Dip founder Kate Assaraf joins Jet Bunditwong to discuss building a sustainable, purpose-driven haircare brand without relying on Amazon or fear-based marketing. Kate shares lessons on customer education, supporting independent retailers, conscious growth, environmental responsibility, and creating a company whose values shape every business decision.
Explore Dip:
https://dipalready.com/
Learn about the Surfrider Foundation:
https://www.surfrider.org/
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01:04 --> 01:07 learn more and get your free quote today. Hi, and welcome to The Personal Side
01:08 --> 01:11 of Business, where every business has a story. I'm your host, Jet Bundit. Well,
01:11 --> 01:15 today my guest is proving that you don't have to choose between profit and purpose.
01:15 --> 01:19 She's the founder and CEO of DIP, a haircare brand that's redefining what conscious
01:20 --> 01:24 buying can look like while helping independent woman-owned retailers thrive across
01:24 --> 01:27 the country. Welcome to the podcast, Kate Asareff. Hey, thanks for having
01:27 --> 01:30 me. Uh, Jet is the coolest name I've ever heard. Thank you.
01:31 --> 01:34 Thank you. So, tell us, how did we get here? Oh man. Well,
01:34 --> 01:37 for just for DIP, in general, I, it was built out of frustration. I was
01:38 --> 01:41 frustrated with the product boom of 2019
01:41 --> 01:45 into 2020 of sustainable brands that seemed to really,
01:45 --> 01:49 really capitalize on fear marketing and getting people to buy something
01:49 --> 01:53 for the betterment of the earth, this promise of a better earth. But a
01:53 --> 01:57 lot of those products were just plastic-free and they weren't
01:57 --> 02:00 like really focused on performance or making sure that,
02:00 --> 02:04 that, that end user Um, was excited and would be willing to
02:04 --> 02:08 repurchase that thing. And so I found that, you know,
02:08 --> 02:11 with DIP, I was like, I know I can make excellent haircare in bar form.
02:12 --> 02:16 I know I can make something that will drive like a real forward change,
02:16 --> 02:20 but, you know, like, I, I wanted to
02:20 --> 02:22 change the world in a way that was a little bit more subtle and a
02:23 --> 02:26 little less fearmongery. And so that's, that's how I got here. You know,
02:26 --> 02:30 when I was learning about you, I was trying to put together these pieces that
02:30 --> 02:33 you're not essentially trying to do a retail brand
02:34 --> 02:37 for haircare, which I think is difficult in itself because
02:37 --> 02:40 you're essentially having to prove a product over and over again,
02:41 --> 02:44 especially to women that want to have to use it literally every day,
02:44 --> 02:48 right? But you're now also trying to help
02:48 --> 02:52 the world, which is a huge task, I think, try to do it
02:52 --> 02:55 on its own and you try to do it with a retail product. And then
02:55 --> 02:59 you're also trying to work, specialize And work
02:59 --> 03:02 with local-owned salons and businesses and retailers
03:03 --> 03:06 to help them grow while you're growing at the same time. Was that
03:06 --> 03:10 all written out all at the same time, or you was just like,
03:10 --> 03:13 I'm just gonna work on one piece at a time first and then put 'em
03:13 --> 03:16 all together later? Well, in my previous life, I was in business
03:16 --> 03:19 and marketing strategy, so I, I saw a lot of what not
03:20 --> 03:23 to do and I saw a lot of what I didn't admire in business
03:23 --> 03:27 owners, I guess. And so what, what I wanted to do with Dip
03:27 --> 03:31 was I know that sustainability is a hard sell for people, especially when
03:31 --> 03:35 the economy is, you know, crunching down on our disposable
03:35 --> 03:39 income and everyone is, not everyone, but, but people are
03:40 --> 03:43 feeling the pinch of the economy right now. I wanted to kind
03:43 --> 03:47 of like create this system or this like network where,
03:47 --> 03:51 you know, my brand could thrive and through it, I could
03:52 --> 03:55 grow the business for sustainable stores around the country
03:56 --> 03:59 because I know that sustainability exists like in
03:59 --> 04:02 real life better than it does online. So there are these,
04:02 --> 04:05 there's this type of store called a refill store, zero waste store.
04:06 --> 04:10 And I knew that because I'm a customer in a store like
04:10 --> 04:14 that, like I refill as much as I can from food to like laundry detergent
04:15 --> 04:19 to spices, even bubble bath for my kids. Like, I refill because I don't want
04:19 --> 04:23 more packaging in the world. And so I, my goal was to get someone who
04:23 --> 04:27 was excited about our haircare into a refill store so that
04:27 --> 04:30 they can accidentally fall in love with the other products in the store.
04:30 --> 04:34 'Cause it's always kind of been bigger than shampoo and conditioner for me. And I
04:34 --> 04:37 think customers understand that. And so do, so does the network of
04:38 --> 04:43 stores. Yeah. Can you walk me through that experience
04:43 --> 04:47 of Were you door knocking? Were you going in or did you have a list
04:47 --> 04:50 of people that you, that you researched first and then you reached out to them
04:51 --> 04:53 and you went there? Could you walk us through that whole entire process?
