Seth Waite - The #1 Most Important Question to Ask Consumers

welcome to shelf help today we're speaking with Sam Neble Co Founder Chief Commercial Officer at Good Vibes fast growing eco friendly wet wipes brand that's pretty much in secured shelf space and pretty much every major retailer across the country at this point before launching goodwipes I think more than 10 ish years ago Sam was a franchisee of a health and wellness brand and then was also part of a founding team of a nightlife agency I think the region he was responsible for scaled seven figures pretty quickly so some some interesting experience excited to dive into it a bit but yeah Sam just first off for listeners that maybe not as familiar with goodwipes just give us kind of quick lay of the land just in kind of in terms of the origin story and kind of why behind the brand core products in the lineup and then it's pretty much can be found everywhere but any well anywhere you want to specifically call out that people get their hands on them maybe new doors you guys are in and then we'll go from there Awesome Adam thanks so much for having me great to be here I've been a fan of the pods on shelf help love the name that you've come up with there so I was secretly hoping that you were gonna ask me to come on that wasn't the only reason I was engaging and commenting but I was thinking to myself yeah if he asked me I would I would say yes in a heartbeat I think I did it within five seconds yeah good wipes we are we make premium actually flushable booty wipes for an actually clean bum we launched the company about 12 and a half 13 years ago almost now based on this premise that we believe there's an opportunity to revolutionize the restroom routine of 330 million Americans we started this the idea really came from a Genesis story meeting my co founder Charlie at an upstairs bathroom of Florida State our fraternity house and we bonded over the fact that we were both wiping our booties with baby wipes and it was so crazy to us and so we said hey let's share it with all of our friends who initially thought we were super crazy in 30 days they would steal our wipes they would come up to us at tailgates and parties and the library asking for our baby wipes because they needed to feel clean and so we recognized there was an opportunity to come up with something that was more approachable smelled better had better ingredients that was more modernized and cool to use and share and so it was five years after college or maybe six years after college after those moments in freshman year that we decided let's come up with this this not just product but a brand and after many iterations you're looking at the core lineup here where we focus on 90% of our business is flushable butt wipes with these act these excellent ingredients powered by botanicals aloe vitamin E purified water extra large bigger softer wetter better than toilet paper or anything else you could find in the market and you can find us listeners available on Amazon now on TikTok Shop now on the newly renovated goodwipes.com all Walmart stores all target stores all Kroger and Kroger banners Safeway Albertsons H E B Market Basket Shop right Hannaford Raley's we're coming to a store near you hi V Meyer a lot of fun distribution in the mix these days love it get your wipes anywhere that's what what the people need that's right haha uh before we dive into the good wipes stuff I'm just kind of curious like what um would you learn being a franchisee of complete nutrition and kind of like I don't know you what mistakes initiatives that are kind of a big time suck do you think you avoided by doing that business first so many learnings I wish during that time I was in the mind frame of hey I'm here to learn not hey we need to franchise and open stores as fast as possible and I think I would have doubled my learnings but I walked away with a few key learnings the first one is there are models out there that exist where you're serving smaller markets in let's say Middle America even though these are big cities Omaha Nebraska Amarillo Texas these kind of second tier third tier cities that you can make massive million dollar multimillion dollar high profit businesses with actually an arbitrage so they had this model that I was fascinated by where they would actually advertise on am FM radio for very cheap and they would own the airwaves and draw people in and get them on these massive 200 dollar AOV kits that were 70 to 80% gross profit margin so it was just this this profit flywheel that they utilized however it only worked in markets that were those you know let's call mid tier markets just by population size nothing else whereas in Minneapolis or Denver or South Florida the system failed because it was too expensive and there was less trust in the complete nutrition it was a more competitive environment that was the biggest learning there was the plus and minus the other was they were so focused on capturing and maximizing an AOV or the gross profit when a customer came in that it would it made retention drop off and it was really hard you of course had your kind of super consumers that would spend multiple thousand dollars a year with complete nutrition supplements but you also had people that would spend $500 on an on an order everyone would get excited they would see no results and then they would never come back and you just you you ruined the business model and you also ruined uh the consumer and the consumer responded better to iterative approaches to changing their