Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day: Monica Nassif

29:08Like we always said, jewelry on the counter. This has got to be jewelry on the counter. You should be able to have a bottle of hand soap and a bottle of dish soap proudly sit by your sink. Right. Because most people used and still use Dawn or Fantastic or Mr. Clean or Tide. I mean, those products did and still do dominate the category, but you're thinking, hey, there must be a corner of this multi-billion dollar industry that I could cleave away with a higher end, sort of more thoughtful, thoughtfully designed product. Exactly. I kind of, I drew this triangle and I went, okay, on the bottom triangle, we have Procter and Gamble.

29:52What are they good for? Performance. They're awesome, right? They get everything clean. Yep. On the bottom triangle, we have seventh generation, right? They're earth-friendly. Performance at the time was kind of sketchy. I think that's changed. And at the top of the triangle, I put our brands up there and went, let's take the best. Let's take the best from these two categories and just make something killer at the top that no one's ever thought about before. Do you like cleaning? Actually, I do like cleaning. You do? One of my early jobs was, you know, I had a lot of, I have a checkered past guy.

30:28I was a truck stop waitress. I was a typist. I walked beans. I was a crew boss for soybean walking. But I was also a janitor in a beauty shop in a trailer park. This is in college or high school? Even before high school. So this is I'm trying to get hairspray off the floor cleaning. That is not a job I like at all. When we come back in just a moment, Monica gets a cleaning job she loves and finds a job for her mom, too. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This.

31:12If you've been listening to the show these last couple of episodes, you've probably heard me mention the Airbnb original experience that I'm hosting. and I'm so excited to have a chance to connect with listeners in a completely new way. It's called the Reinvention Lab, and it's designed to help you think about how to unlock your next big move in your career or even in your life. I'll help you discover your own story in ways I do on this show with my guests. And attendees will get a chance to take a deeper dive with me on so many lessons I've learned from this show. Lessons that have transformed how I work and think about the future.

31:50All proceeds from the event will go to support the Ronald McDonald houses that helps families stay near their children who are being treated at nearby hospitals. It's going to be really fun and I can't wait to meet you. So come join me in San Francisco and take your idea to the next level. To grab your spot, visit Airbnb.com slash guy. It's going to be great. Now a quick break switching topics to one of our favorite sponsors, Vital Proteins. Vital Proteins is the number one brand of collagen peptides in the U.S. By taking collagen peptides every day, you can help support your hair, skin, nail, bone, and joint health.

32:31And now you can try Vital Protein's new collagen and protein shake. It has all the benefits of collagen in a ready-to-drink chocolate protein shake. With 30 grams of protein, it's great for healthy hair, skin, nails, and joints. And it's perfect when I'm on the go. I use it at the gym. I use it after a workout. It's delicious. And the chocolate flavor is awesome. I highly recommend it. Go to www.vitalproteins.com to learn more and where to buy. Get 20 % off your next order by entering promo code BUILT at checkout. This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo, the only CRM built for B2C and the key to making Black Friday and Cyber Monday your biggest wins yet.

33:18When the holidays hit, your competition only gets louder. That's why the most successful brands use Klaviyo to cut through the noise and build personalized relationships that drive more revenue. With Klaviyo, you get marketing, service, analytics, and all your customer data together on one AI-powered platform. It's everything you need to build lasting customer relationships. Send exclusive email offers to your VIP customers. Deliver perfectly timed text to high-intent shoppers. Maximize your ad dollars with precision. Join the more than 176 ,000 brands, including Away, Patrick Ta, and Dollar Shave Club, already growing with Klaviyo.

34:05Make this holiday season your best yet at klaviyo.com.

34:19Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's the year 2000, and Monica is ready to launch a new line of upscale and elegant cleaning products. And her first task? Finding someone to make them. So the guy who used to cut my hair had an Aveda salon. And I said, hey, Mac, I got this idea for putting stuff into bottles. I didn't tell him the concept. I said, do you know anyone? I mean, I didn't know anybody in this business. Do you know anyone who knows anything about putting liquids into bottles? And he goes, you know what? I got to, I cut the hair of a fragrance consultant. I'll, I'll call her and see if she can call you.

34:57Well, he did. And I met with her and she said, here's what you got to do. And so she kind of walked me through the whole process. You know, you got to build a fragrance profile, which is not unlike a marketing profile. You know, who's your demographic? What's it supposed to do? What's, what, what are your big ideas, et cetera, et cetera. And then she said, you got to go find this manufacturer out west of town. Go find them. They'll help you, too. So I go out there. It's called Boomerang. And it's a bunch of ex-employees from the Redmond hair care business. They pulled their ESOP funds after that company was sold and started a contract manufacturing facility.

35:38They were making, like, shampoo and stuff for them. Shampoos and, yeah, all kinds of stuff. So I go out and see this person. And at the time, I already had some dummy bottles. I would fill them up with a slight tint. I had all these PET, which are clear plastic bottles. And I had a designer already create the labels for me. And I go out. I kind of share briefly my business plan with her. And she sits back and she goes, okay, you cracked the code. I'll help you. Meaning she goes, I've been waiting for someone to figure this out. so she gave me the name of three chemists and i called them all just tracked them down as fast as i could two just looked at me like i had like four eyeballs i just thought i was crazy they're like no i'm not going to help you a second one no i'm not going to help you and the third one said oh i'll help you and that was pam helms and at the time she was a chemist for a personal care company in town so she agreed to moonlight for me and helped me figure out how to make this product So we met every Wednesday night at nine and every Saturday morning.