04:55 --> 04:58 Yeah, you start with one, right? You start with one. You gotta get that
04:58 --> 05:01 first sale. You gotta get in, in the doors of that first one.
05:01 --> 05:05 Luckily for me, I was already a customer, so I had a relationship
05:05 --> 05:08 with a refill store owner and that network
05:08 --> 05:11 is pretty tight. So once your product starts to see success in one
05:12 --> 05:15 retailer, then it's easier to be bring that success or that, you know,
05:17 --> 05:19 kind of your own case study to another retailer and say, hey,
05:20 --> 05:23 this store's done really well. This is how we do it. We keep our stuff
05:23 --> 05:26 off of Amazon. We make it so that you can thrive and we
05:27 --> 05:31 don't undercut you online. Like we want, our goal is to
05:31 --> 05:34 watch you thrive so that sustainability becomes a bigger thing.
05:35 --> 05:38 And so I did door-to-door. I went,
05:38 --> 05:41 traveled all over the country. I found the refill stores, I called them.
05:41 --> 05:45 I did not email them. I called them all. Um, and you know,
05:45 --> 05:48 while everyone else was going digital, I went analog and it worked for me.
05:49 --> 05:52 And it's not that what I was doing was particularly that special.
05:52 --> 05:55 I, I saw that the success of Spanx and Sara Blakely,
05:56 --> 05:59 she literally went store to store and talked to people in real life. And I
06:00 --> 06:03 was like, that is actually something I can do, something I can do and something
06:03 --> 06:05 I can do well. And I, and that is how I grew it really.
06:05 --> 06:09 I, I knocked on doors and I said, if this isn't the best
06:09 --> 06:12 haircare, forget the fact that it's in a bar form. If it's not the best
06:12 --> 06:15 haircare you've ever tried. Then you don't need to call me back. But sometimes people
06:15 --> 06:18 would call me from their towel and be like, I want it for my store.
06:18 --> 06:22 Yeah. Cause I looked at the stores that you're located in. They're not, it's not
06:22 --> 06:26 like you're in the tri-state area, right? It's, you're all over
06:26 --> 06:30 the country. Were you doing that as a business, as a
06:30 --> 06:34 business travel, or would you like go on family vacations
06:34 --> 06:36 and be like, okay, while we're here, I'm going to look this up or both.
06:36 --> 06:40 Was it a combination of just wherever you went, I'm just going to knock on
06:40 --> 06:43 that door and have a conversation. Yeah. Okay. That's awesome. I have, for the past,
06:43 --> 06:46 I'd say 5 years, I've scheduled all trips,
06:46 --> 06:50 family vacations, everything around, is there a store there that I can approach?
06:51 --> 06:54 And that's one of the nice things about owning a company
06:54 --> 06:57 is that you can kind of, you know, work, if you work that into your
06:57 --> 07:00 marketing, you can work some of those business expenses in. Yeah.
07:00 --> 07:03 Into the, into your P&L. Um, but that like,
07:03 --> 07:06 yeah, I, I, and I've been to all sorts of places I would've never been
07:06 --> 07:10 before. Like I had no other reason to go to like, Cincinnati, but I went
07:11 --> 07:15 there. I love the refill store there. I love the owner, Rachel, in that particular
07:15 --> 07:18 store. You know, Virginia, like Richmond, Virginia, I have
07:19 --> 07:22 a store owner there, Erin of Eco Inspired. She is our
07:22 --> 07:26 number 2 retailer in the country. And I think a lot of that has
07:26 --> 07:28 to do with the fact that she and I now have a personal relationship where
07:29 --> 07:33 I went and bothered to go visit her in store and learn about her community
07:33 --> 07:36 and learn about her customers. And learn about her. And so,
07:37 --> 07:40 yeah, I, I actually really like it. There's so much of the country that is
07:41 --> 07:44 overlooked by brands, right? Because everyone's like focused on
07:44 --> 07:48 the coasts or the major cities, but most of the,
07:48 --> 07:52 most of the cool stuff in the United States happens in these smaller
07:53 --> 07:56 communities, I think. Yeah, I agree with you. I think, I think,
07:56 --> 07:59 you know, going back to what you were saying when you were in marketing,
07:59 --> 08:03 I'm sure they were just looking at how much the
08:03 --> 08:06 population, right? The big cities that we can just try to get a lot of
08:06 --> 08:09 it and then we'll figure out the rest and, and then we'll, we'll trickle
08:10 --> 08:13 in all those little other areas. When you, when you're looking to work with someone,
08:14 --> 08:17 are there certain criteria that you want as a partnership
08:18 --> 08:21 that are really important for you? Yeah. And the store and for
08:21 --> 08:25 store owners, the, the, I want someone to make
08:25 --> 08:28 sustainability feel like a party everyone's invited to.