lifestyle there's a number of other lessons but those are two of the big ones that stand out what did the running the The Nightlife Agency I'm more curious than that front like really teach you about consumers and kind of like what they care about how to position brands in a way that truly resonates and like how building like a passion following where you know people are lining up outside the door for whatever thing your event you're focused on or act you're focused on yeah I think it it was a few things god there were so many learnings there it was really exciting I think that's more so than any learning excuse me Adam it it was this bug this itch that we got to scratch where we could provide value to our friend cohort and this group of our friends would get excited about bringing Steve Aoki or Wiz Khalifa or Mac Miller or vicii rip or Benny Benassi or Tiesto and being able to not make money just like over profiting off of them but provide a service to our friends and pure group it was a really cool feeling that we felt like we were this group galvanizing and hey we have a group of friends but we could also bring them commercial value was really cool cause we were also building that commerce you know scratching that entrepreneurial itch that we developed for ourselves so it was really that intersection that was really fun and exciting for us some big learnings that we had were just reflecting hey we brought Wiz Khalifa to Florida State University and it was super cool seeing him or Mac Miller and the first time we would bring them it would it did really well and then the second time you'd bring them and there were so many people and the third time it was thousands of people overflowing tickets sold out two weeks in advance it was super cool to watch their career trajectories grow and they're a brand right they're a brand in and of themselves Kelly every single one was really nice actually funny story about Wiz Khalifa I missed the party degree picture with Wiz Khalifa because I was doing what in the bathroom guess anyone guess that's right I was I was going number two so I couldn't go so that's just IBS a day in the life of IBS for you but it was really exciting and the third lesson I would say is just cause you think you have a home run does not mean you do there's risk involved in any no brainer we brought Rick Ross to Miami with actually a bunch of IU kids in Indiana shout out to the Hoosiers national champs and we brought Rick Ross and it was like hey you we all need to pitch in you know two three thousand dollars for this you're gonna make $10,000 and we all lost our ass and it was just funny like we got to go on stage with them it was just funny though being at a no brainer and we'd go out to people on the street and they'd be like I don't give a shit like I'm not going to your show it's like wait a second Rick Ross is from Miami why isn't this working so just different people at different times like sometimes there's March market mismatches and you never really know you just have to go out and see what happens interesting that's really interesting actually yeah first four years of business I think you're pretty fairly bootstrapped if not entirely like you know most founders in the early days using personal savings and then I think you got a K investment as part of an accelerator which is helpful but not a huge chunk of cash so I think for a lot of the other founders that are in a similar boat right now any just kind of few pieces of advice you might have just in terms of just really how to kind of prioritize and allocate capital when you have a limited amount of capital and how to get things for cheaper free and kind of how to get those first sales and show traction where you've got minimal budget to spend for sure it's really tough you know when when you send over these questions I was thinking long about that one because it is something where you have this mindset this scrappy mindset you have to be really careful not to piss people off vendors hate imagine lawyers they they hate it's like hey can I get a discount here can I do this for free it's like you you can't just make that ask all the time so there is an element of believability buying and likeability to it whereby these vendors have to believe in you and that's why I think it's really important to institutionalize yourself as much as possible have a vision be clear say hey this is my three and five year roadmap I know I'm at this early stage I know we don't have any sales this is what we're doing I wanna be really clear with this I wanna partner with you we do need a little help is there some sort of arrangement that works for you that could help us not have to pay up front and pay as much up front where you reap more rewards in the back end and that can allow for creativity to ensue whereby they become a collaborator or and a partner rather than someone who feels like they're getting hit up for a favor or pro Bono work all the time so I use lawyers as an example it could be co manufacturers it could be vendors for anything right and there's so many different opportunities that this actually comes into play yeah for sure that's that are raising for the first time Jason Michael Burke likes to say treat it as a process not a a wow show and tell that is my biggest learning lesson I leaned a really hard on charisma my entire career you see the tweets about oh charisma you need charisma blah blah blah that is directed towards people that don't have charisma and need to work really hard on cultivating it