title: Advice Line with Holly Thaggard of Supergoop!
author: How I Built This with Guy Raz
contenttype: podcast
publication: How I Built This with Guy Raz
published: 2024-08-15T03:10:00-04:00
sourceurl: https://rss.art19.com/episodes/37732e10-a36e-4dee-8f29-95d8f192560d.mp3?rss_browser=BAhJIg1PdmVyY2FzdAY6BkVU--3fdaf693ac55dc369c0201a1ede82e0232030d6c
word_count: 10335
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And if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call and you just might be the next guest on the show. Our number is 1-800-433-1298. Send us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like help with. You can also send us a voice memo at hibt at id.wondery.com and make sure to tell us how to reach you. And also, don't forget to sign up for my newsletter. It's full of insights and ideas from the world's greatest entrepreneurs. You can sign up for free at GuyRaz.com. We'll put all this info in the podcast description. All right, let's get to it. Joining me this week is Holly Thagger. She's the founder of Supergoop, the brand that made Sunscreen cool again. Holly, welcome to the show. Thank you for coming back on. Guy, I'm super excited to be here today. All right, so Holly, you first came onto the show back in 2020's great episode. Of course, to tell the story of how you created Supergoop. And one of the really big challenges that you faced early on was explaining this product to people. You were trying to make the case that people should wear sunscreen every day. They brushed their teeth that there wasn't something you should only use at the beach. And by the way, since that episode aired, I want to thank you for that, because I wear sunblock on my face in like every day now, because of you. Love it. Because I was starting to notice sunspots on my face and I was like, hey, maybe sunblock. Obviously, you managed to make the case well because you went on to your brand. Supergoop does hundreds of millions of dollars in sales every year. You're still the company's chairman. And we're going to be talking to a few founders today who are trying to enter new and niche markets and trying to figure out how do you explain the product to people when they're not fully aware of how to use it. So we think about Supergoop in such a different way than how you originally launched it because it really was, it was like a brand designed with kids in school in mind. Like your original approach was, hey, let's build a brand that is in schools. And there are huge buckets of this stuff and teachers and kids will constantly have access to this sunblock. And that strategy just didn't work. Like anyone who's trying to deal with a public school district knows it's really challenging. You eventually pivoted and started to focus on consumers. But that wasn't the plan, right? I mean, that wasn't the model. No, you know, first year at a college, I was a third grade school teacher. And it was later when my friend was diagnosed with skin cancer that I looked back at that time in the classroom and realized that we're not teaching our youth this healthy habit of wearing SPF every single day. Yet we're telling them to wash their hands in the cafeteria and we have fences around the playground. So my original idea was to create this brand and this formula then get it into school classrooms. And you're right, I had to pivot because at the time over the counter drugs were not allowed in schools. And they were thought of like you wouldn't send your kindergarteners to school with Advil. And so it was a pivot, but I knew we still had a job to do in educating our youth. And over the course of these 20 years, I've also been a big advocate on Capitol Hill and been able to change these laws that are antiquated and that existed in schools today, where up to I think 26 states that now allow SPF in schools for the reason of protecting our youth skin and our body's largest organ. And so what a blessing that I was not offered a contract after my first year of teaching in a school because my world kind of came crashing down after that first year. And I was not offered a return contract and I couldn't understand how I just finished college to do this and looking back. I'm so grateful for not being offered that contract because I and still feel like I'm a teacher. I just have a much larger audience than the 17 third graders. I had that year. And I'm a teacher in a much larger way. Yeah, it's awesome. Holly, let's let's take our first call. Oh great. I'm so excited. All right, color color number one. Hello, welcome. Hi, hi, Holly and Guy. I'm so excited to be here. Hi, please introduce yourself. Tell us your name, where you're calling from and briefly about your business. Yeah, my name is Christina Davis. And I'm calling in from Cincinnati, Ohio. And I'm one of the founders of Davis cookie collection. We specialize in delicious cookies made by hand with real ingredients. Amazing. And what's your question for us today? My question is how can we step back from daily business tasks and ensure that the business operates independently and efficiently allowing us to focus on expanding our brand? And one is it a good time to find a mentor? All right, awesome. Well, thank you for calling and welcome to the show. First of all, tell us about how you got into the cookie business. Yes, I was in grad school and it was extremely stressful. So I would bring samples of my cookies to class. I already knew how to make cookies from a young age is watching my family. And one of my colleagues eventually offered to pay me $15 for a dozen of cookies. And at that moment, something clicked and I said, wow, I could start doing this as a business. I always wanted to be entrepreneur. I just had no idea what that was going to be. So the very next day, I presented this idea to my husband and a business was born. We knew one day we would have a large collection of cookies, which we do now. We have over 300 flavors. And we created a Facebook page, everyone started