08:28 --> 08:31 There's a lot of talk in sustainability of like who's allowed to
08:32 --> 08:36 participate and purity tests and all of these things. And I don't endorse
08:36 --> 08:41 that type of, I don't want to call it gatekeeping, but it's that type
08:41 --> 08:45 of sustainability that doesn't invite everyone. And I think that that
08:45 --> 08:48 is something that we see a lot digitally, but in real life,
08:48 --> 08:53 everyone's pretty cool and kind with one another. But there are
08:53 --> 08:56 some stores I have refused to sell in because of the way
08:57 --> 09:00 that they isolate certain customers. Yeah. And, you know, that was one
09:00 --> 09:04 of the questions I wanted to get to is you are,
09:04 --> 09:08 you're doing this without going into big brand stores.
09:08 --> 09:12 These are all just local small businesses that you're trying to help out there.
09:12 --> 09:16 Have you ever, has there come a moment that there was temptation
09:16 --> 09:19 to go into that direction and you had to really sit down with your husband
09:20 --> 09:23 and say, okay, we're, We're going to get away from what we, you know,
09:23 --> 09:26 our initial plan was. Was there any of those moments that
09:26 --> 09:29 happened? The only temptation I have as far as the big box is
09:29 --> 09:33 Costco because it makes, you know, our products last a long
09:33 --> 09:37 time and it, and it would make dip more accessible to families.
09:38 --> 09:41 You know, if there's no refill store, there's usually a Costco in
09:41 --> 09:45 that, in that area. So buying in bulk or buying, you know, that's, that is
09:45 --> 09:48 a sustainable move, whether it's in plastic or not, it's more sustainable to buy
09:48 --> 09:52 less packaging. But no, as far as like putting products on Amazon or
09:53 --> 09:57 doing any of these other things that would undercut our independent retailers,
09:57 --> 10:00 I don't, I don't have that temptation because I know them as humans.
10:01 --> 10:04 Like I, for example, like our conditioner lasts so long that,
10:05 --> 10:09 so it lasts about a year for most people. So if someone decided
10:10 --> 10:13 to make a purchase of our conditioner bar, like, so they bought the
10:13 --> 10:16 first one at the store and then saw it on Amazon after a year,
10:16 --> 10:20 bought their second bar on Amazon, that store now misses
10:20 --> 10:23 2 years of that person coming back. So I don't want
10:24 --> 10:27 that. That's not ideal for me. My, the mission is actually true. Like I want
10:27 --> 10:31 people to go into these sustainable stores and refill their hand soap,
10:31 --> 10:35 refill, whatever, like just to do the small things. It does
10:35 --> 10:38 feel good. And I'm not asking people to make like overhaul their entire lives and
10:39 --> 10:42 not shop on Amazon. That's ridiculous. I just want people to make like You know,
10:43 --> 10:46 you can make 3 to 5 changes in your, in your household. And that,
10:46 --> 10:50 that can make a big difference also to your wallet. Like there's, there's plenty
10:50 --> 10:54 of swaps that are really kind on your, on your bank account. Yeah.
10:54 --> 10:57 That's another point that you brought up that you're doing this to try
10:58 --> 11:02 to not have the customer purchase so many products
11:02 --> 11:07 from you. And it said you're essentially doing, you're going against the grain in almost
11:07 --> 11:11 every aspect of a CBG product that I,
11:12 --> 11:15 the more I learned about this, I was like, this is incredible.
11:15 --> 11:19 It's almost like, it's almost like you're, you're the, the 5-foot
11:19 --> 11:23 guard that made it to the NBA and you, you're able to now win
11:24 --> 11:27 a championship. It's literally like that sense. And I mean,
11:27 --> 11:30 do you, do you, do you ever sit down and start to realize that about
11:30 --> 11:34 what you're doing as a business that you literally have, you're going against everything.
11:34 --> 11:38 You're going to every, and, and it's successful. I, I, I do think there's
11:39 --> 11:42 some sort of weird deep-rooted problem with authority. Like, I don't know
11:42 --> 11:46 what it, what it is. Yeah. Yeah. I, my mom was like really a rebellious
11:46 --> 11:50 eccentric person and she, you know, always told me to march to the beat of
11:50 --> 11:53 my own drum. And I think she may have, I, I think I may have
11:53 --> 11:55 marched a little too close to the sun, but it has, it's working.
11:56 --> 11:59 It's working. And I think the thing that really sticks with our customers
12:00 --> 12:03 is that they know we are not bombarding them with ads. We've never
12:03 --> 12:06 actually had to run ads. We, we don't bombard 'em with ads.
12:06 --> 12:10 We don't bombard 'em with emails. We don't bombard 'em with sales.
12:10 --> 12:13 We don't bombard them. We let them be. Enjoy your haircare for
12:13 --> 12:16 as long as it lasts and come back when you're ready for another one.
12:16 --> 12:20 And I know that that gets under a lot of people like marketers' skin.
12:21 --> 12:24 And I revel in, I like enjoy it. I enjoy that it annoys.
12:25 --> 12:28 I enjoy that it makes customers happy and marketers pissed.