not someone who already naturally has charisma like me you have to be organized you have to be diligent you have to have files ready you need to respond to feedback you need to have a feedback loop internally you need to be able to respond to requests quickly because every time you fall behind in that process you come to a place where everything else cascadingly falls behind you need to come up with the appropriate responses say hey I'm gonna get these answers back to you by three days from now set yourself deadlines that then you could circle back to because anytime you drag your feet they're gonna exponentially drag their feet cause they have other things going on let's say these investors angel or institutional and that pushes they're yes no or maybe out even further and just creates an elongated gray serious gray space that is almost impossible to get out of and gray space just means you're losing momentum yeah so there is momentum involved with this kind of R&D and formulation I imagine it took a while to kind of dial things in and kind of get a product that you felt like really worked well wasn't about enough tearing in your hands or or or what not that things can happen with with wet wipes and just yeah without giving it away any you know big trade secrets what are some of those kind of key variables you guys were playing around with her kind of tweaking between that kind of first version and the final version and you said yeah this is this is right this is something I'd be proud to sell and give to people absolutely it started with the idea that we went to I think Publix that was local to us as I said before our our talk we were living out of my parents house in Orlando Florida we went to Publix and on Amazon for what Amazon was at the time bought every wipe not just flushable wipe every single wipe I had hundreds of packs of wipes all over my parents house and we would go through the back of the ingredients and we would pick out and research every ingredient that we saw and we already had some ingredient background from Complete Nutrition so we were already predisposed to caring about ingredients that people were putting in their body and on their skin and we wanted to come up with a product that no one else had these ingredients and eliminated all the nose and the nasty so alcohol free and paraben free was really important to us not having phenoxyethanol not having methyl parabens which were still present at that time 10 years ago was really important for us to make sure that we didn't have and our do not use list and then what we did have surrounding ourselves with these smooth soothing botanicals aloe vitamin E chamomile lavender that are quad pack that no one else has and uses that we know can resonates really well with consumers making sure that the um the the the soothing ingredients that we had the surfactants that all all the levels were to this level of our satisfying a lot of brands a lot of wipes that are cheaper made on the market are overly soapy we we despise that consumers hate that it's laziness in the manufacturing process it's cheap ingredients so these are all things that we took into account and would tweak and make iterations along the way over the past 10 years that totally makes sense like how many batches or rounds from like the first one you guys were experimenting to ones you said that we're ready to sell this and pitch this to retailers was that like you know five 10 50 1,000 like how many batches did it take no I wouldn't say that many cause we didn't have as enough money so we had to really dial it in and get it right yeah packaging iterations this is a repack we just did last year Super Cool came out excellent lots of yeah it's true it's it's that perfect mix of art and science it's really resonating with consumers now I mean this is probably our sixth packaging overhaul each time you do it you feel like my god we've got it we're set we did it we're the coolest brand on the shelf out of any category not true never true you always are gonna have another iteration maybe one two three years later I feel like we're in a good place now but you just you always get consumer response to then and then seeing what trends are out there and then how can you craft that and alchemize that to make it your next level of your own where it doesn't look like everything else tough balance totally what's anything you guess you're you're able to share in terms of things that are next on the roadmap you ask any entrepreneur and CPG the innovation pipeline's gonna be a mile long an inch deep yeah what can you practically come up with that makes sense for the market at a given time is a much more narrow list so we definitely have a lot of innovation that we're sitting on I can't really talk about it this year two weeks from now when is this gonna be released end of Feb or early Feb next you know three weeks I would say yeah big announcement launching okay it's not necessarily I don't wanna say it's a groundbreaking innovation but it's something our customers have been asking for for a couple years now that we're gonna be launching exclusively in Walmart I can't wait I'll just tell you right now fragrance free now available at all Walmart's that's right fragrance free you guys have been asking for it bringing more consumers into our brand we already bring the most incrementally we have a few other fun innovations that are gonna be coming out this year most of our growth comes from core that's the fun part we don't have to do anything different we just have