ordering by the dozen and the rest was history. Did you, did you do a job on the side or did you just jump into this business? So I was actually, I continued working the business while in grad school, while doing an internship and also while working a full-time job. I just continued to work this business on the side. Wow. What did you do? I was in school to be a social worker. And then I worked at the UC Medical Center in the emergency room in Cincinnati. And I went ahead and graduated with my master's became a social worker. But the business continued to grow so much that I had to resign from my job 2019. Wow. So you took the leap. You jumped into this thing full-time. Tell me where, what you guys have now? Do you have a shop? Like, how are you selling your cookies? Is it mainly online? So we have a cookie shop and we opened this location during the pandemic in 2020. And then we launched a cookie truck last year. And then we also have online sales and we launched our cookie dough at Kroger here at one location last year as well. Oh wow. So you tell your cookie dough at Kroger, which is based in Cincinnati, which is a good, it says a great market to be in for obvious reasons like Kroger's there, PNG is there, scripts and other really big companies are there. And also it's like a good test market. A lot of companies test their products in places like Cincinnati and Columbus because there's a really like reflexive demographics of the US. So tell me a little bit about what your hope is. Like, what are you guys trying to do? So we're really trying to scale the business. I feel like we're stuck right now trying to figure out how to do that. How do we allow the business to kind of run itself so that we can scale? We want to get into more locations whether that's other grocery stores, maybe open more locations or launch more trucks, but we're just stuck. We've been in business almost, it's been 11 years actually. And it's just kind of a tough spot right now. We're filling some growing pains for sure. Yeah. Do you, I mean, do you have like, you talk about looking for mentors or how to find them? Are you are you part of like any organized community, like a church or a community group or anything like that? I'm a part of a mentorship program called score, but it's not, it hasn't really been helpful in the sense of like how to scale and grow. So we kind of have hit the wall with that. It's been really hard finding anyone here in Cincinnati that's willing to mentor also. It's been very, very challenging. There are a couple of approaches that you may have taken and if not, might be worth thinking about, which is trying to build like an advisory board. A lot of startups do this before they build like a formal board. It's a very informal board and it's a group of people who might be given something like a promise of shares in the company in the future or in in our case, free cookies or something like that, but it's people who could really, whose skills are, you know, could be really useful. Like in your case, maybe it could be, you know, a successful business owner who's retired or somebody who worked at Procter and Gamble who's retired, who worked at marketing and who still isn't Cincinnati and who's just kind of has time. Okay. I think that's a great idea, guys. I think people that are not in the business on a day to day can ask the tougher questions that you may not, you may not always be thinking about. And one of those tougher questions for me was like, Holly, what do you want to do as the founder of Supergoop? And I know John Kinney of Colt Capital who came on as an early investor said to me, what is it that you want your day to look like? What is it that you're most passionate about? And for you, Christina, it might be making cookies and it doesn't have to be running the company. But asking those kind of hard questions so that you can really think about what you deliver best for the brand, you know, might be really helpful. Right now, presumably, you've got not, it's you and your husband who are the main full-time employees. Do you have any other full-time employees? No, other full-time employees, but I do have eight part-time employees. Right, helping you bake the cookies, obviously, I'm assuming, and make the dough. Yeah, so right now, I'm actually baking all of the cookies myself and making the dough. So I know I need to probably turn that over at some point. Right, because you can't scale yourself. You ultimately are going to have to, I mean, look, look at some of the greatest sort of chefs in the world. They have restaurant groups and eventually they really have to manage them and they can't be in the kitchen all the time, but they can teach their techniques and their secrets to groups of people who can execute. And that's really what you have to do. One thought I had was looking through your website and the business was, how, you know, the question I have is how do you differentiate what you do? Right, you make great cookies, but lots of people can make that case, right? There's insomnia and there's other, you know, cookie companies out there. So how is it that you can say, well, we're doing something slightly different or offering something different? And I wonder whether you play around with a couple of interesting, like, just kind of weird options. Like, could you, could you play around with low sugar cookies or high protein cookies? You know, there's a lot of interest in like low carb high protein low sugar products, you know, just, just kind of play around with something like that. It's just a thought. I don't know, Holly, what do you think? Yeah, you know, I think that there is mention on the website of ingredients and processes from the South. And I don't think you even quite touch specifically enough about what is the special differentiator in the cookies that you're selling. And I think I would probably encourage you to maybe think about like, lots is not always better. And so maybe like fewer, but more