Very Real Talk About Launching A Startup

0:00From Entrepreneur Media, this is Problem Solvers, a show in which entrepreneurs do what entrepreneurs do best, solve unexpected problems in their business. We were completely wrong. And I'm just like, it's not selling. It was like, we have to start from scratch. I'm Jason Pfeiffer, the editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur Magazine.

0:22Here's what we're doing today. We're doing real talk. Real talk like... I still don't know if it was the right decision, quite honestly. And also... I think you have to be okay with rejection. I mean, I hate to make the comparison of dating because it's been like so long, but like you're going to get rejected. And these aren't just platitudes, by the way. These are current lived experiences from the guy whose voice you are hearing. I will introduce him in a moment. He is at the very early stages of a startup and experiencing all that stuff you experience. And he is willing to talk about it. Like, for example, how his wife feels about all this.

0:59I sit here and like lucky to be in that position to take some risks. But she is like, well, when the fuck are you going to start getting paid? Right. All right. So who are we hearing from here? This is Chris Mears. Yeah, my name is Chris Mears. I'm the co-founder of Wild Clean. Wild Clean is a new, innovative, eco-friendly cleaning brand that is launching on Kickstarter very soon. I'll tell you more about that in a moment. But the reason I wanted to talk to Chris today, the reason I wanted you to hear Chris is because Chris talks about business the way everyone should talk about business, which is to say that he's just really realistic about the challenges, about his own challenges.

1:41He is always super open about that. I've known Chris for years, and we've talked a lot of business. And I just, I love brainstorming sessions with him because he's just, he just wants to know what works. And he's also willing to tell you what he's done that It has absolutely not worked. And as he is embarking upon this new journey with Wild's Clean, I thought it would be a really wonderful moment to check in and talk about all the mistakes that he's made leading up to what is really functionally the launch of the brand, because even those early, early days are filled with so many challenges. And so you understand where Chris is coming from.

2:22This is not his first rodeo in any way. He has been around the startup scene a while. I've been in startups for about 20 years. I started my career off with a company called Bare Naked Granola, which ended up getting acquired by Kellogg's in 2007. Then I joined another startup pre-revenue called Evol Foods, love spelled backwards, frozen entrees and burritos, which ended up getting acquired by Boulder Brands in 2014. And then co-founded a chocolate business called Little Secrets, makes better for you, Kit Kats, M &Ms, Twix's, sold in Whole Foods nationally and then had a midlife crisis in 2020 and left the company I founded to start WildClean.

3:00I told you, he'll just tell you like it is. And so the reason he started WildClean is because he saw an opportunity where maybe others just saw a crowded space because he was looking at the eco-friendly cleaning product category and seeing a lot of brands who were just making big, kind of very easy to kick down the road kind of claims like, oh, we'll be carbon neutral by 2045 or plastic neutral by 2050 or whatever. And he's thinking, you know, there are a lot of people who are the experience that they have about climate change is anger. They're pissed off about it. And they don't want these brands that are feel good or just neutral or saying that they're going to do something later, he thought, no, maybe no kumbaya.

3:50Maybe instead, let's go for pissed off. Why not be a bold, fun, irreverent brand that's a little bit like poking the bear in the eye and still be this impact type business? So that's why Wild Clean was born. That's why Wild Clean is about cleaning the wild, but also in and of itself being wild. And you can see that in their branding, in their language, go to the website wildclean.com. You see unmuck the world, which is fun. Also, it tells you that it kills 99 % of apathy. And this right now is an important moment for Wild Clean. It depends on when you're listening to this. But if you're listening to this round when I am releasing this episode, then Wild Clean is launching on Kickstarter.

4:34And you can be a part of that at launch.wildclean.com. But so much has happened before this. There was a lot of trial and error about the product itself, which led to a lot of very hard lessons about what it takes to actually create something eco-friendly. Also, Chris decided to do a test launch of this brand in New Zealand. We will explain why and, well, whether or not that was actually wise. And there's more. Fundraising has been a real challenge. and Chris is just, he's going to lay it all out. We are going to talk to somebody at this very early moment in time where they are just getting something off the ground.