to get better at optimizing the message for our core product line now totally and balancing that with some newness that we're releasing this year that is going to blow people's minds and send people off the rails and what we've come up with that doesn't it's not too weird or crazy that it'll go over people's heads it's gonna be right on the money and I'm really excited for it to come out this year amazing well tweaked iterated on the packaging quite a few times in terms of key variables that were top of mind for you guys in terms of building up the brand identity positioning and voice for good vibes especially the you know somewhat competitive and how you guys really wanted it kind of stand out in doing it in an approachable way not a an off putting turn off X the highest price way we we understand that doesn't work and I'm not saying this category is super price sensitive because frankly it's not most actually all of the growth in the category for the past three years has come from two premium brands private label brand private label share is is declining it just had happened to be first to market people really want quality people are entering the category cause they know they need clean and sanitation they're upgrading in the category or just coming frankly to this new premiumization component because they it's the self care skin routine that we've developed and that we're bringing millions of Americans into which is really exciting for us premiumization like I said is is important and really we say peach right we're peachy we're playful we're empathetic we're approachable we're cheeky we're honest that's the brand tone that we wanted to bring and what I'm about to say I don't want to get misconstrued for ignore the quality of your product I think this is what used to drive me mad about this but we really wanted to build a brand world and ecosystem community driven entering communities galvanizing people interacting with our fans making it approachable like I said and also a really good product I feel like a lot of people say well apple just build their brand with a logo it's like no they didn't they build it with a better computer processing system for half of America the rest like Dell's and whatever else their Lenovo's but other people it's not just the sleekness of apple that's part of it the other part is cause it's a good product and so we are I would say almost equal weighted of an unmatched product with a really fun and memorable and shareable brand and we wanted to make sure that that collision was always apparent and there was never a separation between brand and product quality what seems to be kind of the infamous book everyone reads in CPG ramping your brand by James Richardson how premium pricing really comes from like what would you say as good wipes done above all else I would say that our and actually I I just thought of an idea Adam do you mind if I go live on TikTok is that cool sure okay they're not gonna hear you they're only gonna hear me and I just wanna run an experiment if it works yeah totally hold on one second live let's just see let's see if we get anyone I think it's interesting I'm I'm doing this silly thing where I'm I don't wanna say I'm becoming a content creator but I am experimenting well that because of the launch of our TikTok shop I think I have the book right here where is it James James Richardson Doctor James Richardson ramping your brand is my Bible I read that thing three times front to back I have read every single blog by James Richardson and I I compiled them when we were strategizing I think it was four years ago I compiled them and set and referenced every single one to talk to the team and talk to my partner with them okay well what about this and this and this and this just so I could reference everything yeah I am obsessed with that book for good wipes because we're educating about the product it is important I find that we do have some features and some benefits but the brand side so we say outcleans TP that's important because cause we are doing consumer education but it's also building the brand like I was talking about before right it's this idea that it's not just out cleaning TP it's how do you feel when you're in the bathroom when you leave that's why we say we're a feel good brand that's why our purpose is empowering people to feel good inspiring people to feel good whether you're watching one of our TikToks whether you're on the toilet using a good wipe you need to feel good so we we wrap everything in this bow of feeling good in all of our media and all of our consumer touch points across our entire universe so that people resonate with it's not just any old wipe that's gonna sanitize me it's this is a skincare routine if I'm taking care of my face if I'm washing my face if I'm scrubbing my armpits with a loofah and soap I'm also gonna take care of my butthole and wipe with a good wipe right that's what it is so it's more tying it into that way but you also put a focus on meaning you wanted to make sure the product looks like it has a right to live in the bathroom as an example versus like in terms of what you conveyed or whatever designer agency you guys work with on the kind of packaging design front love that you are asking about that and I love how you're phrasing it too we always say needs to look good in the back of your toilet yeah in home aesthetics in home aesthetics that was a key pillar of what we were trying to achieve with this it must be left out people hate the private label we did consumer