differentiated. And then in your product photography and everything, I think if these are the most delicious cookies anyone has ever put in their mouth, that doesn't come across as much in the photography from the website, even from the leading discount copy about, you know, when I come to your website for the first time, I want to be sold on your cookie. I don't want to think about like, oh, I can buy more and get a discount because I haven't even tried one yet. So if DTC is your model. And if or if that's just like a sidebar to your retail store and your and your cookie truck, maybe thinking about the next three years as a shorter window of like, what do I want? Do I want to focus on grocery? Do I want to focus on my cookie truck? Do I want to focus on birthday parties? There seems to be a lot of areas that could be sucking the energy out of you. And maybe just like think, hey, for the next two to three years, I'm going to crush it on throwing cookie truck parties or whatever those are, but like really think about in shorter chunks of time. Yeah. And one other thought I had while you were talking, Holly, is if you're in that one croger in Cincinnati, I want to see one of your people there as often as you can get in there to sample the cookies to just give out tastes of that cookie to really try and crush it in that one croger because if that one croger can lead to five, I mean, you're in, if not the biggest one of the biggest national grocery retailers in the United States. I mean, that's a huge, huge coup to be in there. And that's when you start to really get to talk to investors. Once you're in, you know, five, 10, 15, 20 crogras, that's where you can really start to make the case to investors. Christina, you cannot afford not to succeed in crober. I really believe if you focus all of your energy into that model of distribution, I can't tell you how many years I have taken a summer tour of Sephora stores and gone from LA to New York in every single one of their big doors and just thanked everybody in there for contributing to the success of our brand. And that went on for a decade of my life. And I think it's a big opportunity for you. Thank you. And also there's an episode of how I built this that and again, I'm not this is not, this is not the plug our show. But, but our show is designed to give people like you starting small businesses advice and wisdom from people who've been through it before. And we did a recent episode with a guy named Mike Sinyard who founded specialized bicycles, a completely different category. You're not in bicycles, you're in cookies. But there's something in that episode that is critical that he did, which is 20 years in the business was suffering. They were in a crisis. They were about to go bankrupt. And you know what he did? He wrote a brand Bible. He basically went on his computer and started just writing a diary, diary, entries of what specialized is about, what it represents. And then he started to kind of organize it. You know, simply by writing it down, it allowed him to articulate what it was they were trying to do and be. And it also allowed him to hand that document to his in place. And they could gather around this shared vision. Now obviously you don't have a huge team. But if you could take the time to write it down, it might seem obvious, but it's actually could be really transformational for you to think about just putting together a short document about what it is you guys are and what you're trying to be for your customers. You'll be surprised at how much that can really open up channels of ideation and even innovation. Christian, any parting thoughts or final thoughts before we let you go? No, but I wanted to say thank you so much for having me on my husband. I have been listening to this show for a year. So this is definitely a dream come true. So thank you for all of the tips. Well, thanks for being a listener. And I hope our episodes and our future episodes will continue to help you and guide you and hopefully inspire you. So good luck. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. You know, this idea that even though a website is just one avenue, as you know, to your product, right? Because it can be in a store or you could find it at a retailer, the website kind of sets the tone, right? It signals to the consumer and also to your group internally how you want to present yourself. 100%. It's the place the consumer goes to learn more about their brand. They may never even purchase from your website. The goal of the website is not to end a purchase. Well, I mean, I think our DTC business is probably a good chunk of our overall business. But our goal is to be a resource for education. Yeah. And then most consumers will go find you in the store. Yeah. Holly, we're going to take a quick break. But when we come back, a water-conserving shaving gadget designed by two former Navy engineers stay with us. I'm Guy Ross and you're listening to the advice line right here on how I built this lab. When you're starting off with something new, it seems like your to-do list keeps growing every day with new tasks. And that list can easily begin to overrun your life. Trust me, I know getting my production company built at productions off the ground was no easy feat. Finding the right tool that not only helps you out, but simplifies everything can be such a game changer. For millions of businesses, that tool is Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world. And 10% of all e-commerce in the US, from household names like Hines and Mattel to brands just getting started. 