12:29 --> 12:32 Okay. My next question is, because you're doing it in such,
12:33 --> 12:36 in against the grain and in this sort of out-of-the-norm way,
12:37 --> 12:40 do you have to run the business accordingly to
12:40 --> 12:44 that? Is there something— because you've been marketing, you've, you've,
12:44 --> 12:48 you worked with beauty products for, for decades, right? Are you,
12:48 --> 12:51 are you having to, to plan accordingly and be like, we're going to
12:51 --> 12:55 have to do this a little bit differently because of the way, the style
12:55 --> 12:58 that we're doing it now? Sometimes, you know, what's, what's really beautiful about
12:59 --> 13:02 D.I.P. is that, you know, started with me for the first 18 months and then
13:02 --> 13:06 my team has grown. Now we are 7 people strong and the
13:06 --> 13:09 whole team is on board with what we're doing and how we're doing it.
13:09 --> 13:13 And we all kind of get a kick out of, out of the
13:14 --> 13:17 success of doing less, I guess, if that makes sense. You're like this rebellious
13:18 --> 13:20 group of like, uh, of, of retailers just going out there. We're gonna try to
13:21 --> 13:24 kick their ass, you know? Yeah. I, I don't know. It's like, it's kind of
13:24 --> 13:27 funny. Like we, I mean, for example, and we also like, we take a lot
13:27 --> 13:31 of pride in how the company is run and like, for example, uh, A woman,
13:31 --> 13:35 she used our shower rack incorrectly and it ended up falling
13:35 --> 13:38 off of her wall and destroying her brand new bathtub. It's a heavy thing.
13:38 --> 13:42 If it, if you don't use it correctly and stick it to the wall correctly,
13:42 --> 13:45 like it, it's how it put a hole in her bathtub. This is like a
13:45 --> 13:48 $50 shower rack. And then it caused, you know,
13:49 --> 13:52 I would be devastated. So I wrote to her because she wrote us a bad
13:52 --> 13:54 review and I didn't ask her to take down the review or anything, but I
13:54 --> 13:58 was like, I would be devastated if I bought something and it destroyed my bathtub,
13:58 --> 14:01 whether I did it incorrectly or not. So like, we're gonna find
14:01 --> 14:05 a couple quotes of plumbers in your area, see who can fix it, and we'll,
14:05 --> 14:09 we'll take care of it for you. And she was like so blown away.
14:09 --> 14:13 Like, and you know, what are you doing? What are you doing?
14:13 --> 14:17 This is crazy. It cost us $1 to
14:17 --> 14:21 fix it. And that's it. Yeah. It's not a fun bill
14:21 --> 14:24 to write, but that person I'm sure has,
14:24 --> 14:28 you know, 20 people that she knows in real life that she'll tell that story
14:29 --> 14:31 to. And I'm not telling a story for like, to pat myself on the back,
14:31 --> 14:34 but no, I totally get it. No, no one on the dip team was like,
14:35 --> 14:37 that's a stupid thing to do. Like, don't, you don't need to pay for that.
14:38 --> 14:41 Everyone was like, yeah, let's figure out, let's all, like my, you know, I have
14:41 --> 14:44 a human customer service person, Janet, who's amazing. And Janet was like,
14:44 --> 14:47 I'll call these 5 companies and see what we can get as quotes. And like,
14:47 --> 14:51 the customer didn't want the cheapest one to our dismay,
14:51 --> 14:54 but whatever's fine. We, we got her the expensive one that she wanted and she
14:55 --> 14:59 trusted. And like, I think When some, when a company does something that's so surprising,
14:59 --> 15:02 it, it builds its own like legendary status
15:03 --> 15:06 in, in, you know, in the, in that person's
15:06 --> 15:09 real life. Sure. 'Cause there are bigger companies,
15:09 --> 15:13 large corporations that would never do anything like that. Right. It's never,
15:13 --> 15:16 they'll just write something big. Hey, here's a $50 coupon for
15:16 --> 15:19 the next time you wanna purchase something from us. Yeah. I think to go above
15:20 --> 15:23 and beyond really speaks true to who you are and who you are as a
15:23 --> 15:27 company. Wouldn't You're, I mean, when you, when you guys are like having team
15:28 --> 15:31 meetings, what, what's, what's the thought process behind that too? As you're
15:32 --> 15:35 moving forward, are you, how far are you looking ahead for
15:35 --> 15:39 the sustainability side to, to be able to, to change?
15:39 --> 15:43 Essentially, you're trying to change the world and then also grow this
15:43 --> 15:47 company in a way that's so different in terms of marketing.
15:48 --> 15:51 What, what is it? What are you guys thinking the next 5, 10 years it's
15:52 --> 15:55 going to look like for, for DIP? For us, our challenge is always
15:55 --> 15:59 getting like a new store to trust us or
16:00 --> 16:02 a new salon to trust the brand that we do what we say we're going
16:02 --> 16:05 to do. I think that's, that's a big hurdle. I think a lot of small
16:05 --> 16:09 stores invest in, in indie brands and then watch that brand
16:10 --> 16:13 like kind of built their clout on their backs and then go to
16:13 --> 16:17 Amazon and big box. So you see You know, it's getting
16:17 --> 16:19 them to trust that we're not actually gonna do that. I mean, I could have
16:19 --> 16:23 been on Amazon a long time ago. I could have 10x'd my sales on Amazon.
