My First Million: Greatest Hits #2 - How to Build a $100 Million Deodorant Business Starting With Only $1,000

Hubspot Podcast Network Hubspot Podcast Network 5/10/21 - 9m - PDF Transcript

All right.

Quick break to tell you about another podcast that we're interested in right now, HubSpot

just launched a Shark Tank rewatch podcast called Another Bite.

Every week, the hosts relive the latest and greatest pitches from Shark Tank, from Squatty

Potty to the Mench on a Bench to Ring Doorbell, and they break down why these pitches were

winners or losers, and each company's go-to-market strategy, branding, pricing, valuation, everything.

Basically all the things you want to know about how to survive the tank and scale your

company on your own.

If you want to give it a listen, you can find Another Bite on whatever podcast app

you listen to, like Apple or Spotify or whatever you're using right now.

All right.

Back to the show.

All right.

What's happening?

This is another edition of My First Million Greatest Hits where we look back at some of

the past episodes and do some call-outs of my favorite parts and explain to you why they're

interesting and, well, you'll understand in a second.

But this episode, Sean actually said it's his favorite episode of all time.

Last week, we just did one with Sully Alley, so Sully Alley, if you go through your Spotify

or iTunes feed, you'll see the Sully Alley one.

He started and sold this company for $100 million, and it was really great.

Awesome guy.

I love him.

I know him.

I think he's great.

But this episode is actually with his brother, his younger brother, probably three years

younger, and he sold his company for $100 million, except this company, sorry, Sully,

is more impressive, and it's more impressive because he sold it for $100 million with zero

money raised, so he, well, they actually ended up, they raised like $400,000 like weeks or

months or something like that before they sold, but basically he started the company

when he was in his early 30s for like $1,000, and in only two and a half years, he scaled

to a $30 million run rate, and then he sold the company for $100 million in cash to Procter

and Gamble, and he did that all in two and a half years, and I was actually with him.

So Moise and I, we actually shared an office when we, when he started the company.

It was like a really small space called Founders Dojo, and if you look up like Sampar Founders

Dojo, you'll see an article in a video I made on that spot, but it was basically like eight

of us working out of a small office, and Moise was tinkering at first, he was like, maybe

I'll sell mattresses, maybe I'll sell, I forget what he wanted to sell, and somehow he came

across, you know, maybe Deodorant would be cool, and so we started this company called

Native Deodorant, and he didn't know really much about anything, and in the podcast he

goes, I don't know anything about Deodorant, and all the critics were like, why are you

launching this?

You nothing about Deodorant, you don't know what you're doing, and he goes, you're right,

I don't, but in six months, I'm going to be an expert on this, and I'm going to know

more than all of you combined, and this is him talking to people saying like, what are

you an idiot?

Don't get into Deodorant, that's, that's silly.

We know what we're doing, you don't stay away, and so anyway, it's a great episode,

and the reason why this episode is great is for actually two different reasons, one, Moise

is in a, this is like a compliment, but he's kind of unhinged, he's kind of a nutcase,

and you're going to hear that, not necessarily in a bad way, but he basically says who doubted

him, and he like even names names, but he'll say who his fulfillment centers were, and

who his early manufacturers are.

This is like a question that a lot of people say, it's like, hey, I'm going to start this

company, who do I get to fulfill this product, who do I get to make it?

Well, he just actually says who it was, he goes, hey, I found this person on Etsy, and

he says their name, and I contacted them, and here's what I sent them.

He also gives away numbers, so he's like, on launch date, we got on product time, and

we actually made $1,000, but then for the next three weeks or something like that, we

made like a hundred bucks a day, and I was spending this much money on ads, and it wasn't

working, and see, he names all of it, and it's incredibly interesting, and he also will

say, yeah, these 14 people try to buy us, here's how I sold the company, and what I told

them, and what I wrote to them in the email, he gets very specific, so I think that's great.

Also what you're going to hear is, Moise is a fucking animal, like again, in a good way,

but he's pretty ruthless about, he's like, this is my goal, I'm going to get after it,

and he oozes with confidence, and I think that has always worn off on me whenever I hang

out with him, and yet in this podcast, you'll say, when this thing happened, I thought,

this is over, I'm quitting, I'm out, I can't do this, and so it's kind of fun to hear,

maybe fun's not the right word, but it's kind of, I don't know, helpful to hear people

who you look up to and think are the best, and these incredibly confident people have

doubts, you know, it's helpful to know that everyone has that, and so I think you're really

going to like this episode, it's pretty amazing, so this is Moise Ali, he started and sold

the company called Native Deodorant in two and a half years, or $100 million, and just

so you know, here's a few of my favorite parts, at minute 10, he talks about getting

his first testing bits of deodorant, so his first sticks of deodorant to test, and how

he found them on Etsy, at number minute 12, he talks about the first few days of sales

and how they got their first $1,000 in sales, and then what happened after that, at 20,

he talks about the emotions of winning, and how he felt on top of the world, but then

hour by hour, it changes from like, oh no, I can't do X, I'm going to quit, this sucks,

and then the next hour, oh, I can get this done, I can do this, oh, the next hour, oh,

this is done, I'm over, it's pretty interesting.