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The Razer Rinser? Yes, sir. So this is a just briefly, this is a product that does what? So it's essentially a big button set in a larger dish of water. You push down on that button with your Razer head and it shoots jets of water through your like razor blades to dislodge the hair and gunk. And then the cool thing is that water flows back into the dish and gets recycled through filters. So you can use very little water the whole time you shave. Oh cool. It's totally standalone stuff, power. And what's your question for us today? Sure. So my question is how do we explain the value of the Razer Rinser can sizely and find our niche when so far we have three unique audiences who are a passion matter product really for three totally different reasons. All right. So just to kind of build a visual in my mind, I think it's sort of like you know where you go to a bar right and the bartender has like a glass and they clean it by putting it upside down on top of like a jet of water and that jet of water just streams into that glass and you got a clean glass. This is kind of that that's a similar kind of concept right but with a a shaver. Right exactly. So it's the same concept except really built for multi blade cartridge razors. So think of like gelette or harries or whatever you shave with it works with all of them. And the other cool thing is you're generating the power so that device you know the the glass rinser relies on the water pressure in your house. This relies on the force of you pushing down with your Razer head. It doesn't take very much but as you push down it forces the water through little jet slots and that really flushes out all the hair and gunk in the same way that your glass does. And the idea is that this saves a tremendous amount of water because you're not turning on the sink or even filling a basin. It's just how much water is is used less than four ounces. I showed you for two weeks with one now gene full of water which is 32 ounces. Wow. Just to kind of demonstrate what you can do. Yes. And not to give away too much information but I do shave in the shower because I've got all those fogless mirrors. But but that takes time right and so I'm in the shower and the water is going. So the idea with something like this is you don't need to use the sink at all. Right. Yeah. And and part of the inspiration for this was just trying to dislodge the stuff from between those razor blades. Sometimes they're really close to that together. And the sink doesn't do a good job of actually you know forcing out the gunk from between those blades. So this is a targeted blast of water versus your sink which just kind of lets water wash over the blades. So it saves water but and we're kind of hinting at part of my question here is is people value it for different reasons whether it's saving water or cleaning your razor blades more effectively. Andy how did you what were you doing before came up with this product because I think you invented this right? Yes that's correct. Me and my co-founder Matt Semple met in the Navy. We actually deployed together to the Red Sea in 2021 where we were roommates. So that looked like us and another guy shoved into a little 20 square foot room with a crummy stainless steel sink that saw a lot of action. You know you have to shave every day sometimes twice a day. So that sink was frequently gross. It was actually on one of those you know push button timeout faucets where you could only on the water for two seconds. So we cut a pencil to length so we could jam it so the water would say running our whole shave. Anyway we were shaving less than ideal situation which kind of made us think about ways we could make the shaving process better and by the end of that deployment we had an outline for what would eventually become the razor answer. So you're I'm assuming you're an engineer by trying. Yes I get a train engineer from the Naval Academy where I actually did a lot of hydraulics work. So the kind of transition into how water moves and flows through. It's really just a little positive displacement pump. You know it wasn't too difficult to make the leap from an engineering standpoint but the the key for us we landed in San Diego. The public library there has an awesome maker space. So we were able to go after hours once we got off the ship and prototype designs you know for free in their facilities. So it was a crazy public resource that just was huge for us. It was great. And so now you've got this product out there. How did you finance it by the way? Sure so we actually took a tip from how I built this and your episode with Christian from Uni launched on Kickstarter. Yeah so we I was I was I was I was literally listening to that episode while trying to figure out how I could make this thing at scale and he said I think this quote was all you really need is a prototype to launch on Kickstarter and I said hey I've got a prototype so we can do that. I love it. I love it. That's amazing and how much she raised. We raised almost $70,000 or go was $10,000 which we hit in two days. Wow. So we were blown away by the Kickstarter. It was great. Amazing. Congratulations. Well, congratulations on that. Holly I mean what an awesome story. Two guys in the Navy deployed want to solve a problem that they have. Now they've got a product. Any questions? Yeah you know I love the authenticity of the story of what you just described happened once twice a day while you were in the Navy and I think that sounds like it's the biggest problem you're solving for. I wonder if that could also translate to guys that are out camping and I don't know if guys that camp actually care about shaving or not but identifying a real targeted demographic who you're going to go after for this launch. Right. We recently thought of the van life market with your on Zoom calls where you need to be clean shaving but I know your water supply is limited so kind of like camping but you need to shave right. Yeah. Yeah. You know next year will be our 20th year as a brand and so in 2005 nobody was wearing SPF every single day and so and I was early inspired to change consumer behavior by innovating in a category that was very sleepy and bringing products that didn't exist to market and I think it was a real key to the success that we've had as a brand by starting with a very targeted