36:44And she would create these formulations for, we started, I think, with five products. It was hand soap, dish soap, ironing spray, and something else. Oh, countertop spray. That was it. And three different fragrances. And she goes, well, now we have to test them. And I went, what do you mean? We test them. Don't you test them? She goes, no, we got to give them to 25 people and have them rate the product on a whole variety of factors. fragrance, performance, streaking. So every Saturday morning, I would take these little tiny samples of bottles in a brown paper bag with an evaluation form. I had 25 deliveries every Saturday morning.

37:24And I would go around, I found 25 of my friends and family, and they would rate the product and they would fax back, believe it or not, their evaluations of the product. And what gave Pam confidence in you? Do you think it was your background in marketing? I don't know if I gave Pam a lot of confidence, man. I asked her to come work for me three or four times, and she said no every time. She kept moonlighting. And finally, it took, I think, three years after we got up and running, she finally said yes to me to come work for me full time. So you were just kind of paying her as a consultant? I just kept, I'm like, Pam, come on, just join us.

38:05And she's like, no, no, I don't know if you guys are going to make it or not. And I totally get it. And finally, when she said yes, she said, why did you keep asking me? I said, Pam, are you kidding me? If I stopped at no, I would never get out of bed. No, it's just the beginning of a conversation. You know, I hear no, I've heard no my entire life. It means nothing. Yeah. So you start to work on this, and then Pam's working on this. But meantime, what were you doing to earn money? Was David your husband? Was he working at this point? So he's working at this time. So he's actually still at our former agency.

38:43And I had also saved up two years of income. I really spent the several years before I left the marketing agency saving money. So then what I do is I'm writing the business plan and I'm out raising money. And it took, I was just trying to raise about$700 ,000. That was the first round. And honestly, that is the hardest, most humbling part of the whole deal. How did you raise the money? Shameless cold calling. Shameless. I just had this vision of a funnel in my mind thinking if I get 100 names, I get one call. I mean, I was so desperate. A friend of mine, he gave me the church directory for his affluent church in Minneapolis.

39:33He goes, Monica, just work down the list. Just start calling down the list. So I did. I literally called everybody and anybody. And I, I mean, I ran into some characters, believe me. And I went to every meeting. I thought, you know what? I don't care if they're the right investor or not. I'm just going to practice, you know, because when I finally find someone with a bucket of money and interest, I got to be ready. So I went to so many meetings that were so ridiculous. I mean, here's one that's very funny. So someone said, hey, there's this old guy who's got a lab and back and he's helping this woman with this personal care company.

40:07you got to go see him. So I go see him. His office is full of smoke. He's got more crap on his desk. I thought he was going to light himself on fire. He had these long, ugly, yellow fingernails from smoking since birth. And he grabs the business plan out of my hand and he starts going through and he flips right to the back, right to the financials, pro forma financials. And he goes, hey, here's how this works. I'll give you a million dollars in cash. I get 75 % of the company and I own all the formulations. In two years, he goes, in two years, if you make these numbers, these numbers you're showing me, you get it all back.

40:45You get back to 75 % ownership and you get back ownership of your formulations. And I thought, oh my God, get out of here as fast as you can. But what did I learn in that meeting? That you owned your formulations. I didn't know that. So that was a huge learning. So you turned that offer down. Oh my God. I ran from the building as fast as I can. I mean, I once saw a guy who from the office, he says, come in here, little filly. And I thought, what is this? I spend the next hour listening to him tell me about his stud farm and his Arabian horses, artificial insemination. And I'm thinking, well, this is a mismatch.

41:27so I mean just the crazy people that you have to go see it almost became like a comedy show so I had to change my strategy so I finally call this woman and she goes hey Monica you got to find this guy named Dick Magnuson he was an early investor in the Nerf ball believe it or not Nerf was invented in Minneapolis find him he might help you so it took me six weeks finally tracked him down, got his cell phone and he goes, okay, meet me out here at eight o 'clock on this Friday morning. I got to this crappy old office again, smoke filled room. And I'm like, oh God, here we go again. Well, Dick Magnuson is sitting there smoking, sit down on this folding chair.

42:10He grabs my plan. He flips through it and he goes, you know, I hate consumer product deals. I just hate them. He goes, but I kind of like you. So I'm going to read this plan over the weekend. And if I like it, I'm going to call you at 8 a.m. on Monday morning. And he called me 8 a.m. on Monday morning. And he helped me. He said, I'm in. He said, I'm in. And how much did you raise total? We raised about$800 ,000 the first round from a whole variety of investors. But he's an ex-investment banker. But one thing he really taught me was, OK, Monica, we're not running for political office. That's what he said to me.

42:51He goes, we're not running for political office. Stop smiling so much. We're doing a business deal. Now let's get serious. So I'm going to be honest. It helped to have an old white guy at the table asking other old white guys for money. So I've started to see a big breakthrough after that. So, all right. So you have, and this is what you're doing full time. David is bringing in some income from his job. you decide that you are going to pursue this sort of higher end cleaning supplies and and by the way how many different products did you want to have you wanted to have like window cleaner and detergent and dish soap like yeah we didn't we didn't start with laundry detergent we started with five products in three different fragrances for calderia they were the fragrances are lavender pine green tea patchouli and citrus mint langling and they're in these gorgeous bottles and so and the five five products each and caldrea was the name tell me about the name caldrea oh so caldrea comes from cala and andrea oh yeah yeah so it was a combination of my daughter's names and so you were gonna and and let's so you have the you've got the funding to kind of get this manufactured But tell me about, let's first talk about the bottles.

44:09What was so special? Were they plastic bottles? Were they glass bottles? They were called PET. I don't know what that stands for, but they were these beautiful, clear bottles that usually reserved for food or personal care. You know, they were not typically used for cleaning products. They were very upscale. So I found this guy who became a bottle distributor for us, and Ray would bring me so many samples. I think he, too, he felt sorry for a minute, but he also thought, well, I don't know, this might work out. I'll give her some free bottles. So he gave me a bunch of bottles to work with so I could dummy up some products and take these small little brown fragrance bottles into these meetings so I could share, hey, this is what we're trying to do.