And then in minute 43, he talks about selling the company, he goes incredible depth about

what it took to sell the company and the process, and I actually listened to this when I was

selling my company, and kind of learned how to do it, minute 49, he talks about the way

he strategically placed his company to get bought, so he said like, you know, if we're

doing this amount of money on revenue online, what would happen if you plugged us into Target,

which you guys are experts at, you know, the outcome could be much bigger, and that's actually

how we used to sell.

And then at minute 56, for the next 20 minutes, he goes unhinged, and he talks about the people

who doubted him, and he names names, and we actually had to go back and bleep this out.

It's pretty amazing.

So anyway, give this podcast a listen.

I think you guys are really going to like it, and make sure to on Spotify, click follow,

and then on iTunes, click subscribe to this podcast, because we're going to be releasing

about four or five more of these, and then we're actually going to do a few other special

edition episodes that you're going to have to keep your eyes out on, or keep your ears

open for, and it may not be every week.

It may not be every day.

It could be three a week, and then zero for the next two weeks.

It all depends on, you know, we got to go back in time and actually listen to all these

episodes and make sure that they're good and find the gem.

So click subscribe, click follow, and enjoy the episode.

I feel like I can rule the world.

I know I could be what I want to put my all in it like a day's on.

At some point we tried to raise more money, and the investor was like, the entire natural

deodorant industry is something like $30 million a year.

So why would anyone be interested in investing in a category that only has $30 million a year

run rates?

And I was like, if the natural deodorant industry is $30 million a year, we're the entire natural

deodorant industry.

We're doing $30 million a year at this point.

Okay, I got to say it, this was my favorite episode of the podcast.

What you're about to hear is a episode I just recorded with Moise Ali.

He is the founder of Native Deodorant, which is a natural deodorant brand.

It's basically a $12 stick of deodorant.

My wife just bought it.

She doesn't know that I know Moise.

She bought it because she didn't want to use deodorant that had aluminum in it, parabens,

all kinds of funky chemicals that you see on the back of a deodorant stick.

So this is the story of how he started it from his brother's dining room table, essentially

where he was doing the packaging, he was doing the sales, the marketing, the customer service

as a one man show for a very, very long time.

And over two and a half years, he built this company raising very, very little money, mostly

because investors were kind of just laughing him out of the room, like, okay, you're starting

a deodorant company?

Like what is that?

And so he sold it two and a half years later to Proctor and Gamble for $100 million.

I liked this episode, not just because the story is great and the tactics that he shared

are actually quite insightful, but because he's a very entertaining guy, very charismatic.

In fact, there's a portion at the end of the episode where he is talking about how some

people who didn't believe in him and he names some names that we had to bleep out.

So we left the story in, but we had to bleep out the names, which is a podcast first.

But I think you guys are going to love this episode.

Let me know what you think.

As always, you can tweet at me, I'm at SeanVP or email me puri.Sean at gmail.com.

Love to hear from you guys.

All right.

That's it.

Native deodorant, you build a deodorant brand of all things.

You build it from scratch, from a dining room table.

You build a actually good enough business where Proctor and Gamble, one of the biggest

companies in the world, looks.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.

Shaan (@ShaanVP) talks to entrepreneur Moiz Ali (@moizali) on today's episode. Have you ever looked at the back of your deodorant stick and read the ingredients? Aluminum zirconium trichlorohydrex? PPG-14 Butyl Ether? Well, Moiz saw that and created Native, a natural deodorant without all the chemical junk. He built the company from his brother's dining table - doing sales, marketing, operations & customer service as a one-man-show. His hard work paid off, as he sold the company for $100M to Proctor & Gamble just 2.5 years after it launched. Listen in to hear the backstory of how he started using just $1k, how the company almost died (twice), and how he negotiated a $100M sale of the business! 
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Show notes:
*12:40 - How Moiz got his first product made and first few sales
*21:00 - The highs and lows of entrepreneurship
*27:40 - How to iterate quickly with a physical product
*32:55 - Shaan rapid fires questions at Moiz to understand his mindset and business at the time
*46:33 - How Moiz sold Native
*58:30 - Moiz talks about his doubters and how it fueled him