demographic that we were going after and you know I coined that demographic a mindful explorer that was the right target for us because they sort of do things a little differently and then I even further went down the path of where does that person shop what do they do on the weekends do they have children so identifying who that consumer is on a timeline is really important because obviously everyone has skin it's our bodies largest organ and you could go after the world but you can't do that in a really powerful way if you're targeting everyone at the same time. Yeah. One of the thoughts I had was because your question was how do we market it without isolating other kinds of customers and I don't know if that's going to be your challenge I think I think what you really want to do is cast a wide net like it seems to me that you know there are different kinds of groups and organizations that you want to think about so for stars and I think the low hanging fruit is like water conservation groups you know I grew up in in Southern California and when I was a kid we were all encouraged to buy low shower heads because I lived in you know in a drought right and it seems to me that there's an opportunity to look at water conservation groups and a lot of these places will say here are the glow flow shower heads you should buy here are the the shaving flusher things you should buy you know the other side to it is to look at some really interesting and innovative hotels hotel brands like you know you're in you're in Philadelphia that's your base that's great yes so I think they have one there the graduate hotels chain you know moxie some of these kind of hipber hotel chains that are more attuned to water conservation to environmental innovations that that's where I think you want to start just trying to connect with people and have those conversations because it's those first movers especially young environmental like conscious consumers that you have to reach from the get go yeah I think that's great I would love if you know you requested a shaving kit from your hotel and a razor rinse or came with it would be amazing right because and how much are they going to cost by the way so we're looking around 30 bucks right now so they were available on Kickstarter you know for the normal kickstart discount but right now they're available for pre-order at $33 all right a price point that you're going to have to bring down at some point obviously but understandable there's potential to appeal to a certain type of consumer you mentioned campers which I think is interesting I think of campers as having big shaggy beards like one of our producers Casey Herman who's a great can an amazing camper and has a big shaggy beard but I do think that there is a we're I kind of feel like we're in a beard transition I don't know I feel like we're seeing more guys shave I don't know maybe that's just me and then I wonder too you know I think of that website uncrate that has all the all the gear for men oh yeah they're all very different that I always just like scan before a holiday such a cool site uncrate supply yeah yeah I mean I think as you build out your website and you kind of you'll move on from the stage of talking about Kickstarter to becoming a real product and a brand a good gadget a cool gadget it's a cool gadget yeah right there's another thought I had was just looking at your website which is you guys tell that you know you scroll down you tell the story and this you and Matt are this picture of the two of you I think there's an argument to be made that you guys put the photos of the two of you in your uniforms on there like your official Navy if yours I think you're allowed to do that and just to put that up there and say we met you know and kind of make that story a little bit fun snappy you're like we room together during our six month probably deployment right yep and shaving was a pain and we solved the problem for us and for you know the other guys on the ship by coming up with this thing and and you kind of make it this I don't like a like a West Anderson's kind of look you know like you know you guys with your uniforms and just you know because there's a there's an earnestness that I think a lot of people would love when they find out about this story and it's a real story right don't forget it's the reason this product exists yeah that's great the company is called the clean shave company and camp is co-founder Andy good luck thank you guys both so much for your time I appreciate it thanks for calling in I that I'm great ideas kind of cool right can imagine like hey let me have my dram of whiskey in my say go watch and a shave and save water it's such a good site it's such a I don't know where they find all of their things but yeah you probably have to pay a lot of money to get on there I would imagine but still you know it's a it's a yeah it's a tastemaker site so but it's a cool product he's gonna have to holly he's gonna down the road they're gonna have to create a product line you can't right you can't build a business on just this one niche product they're gonna have to think of their brand is shaving across the board and different innovative ways to kind of lean into that solve problems and I thought that was a really good idea to lean into those hotels and resorts that do have the water preservation mission as part of their own story yeah palm springs Las Vegas right every time I go to those places they're like every time you there's like sides it's like every time you turn on the tap you're making our situation worse and I'm always like okay I'm just not gonna use the sink here we're gonna take another quick break here but when we come back a device that can make water sports safer and possibly more stylish as well stay with us I'm Guy Ross and you're listening to the device line on how I built this lab are you inspired by the stories on how I built this take the next step in your entrepreneurial journey with a