44:48Here's how it's going to look. Here are the aromas. You know, so people will get a sense of this is what this is going to look like on shelf. So you start to get this produced, this co-packer, co-manufacturer in Minneapolis, where you were experimenting with this stuff, with the product. You hire them as your contract manufacturer. Right. They become our filler. And they were awesome. They, you know, they too were a startup. So they help us just in terms of, I mean, I didn't know how you price this stuff. When I wrote my business plan, I would spend a lot of time at grocery stores. I didn't have another category from which to model.

45:25And I'm a big believer. I think I learned that in marketing. Let's find some models for pricing, brand extension, all that stuff. And I couldn't figure out how to price this from a retail standpoint and then work back to the cost of goods. That was really tricky. We didn't, because we had, nobody else was doing what we were doing with cleaning. And the other thing that was going on, we had a difficult time with the vendors supplying us with aromas, surfactants, olive oils, all the things we wanted at the personal care grade level for cleaning. They're like, we don't, we're not doing that. That's ridiculous.

46:02So we had a hard time finding vendors on the manufacturing side to believe in our concept of upscaling this whole category of cleaners. Where were you buying the fragrance from? Usually from Switzerland. It came through most of the offices on the East Coast, I think New Jersey. And by the way, was Caldria just you at this point and some sort of contract employees or did you have? No, I had probably maybe two to four employees at the time. And what were they doing? What were the roles you hired for? I had a COO who was kind of in charge of manufacturing operations. And then I had a warehouse person.

46:40And then that was kind of it for starters. You know, we were doing everything. Right. Okay. And when it comes to strategy, I'm assuming you guys, I think you guys initially wanted to get Caldria into gift shops, right? Like shops where people buy, you know, homewares and things like that. Yeah. Like ABC Carpet and Home out of New York, for example. At the time, that was a major coup for us. We got in there. They had a kitchen area where it had all these upscale kitchen gadgets. So that's the other thing we looked for. Could we be, you know, saddled up next to upscale kitchen, upscale gift? Because we could definitely make our product giftable, you know, because the bottles were so beautiful and it was kind of a new category.

47:23So slowly over the, you know, one or two years, I finally had all the rep groups set up. And then we started going, having a booth at all these gift shows. Atlanta was a big market. New York was a big market. Texas. and so what we learned really quickly was that the coasts were very good for us what about like william sonoma was that uh was were you did you guys approach them so william sonoma it's an interesting story so that january before we shipped our first product i saw on the back of their catalog our concept they had lavender dish soap hand soap candle and i literally hit the panic button.

48:02I'm like, oh crap. They're in this business. And if anybody can do it, these guys can. So lo and behold, fast forward to this housework show, our first housework show in Chicago. And we have a hutch. That's all we have, a hutch and all of our product. William Sonoma sees us at ABC Carpet and Home when they're doing their trend trips. They come and say, hey, would you make, we love what you're doing. We love your fragrances. We've tested your products. We've used your products. Would you make this for us? Wow. So they want, and they were having problems with their vendors getting their dish soap made.

48:37They were, they couldn't fill out, they couldn't fill their supply line. So we're like, oh my God, this is awesome. So anyway, we have to go out and have a meeting in San Francisco. And I thought to myself, okay, when we come back and show them our dummy product, how this is going to look, I'm going to fill this table because they're very creative. They're very consumer focused. I thought we're going to build a huge display here, just like to see it in a store because that's how their minds work. Cause I thought let's put on your marketing hat, Monica, this has got to be like bold and competitive and killer.

49:12So they just go, oh my God, I got to go with these guys. And that was a significant revenue program for us. And it served as our financing for the rest of the, for the rest of the life of the company. But it wasn't a brand builder. It wasn't a brand builder, but it was a category builder. Yeah. And that was just as important in my mind. And a lot of our advisors said, oh, Monica, don't do it. You're crazy, private label. It's a low margin business. But if Williams-Sonoma gets behind a category of premium cleaning and they sell their dish soap for$7.99 and Calderia for$7.99, we all win. Because Williams-Sonoma was landlocked to 250 stores.

49:54This was long before internet shopping. So I wasn't worried that I was competing with them. I took the attitude of, hey, all boats float in a rising tide. We're all going to grow this huge premium category together. I thought it benefited everybody. So they didn't sell Caldria in addition to the, they just sold the white label brand. They just sold the white label. But on the bottle, it did say made by Caldria, right? Yes, because I gave them a margin point for that. Got it. Okay. So, again, it was validating our position in the marketplace where you could find it in all these gift stores. Let me ask you about the price point here, right?

50:31Because I imagine a strategy can be pricing something higher because it gets people interested. They're thinking, wait,$10 for a bottle of Windex? Like, this must be really good Windex. Right. So our dish soap was priced at$7.99. And so that's why I knew we would never survive in mass because let's be honest, Don was$1.99 or$2.99, whatever. Yeah, the customer would go, who are these? This makes no sense. It can't be that great. It's not like specks of gold are in there. So it had to be at a gift shop where people might be like, oh, this is interesting. It's not Don. Right. So here's my question.

51:07I mean, you're working with distributors, right? Yeah. And you're getting into more and more gift shops. But still, like, how are you getting people to buy them? I mean, now you're just hoping that people will notice them in the stores. So it's still, it's got to, I mean, imagine, because you launched this business in 2000. I imagine 2001 when these are in stores, it's slow going. Oh, yeah. It's not like flying off the shelves. No, exactly. But what we had done is, because I learned this from my past career, is we hired a PR firm out of New York. And so all I wanted them to do was to get us placement in all the home decor, home decor, women's fashion, all these magazines.