5:16Unique because oftentimes when someone's come onto problem solvers, it's because they've already solved a big problem in their business. They've already figured something out. Chris, he has figured some stuff out, but boy, they're early days. And I think that you will just get a lot of value out of hearing from Chris, talk about what navigating these early days are like and what some of the big challenges and unexpected trials have been. And maybe, just maybe, you will discover a great new cleaning product for your home. So that's what we're doing on this episode of Problem Solvers. It is Chris Mears talking about wild clean and everything that a very, very early stage founder has to deal with.

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6:43And with Instant Match, as soon as you sponsor a post, you get a short list of quality candidates whose resumes on Indeed match your job description, and you can invite them to apply right away. Indeed knows that when you're doing everything for your company, you can't afford to overspend on hiring. So visit indeed.com slash problem solvers to start hiring now. Go to indeed.com slash problem solvers. Indeed.com slash problem solvers. Terms and conditions apply. Cost per application pricing not available for everyone. Need to hire? You need Indeed. All right, we're back. So talking with this great entrepreneur I know named Chris Mears, who is launching a new brand called Wild Clean.

7:24And Chris said this was inspired in part by a major brand crush that he has on Liquid Death, because he saw this brand that turned something generally considered to be pretty boring, like water, into something that was fun and that people wanted to engage with. And that just captured people at an emotional level. And he thought, can't we do that with eco-friendly cleaning products too? We should be able to. And so Wild Clean was born. And now we're just going to jump into first some of where the brand comes from and some of those very, very early mistakes that were made. You're going to discover that it turns out creating something that is eco-friendly is much harder than it sounds.

8:11And we're going to talk about so much more. If you have ever thought about launching a business or if you just want some catharsis because someone else has gone through the craziness of the early stage too, then here we go. It all really kind of forms. Well, you know, it's 2020, right? So middle of COVID, we were still wiping down our groceries with whatever cleaning product. And totally useless. Totally useless. And I started hanging out with my neighbors who were both Kiwis. And that's when the birth of Wild Clean started. And when we started... Sorry, just for context here. So just so people understand, you live in Boulder, Colorado, and your neighbors are from New Zealand in Boulder, Colorado.

8:53Two of my neighbors were Kiwis, which is very strange. But I think like most people, I started hanging out with my neighbors more during COVID. So that's how kind of the business was formed. And we had a core value early on about planet first. So everything was, is this the best thing for the planet? And we started realizing as we went down this journey that that core value is really going to be challenged. And I'll give you a few examples on that. One is our spray bottles that are intended to be forever reusable bottles. We wanted to be made out of fishnets and ghost nets and actually come plastic from the ocean.

9:30That became incredibly difficult. Making bottles out of nylon versus HDPE, like we realized, and then all of a sudden we were going to have to buy tons of plastic that minimums were way out of our reach so we realized okay shoot okay that's not bad what's the next best step so that's when we went to recycle 100 recycle plastic then the other thing is we on our triggers for our pumps we were like okay we have to use 100 recycle plastic what we ended up finding is when we got samples the triggers would break in like a week using recycled plastic the virgin plastic is just stronger so it was like triggers the trigger being the the thing that you pull when you're trying to spray something from a bottle?

10:10Yeah. Like the part that your finger is on to pull back to spray something. Exactly. And the pump for hand soap. Yeah. So we're like, well, okay. So then we tried 50 % and it still was breaking. It was like, okay. And we went down to 25 % recycled plastic. And we had to just be honest with customers like, Hey, we tried and it failed. And then the second piece is making certified home compostable packaging for our sachets. So the way it works is we have a powder format that goes into a sachet that you dump into the bottle, you add water, you dissolve, and then you get the multipurpose glass cleaner, bathroom cleaner.

10:45The sachet, we were like, well, we don't want to sell single-use plastic, right? What is a sachet? Sorry, what do you call this? A package? Oh, yeah, like a little package. Okay, you're holding up a little packet. Packet. It looks like a little packet. It's like a very long finger. And inside of it is the powder that you would mix with water to turn into the cleaning solution. Okay. So the, so what you're calling a sachet is, but it's, it's sort of the packaging material of the little packet. Yeah. It's kind of like, if people are familiar with like liquid IV pour into their bottles, it's kind of similar package, so to speak.