graduate program at Babson College the alma model of a ring founder Jamie Simanov bomb us co founder David Heath and butcher box founder Mike Selgero whose stories you've heard right here on how I built this Babson gives you the skills network and hands on experience to turn your ideas into reality learn more at babson dot edu slash grad school when I first started how I built this one of the very first tangible things I ever made was a stack of business cards nothing fancy just my name the logo in the title but I remember holding those cards on my hand and thinking wow this is real now in that moment actually inspired me to think bigger if I can make business cards why not make something for listeners t-shirt sweatshirt stickers you know things people could wear and share and see out in the world well that's exactly what vista print helps small businesses do turn ideas into real tangible products you can be proud of vista print supports you at every step from choosing the right product to getting the design just right they've got you covered whether you need a small tweak or a full on rebrand vista print offers design services that fit your style and your budget vista print print your possible right now new customers get 20% off with code new 20 at vista print dot com hey welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab I'm guy rise so today my guest is founder of supergroup polyfaggard and together we are trying to answer your questions about how to find the right consumer and tell them about your product all right let's bring in our next caller hello caller welcome to the hi hi hi hi thank you so much for having me hello hello well please tell us your name where you're calling from and and a bit about your business yes so my name is Aaron McLaughlin I am calling from hencedale Illinois I am the founder and CEO of flag guard which is an innovative water safety device dedicated to enhancing visibility to children who have fallen into the water amazing okay and what's your question for us today okay so my question is I feel like I'm selling a product that addresses a serious problem people don't necessarily realize exist how do I convince the customer that people being hit by a boat is a serious issue and how do I bring awareness and education around the importance of wearing something highly visible and automatic so boats could see them amazing okay Holly this is a perfect question for you because you went through a version of this with some screen 20 years ago but before we get to Aaron just a couple questions about this product explain how it works it's like a life fest that a kid wears and when they fall into the water like a flag deploys like sort of like an airbag in a car it's like a colorful flag that boats can see that someone's in the water okay yes so flag guard attaches on to the back of your existing life jacket okay when a child falls into the water a highly visible orange flag will pop up over their head making them more visible to oncoming boats and or to rescuers got it okay how did how did this idea come about so one day we were outboating with my six children and we were two being in my daughter fell off of the tube and was almost hit by an oncoming boat and so that you know highlight at the need to create something that would make children more visible in the water and and so you come up with this idea and it is that airbag kind of analogy fair I mean that that basically the water triggers this flag to pop up yes so the system is foolproof because it relies on the pressure from the water to deploy this bright orange flag as soon as they fall into the water the flag will automatically pop up over their head and as they get back on the boat or on the tube or up on their skis the flag automatically goes down to its resting position amazing okay so you have invented this product at first well when did you create this when did you start this business um so it was something that I thought about for a long time however life got in the way and during COVID I really took the time to bring it to fruition and I just brought it to market in January of 2023 congrats how did you did you did are you an engineer or did you five did you oh my gosh no no no no I'm not an engineer at all I'm just a mother of six children and I knew that keeping our children safe and seen in the water was a really big issue for me and I don't know it just it came to be I sell real estate and now I'm selling real estate part-time to help fund flag art and you found somebody who who could help you design the you had the concept and you found somebody who helped you design it yes so I went through um oh my gosh it took me so long to get this I did so many prototypes and talked to so many designers so it was a long road and finally I brought it to market all right now it's available through your website or is it also in stores it is available on my website if like our net it's also available on Amazon it is in over 30 marinas and that's from me loading them up in my truck and driving to them arenas I attend both shows with the help of my children and I'm doing cold calling amazing okay so you are trying to figure out how do you get people to understand that when your kid goes in the water they should be wearing this like they this should be like anything else like if you put the life jacket on you're gonna go water skiing this thing should also be on just like you put your swimsuit on yes all right holly thaggard you got we need you in this conversation now do you have patents on this yes so flag art is a registered trademark and I also have four patents that have been issued yeah I mean a very similar experience you know in 2005 people didn't know that they needed SPF every single day they believed Sunday much only happened at the beach so we still have a big job to do an education you're gonna have education at the foundation of your brand for its entirety I think you know your competition very much like mine is in activity