51:51Martha Stewart Living. Martha Stewart Living, Real Simple, you name it. That's what we wanted to be in. And it worked. It started to put us on the map. Good housekeeping. So that is how we spent our marketing dollars at the time. All right. So you've got Caldria out there. And it's doing okay. and you've got the Williams-Sonoma business, but I guess you started to pretty early on get worried that, you know, some other better funded brand or company could come in and just basically do the same thing and, you know, or introduce kind of a cheaper knockoff that would really damage your business. Yeah, oh, I did start to worry because, you know, when I started, it, I knew the statistic was that, hey, almost 80 % of all household cleaning products are purchased in the grocery store and discount stores.

52:49So that was the market. But when I got started, I honestly didn't know how to get there. I didn't have the expertise. I didn't have the funding. I didn't know how to start there. But all of a sudden I went, you know what? Let's knock off ourselves. Let's knock off ourselves. I had a boss who always said, hey, Monica, saw the branch you're sitting on and reach for the one above you. And I kept thinking about that with Mrs. Myers. And I thought, let's just knock off ourselves. So we're going to go to mass. We're going to figure it out. We're going to create a whole nother brand. And you know, that's what I knew how to do.

53:20I knew how to build brands because a lot of people said, Oh, Monica, you're, you're, you're not focused. You're, you're building all these brands. But that was to me, the easy part. The hard part was the selling, the operations, the manufacturing. I didn't have expertise in that area. So we're like, okay, we're going to knock off ourselves. We're sitting around, probably five of us at the time, we're brainstorming and we're going, all right, if we wanted to take out Caldria, how would we do it? Caldria is European. She's fancy. She's high priced. Let's make something Midwestern, wholesome, out of a garden.

53:54And then all of a sudden it was like, wait, this is like my mom. She's like the consummate housewife with a huge family, huge garden, total to the child of the depression, waste not, want not is her operating model for everything. So that's how we came up with the name. Mrs. Myers, Mrs. Myers, my mom. Yep. So I called my mom after we, you know, first of all, you have to make sure you clear it with the trademark office. I call my mom and I go, Hey mom, do you want to be a brand? And she goes, of course she's in the garden. She goes, what's a brand? I said, I'll just explain it to you later. Just agree to this because we got to get running with this.

54:37And then I'll call you later and explain what we're going to do. I didn't really know what we were all going to do, but I wanted her not to get running. You know, this is really interesting. I mean, you start to recognize that Caldria alone is going to be vulnerable because it's small. It's not well-funded. You know, we might get lucky, but there's a good chance that a competitor is going to come in and crush the brand. And so you start to say, it's so interesting because many years ago I interviewed Kenneth Chenault, the former CEO of American Express, in another show I do called Wisdom from the Top.

55:12And I asked him about how he thinks about business. And he said, you always want to think, how can I become my competitor, my future competitor? How do I become my future competitor now? It's like a great strategy. Yeah, you know, when you have eight siblings, it's a dogfight. Highly competitive. Right. And I'm like, I'm not letting anyone take this concept. I'm going to do it. You know, I'm super competitive. And I thought, let's just knock ourselves off. What would be different between the Mrs. Myers products and the Caldria products? Well, we kind of had this marketing philosophy that it has to come out of Mrs.

55:56Myers garden in Iowa. It has to be authentic. It has to be authoritative. And it has to be priced slightly above the mass. And it's going to be based on a real person. We're not going to make this up, you know, in terms of. It's going to be my mom. It's going to be my mom. And, you know, she's the real deal in many ways. And, you know, we were raised to kind of take care of what you have and it will take care of you. And she was very thrifty. And my brother had a saying. She could make a nickel squeal. You know, she had a hard life as a child. You know, she didn't have probably running water electricity until she was 10 on a Kansas farm.

56:37I mean, we didn't have to make up that much stuff about her. One of the interesting things, because your mom's name is Thelma, right? Thelma Meyer. One of the interesting things about this product was that the original packaging had like a little character on it. It was like a sort of a 50s housewife with a dress and an apron. Am I right about that? It's not on there anymore, but I think it was. And that's a little bit. I mean, I remember seeing that and it and, you know, there are different ideas that might come in someone's head. Like I see that and I think of like Judy Jetson, you know, or I think of, oh, that's that evokes a certain image in my mind.

57:18Right. And I think that was a point. But that's risky, right? Because there could be backlash. There could be people saying, hey, wait a minute, what are you doing playing into stereotypes? Right. So much for women's lib. And at the same time, this was my mother joyfully accepting her role in life. And so we just embraced that. And this designer I worked with who did all the packaging, Werner Design Works, Sharon Werner, when I approached her, I knew her from other projects in Minneapolis. She goes, oh, my God, this is my mom. She just totally got it. And so as we were creating the design, we had all these mood boards with all these little icons from the 50s because we kind of wanted to make the packaging look like Thelma could have made it in her basement.

58:01You know, the bottles weren't too slick. The labels weren't too slick. But slick enough, you know, so it had a kind of a retro sophistication, if you will. You know, it's not like you have to be that person in an apron cleaning your house. It's that you have the authority of a domestic mentor. And she's real. That's how I viewed it. Interesting. It's often people who are least affected by those things that are the most alarmist about them, right? Yep. So, all right. So you basically, you start to work. And between the time that you come up with the idea and the time that you actually have a bottle with, you know, the label and the story, how long did that take, roughly?

58:46That's probably less than a year because, you know, we had a lot of the product developed. So, you know, anytime you make a product like this, it has to go through seven months of stability testing. So you've got that alone is within your time frame for launching. And so we had the packaging all created. We were working on the fragrances, much simpler, lavender and lemon verbena, very different packaging. And we go to another trade show and Restoration Hardware stops by. And at the time, Restoration Hardware actually had a cleaning section. I don't know if you remember that. This is long before it became.