11:19Okay. And we're like, well, we don't want to use cell singly plus. So we found a certified home compostable package in Australia that we brought all the way to the U S to package it. And we were like high-fiving like, Oh my God, We found a certified home compostable package. And then we started shipping the product and it was breaking down. And it was breaking down because we were shipping it in hot areas and that type of thing. And it was falling apart. And I've never felt more dumb when I called the film supplier in Australia. And I'm like, hey, our package is falling apart when it's exposed to high heat and humidity.

11:55And his response I'll never forget was, yeah, that's called composting. So it worked as advertised. It worked as advertised. So I was like, oh man. We went through like 20 different compostable suppliers. And this is where like, there's not a lot of education around it. Difference between home compost and industrial compost. And I think 50 % of the U.S. has access to industrial compost, but like Boulder has curbside compost bins, but that's very rare. And so we've had to go to industrial compost just to have better barrier properties, which is not ideal. Again, this is not a perfect scenario. But at the end of the day, we're not shipping water across the US.

12:38We're using forever bottles made from recycled bottles. And we partnered with a company called Repurpose Global, where every bottle we sell, we remove two. So we still feel like, again, when we started, I think your original question, we had these goals of just being this perfect company. You know what I mean? This perfect, sustainable company. And then we realized as we went, in order to have an actual business, you had to make some sacrifices. And now we're learning, okay, how do we do this in the right way? And so, and again, all these learnings were great. And this is a big reason why we ended up launching in New Zealand.

13:12Rich, co-founder, moved back to New Zealand. We're like, let's just get some good learnings in New Zealand and figure out what works, what doesn't work. And all these great learnings came from there. Yeah, so why New Zealand in particular? I mean, obviously, you've got the New Zealand connection with the co-founder. but why not just start the launch in America? Why do it in a different territory? I still don't know if it was the right decision, quite honestly. I mean, I think the thought was it's a small country. They're definitely more green leaning and Rich was going to be there. So it was a very controlled experiment, but it took a while and his freight was expensive because all the products made in the US.

13:52So it wasn't super, super ideal from that standpoint. So you were making everything here in the U.S. and then shipping it over to New Zealand for distribution. Minus a couple of things, minus boxes. But the powders were made in the U.S. The bottles and bottles are not cheap to ship, you know. So I think if I, I'm glad though, that some of these big mistakes were in New Zealand and not the U.S., that would have been a pretty big hurdle to get over. Because you're afraid of shaping consumer perception based on your mistakes. So at least if you're going to mess things up at the very beginning, do it in a smaller market where any reputational damage gets contained there.

14:33Is that what you mean? Yeah, I guess so. I think that's fair. You know, I think it's a toss up at this point, but I mean, I think, I think we've got, we know a lot more. I think we know a lot, not only about product learnings, but like messaging and marketing and what resonated with people, what sense people like sense such a big thing in this. We also learned efficacy is so important. Like we were screaming plastic negative and we're B Corp and we're toxin free. And then we did the survey and we realized that the most important thing to people is like, does it work? You know, it's such an obvious thing.

15:14It's like, okay, that's cool. But that is the work. So now we're, we have shifted a little bit of our messaging of like all those credentials are more of like the cherry on top, if that makes sense. And it's like, yeah, our shit still works. And we're just not selling you 90 % water, you know? Right. Right. I mean, this is, this is a important lesson that I think anybody who enters a mission oriented space ultimately discovers, which is that there are going to be some consumers out there for whom the mission by itself is the selling point. But it's hard to compete on that really because there are gonna be a lot of other brands that are gonna also be mission-oriented and that frankly are gonna talk in that like very mission-y way that you're defining yourself against.

16:02So if you're trying to reach a mission-oriented consumer and that's all they care about, they're gonna be fine going to the brands that are really preachy that you don't wanna be. And so it's gotta be something else where they feel good about the product because it achieves a mission that they support, but that ultimately, first and foremost, it hits some more immediate need of theirs, which is either just that the damn thing works really well, or like liquid death, that it speaks to some consumer desire they have to define themselves or have fun or have a thing that they just feel really good about or whatever.