people weren't wearing SPF and life jackets out there are not flak they don't have a flag attached so you know I mean I think the good news is that your passionate because of your child's experience and I think that passion is what's going to fuel you figuring it out as you have to pivot your way through building this you know I personally was inspired to change consumer behavior by being inspirational not scary it's one of the most difficult things to do ever is change consumer behavior um and so you know I'd rather lean into creating innovation and beautiful products that help make the world want to change their consumer behavior for me I want them to crave wearing triple-prap or crave putting unseen sunscreen on so when I look you know initially at your social media and even your website I do think there's a little bit of a scary vibe going on that can possibly lose people what versus thinking about boating safety let the award you won in 2024 I think I read you won a boating innovation award yes that was for innovation because this hasn't been done before so let those awards speak for themselves in the credibility that this product is needed yeah and then bringing in a copyrighter to kind of shorten your taglines I loved I think you said um what was it safe and seen yeah safe and seen but it's not as impactful when you partner it with let's help protect our children so they're safe and seen so like if I just put my marketing hat on I would say like safe and seen yeah that's a great idea you know it makes me think about a huge change in consumer behavior of the last 20 years which is in skiing and snowboarding when I was a little kid nobody wore helmets skiing nobody it was it was it was just weirdos did today you're a complete weirdo if you don't wear us a helmet yes and also guy for um bike riding I know or a bike helmet growing up and by the way you're starting to see more and more people in water sports surfing and even water skiing do the same thing I wonder so part of that is just it's just cool to do it because it's smart and I can imagine like on your website just a video of people having fun like the video is a people you know of somebody water skiing or or um two being and falling off and that's cool but maybe even more leaning into that fun side of it because to me it seems like there are all kinds of cool things you could do with this like you could not just have the flagship product but you could make helmets that also deploy a flag or that are really brightly colored so the whole the whole idea is that it's not just about the flag it's about making you visible in the water um and and there's so much cool stuff you could do around that with colors and designs um might not even be a flag exactly and you could so color flag yeah yeah oh what would you mean by that when you look at the mountains skiing children don't have just a plain helmet on they have crazy helmets crazy things mohawk helmets okay yeah but that's when it's fun and that's when you have kids asking for it yeah do you know the other thing the other thing I think of Aaron is that this isn't just a product for kids I think that you should really consider marketing this to everyone not keep kids safe but hey everybody wants a water skier to go tubing you know once you fall in you're just seeing a head popping up and down it doesn't matter who you are it's hard to see and so we should all like this is something that everybody should should should should should have on you know it's you want to you want to be bright it's like it's like running right again running 20 years ago people run at night and they get hit by cars now it's very rare for me to see somebody running at night without wearing reflective gear it's not about you know well I think when people go running they're like okay I don't want to die tonight they're just like I'm going to be smart and be seen you know invisible obviously they want to die you know either but that's that's what makes it normal you know I also think about I would imagine your vision is to have these attached to every life jacket in the world right yes and so I think is there a possibility of a like a licensing with a jacket a life jacket idea in there yes I did think of that but I never pursued it it's I think we're having a conversation with maybe whoever the leading is it O'Neal or whoever the leading life jacket brand is or maybe it's a flag guard life jacket well that's my next thing so what I eventually want to do is to have the flag guard that's already built into the life jacket I do have a prototype for that nice I did not bring it it has to be Coast Guard approved which I have not started the process for that yet because it is very expensive dive into that and then go to the boat shows and go to the I know there's trade shows everywhere for active and and surf shows and all of that I mean but this is a good start I mean what you have here is exactly what you should be doing you've got the product out there people can see how it works and then over time you know maybe you do introduce helmets or you do introduce a life vest I have a tactical thought for you which might be a little weird but I wonder maybe there's a world where you fought like you'd work with your local state representative right in where you are in Illinois and you start to say hey we should make this a requirement that kids under 13 when they go to a watersky have to have a device like this attached to them for visibility I don't know maybe some like they create like a regulation that's a requirement and then boom is that a word that you got as the conversation starter yes I love that idea because that's also what I would like to do is to get where it is mandatory to have that on the back of your life jacket for certain ages and then I'm how you were saying about a scary vibe could lose people how would you make it playful I looked at a few of your Instagram posts and they're they're very I was a master yeah and they're just