studies consumer panels and anecdotes they hate something that doesn't look good in their bathroom they absolutely hate it if it doesn't match if it doesn't match the pattern of the bathroom a lot of people have nudes it's something that we're looking at right they have these different color palettes if it doesn't look beautiful in the bathroom they're not going to put it out brands that we look to that do a good job method hello oral care we have to achieve that because it invokes hey I want to continue buying into this brand if it's something they put under the cover we know it's something that they'll eventually say ah do I need this brand it has to be part of the lovable memorable shareable nature of the brand any other brands like that other founders can kind of look to when they're thinking about if they want to achieve this in home aesthetic as well I think method is the best example yeah cleanliness while this is the challenge while still sharing those critical features and benefits to the consumer really difficult challenge our team Meredith Maria Emily by the way Adam you asked a question I must correct you said in working with agencies I think or I made it up we went to agencies to start we realized quickly this is gonna be an all in house project can you believe that this was created by our team in house I can't believe it well I can because our team is awesome clearly all all in house all in house and we're seeing it resonate with consumers that's awesome that's great but really ambiguous and often challenging process when you're like launching what did that process look like for you Adam there's a concept out there which is how much do you really contribute people tend to overvalue their contributions to life work partnerships whatever sure I like to think that I contribute a lot I'm learning as time goes on that I actually contribute way less than the rest of my team and that's okay it's very liberating however if I die today and there is one thing that I get that I can feel good about not take credit for feel good about is contributing is the name good wives there we go of course agreed upon with with Charlie and thought over for almost a year it just kind of came to me it came to us this idea that we had a name Good Wipes subtitle hygiene group blah blah blah the guiding group a little bit wipes and I remember we went to this pitch like 12 years ago entrepreneurs in Orlando and they said what the hell is the name of your company we're like well it's like this this and this like no it needs to be one and so Charlie and I went back and said which what do we pick and we were like let's let's stay with good wipes it has that ring to it and and there were other parts of the process including wipes have all a lot of times had a negative connotation despite their meteoric rise especially in the flushable wipes space have had this negative connotation and we just thought hey can we can we have the brand name do the work for us yeah and re and kind of label reframe wipes as something that's good and so it naturally came to us with good wipes and it's become incredibly critical part of our brand strategy where we really we have catchy one liners out cleans TP the only way to wipe butts deserve better but at the end of the day we have an opportunity and we just say hey we're good wipes that does 99% of the heavy lifting most of the time let's talk about retail for a second as you mentioned at the beginning you've secured shell space and you know pretty much every major retailer to talk about Target Walmart and Kroger's specifically just big major differences between what it takes to win any kind of unique challenges that really kind of stand out between I have a my this is my personal passion not just talking about for good wipes I have a spot in my a special spot in my heart for each retail relationship there's just something there's something that you just it's like an attachment where I get just as excited talking about or thinking about plans for Walmart as I do for Market Basket and by the way we are the number one brand number one flushable white brand in Market Basket we have more share than private label we have like 40% share and it is a we outpace we crush it in that account yeah but we all have to be realistic like there's forty three hundred stores of Walmart 88 a Market Basket but when you talk about those to me you're it's again this is not a good wipes this is a Sam thing king of wipes thing it feels like we're talking about an aunt or an uncle or cousin or brother or sister or mom or dad that I love equally it's just the way I I I I can't live any other way and and I would say if you could actually adopt that thinking it'll allow for more fruitful partnerships I feel like a lot of people in CPG and I I never really went public for this because for a number of reasons but I'm ready to do it now it is a mistake go make relationships with chains of all sizes go above and beyond go out kick the weight of what that revenue can do for you and go do service for them and see what happens you have no idea how big your category or your brand can get in that specific retailer yeah if you let's say you're working with a Price Chopper or tops or a Rayleigh's 100 and something stores we have I think seven items in Rayleigh's now one of our first flushable wipe accounts and maybe it isn't of course it's not gonna be as large as target but what can happen you can you can illustrate how the category can develop totally dude there's so many learnings you could have