59:19Yes, I do. But it was a real authentic with the best mops, the best brooms, you know, camp, you know, all that stuff. And the buyer comes by and goes, man, I love what you're doing. So that was our first customer was Restoration Hardware. All right. So when Mrs. Meyers is going to be ready by 2002, and what was your plan to go after – was there like – in your mind did you say, OK, let's just go right into the big box stores? Or did you again say, let's start small? Because we did a story of method, which also was introduced around this time. But you probably didn't hear about it because it was just in Molly Stones in the Bay Area for a couple of years before it got bigger.

1:00:03But did you think, hey, maybe we should start small with this? I thought we should get in Whole Foods. Whole Foods, okay. I was like, that was my target. So you thought we got to get to Whole Foods where the sort of the, let's just say, I hate this term, but like influential buyers have. Oh, for sure. Yeah, they are. Because all the Target buyers, other groceries buyers, what are they doing? They're snooping around Whole Foods and major markets and the Columbus Circle Whole Foods and San Francisco. go there oh what what products do they have how are they selling all that so at the time what i the other thing that i really wanted to pull off was brand blocking and that is before we showed up if you had dish soap it went with dish soap window spray went with window spray and it was all scattered throughout the cleaning aisle and i thought we're gonna die we're just gonna oh you in other words the window sprays were together the dish soaps were together which meant that if you had multiple SKUs, your brand was like scattered around.

1:01:01Oh, scattered all over. I thought we couldn't have all the Mrs. Meyers together. Right. And Whole Foods would. They allowed us. Because one thing they had was personal care. You know, they had a personal care section and they were used to the Burt's Bees of the world's coming in there and saying, no, we've got to be all together. Because then you validate your price point and you kind of make a promise to the consumer that, hey, if the hand soap is awesome, the dish soap is going to be awesome. You know, it has this halo effect. All right. So you get into those Whole Foods. And I guess, again, I mean, you're in some of these – I mean, you had Caldria in some of these magazines.

1:01:39Now you've got this very unusual – because I remember the label. You've got the Judy Jetson or whatever, the June Cleaver on there, Mrs. Myers. And so it stood out. But how are you going to get people to buy it? What was the approach you took? Well, again, we had the PR firm working on Mrs. Meyers, but we also started doing sampling. So this is when we got my mother, Thelma, to go into stores in Columbus Circle in San Francisco. And we made tiny little samples like the personal care business. Hand soap, dish soap. And my mom would stand there in her little uniform we created for her. What was the uniform you created for her?

1:02:16Oh, it was like a plaid shirt, a denim apron, and little red capris and red shoes. that's and and she was like oh my god i'll play ball i mean she was like i'm in i love everything about this and was that what she wore normally oh well she wore red she wore work shoes my mother believed in german work shoes so these are red work shoes and did you make her like get her hair done in a certain way and just a little more upscale but yeah you know she had a mop of gray hair thick mop of gray hair and she wore makeup she she just thought she was like a movie star yeah and it's called mrs meyers and and she's like i'm mrs meyers but it wasn't like um the charman squeeze guy no like she was really she's like the real deal actually the real person yeah and we would bring her to trade shows and people just like loved seeing her and she loved you know She just embraced this whole thing.

1:03:15And one thing I learned early on was, so when you come out of corporate communications, you learn, hey, if you're getting somebody prepped for media relations, give them three key messages. Well, I tried that on my mom. That was a disaster because she'd be interviewed by a salesperson or a media. And then she'd say, was that a key message? She'd look at me. Oh, while she was being interviewed, she'd turn to go, hey, was that the right key message? Was that the right key message? But would they ask her, like, hey, how did you invent this? How did you start this business? You know what? What would she say?

1:03:47She would act like she did it. And, you know, at first I kind of always wanted to interrupt, and I thought, uh-uh, just let her rip. I mean, to this day, people think she started it. And then if I'm around, standing around, she goes, oh, no, no, no, my daughter did. Right. But at some point, I mean, you and your mom joined forces to go on QVC, right? And you pitched both of the brands, Mrs. Meyers and Caldria. Right. We went on QVC. QVC wanted to bring us on. They brought in my mom. Disaster. I went on an hour. It was a disaster. It was a disaster. You know, there's something about QVC that we just didn't understand.

1:04:28Wait, what happened? It just, so if you know anything about QVC, you sit in the green room when someone's on and you can just see the lights blink when the calls come in. Yeah. It is a whole different type of selling environment. And, you know, I came out of traditional retail. I didn't understand TV shopping. I should have never said yes to this. But I thought, oh, heck, let's try it. Why not? Wait, was she not funny or interesting? I think she was good. But I think she was, and I have to say I was too. It was kind of intimidating to be on for a half hour. You know, it's one thing to have like a two to three minute little news clip.

1:05:03It's quite a different animal when you've got to keep that energy and the demo and everything up for 30 minutes. And, you know, my mom wasn't that person. We just didn't understand, like, kind of the demoing part of it. You know, like, oh, look at this is a hot mess. Oh, now it's clean. And then I thought, is that what we're about? No, we're not. We're about fragrance. And it's hard to communicate fragrance over a television. So we walked away from that. Yeah. And nothing was considered a failure. It was always like, oh, wow, that didn't work. Well, now we know. When we come back in just a moment, Monica learns another lesson.

1:05:44Do not put your brand in target until you are absolutely ready. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This.

1:05:59AI companies have unique business models, each with distinct billing needs. Stripe is the go-to choice for AI leaders, from early-stage startups to scaled enterprises. Whether it's OpenAI offering tiered plans based on user needs, or Cursor implementing flexible billing structures for code access, redefining the future requires sophisticated business models. With Stripe Billing, you can support any business model from credit-based to sales-negotiated contracts and easily align your monetization strategy with customer value. Join the ranks of 78 % of the Forbes AI 50 and millions of businesses worldwide that trust Stripe to help them build more profitable, scalable businesses.

