How I Built This with Guy Raz - Advice Line with Holly Thaggard of Supergoop!

Episode Date: August 15, 2024

Supergoop! founder Holly Thaggard joins Guy on the Advice Line, where they answer questions from three founders about finding the right audience and introducing their brands.Today, we meet Christina, the founder of a Cincinnati cookie business who is trying to bake her business to the next level. Then Philadelphia-based engineer Andy introduces a shaving product he developed with his Navy bunkmate while they were deployed. And Erin in Illinois, who wants to make water sports safer with a  life jacket upgrade.If you’d like to be featured on a future Advice Line episode, leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and a specific question you’d like answered. Send a voice memo to [e-mail] or call 1-800-433-1298.And be sure to listen to Holly tell the story of how Supergoop! was founded from her first visit to the show back in 2020.This episode was produced by J.C. Howard with music by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by John Isabella. Our audio engineer was Gilly Moon.You can follow HIBT on Twitter & Instagram and sign up for Guy's free newsletter at guyraz.com.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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made it feel less like a visit and more like we were actually living there. Plus, taking a trip is the perfect time to host your space on Airbnb. Your place with all of its personal touches and its amazing location could make someone else's vacation even better. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca.com slash host. Hello and welcome to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges. Each week, I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show, who will attempt with me to help you. 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 H-I-B-T at ID.1.1.3. 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 guyraise.com. We'll put all this info in the podcast description. All right, let's get to it. Joining me this week is Holly Thaggart. She's the founder of Super Goop, 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 on to the show back in 2020's

great episode, of course, to tell the story of how you created Super Goop. And one of the really big challenges that you faced early on was explaining this product of people. You were trying to make the case that people should wear sunscreen every day, like they brush their teeth, that, you know, that it wasn't something you should only use at the beach. And by the way, since that episode aired. I wanted to thank you for that because I were sunblock on my face and 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, you know, your brand Supergroup does hundreds of millions of dollars in sales over a year. You're still the company's chairman. And we're going to be talking to a few founders today who are trying to, you know, enter new and niche markets and trying to figure out how. How do you explain the product to people when they're not, you know, fully aware of how to use it?

So, you know, we talk about, we think about Supergroup 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 they're huge, you know, 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 as 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 out of 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. And 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 kindergartner 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. We're up to, I think, 26 states that now allow SPF in schools for the reason of protecting our youth skin, 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 had just finished college to do this. And looking back, I'm so grateful for not being offered that contract because I am 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 take our first call. Oh, great. I'm so excited. All right. Caller 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 task and ensure that the business operates independently and efficiently allowing us to focus on expanding our brand. And when is it a good time to find a mentor?

All right. Awesome. Well, thank you for calling and welcome to the show. Thank you. First of all, tell us about how you got into the cookie business. Yes, so 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 just 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 an 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. 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 in 2019.

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 you a cookie at Kroger, which is based in. in Cincinnati, which is a good, Cincinnati's a great market to be in for obvious reasons. Like Kroger's there, P&G 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, reflects the demographics of the U.S. 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 feeling some growing pains for sure. Yeah. Do you have like, you talk about looking for mentors. or how to find them.

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. And 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 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 some somebody who worked at Procter & Gamble, who's retired, who worked in marketing and who still is in Cincinnati and who just kind of has time. Okay. I think that's a great idea, Guy, because 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. 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 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 we're 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 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 mentioned 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 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 am going to crush it on throwing cookie truck parties or what, you know, whatever those are. but 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 Kroger 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 Kroger. Because if that one Kroger 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, 5, 10, 15, 20 Kroger's, that's where you can really start to make the case to investors. Christina, you cannot afford not to succeed in Kroger. 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 L.A. 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 to plug our show, 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 Sinhard, who found it specialized bicycles, a completely different category. You're not on 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 do 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 employees. 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 seems obvious, but it 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. Christine, 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. 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 could be in a store or you could find 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. Minds you in the store.

Yeah. Holly, we're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, a water-conserving shaving shaving gadget designed by two former Navy engineers. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to the device line right here on how I built this lab. Hey, welcome back to the device line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. And my guest today is Holly Thagger, founder of Super Goop.