and they have customers too you're gonna tell me even if you do five units per store per week or or let's say we do 30 total 30 or 40 you're gonna tell me you can't find more people that are walking in those stores that don't buy your product yet that's bullshit that's that's just how I think about it right like and I I'm sorry I let a I let a French word slip out there now you're good I'm gonna speak I'm gonna speak to English today maybe we could do a bleep on that I'm trying to go the the Jim Gaffigan route less we could try we could we could do that we could do that yeah I don't want to create too much work for you ah you're good sorry my my TikTok live is asking are we on a podcast I'm on a podcast thank you sorry yeah I'm focused here Adam in terms of like actual I've heard you talk about the importance of having a presence in the in the toilet paper aisle yep versus or and or the the personal care aisle like yeah why do you feel like this is so important for the brand and I guess like anything the other brand should and I guess a similar categories to keep in mind in terms of how they should think about where they should actually where they want to need to be placed in the store it's really tricky we went FEM high first because that's just what we had ready for the market that's what the market was ready to adopt we had to wait our turn to get in the toilet paper aisle for us our core we knew our core growth and core business was gonna be MTT butt wipes right so we really wanted to make sure that we could get in there and it's tough because you get locked out of the category possibly just depending on the growth and where the retailers are at and I actually I'm gonna answer that question with brondening and saying hey you actually should look at Amazon direct to consumer and TikTok Shop for more immediate market feedback rather than just waiting for that category to open up because if you go in the wrong category in the store that could actually tank you or be the incorrect place you're still spending a bunch of resources you're still spending a bunch of time I'm sure with other categories it's much more complicated we're really lucky that we stick out on shelf and yeah when you're in the toilet paper aisle you're primed for thinking this is a butt wipe but heaven forbid we said we want to go hand wipes or so whatever any other wipes first like you have to focus you have to be known for something to start and even till you're 200 500 million dollars in sales because even then you may not be a household name totally great point great point so another question I had which is it's maybe more of a straight forward answer than I thought but like it seems like at least for a lot of food brands that I talk to one of the best ways to get buyers on board and excited about your brand is getting them to try your product and often times they're dropping off samples of pretzels or cookies or something yeah how does this work for your product like do buyers willingly try and give you feedback and good wipes and like in detail or like does it lead to some awkward conversations how does that work it's funny I I have been doing more store visits lately so there's a Kroger out here in Atlanta North Druid Hills that I'm that I go to once a week just check in talk to the team there and I was asking the inventory manager and she's like are you asking me if I've used the product yet and I'm like yeah and she's a I don't want to say stern woman but she's a very business oriented woman she's not here for the nonsense or the or the craziness she's playful she's nice and you know it kind of took a while to get into that conversation talk about those habits but we do we want that to happen but what we'll do really in the buyer presentation is and this is when we know we're doing a good job is we have them you know dispense perfect dispensing and they'll start playing around with it and smell it and they'll just hold it in their hands and they'll keep it in their hands for like 10 minutes and we'll just kind of look around and we'll say I think we got something there I think we got yeah like like not like oh got them but just like yeah it's cool to see and then they'll say like oh this is soft this smells good and it's it's flushable cause it breaks apart okay great so that's really how we do it rather than saying okay we're gonna you know Ben put put you on a on a changing table and wipe you right now right you gotta you gotta play with with the realm that you're in in airports which makes sense um but yeah I'm kind of curious what's what's unique about this channel compared to more like glad you asked about airports Paradise Lagadair has been our longest running partner for eight years we've been with Paradise CNBC stores in most airports 420 airports we're in I think or sorry what is it 72 airports 430 shops we're in 95% of them we're at the cash register been a great business with us been a great business for us done really well there yeah it's definitely different you go through a distributor that distributor got acquired we had relationships you gotta move it around it's it's a different channel right you have to measure it it costs money there's placement fees but it's worth it because it's an opportunity for your brand to get out there and for people to see you with millions of travelers traveling every day and just a few airports alone Dallas JFK ATL lax that get to see your product and then that might go see it on Amazon so it's critical it's worth every penny it's worth that