1:06:48Discover more at Stripe.com. Ever had one of those afternoons where your brain just quits on you? You're sluggish, hangry, maybe even a little foggy. What if it's your glucose? See, glucose is an energy currency for your mind and body. When it's stable, you're on point. When it crashes, so can you. That's why Lingo is so interesting. Lingo is a glucose wearable designed to help you connect the dots between your glucose and what you eat, how you move, and how you feel. It shows your glucose data in real time. Instead of guessing, you see the impact of your choices. Maybe that healthy snack is actually sending your glucose on a roller coaster.

1:07:28Or that afternoon walk is the perfect stabilizer. It's about unlocking your consistent best all day long by truly understanding your body's unique responses. Get to know your glucose and learn about how to build healthy habits that work for you with Lingo, designed for you by Abbott. Through November 30th, use code GUY10 on hellolingo.com to get 10 % off a Lingo plan purchase, one use per customer. This offer cannot be combined with other offers, U.S., Puerto Rico, and U.K. only. The Lingo Glucosystem is for users 18 years and older, not on insulin. It is not intended for diagnosis of diseases, including diabetes.

1:08:08Individual responses may vary.

1:08:17Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's the early 2000s, and Mrs. Meyer's products are in some top Whole Foods locations across the country. And Monica decides it's time to pitch to the buyers at Target. Yeah, so I knew the Target folks. I went over there, I made a presentation, and they go, great, we'd love to do a 200-store test. But I'm going to be honest. I secretly had this instinct that it was premature. It was a mistake. It was a mistake. We didn't have the funding. We weren't in enough locations. I said yes anyway. So we were given a hurdle, you know, a sales hurdle for, you know, how to fly off the shelf.

1:08:56Well, we completely missed it. And I decided I'm going to take myself out. Wait, wait. You were Target. Okay. We should clarify here because Target usually gives you one shot. right, to come in. And if you, it's like Sephora, some of these companies, you go in, if you don't make it, they're not going to bring you back in. And so you agreed, hey, let's, I mean, I think I would too. It's Target. But why didn't they sell there? I mean, were you just not able to bring your mom to enough stores? Like what, what was the problem? I just think the whole problem was not enough brand awareness for Target.

1:09:30And the other thing that I really tried to do, and it didn't happen was I tried to have those Target stores in the same market as a Whole Foods. So I had concentration in a market that people would see it. Oh, if I went to Whole Foods, I saw Mrs. Meyers. Oh, if I go to Target, I'll see Mrs. Meyers. And that didn't happen. We couldn't control the stores, the 200 store test. And so I had no market concentration. We had zero brand awareness. We were so premature with the brand. We didn't really know what we were doing. So I saw the numbers every week and I decided we got to take ourselves out. So I mean, I went over to Target and I said, you know what, we're not ready for you.

1:10:09I thought I'm going to kick myself out because I want back in. Yeah. So at what point did you feel comfortable re-approaching Target? Like what was the metric that you were using? Oh boy, I don't know if I remember having a metric. I just remember thinking, I think we're in enough stores. And they often asked us to come back and provide an update of how the brand was doing. So I'd go back every six, nine months, pitch all the new products, tell them what we're doing. I never asked for a PO. I thought, no, I'm going to let them ask me. So a couple of years later, they said, OK, do you guys think you're ready?

1:10:49And I did think we were ready because we were in a lot more stores. I can't remember the number of stores, but we were probably in, you know, several thousand stores by then and in all of the major upscale grocery stores. And that's, you know, Target likes it if brands are in places like that. Yeah. So when you, I mean, by the time you sort of, you're back in Target, I think by the mid 2000s. Yep. And you're nationally in Whole Foods. Do you remember, you know, by 2007, let's say, do you remember what your revenue was? Was it over$5 million? Oh, yeah, for sure. Over 10? Yes. Over 20? Yes. 30? No, close.

1:11:38No, okay. Very close. Between 20 and 30. Yeah. So you were really, I mean, you were, and were you profitable? We were probably profitable around$15,$20 million. Once we got the margin, the cost of goods sold figured out for Mrs. Myers, that was really our struggle in the beginning because we wanted to get that product to market. And we didn't quite have the, what I want to say, the formulation engineered for a good price point to be at the mass level. Was your husband, David, did he eventually join you? Yeah. So he joined us very early. And finally, we were getting to the point of where we were moving into an office.

1:12:21And honestly, I didn't know how to hook up the computers. And I said, Dave, will you just, he didn't really want to help me. He's like, I don't know what you're doing. You're kind of crazy. But I said, could you just come down and hook up the computers? He goes, I'll do it. He goes. Then he turns to me and he goes, how big did you say this industry is? I said, Dave, it's almost 10 billion. I just want a corner. I want a corner of it. He goes, I'm going to help you on one condition. I said, what? He goes, you never, ever start another business. I said, okay. I did. So he came and helped, and he got involved.

1:12:56And thank goodness that he did, because he was really our finance expert. He ran the books, all the accounting, the shipping, all of that was his forte. All right. So you've got this growing business. You hit between$20 million and$30 million in revenue and sales. And this category is exploding, right? I mean, this sort of premium category, there's Method out there. You guys, there's other brands coming out today, obviously, even bigger and more brands, I should say. But you get an offer. You get an acquisition. An acquisition offer comes to you or you approach or you put yourself up for sale.

