric talks a lot, and Adam shuts up. Right. And that's two different people responding in different ways th…”
Adam Lowry Nov 22, 2018 ▶ 9:04 Method's Adam Lowry And Eric Ryan At The HIBT Summit
Disclosure
Lowry: Method co-founders each invested $45,000 to start the company
“We each put in 45,000 dollars.”
Adam Lowry Oct 12, 2020 ▶ 19:04 method: Adam Lowry & Eric Ryan (2018)
Insight
Lowry: Constructive co-founder relations matter more than getting your way
“The key for us was recognizing that it was way more important for the business That we have a constructive relationship than to get our own individual way”
Adam Lowry Nov 22, 2018 ▶ 7:39 Method's Adam Lowry And Eric Ryan At The HIBT Summit
Disclosure
Method Co-Founders Eric Ryan and Adam Lowry Invested $45,000 Each
“We each put in 45,000 dollars.”
Adam Lowry Oct 8, 2018 ▶ 17:23 method: Adam Lowry & Eric Ryan
Disclosure
Lowry: Method was funded out of pocket for two years
“We paid, we ran the business out of pocket for about two years.”
Adam Lowry Oct 8, 2018 ▶ 17:15 method: Adam Lowry & Eric Ryan

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
003253201820192020202120222023episodesmentions
023201820192020202120222023episodes it came up in
001.31.52.53201820192020202120222023episodesmentions per episode
2023 2 mentions in 1 episode
2022 5 mentions in 2 episodes 3 per episode
2019 4 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
2018 3 mentions in 3 episodes 1 per episode

Appearances (5)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
Advice Line with Eric Ryan of Method returns Apr 23, 2026 11m
Advice Line with Eric Ryan of Method Jun 26, 2025 13m
method: Adam Lowry & Eric Ryan (2018) Oct 12, 2020 16m
Method's Adam Lowry And Eric Ryan At The HIBT Summit Nov 22, 2018 4m
method: Adam Lowry & Eric Ryan Oct 8, 2018 16m
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