16:23 --> 16:26 I, to be honest, like it would be much easier for me to do that
16:26 --> 16:30 than to sell individually to indie stores, but it wouldn't move the needle
16:31 --> 16:35 in what the bigger picture is, which is not only sustainability, but also keeping these
16:35 --> 16:39 spaces in communities alive. Like small stores are, it's,
16:39 --> 16:42 it's not like a, it's not like a nice to have. It's For
16:43 --> 16:46 me, it's like, it's what makes a town a town. Like I,
16:46 --> 16:49 I live in a town that has, and I specifically chose it cuz it has
16:49 --> 16:52 like the, a cute ice cream store, a candy shop.
16:52 --> 16:56 Like it has like an independent hardware store
16:56 --> 16:59 and, and we shop at those places because the
17:00 --> 17:03 people working there are members of the community. It's a, it's a, it's a bigger
17:03 --> 17:07 conversation than it is about selling, buying and selling. It's, it's about what
17:08 --> 17:11 it means to be in a community, what it means to watch
17:11 --> 17:15 businesses close left and right and what the aftermath of
17:15 --> 17:18 letting all the local businesses close actually look like. Like, what does it mean
17:18 --> 17:22 for your town? It's, it, it would be devastating. Yeah. I think,
17:22 --> 17:27 I think that's, that's even harder now to do what you're doing in an
17:27 --> 17:30 economic time like we are in 2026. You know, you and I
17:31 --> 17:34 talked about before the recording that it was, it's,
17:34 --> 17:38 it's really tough right now. Money is just not spreading out into
17:38 --> 17:42 the economy. So I think for where you were going against
17:43 --> 17:46 the grain with putting something out there that could sustain for, let's say, a whole
17:46 --> 17:50 entire year and not someone not having to buy that. That's probably now the
17:50 --> 17:54 moment that people are talking about your products because they're like, this is great.
17:54 --> 17:57 You can buy this. You probably don't have to buy it until the end of
17:58 --> 18:02 2027, you know? Right. Yeah. Yeah.
18:02 --> 18:05 It's, but you know, I have one of my store owners in New Jersey.
18:05 --> 18:09 She's in Summit, New Jersey. She sold over $200
18:09 --> 18:13 worth of dip, like in just one store. That's a lot
18:13 --> 18:17 of, that's a lot of money to pay her rent, to pay her employees
18:18 --> 18:20 so she's able to have a day off. Like all of these things are very
18:21 --> 18:24 important. That is the bigger— sustainability is just like not
18:25 --> 18:28 about only plastic. It's about behavior. It's about how
18:28 --> 18:32 you treat people, I guess. Like it's beyond just
18:32 --> 18:36 pollution. It's sustainability has to do with like the the human side of
18:37 --> 18:41 it. And I think that having like some capitalism with a hefty dose
18:41 --> 18:45 of like empathy is, is important. I think when you get into
18:45 --> 18:48 these digital hellscapes where you, where you can't
18:48 --> 18:52 return anything or you're motivated by fake reviews
18:52 --> 18:55 or all the UGC is from non-customers, like, I think
18:56 --> 19:00 that that's where you kind of lose the plot. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And could
19:00 --> 19:04 you explain, 'cause this is something that I wanna make sure we get into this
19:04 --> 19:07 episode. The moment that you started this in your
19:07 --> 19:11 house, in your kitchen, I'm assuming putting everything out there,
19:11 --> 19:14 dining room table, to figuring out how
19:14 --> 19:17 you're choosing the, I, I guess, ingredients to
19:17 --> 19:21 go into what it is you're, you're selling. Can you walk us
19:21 --> 19:24 through that, you know, in the next 5 minutes and, and explain that to
19:24 --> 19:28 us? Yeah. So first, when it comes to ingredients,
19:28 --> 19:32 so I, I have been in the beauty industry for 20 years. So it's coming
19:32 --> 19:35 into building a beauty brand. I had connections
19:35 --> 19:39 and I knew for me in particular, I knew the chemist I wanted to work
19:39 --> 19:42 with. He's someone that had been making luxury haircare
19:42 --> 19:46 for 40 years. 40 years is a lot of over like
19:46 --> 19:50 kind of having a bird's eye view of trends and ingredients and knowing what
19:51 --> 19:54 was worth it and what wasn't and what's trending and what's not trending. And so,
19:55 --> 19:58 and what's clean and not clean. He also was someone who's very heavily
19:58 --> 20:01 involved with, um, the cosmetic chemistry,
20:01 --> 20:05 like world and, and was always on the pulse of new
20:05 --> 20:08 ingredients as well as kind of knowing the tried and true ones. And so I
20:09 --> 20:11 told them, I was like, I want something. This is, these are the problems I'm
20:11 --> 20:15 trying to solve. One is I want a shampoo that's gentle enough to use every
20:15 --> 20:18 day because I run. I'm an endurance runner. I want to shower every day.