relationship it's one that we continue to evolve and want to work with we used to have three products at one point all the all the different product segments I've really focused but I mean we're honestly lucky to get two 2 shelf spots there right like you're talking about you're not just competing against other butt wipes or toilet paper I'm competing against all of HBC I have a runny nose here's tissues oh I need a you know an anal suppository for hemorrhoids oh like they have tweezers for my middle whatever right like there's so many my unibrow there's so many different use cases there so you really it is cutthroat and you have to be prepared and you have to be willing to to pay up to play up yeah but it is it is one that I think is really worth it to get those inroads and make those relationships so thank you shout out to Parodies Local Atlanta to Atlanta Business appreciate it Karen you're the best love it thanks Karen thanks Karen in terms of scaling from just operational standpoint what are the big differences in terms of keys to without uh everything breaking keys to scaling from 100 to 1,000 doors versus going from 1,000 to 10,000 yeah the keys of scaling from 100 to 1,000 and 1,000 to 10,000 stores cause we are in 15,000 stores now is your focus well number one you're always it's gonna be exponentially more intense in focusing on operations as you scale to more stores inventory you're watching those religiously shout out to Laura P who's actually watching on our TikTok Live right now and you really have to monitor those things because if you get an uptick in sales sales whether it's promotion or because your velocities are naturally increasing you have to be watching that like a hawk so it definitely makes more I would say fragility and agility yeah required to go putting those emphasis points behind how you're managing the business I mean 100 to 1,000 you're in survival mode let's face it right like you're you're saying how am I gonna factor this Po how am I gonna factor this invoice whereas now you're and you have to have inventory it's just it's it's critical every point right you're never gonna feel you're never coasting right because if you're trying to increase velocity which actually becomes more important as you scale because you need to have more reason to stay more reason to grow and that's what you're trying to do is get more household penetration and share you have to be just more intense about monitoring those things so it's almost like this the system becomes more complex and intense yeah for monitoring those things right from a product roadmap standpoint I kind of ask like what's coming next but in terms of just more process decision wise with the team that actually leads to the decision to say yeah okay we're yeah we feel like we have enough conviction here that to bring a new skew to market we do the days of only making decisions by having an internal conversation with three to five people is over sure we stress test with our consumers we stress us with consumers that we don't know we will utilize assets or networks that sometimes you do pay for to get surveys ran and compare that against your core consumers so hey what are our superfans using that we know they and fill out every survey of ours as versus people that are new to the category not in the category will bring them in the category so we kind of triangulate different consumer panels to understand it and of course you you infuse your own intuition in there but you can't be married to it or religious to it right you have to triangulate and see and that's how we know that we have something we'll look at different data we'll understand different trends we like to look around the store so you won't see us only talking about gut health or butt wipes you'll start seeing some things where we're crossing categories for innovation work that we're really excited to share that makes total sense what's what are just the keys to a successful product launch both from a budget I guess an ROI standpoint launch timeline that you originally set out which I think is typically a pretty hard hard date to hit I wish I could say that we have this magical process and that we have this innovation timeline where we're planning things one to two years out the truth is and I've been a more a more believer in this I'm I'm this believer in having a a framework strategy but allowing for these moments of magic to appear in your business as you scale so it's kind of a fusion of both rigor and intuition a lot of our innovation coming out are from moments of magic of split hair conversations request from buyer 20 minute ideation mock it up our amazing design team that did this in house rebrand are then coming back with ideas boom stress test okay does this look good Bam really quickly those numbers and metrics insights we we do it I mean we have come up with ideas in less than 24 hours less than 12 hours of idea to stress test consumer panel to understanding how this lives with the retailer to talking to potential partners to checking our supply chain and when is it gonna launch on shelf literally less than 24 hours and made things happen and it's crazy and again relying on our team to make things it is unbelievable how fast we can do something when everyone is just in flow and focus that's why it's magic it I swear to you it's magic and by the way I'm not taking credit for this this is my this is our team for sure I actually have not been in on those conversations that's okay but I'm here to tell the legend and the tales