What if growing a successful company meant saying no to Amazon, no to fear-based marketing, and yes to helping small businesses thrive?
In this episode of The Personal Side of Business, Jet sits down with Kate Assaraf, founder and CEO of Dip, to discuss how she built one of the fastest-growing sustainable hair care brands by challenging nearly every traditional business rule. From knocking on doors at independent retailers across the country to refusing to undercut local stores online, Kate shares why purpose and profitability don't have to compete.
They also dive into product development, customer trust, overcoming major business setbacks, and why empathy can be one of the strongest competitive advantages a company has.
Whether you're an entrepreneur, retailer, or someone passionate about building a business that makes a real impact, this conversation is full of practical insights and inspiration.
If you would like to purchase Dip haircare products, please check out the link below.
To support the Surfrider Foundation and learn what they are doing to protect the planet, www.surfrider.org
To check out more episodes and learn about The Personal Side of Business, www.personalsideofbusiness.com
For a free insurance quote for your business, check out Ergo Next Insurance at Get an Ergo Next Insurance Quote
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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