20:18 --> 20:21 I don't want to go through the hat. Well, I'm wearing a hat now,
20:21 --> 20:24 but like the hat, the bun, like not washing every day because
20:25 --> 20:27 I don't want, I don't want to disrupt my scalp. Right. So I want it
20:27 --> 20:31 to be used every day if possible. And the conditioner, and I wanted to
20:32 --> 20:35 just be gentle and the conditioner, I wanted it to satisfy all hair
20:35 --> 20:38 types and also be able to detangle my hair when I came out
20:39 --> 20:42 of surfing or came out of the pool or wherever. And so
20:42 --> 20:45 the big, having those 2 kind of, you know,
20:46 --> 20:49 the reasons why the products needed to exist helped narrow
20:50 --> 20:53 down how we formulated it. And actually for the all hair types piece of
20:54 --> 20:58 it, that was very, very challenging. Like it, We went through 40 iterations
20:58 --> 21:01 before it worked for someone with like fine, like fine blonde hair or,
21:02 --> 21:05 and someone that had like type 4, like kinky coily, like really tight
21:05 --> 21:08 curls. But that was, I mean, one of those can do both.
21:09 --> 21:12 Like you're saying a product can do both. Yeah. So my, my best
21:12 --> 21:16 friend, um, she's, she's half Black, half Italian,
21:17 --> 21:20 and she has 3 different curl patterns in her hair and in
21:20 --> 21:24 her family, like she has you know, 4 different hair
21:24 --> 21:28 types, right? Like there's, I wanted to imagine a family buying shampoo
21:28 --> 21:32 and conditioner. It doesn't make sense in bar form for them to have 4
21:32 --> 21:36 different sets of bars. There's no packaging. Like, how are you going to identify
21:36 --> 21:39 them all? Where are you going to store them? And so I think about,
21:40 --> 21:44 I built the company from the, from the perspective of family, like a
21:44 --> 21:47 fam, one family sharing a shower. Can they all use it?
21:48 --> 21:51 And if they can't all use the bars, then it's not a good product in
21:52 --> 21:55 my opinion, because I, I don't see, and not everyone wants to share bars.
21:55 --> 21:59 That's besides the point. Lots of families do, or couples
21:59 --> 22:02 or best friends or roommates, like they'll share the bars on their
22:02 --> 22:06 head. It's not, it's, it's, it's something that I didn't want people
22:06 --> 22:09 to have to buy multiples for the same household.
22:09 --> 22:13 Got it. And so when you found a chemist, you started working with
22:13 --> 22:16 them. You said you went through 40 of these to finally get to where you
22:16 --> 22:20 wanted to, to go. Yeah. How long did,
22:20 --> 22:23 how long did that process take? So when I say 40 of them, sometimes 5
22:24 --> 22:27 different versions would come at once. Okay. So it wasn't like, it wasn't like one
22:27 --> 22:30 at a time and I was sitting on a throne being like, bad.
22:30 --> 22:32 No, no. It was like they come, a bunch of them would come at once.
22:33 --> 22:36 And I, I'm very lucky to have a very diverse set of friends
22:37 --> 22:40 and family. And I put it, I had them all put it through the wringer.
22:40 --> 22:43 The part of the best part about living in New Jersey is people are very
22:43 --> 22:47 blunt and honest with you if they don't like something. You know? And so I
22:47 --> 22:50 just had them, you know, I had them critique the hell out of it
22:50 --> 22:54 until everyone was happy. And that was, that was,
22:54 --> 22:57 took a long time, but it was worth the effort. It was worth the effort.
22:57 --> 23:01 Yeah. It was worth pulling my hair out and my chemist pulling his hair out
23:01 --> 23:04 being like, oh, when is it gonna be the one? And once we came up
23:04 --> 23:07 with, with the, the one, the one formula,
23:07 --> 23:11 I knew that the next biggest part was making it smell amazing.
23:11 --> 23:14 And so I knew, I knew a lot about how people respond to different
23:15 --> 23:18 scents and the different categories of, of scents people are drawn
23:19 --> 23:22 to. So I tried to satisfy all, all scents, like,
23:22 --> 23:26 you know, in, in the development and, um, our custom scents are really,
23:26 --> 23:29 really beautiful. And then we also have fragrance-free for anyone who might,
23:29 --> 23:32 you know, be trying to avoid scents completely. And also if
23:33 --> 23:36 anyone's immunocompromised or, you know, going through IVF or cancer
23:37 --> 23:41 treatments, like all of those, those require fragrance Like you have to have amazing
23:42 --> 23:45 fragrance-free products available for people who are going through medical treatments.
23:45 --> 23:49 Like it's, I don't know why every brand doesn't have a fragrance-free version.
23:49 --> 23:53 Yeah. I mean, that's incredible then to get into that deep.
23:53 --> 23:57 Cause I was thinking about that when you were, you're describing that because when I
23:57 --> 24:01 did have hair, I went through this process. Right. And for
24:02 --> 24:05 my hair, you know, to have Asian hair, it was at that time, especially I
24:05 --> 24:09 was growing up in the '90s, early 2000s, there was gel. Like there was
24:09 --> 24:13 same shampoo that was not for my hair. And I used to, I used
24:13 --> 24:16 to go and every week literally go in and buy different things.