very scared you know this is an amazing thing that you can like make fun and playful and I think I love this safe and seen but say it joyfully and I know it was a scary experience for you but like this is exciting you've created innovation that doesn't exist so let's make everything more exciting and fun yep okay great after all this is the kids ticket to getting outside and writing a boat and skiing and surfing this is like and I feel the same way about SPF my children grew up with it of course on the changing table having sunscreen massages so we started out applying sunscreen with massages that's how fun it was in our house and having a pump by the front door in the back door just meant my son was going to get out on his bike faster we don't ever talk about the scary skin cancer and what can happen from not wearing SPF yes that makes so much sense thank you Aaron McLaughlin thank you so much the brand is called flag guard thank you for calling in good luck it's such a cool product and we're cheering you on will be we'll be following your progress oh my god you guys this was great thank you so much for the advice thanks for calling in I I think people should wear helmets water skiing is that weird is that controversial I think it's I mean I'm all about safety right I mean what about surfing that surfing to yeah and I've seen it more and more in California I see more and more people wearing helmets and I think in 10 20 years it's just we're gonna look back and be like people didn't wear helmets surfing that was like skiing yeah we're gonna think of this tanning beds as like twerching yours yeah yeah one of those a lot of a lot of women have and and I think that fast forward 25 30 years and people are really gonna look back and go wait you got in a bed that fried you well Holly I hope talking to all these early stage founders didn't give you PTSD about all the all the struggles and like the setbacks and the stress because it's really stressful as you know and as we know from all the hundreds of guests you've had on the show but hopefully some of this advice will be helpful you know I mean I hopefully we'll find out we'll follow up with follow up and you know they're at a very fun stage in their brand and I I can say that now 20 years later because building and creating and I think entrepreneurs and founders love to build and create and the most building and creating to do is in these early stage days and so it's very exciting for them Holly would I always say and and and our regular listeners have heard me say a version of this is that there are no shortcuts in starting a business there are the only shortcut is in learning from mistakes that others have made so then you might avoid them yourself and that's really what how I built this is it's like a compendium of mistakes and the idea and and we just heard from you know one of our collars who who actually heard a gotten idea right that that they heard about this kick starter that that when he started and that inspired them to do the same thing if you're if you were able to like go back in time to you know younger Holly Thaggerd in 2005 and you know whisper in our ear and be like here's what you should know because I'm coming from the future what would you tell her I say this very honestly I wouldn't change a thing I would I would trust your gut and find the help you need this is all advice I had that growing up and being the daughter of two entrepreneurs this is these are things that were very instinctual for me and I think for a lot of entrepreneurs and founders trusting your gut is an easy thing to do and and realize that you may not always know why something happens at the moment that it's happening but one day it will come full circle and I'm sure there's still full circle things that are going to happen in the next 20 years because this brand's not going anywhere so the answers will happen and they'll unfold naturally as they should for the brand Holly Thaggerd founder of Supergoop thanks so much for coming on to the advice line it was awesome having you back on the show great visiting with you guys thanks so much for having me this was so much fun and by the way if you all have not heard Holly's original how I built this episode you have to go back and check it out you can find a link to it in the podcast description so just check it on your smartphone but here's one of my favorite moments from that interview I had created the sunscreen swipes and apparently the swipes were huge hit so I would go around to stores during that period and the swipes were always gone they were just wiped off the shelf but the problem was I knew that my sales couldn't be great if there were no products on the shelf and so I'd go into as many stores as I could with swipes in my bag and literally like stock the shelves like I'd give them product which is crazy right hey thanks so much for listening to the show this week please make sure to check out my newsletter you can sign up for it for free at gyros.com each week I put together tons of insights from entrepreneurs and my own observations from interviewing some of the greatest founders in the world on this show and also if you're working on a business and you'd like to ask us a question send us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and the issues that you would like some help with make sure to tell us how to reach you and hopefully we can give you some helpful advice you can send us a voice memo at hivt at id.wondery.com or call us at 1-800-433-1298 and leave a message there and we'll put all of this in the podcast description as well this episode was produced by JC Howard with music composed by Rumpti Narrow-Blui it was edited by John Isabella our audio engineer was Gilly Moon our production team also includes Alex Chung Carla Estevez Casey Herman Chris Messini Elaine Coates Catherine Cipher Kerry Thompson Sam Paulson and Deva Grant I'm Guy Raaz and you've been listening to the advice line on how I built this lab.