16:36It reminds me, Chris, of a conversation I was having not long ago with the CMO of a commercial cleaning company. They come in and they clean offices. And their point of differentiation in the marketplace is that they use these eco-friendly products that I think they developed themselves. And the guy was struggling to figure out how to market, like improve their marketing. And I was talking to him with a group of people and somebody was like, well, what's the thing that actually drives your customer crazy and is the reason why they would switch cleaners to begin with? And he said, oh, well, the answer is that their previous cleaners didn't show up.

17:14So, right. Which is to say that like the thing that's actually driving the, the, like the consumption decision isn't eco-friendly cleaning, even though that's going to matter to people, but it's, it's really like, will the cleaner show up and clean? Because that matters more if you need your office clean. And so I was like, well, then clearly the way to do this is that you have to position yourself as being reliable first. And then the eco-friendly stuff comes second. So So it's like, you're reliable. You sold me on reliability. And oh, now this is the reason why I would pick one reliable brand over another is because then they're also doing this eco stuff.

17:48And I believe in that. So it's like, it becomes this, it becomes the, it like seals the deal, but it doesn't start the conversation, I guess. Yeah. I think it's, I think it's such a good point. And that's where like retention matters. Right. And that's what we talked about. Like for our brand, it's like, how do you gamify plastic removal in a fun way? almost take like the peloton model but like wow with wild clean i've helped remove like 50 pounds of plastic from the planet like that's awesome you know what i mean like like oh and i rank fifth in the u.s of like plastic removal like kind of create this fun retention model behind it to your point and again that becomes the reason to believe but they like it because it's like wow it smells great works great doesn't take up a lot of space in my house you know like the packets i like the bottles keep it like to your point keep it pretty simple and um yeah i think that's what gets me excited and just create fun marketing stuff like i'm excited to like poke big brands in the eye about their commitment to use recycled plastic by 2035 that type of stuff so all right you to recap identify this opportunity develop the product discover along the way that a lot of your very high and mighty goals could not be reached because they just literally weren't realistic.

19:13Like 100 % recycled plastic, breaks too easy, household compostable packaging will melt on the way to your consumer. And so there are things that you have to shift and change, but eventually you get to a place where the product is doing what you wanted to and people are digging it. So let's talk about some other unexpected challenges that you ran into, like, for example, fundraising for something like this, not easy. Yeah, no, it's, I mean, I think there's a lot of, a lot of elements to that in terms of fundraising, right? I think one is just what's happening in the world. I think direct consumer businesses have taken a hit the last, since post COVID world where it's like, okay, this isn't going to continually go up forever.

19:59So I would say that's kind of one challenge we faced. The second piece is private equity kind of sitting on the sidelines a little bit. And we just didn't have a huge proof of concept, right? Because we launched in a small country. And so for us, it's like, okay, I think we're just going to have to... We believe in this so much. It's like, you're going to have to ask from friends and family, which is never easy. But it's like, If you believe in it that much, you got to do what you got to do. So that was aspects. And it's always hard. But at the end of the day, it's like you present your friends and family.

20:35Hey, here's the opportunity. You want in? You want out? And it becomes a numbers game to me. Do you have any good learnings from that to share with people who are going to have to go through that themselves? What did you find either worked or just allowed you to make that approach, but not make it awkward? Yeah, it's really hard. I would say that investors, even if it's friends and family or private equity, they invest in opportunity and not need. Right. And I think that's a really important piece. And I think showing your belief and selling the vision is so important. I think at a very early stage, like, hey, here's where we're going.

21:18And getting people excited to be part of the journey, I think is exciting for family and friends. Like, do you want to be a part of this? I think you have to be okay with rejection. It's kind of, I mean, I hate to make the comparison of dating because it's been like so long, but like, you're going to get rejected and you're going to get people to say, oh, I hate your bottles. I think they're super ugly. They don't match my bathroom. Really? Friends and family? Friends and family are like, Chris, love you. Hate the bottles. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. My sister hates the bottles. She's like, it doesn't really match my bathroom aesthetics.

21:54I'm like, well, I'm your brother. But you have to listen to it too. It's like, okay, is that a trend? Is this something that we should look at? And some of those cases are true. And so I think being vulnerable here is important. It's like, hey, here's where we're at. And I think just stating facts, like I sent out an email to probably a few hundred friends and family. Here's our fundraising goal, 100K, we'll take checks of 5K, 10K, whatever it is. And just being presenting the opportunity. And you and you have just being very objective about it. That seems to work. And you're going to get people that believe in you.