All right, Holly, let's get to our next caller. Hello, caller. Is this Andy? It's Andy Camp, yes. Andy, please introduce yourself, tell us where you're calling from, and briefly by your business. Sure. So my name is Anderson Camp. I'm calling from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I'm the co-founder of the Clean Shave Company. We got our start last year to develop and launch our product, the Razor Rinser. The Razor Rinser? Yes, sir.

So this is a, just briefly, this is a product that does wet. So it's essentially a big button set in a larger dish of water. You push down on that button with your razor head, and it shoots jets of water through your lake. 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. And it's totally standalone, self-powered. And what's your question for us today? Sure. So my question is, how do we explain the value of the razor rinser concisely and find our niche when, you know, so far we have three unique audiences who are passionate about our 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've got a clean glass. This is kind of that, that's a similar kind of concept, right? But with a shaver. Right, exactly. So it's the same concept except really built for multi-blade cartridge razors. So think of like Gillette or Harries or whatever you shave with it works with all of them.

And the other cool thing is your. you're generating the power. So that device, you know, the glass rinser relies on the water pressure in your house. This relies on the force of you pushing down with your razor 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 used? Less than four ounces. I shave for, two weeks with one Naugian 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 one of those fogless mirrors. But that takes time, right? And so I'm in the shower and the water's going. So the idea with something like this is you don't need to use the sink at all. Right. Yeah.

And part of the inspiration for this was just trying to dish lodge the stuff from between those razor blades. Sometimes they're really close 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, and we're kind of hinting at part of my question here 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 you 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 push-button timeout flossets where you could only run 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 a 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 rinser. So you're, I'm assuming you're an engineer by training. Yes, I get a trained 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 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 in your episode with Christian from I love it. I love it.

I was... The Oonnie Pizza ovens. Exactly. Start on Kickstarter, yeah. 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 did you raise? We raised almost $70,000. Our goal was $10,000, which we hit in two days. So we were blown away by the Kickstarter. It was great.

Amazing. Congratulations. Well, congratulations. Yeah, congrats 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 where maybe you're on Zoom calls where you need to be clean shaven, but you 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 body's 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 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, for stars, and I think the low-hanging fruit is like water conservation groups. You know, I grew up in Southern California, and when I was a kid, we were all encouraged to buy low-flow showerheads because I lived in, you know, in 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 showerheads you should buy. Here are the shaving flusher things you should buy, you know. So the other side to it is to look at some really interesting and innovative hotels, hotel brands.

Like, you know, you're in Philadelphia. That's your base? That's correct, yes. So I think they have one there, the graduate hotels chain, you know, Moxie, some of these kind of hipper hotel chains that are more attuned to water conservation, to environmental innovations. 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 environmentally 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 insert came with it. It would be amazing, right? And how much are they going to cost, by the way? So we're looking around $30 right now. So they were available on Kickstarter, you know, for the normal Kickstarter 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 is having big shaggy beards, like one of our producers, Casey Herman, who's a great, an amazing camper, and it has a big shaggy beard. But I do think that there is a – 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 gear for men. Oh, yeah. That are all very different that I always just like scan before holidays and that kind of thing. 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 that has a specific audience.

Right. 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 it's 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 you're, 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 bummer and snappy. You're like, we room together during our six month, probably deployment, right? And shaving was. a pain. And we solved the problem for us and for our, 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 know, like a, like a Wes 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 will 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

Andy Camp is the co-founder, Andy, good luck. Thank you guys, both so much for your time. I appreciate it. Thanks for calling in. That uncrate idea is kind of cool, right? You can imagine, like, hey, let me have my dram of whiskey and my Saco 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 taste maker site. So, but it's a cool product. He's going to have to, Holly, he's going to down the road, they're going to have to create a product line. You can't, right, you can't build a business on just this one niche product. They're going to have to think of their brand as 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 there's like signs. 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 going to use the sink here. We're going to 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 Raz.

And you're listening to the advice line on how I built this lab. Hey, welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. So today my guest is founder of Supergroup, Holly Thaggard, 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 advice line. Hi, Guy.

Hi, Holly. Thank you so much for having me. Hello. Hello. Well, please tell us your name, where you're calling from and a bit about your business. Yes, so my name is Aaron McLaughlin. I am calling from Hinsdale, Illinois. I am the founder and CEO of Flaggard, 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 sunscreen 20 years ago. But before we get to you, Aaron, just a couple of 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.

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 onto 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 or to rescuers. Got it.