about and biggest opportunity that you guys see over the next you know year few years or so biggest risks were the consumer perception for flushability which the responsible Flushing Alliance which I am a sitting board member has done a great job our association Inda the association of Nonwoven Fabrics has done an amazing job and they have many other jobs besides caring about flushability and flushable legislation sure they it it feels like you're the only priority which is awesome so shout out to Inda West Laura Weiss Mado Siki that whole team has been a pleasure to work with and they've done a great job working with wastewater agencies Casa in particular California to craft education campaigns for consumers to make consumers aware of that you can flush a flushable wipe as long as it passes proper regulations and we're actually flushable we actually meet that criteria I w s f g e p a s three which is super critical G d 4 as well and by getting that education out there slowly but surely it allows consumers to feel more comfortable and that's why we're seeing the growth start to explode in the category of you know what 20+ percent K over the past several years and so that is super important to us and I would say that risk has turned in an opportunity for education and that's why we have launched shout out to Gianna who's on here our ambassador program which they're not just focusing on that but that's a question that comes up they're at an event they say hey try this wipe feels better et cetera and they go is it flushable yeah here's the backup and so doing that on a daily basis consistently a massive over time the next 12 years we're gonna be as big as toilet paper that's the plan that's the vision love that that's awesome um you're just so entrenched in the CPG world any specific brands or just kind of trends in general within the personal care space food beverage anything that you know I'll let you take it however you want anything that's kind of you're particularly excited about or things you've been tracking closely at all yeah there's a few brands of people I I don't want to say I'm mentoring like I'm the one like they're you know they do the work here probably one of 50 people that they come to but there's a few brands and friends on the radar that Roxanne McBride shout out she used to work at Goodwives launching Fiber Bliss Fiber is hot fiber helps reduce cholesterol it helps with GOP ones twos and threes people 95% of the population is under indexed on fiber me included and that little beautiful scoop helps ya I have friends that are launching I don't wanna put them out there cause they are in stealth but I do have friends that are launching really cool innovation that I'm excited to watch it brings back fond and horrendous memories of those stages and it's just so cool to see those entrepreneurs checking in every month and it's like yeah here's where we're at now I'm like whoa you did all that in a month that's crazy you're a mother of two kids all etcetera etcetera it's really encouraging it's just humbling to see right you're all it doesn't matter if you have a 200 million dollar company or a 5,000 dollar company no one's better or worse than anyone else right like it's it's all really really hard and that's what you know kind of trauma slash accomplishment bonds everyone together and makes everyone in it that's why I never root against any entrepreneurs that's why I never talk shit about they're doing this like let's just see what happens with the market and if they fail it's you know whatever it's not their fault right like totally it's a tough game it's a tough tough game to to play sure is yeah sure is I recommend anyone anyone playing it what's the best place for I guess people to follow along with you and then I know you call that TikTok shop if you're the new places what's what's a place you wanna call out for people to follow along with the brand these days if you wanna connect with me you're probably watching this or listening this on LinkedIn I'm imagining LinkedIn I change my name so often I'm one of my things this year is to standardize it LinkedIn is gonna be who am I Sam Neibel s a m space N noodles E elephant B E L you can find me there let's connect I love making establishing connections there Adam Steinberg is where I met is who I met on LinkedIn I met another guy yesterday Matt Drake you make connections for life on LinkedIn Instagram Sam Marcus one forever TikTok at goodwipes underscore founder that's all at goodwipes and everything else G o o d W I P E s follow us on Instagram follow us on TikTok buy us in stores Amazon Kroger Safeway Albertsons Target Walmart TikTok Shop goodvibes.com thank you there we go love it Awesome Sam appreciate this been awesome appreciate the time I think that's the pod amazing let's do it let's rewind back to some of those early days of how many if you had to guess now that you really kind of honed in this product category that it is you know yeah premiumization was really important to us that totally makes sense one crystal clear promise obviously want the brand to drive velocity in store what does this mean to you to actually achieve that goal really stand out to you in your mind building a brand and what you want to name it just in terms of how they kind of operate placement in the store my agency works with they always tell me like I know you guys have a pretty strong placement in traditional traditional retail what have you found and also actually hitting the timeline it is it's last question for you Sam Yep