1:13:38Tell me what the story was. so throughout the history of the company i had mostly private equity mostly guys come and say oh my gosh we're really interested when you guys are ready for the next stage of financing yada yada you know and so i kept a running list of everybody who approached me usually at a trade show and i always asked them one question and the question was hey what can you do for us that we can't do for ourselves yeah and do you know i never got a good answer i mean i just okay an obvious one was throw money our way but it always stumped him and I thought this is not the partner I'm looking for so finally in two that late 2007 I get a phone call do not ignore this voicemail you've ignored so many of my voicemails I've left with you please don't ignore this call me back and I thought who is this guy so I called him back he identifies himself and it's S.E.

1:14:33Johnson and I was not surprised whatsoever because they had been in every trade show booth since our first trade show and I understand why they had a you know huge glade business they really understood fragrance they understood the cleaning category they were experts in this department you know and so they were really fascinated by what we were doing and so when I asked them that question hey what can you guys do for us we can't do for ourselves their first answer was global distribution. And I'm like, well, that's kind of cool. I don't know that we could do that. You know, and something else happens when you kind of have a business that's up and running, you start to get a little, I always run paranoid, but you start to get a little more paranoid that I don't want to screw this up, man.

1:15:19I, we got something here. I, uh, maybe we should get out while the getting's good. You know, that was another feeling I had quite honestly. Yeah. So you agreed to be acquired by them. Right. I mean, it's I think the outcome was probably great. It was undisclosed amount. But, you know, if you guys are doing between 20 and 30 in revenue, you can imagine what that acquisition price was. I imagine that in a sense it was a relief, right? Because here you are. I mean, you know, you didn't have – really didn't have money, a lot of money most of your life. And now you are – 2008, you must have been close to – maybe just a couple years after 50?

1:16:05Yeah, 52, 53. 52? Yeah. And for the first time in your life, you have this opportunity to actually have a significant amount of cash that probably can support you and your family for the rest of your life. Yeah. You know, it's a bittersweet decision. You know, first of all, you're selling your mother, you know. That. Right. Because that's right. Because she was the brand. She was the brand. Her likeness, her name. Her name. So it's like selling your child. And that's, you know, people think, oh, you got a bucket of money for it. But, you know, that was hard. We grew that brand from nothing. And that was the whole fun of it for me was building a brand.

1:16:53And so when you sold the business, you stayed on. You agreed to stay on. I'm sure you wanted to stay on too. And Pam Helms, who's your chemist and who joined you, she also stayed on. Oh, yeah. She's still with them. Yeah. She's still with SC Johnson. Yep. Amazing. You stay on. And what was your job? I stayed the CEO. Yeah. And I just saw my future as death by PowerPoint. You know, I just thought I am a creative idea person. I, you know, and I just thought somebody else needs to come in here and run this, you know. And as my brother once said to me, Monica, you don't have the keys to the car anymore.

1:17:34And so you have to kind of accept that's your new role. And I fulfilled my contract and left the company. They also acquired Caldria? Yes, they acquired everything. Everything. So you leave and you still have the itch and now you've got your own money. So you don't have to beg and plead with other people for their money if you want, if you didn't want to. you had money to start something new. Yeah. And you decide, hey, I want to get back into the game. Guy, I should have just stayed home. What was I thinking? I don't think so. No, I don't think so. I mean, listen, it makes sense. You don't want to just sit around and let your brain cells die.

1:18:21No, you don't want brain rot. You've got to keep firing those synapses, right? Yeah. Oh, no, for sure. So you come up with a new idea. So I have a new idea. And it really comes from staying home for about a year. You're staying home. I'm bored out of my mind. You're bored out of your mind. I got gas in my tank. So I grew up in a family of seamstresses. My sister was a fashion, she grew up in fashion. My mother made all of our clothes. My grandmother made all their clothes. So I have a long history of making clothes. So I have this idea that, God, you know, lingerie and sleepwear for older women my age in their 50s is terrible.

1:18:58It's either the Victoria's Secret junk or flannel. And why can't you have somewhere in between and have it out of gorgeous fabrics? Like silk? Yeah, gorgeous Swiss cottons. So I thought, I'm going to do some research. So I do some research. I go to a couple of trade shows in Europe, look at fabrics. And I thought, I'm just going to start a small line of luxury sleepwear, caftans. Pajamas, luxury pajamas. Yeah. And this was before, you know, somebody said to me after they saw the line, they said, Monica, you were two years ahead of Instagram. Had you just waited two years Instagram, this would have worked.

1:19:40But social media wasn't there for a fashion brand. So I had a couple of employees. I had a pattern maker. And we manufactured our goods in New York. And I set a revenue goal for myself. And I set a cash flow goal. And I set an investment goal. And I said, if I don't make this revenue, I'm not going to spend any more money on this brand. I'm just going to shut it down. How much money were you willing to put into it? A million dollars. Okay. And by the way, anybody listening, you can Google Sophia Graydon. I don't know if you want people to do it. But it's interesting because you can see pictures of what this looked like.

1:20:17Yeah, it was beautiful. It's really nice, well-made pajamas, robes. Yeah. Right. So I got into it and I realized, oh, my God, this is going to take like$10 million. This is, you know, once I saw how you have to bring in fabric and the different sizing, you know, I just. And you were buying expensive fabric. Yeah. This is not like just like mass produced in a factory in Chengdu. No, they were Swiss cottons. They were French silks. It was, yeah, no, it was, it was beautiful things. And I wanted to have it all made here in the United States. And, you know, we had great reception. We had great, again, I hired a PR firm out of New York to promote the product, but I could see how expensive it was going to be.

1:21:00And honestly, I did not want to go out and raise a bucket of money. I just thought I've been through this. It's so hard. So I got to my revenue goal or short of it. And I got to my cash flow goal and I said, it's, we're done.