24:16 --> 24:19 And I, after a while, just gave up. I was like, no one, I mean,
24:19 --> 24:23 now there's more products, right? More available products. But at the time
24:23 --> 24:26 I was thinking the same thing. I was like, this is crazy. Like, I know
24:26 --> 24:30 I'm not the only one, right? There's, there's enough people with my hair that would
24:31 --> 24:34 go through this process and to, to, to, to just
24:35 --> 24:38 go, I'm just going to use whatever it's made for someone else, that's,
24:38 --> 24:42 you know, it sucks. And when you're that moment when you finally found
24:42 --> 24:46 the right formula and you're starting to package it,
24:46 --> 24:50 get it out there, what was your process in that?
24:50 --> 24:53 Were you just, we're going to start off small, a certain
24:53 --> 24:57 amount, and then start to figure out order as we
24:57 --> 25:01 go along? Or did you like, what was your minimum order the first time you
25:01 --> 25:05 got, you started selling? So anyone who's building any kind of product,
25:05 --> 25:08 the best thing you can do upfront is try and negotiate low
25:08 --> 25:12 minimums to start. And so for myself, I negotiated
25:13 --> 25:16 down, I think it was like 250 of each, which is very small.
25:17 --> 25:20 But I was able to do that because I went through with,
25:20 --> 25:24 with my, um, before I had my own manufacturing facility with my
25:25 --> 25:27 contract manufacturer, I sold them on the dream. You gotta sell people on the dream.
25:28 --> 25:30 You gotta, Sh— tell them like, this is the vision, this is how I'm gonna
25:30 --> 25:33 do it, and this is why you should, you know, believe in me a little
25:34 --> 25:37 bit and just, you know, give us a small, make the buy-in small
25:38 --> 25:41 because the next purchase order is gonna be big. I can promise you. And like,
25:41 --> 25:44 that's, you have to have like a little bit of, um, you gotta be your
25:44 --> 25:48 own hype person and you gotta have a little bit of audacity and
25:48 --> 25:52 you have to have that kind of radiance that gets someone excited
25:52 --> 25:54 about what you're trying to do. Even if you've already been working with these people,
25:54 --> 25:57 I was already working with these people to build it. And then it came down
25:58 --> 26:01 to like ordering it and I, you know, your cash
26:01 --> 26:05 is the, the only thing that matters in the beginning, right? Like you, you have
26:05 --> 26:08 to, you have to make sure that you don't, well, it's also
26:09 --> 26:12 so you can test the formula with customers or test your product with customers
26:12 --> 26:16 before you make any adjustments. So like for me, I wanted
26:16 --> 26:20 to make sure that I could buy a little bit, prove it again beyond
26:20 --> 26:24 my, my own, you know, like sphere of
26:24 --> 26:28 friends and family. And I wanted to
26:28 --> 26:31 prove it in the market before I went and put in the bigger purchase order.
26:31 --> 26:34 So we started with these small orders of 250 of each, and then
26:35 --> 26:39 eventually, you know, now I, now I have my own factory and
26:39 --> 26:42 we're doing like 100 units. It's crazy.
26:42 --> 26:46 It feels, it feels crazy. When was that moment
26:46 --> 26:50 that you realized that you needed to move to a factory? My contract manufacturer went
26:50 --> 26:54 bankrupt. They took a big purchase order from me and then just closed.
26:54 --> 26:57 It was a nightmare, actually. I didn't know if I was gonna have a,
26:58 --> 27:00 a company. Like, I didn't know. Um, and I, you know, I'm smiling now,
27:01 --> 27:03 but back then I was like puking blood. I didn't know like what was gonna
27:04 --> 27:06 happen. I had orders coming in, I couldn't fulfill them. I didn't know what was
27:07 --> 27:10 going on. And eventually I, you know, like I
27:10 --> 27:14 took some of the displaced workers and we now have our own facility.
27:15 --> 27:17 And, um, and it's the best thing I ever did. It was the scare— one
27:18 --> 27:21 of the scariest things I've ever done in business. I had no business. Or expertise
27:22 --> 27:25 or knowledge of the legal side of owning my own
27:25 --> 27:29 factory, but I do now. Yeah. You just gotta do it. Well,
27:29 --> 27:32 I was going to ask you, one of my questions I wanted to get in
27:32 --> 27:34 was what was one of the biggest hurdles that you have? Was that it?
27:35 --> 27:37 Was the— One of them. Manufacturing it, yeah.
27:38 --> 27:41 Or what do you think is another one that comes to mind? I think all
27:41 --> 27:45 of the crappy sustainable products that come, that people have tried before Dip
27:45 --> 27:49 is my biggest hurdle. Because they're like, I'm not doing another bar. I'm not trying
27:49 --> 27:52 it. I'm not doing— I've already wasted so much money on these bars.
27:52 --> 27:56 I'm not doing it. And then, so I'm like, okay, just, that's why our money-back
27:56 --> 27:59 guarantee is that we like, we'll refund someone's shipping. We'll refund
27:59 --> 28:03 all of it, every single penny if you don't love the bars.
28:03 --> 28:06 And I mean, out of every 10 bars sold,
28:07 --> 28:10 I think like 6 get returned. Like it's a very, I mean, the people
28:10 --> 28:13 generally like it. I love it and stick with it.
28:14 --> 28:17 And that is amazing. And like all around the country at any,
28:17 --> 28:21 at any time, like I'm sure in the time that we've had this conversation,
28:22 --> 28:25 there are store owners telling people that it's great. Yeah.