Okay. How did this idea come about? So one day we were outboating with my six children and we were tubing and my daughter fell off of the tube and was almost hit by an oncoming boat. And so that, you know, highlighted the need to create something that would make children more visible in the water. And so you come up with this idea. And is that airbag kind of analogy fair? I mean, 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 put.

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. First of all, when did you create this? When did you start this business? 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, are you an engineer or did you find, did you sort of a concept or?

No, no, no. No, no. I'm not an engineer at all. I'm just a mother of six children. And I knew that, um, keeping our children safe and seen in the water was, um, a really big issue for me. And, um, 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 it. You had the concept and you found somebody who helped you design it. Yes. So I went through, 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 of flagr.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 the marinas. I attend boat 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, this should be like anything else. Like if you put the life jacket on, you're going to go water skiing. This thing should also be on, just like you put your swimsuit on.

Yes. All right, Holly Thaggard, we need you in this conversation now. Do you have patents on this? Yes, so Flaggart 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 believe Sunday much only happened at the beach. And so we still have a big job to do an education.

You're going to 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, they don't have a flag attached. So, you know, I mean, I think the good news is that you're 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. 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 prep or crave putting unseen sunscreen on. So when I look 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 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 bring in a copywriter to kind of shorten your taglines. I loved, I think you said, what was it, safe and seen. Yes, 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, which just weirdos did. Today, you're a complete weirdo if you don't wear a helmet. Yes, and also guy for bike riding. I never wore 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 on your website just a video of people having fun. Like the video is a people, you know, of somebody water skiing or tubing 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 idea is that it's not just about the flag.

It's about making you visible in the water. And there's so much cool stuff you could do around that with colors and designs. Might not even be a flag. Exactly. And you could so call a flag guard. What would you mean by then? When you look at the mountains skiing, children don't have just a plain helmet on. They have crazy helmets.

They have crazy things going on. 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 bobbing 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, you want to be bright. It's like, it's like running, right? Again, running. 20 years ago, people would 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, I think when people go running, they're like, okay, I don't want to die tonight. They're just like, I want to be smart and be seen, you know, and visible. Obviously, they don't 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 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'Neill or whoever the leading life jacket brand is. Or maybe it's a flagguard 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 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 work with your local state representative, right, 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 water ski have to have a device like this attached to them for visibility.

I don't know. Maybe something like that you create like a regulation that's a requirement and then boom. You use that award 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, Holly, you were saying about a scary vibe, could lose people. Just make it playful. I looked at a few of your Instagram posts, and they're very, I was your mom. And they're just very scary.

You know, this is an amazing thing that you can like make fun and playful. I think I love the safe and scene, but say it joyfully. And I know it was a scary experience for you, but like this is exciting. created innovation that doesn't exist. So let's make everything more exciting and fun. Okay. Great. After all, this is the kids' ticket to getting outside and riding 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 and the

backdoor 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. Erin McLaughlin, thank you so much. The brand is called Flaggard. Thank you for calling in. Good luck. It's such a cool product. And we're cheering you on. 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 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 surfboard kicks back up. 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 going to look back and be like, people

didn't wear helmets surfing. It's like skiing. Yeah. We're going to think of those tanning beds as like torture chambers. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. They're a bad. A lot of women have.

And I think that fast forward, 25, 30 years. And people are really going to 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 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 we've had on the show. But hopefully some of this advice will be helpful. You know, I mean, hopefully we'll find out. We'll follow up with them. We'll follow up.

And, you know, they're at a very fun. stage in their brand. And 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, what I always say, and our regular listeners have heard me say a version of this, is that there are no shortcuts in starting a business. The only shortcut is in learning from the 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 we just heard from, you know, one of our callers who actually heard it

got an idea, right, that they heard about this Kickstarter that Uni 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 Thaggard 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 trust your gut and find the help you need. This is all advice I had, though, growing up. And being the daughter of two entrepreneurs, 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 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 Super Goop. 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 out on your smartphone. But here's one of my favorite moments from that interview. I had created these sunscreen swipes, and apparently the swipes were a 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 gairoz.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 hibt at id.wondry.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 Jason Harry Howard with music composed by Rumtina Arablewee. 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 Seifer, Carrie Thompson, Carrie Thompson, Sam Paulson, and Neva Grant. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to the advice line on how I built this lab.