1:21:18And I learned a lot. And I also learned, you know, before you proceed in another startup, we're not going to do that again. Okay. That was what I finally said. I think my startup days are over. Did you love, did you love this idea? The pajamas, the, I mean, did you like really love I loved it, but I didn't really love it. I didn't love it as much as Mrs. Myers. And the thing with Mrs. Myers, I could see it in my mind. I could see the end cap from day one when I stood over that pathetic palette in Atlanta. When I first had the idea, it just, boom, came to me. And I was obsessed. I didn't have that same obsession.

1:22:00It was kind of a whim. And a whim never makes a business. And I know better. I know better. So that ends. Meantime, Mrs. Myers is growing like wild. Because it reminds me of an episode we did a couple months ago about Barefoot Wines. I think it's the best-selling wine brand in the world. And the year before Gallo bought it from the founders, I think they did like 400 ,000 or 500 ,000 cases. The next year, Gallo produced like four million cases. Wow. Like that's how quickly they could scale this brand over like it just they acquire it. Boom. And now it's the best selling one of maybe the five, two or three best selling wines in the world.

1:22:52And I think there's a similar parallel with Mrs. Myers, right? Like they, S.C. Johnson was able to basically with a snap of their fingers, put it in every Walmart, every Target, like everywhere. And that was the attraction to selling to them. I thought, they can do what we can't do. So did you, I mean, after that ended, after your time building that brand ended, did you just shut it out of your life or did you continue to follow what they were doing? I continued to follow. And, you know, to this day, I go into a store and I straighten out the bottles on the shelf. I mean, I'm always counting. I'm always like looking behind and pulling up product, you know, if it's not.

1:23:30I can't help myself. And my girls do it. They were in high school with their friends. They used to pay them a couple, like$10. Go and get all the shelf, pull up the product from behind the shelf. And they said, Mom, I still straighten out the product on the shelf. He said, can't help yourself. It's like you're children. You got to make sure they look good. Can I make a confession to you? Please. I do that with my book, one of my bookstores. Yes. They take it out and I put it front facing. So it looks like the bookshop. Absolutely. So if you ever see my book front facing, you know that I was probably in that bookstore.

1:24:07Don't be ashamed, guy. I do it all the time.

1:24:12So I get it. All right. So you and once you were done with that second business, Sophia Graydon, which really was your third business, right? Yeah. Did you think, all right, I'm done with starting businesses now? No, I didn't think I'm done. I just thought, you know, once you've built a Mrs. Myers business, it's hard to settle for a little business. You know, you think if I'm going to do this, I'm going to go big, baby. I'm going to be bold, competitive. It's going to be another product category, not a product item business. And I haven't seen that yet. Yeah. You know, that's probably why I haven't gone after it.

1:24:51Tell me what you started to devote your time and your energy to. Because you're obviously, you're super vibrant. You're super energetic. I mean, just talking to you over the course of this interview, I mean, you're very talented. You've got a lot of ideas. And so what have you, how have you been keeping yourself energized? Well, I've been on a lot of boards of consumer product companies. And I've also been an investor in a couple startups. And I've learned one big lesson with that. I'm a far better entrepreneur than I am an investor. Most, by the way, 95 % of entrepreneurs are better entrepreneurs than investors.

1:25:30So I'm not doing that anymore. Yeah. I like to think I'm a quick study, but sometimes not. Yeah. And, you know, in terms of like just looking at these brands, right, that you built and they're, you know, obviously Mrs. Myers is a huge brand. Your mom is still around. Yeah. But you really are. I mean, you created this brand. Yeah. And when you think about the journey you took and how you built this business, this brand, and then had a successful exit, how much of this do you attribute to the work you put in the grind and how much you think had to do with luck? You know, I always said I was never the smartest person in the room, but I could outwork anyone.

1:26:13I worked my tail off to make this happen, but I'm also a big believer in if a little ladybug comes on your shoulder, it's a sign of good luck. And when that happens, you better run. It means it's go time. Yeah. Just to get back to your mom for a second, does she still work as a mascot for the brand? Like when S.C. Johnson bought you out, did she still show up to pitch the product? Oh, she still did work for them. In fact, she did the Rose Bowl parade with them. She still made some appearances. But, you know, let's be real. At the same time, my mother's aging. You know, she's 92. She's still super healthy.

1:26:58But, you know, that's not a gig she can keep up anymore. You know, but I'm telling you, she had a garage sale this summer. and she wanted to know if she could put on her outfit and hand out samples. I mean, she still tells everybody that she sits next to on a plane who she is. Yeah. And they love her for it. That's Monica Nassif, founder of Kaldria and Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day Products. Is the five-second rule real? If you drop something, I mean, you know, you're a cleaning expert. If you drop something within five seconds, can you still eat that Twinkie? or what, like, let's say it's something very absorbent, like a...

1:27:37Like Julia Child did with the roast, like just drop the roast. Yeah. You know, I don't know. I'd have to ask Pam, the chemist. But, you know, as Julia Child said, there's no one in my kitchen. Is there anyone in your kitchen? She picked up the roast and continued to cook. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show. And if you're interested in insights, ideas, and lessons from some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs, please sign up for my newsletter at GuyRoz.com or on Substack.

1:28:11This episode was produced by Kerry Thompson with music composed by Ramtina Rablui. It was edited by Neva Grant with research help from Carla Estevez. Our engineers were Patrick Murray and Jimmy Keely. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, JC Howard, Catherine Seifer, Chris Messini, Sam Paulson, John Isabella, and Elaine Coates. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.

1:29:00dot com slash survey. No one knows your business better than you. So who better to create your website than, well, you? Wix's website builder puts it all in your hands. Create a beautiful website just by talking with AI or choosing from thousands of templates. Customize every detail with simple drag and drop tools and get everything you need to start running business your way. Build more, think bigger, and do it all yourself on Wix.