28:25 --> 28:29 What, what has, what do you think is that, that missing piece that
28:29 --> 28:32 gets resolved? That's from someone that went through all these different
28:33 --> 28:37 bars and now they're like, okay, I'm going to give this one more shot.
28:37 --> 28:41 With DIP? What do you think is that, that final straw,
28:41 --> 28:44 whatever it is that gets them over and go, okay, let me do this.
28:45 --> 28:48 I tell them, um, my beef is not with hair science.
28:48 --> 28:51 My beef is with plastic. The hair science is still in
28:51 --> 28:55 there. Your hair's gonna look amazing and shiny and beautiful after
28:55 --> 28:58 you use DIP. It's, it's the plastic I have the
28:58 --> 29:02 beef with. Like, I'm not, I, I don't have problems
29:02 --> 29:05 with, with science and cosmetic chemistry. Like, They're not all natural.
29:05 --> 29:09 I never wanted to make an all-natural product. I wanted a product that was so
29:09 --> 29:13 good and performed so well that the plastic-free
29:13 --> 29:16 part didn't have anything to do with it. And so once I tell people
29:16 --> 29:20 that, cuz to be honest, a lot of the bars out there are made in
29:20 --> 29:24 the same 10 factories with the same, very similar formulas and
29:24 --> 29:27 just like the marketing ingredients are changed. So someone, even if you switch from brand
29:28 --> 29:31 to brand to brand, you're getting the same, a very similar experience
29:32 --> 29:35 cuz it's a very similar formula. And so with Dip, our formulas are,
29:35 --> 29:39 you know, proprietary. They're, they're kept in our own facility.
29:39 --> 29:42 Like no one there, we don't make bars for other people and they're,
29:42 --> 29:46 they're actually very special. That's awesome. That's awesome. Okay. To start to
29:47 --> 29:50 close out. Okay. What's, what's next for Dip? Where,
29:50 --> 29:53 what are there certain products that are coming in that you wanna tell people about?
29:54 --> 29:57 Well, we just did a partnership. I can't say exactly what it is just
29:58 --> 30:01 yet until it goes out. Who knows what, which one of my competitors is listening
30:01 --> 30:05 to this and trying to take notes. Yeah. But we just
30:05 --> 30:07 did a partnership with Savannah College of Art and Design,
30:08 --> 30:12 SCAD, where that's where my, myself and my husband met in
30:12 --> 30:15 art school in Savannah a long time ago. And now we have a brand and
30:15 --> 30:18 we paid it forward to the students and did something called
30:19 --> 30:23 SCAD Pro where we challenged the students with a sustainability project
30:23 --> 30:26 that came out with our, our next launch.
30:27 --> 30:30 And so I can't say what it is just yet, but I want to
30:31 --> 30:34 say that the the students were very inspiring and like working with
30:35 --> 30:38 students to come up with, and it's a paid partnership with the
30:38 --> 30:42 university. So it wasn't like we, you know, they, the students got like course
30:42 --> 30:46 credit for it and everything. It was really cool. But like, we, I love talking
30:46 --> 30:50 to people who are going to inherit the earth, right? I, we're 25
30:50 --> 30:54 years ahead of them in our lifespan and talking to students about what
30:54 --> 30:58 their fears were for the future and what their hopes were for capitalism
30:58 --> 31:01 in general. Um, it was really inspiring and then they knocked it outta the
31:02 --> 31:05 park and made something really awesome that we are going to put into production.
31:05 --> 31:09 So that's awesome. I'll keep that mystery alive. Yeah, I look
31:09 --> 31:12 forward to it. We're gonna try to, to keep up with it. Yeah, that's awesome.
31:13 --> 31:16 All right. And normally I'd ask, um, where can you find a product
31:17 --> 31:20 or, or find whatever it is you sell? But I feel like this is gonna
31:20 --> 31:24 be a little bit of a different, um, way to explain this. So where Can
31:24 --> 31:27 people find it? Sure. You can go to dipalready.com and you can buy from
31:28 --> 31:32 our website. That's no problem. Or you can go in the main bar.
31:32 --> 31:35 There's a store locator and it'll pull up the store closest to you. And it
31:36 --> 31:40 could be a surf shop, a salon, or a zero waste store. And if
31:40 --> 31:43 you haven't already explored any of those places in your town that pull up,
31:43 --> 31:46 please go and buy it from them. I make less money when you shop in
31:46 --> 31:50 the stores, but it is better for your neighborhood and better for
31:50 --> 31:54 wherever you live, if you, if you shop there. And, um, if you
31:54 --> 31:58 want to follow us online, it's @dipalready on Instagram and
31:58 --> 32:01 TikTok. Um, I'm always in the DMs on both if you have any questions.
32:01 --> 32:04 All right. Well, thank you so much, Kate. It's an amazing story.
32:05 --> 32:09 Um, please go support her products and, um, follow her for
32:09 --> 32:12 the next big thing that they're going to do. Thanks. Thank you for having me.
32:12 --> 32:15 This has been a really good time. Yeah. Thanks, Kate. And this is Personal Side