22:28Yeah. Have you, do you carry around a list in your head of who's in, who's out? Does it impact? Oh, I definitely have a spreadsheet for sure. Like a, of course, of course. I mean, it becomes a full-time job in a way. Yeah. I also think that once you get a couple wins, I do think this for most entrepreneurs, you're like, okay, I get a couple of people, like it gets you kind of like addicted to winning. And then you're like, start reaching out more. And then sometimes you get rejected a couple of times and you're like, oh, I don't want to get rejected again. So you like maybe slow down your outreach, you know?

23:08So it's a real part of the process. So why did you decide Kickstarter was the right next move? I did a couple of reasons. One is I think state of the kind of where we are in terms of raising capital. I think two, we're such a mission driven brand that I do think we can get really loyal followers. And I think it just starts that flywheel. Getting a couple thousand customers like, wow, this is so cool. I really believe in this is really important to the brand and starting that community early. And then the second piece is it helps us raise money for inventory. We've got the website ready to go. We've got marketing ready to go, direct to consumer, kind of all ready to run.

23:52You know, it's just a matter of kind of getting some customers that believe in us. And I think that's going to be a big part of the brand is like, how do we bring people into the brand? and into believing in our mission in like a fun way. I think that's such an important piece to it. I have a friend who broke some kind of record for money raised for a shoe or something like that on Kickstarter. And so ever since people reach out to him all the time and they ask for advice and the he, so I asked him like, what are people asking? What's your advice? And he said, well, the number one piece of advice is that people will reach out to me like two days after they launched their Kickstarter and they haven't raised much money.

24:35And they're like, what should I do? What am I doing wrong? And his advice is you had to start this process many months before your Kickstarter went live. Like this is like, if you've already launched and you don't have a plan, then it's dead. So tell me what has happened in the lead up to the launch for the Kickstarter for you. Yeah, so I'm a big believer. I think I've now reached a point in my career where I just try to find people a lot smarter than me to help with this process. So we hired an agency called Russell Marketing that has all built a whole business around raising money through crowdfunding.

25:12So they have a crazy deep sell process. We did a whole validation study to see even if Kickstarter makes sense for our business where we tested driving customers to a website, tested pricing, tested all sorts of different things. So we had a whole validation study that we ran in the fall. That was super positive. And then we started the kickoff of a lead generation process to gather emails and gather interest middle of February. And our launch date for Kickstarter is April 11th. So yeah, it's about a couple of months, a couple of months ahead of the actual launch date, building that kind of community.

25:51Because you're right. I think you want a big group of people that on day one, it's like, I'm in. And then everyone, everything I've heard too, similar to you, that first 24 to 40 hours are just critical to the campaign. Right. So yeah, so this is not just you throw this up, because how do you, as a co-founder of a brand, think about the moment that Kickstarter is in the early life cycle of your brand? because Kickstarter is a all or nothing proposal. It is you raise this money that you set and you get the money or you don't. That's just the way the Kickstarter is programmed. But, you know, you are not building a brand where we either succeed on Kickstarter and the brand lives to see another day or whoops, this was all a terrible mistake.

26:42We should have never tried to develop this in the first place. So it must play a kind of complicated role in how you think of what comes next for the brand. I'm just curious how you thought through that. Like, you know, what is this moment for you? Is this a do or die moment? Is this a early validation moment? Is this just simply a matter of trying to propel the brand forward and leap over a couple steps that would have either maybe been able to happen if fundraising was easier in this economy or i don't know how do you think about it i would say i mean right now i think it does feel like i'm driving i don't know if it's a plane or a car train towards the edge of a cliff and seeing and hoping hoping it takes off from there so or doesn't kind of crash and crash and burn but i have thought through okay here's the minimum amount that we need to kind of raise to like launch launch the business and here's like a number where i'm like okay this is this is like super exciting we can invest more in marketing and that type of thing that said i am such a i'm i so deeply believe in the brand and the mission and it does get me up in the morning i'm just so excited to kind of like bring this out in the world that like i couldn't imagine a scenario where if we follow her on Kickstarter that I'm like, okay, next thing.