Dude Wipes’ potty-mouthed founders have already grabbed 1% of the $11 billion U.S. toilet paper market. Now the Mark Cuban-backed startup is aiming to swipe up to 10%.
Since starting Dude Products in 2011, Sean Riley, Ryan Meegan and a third cofounder, Jeff Klimkowski, childhood friends from the Chicago suburbs, have closely studied the trail left behind by “Big Toilet Paper” leaders like Kimberly Clark and Procter & Gamble – everything from the design of their newest rolls to their latest ad campaigns – and have done the exact opposite.
One of the most successful businesses in Shark Tank history, Dude Products rolled up $110 million in revenue last year, from $70 million in 2022. The company, which has been profitable since 2016, now makes up 1% of the $11 billion toilet paper industry. The founders predict Dude will do $500 million in annual sales within five years and ultimately grow into a $1 billion (sales) brand.
0:00 Who Are The Dudes?
00:19 Meeting the Need for Something Different
02:50 Characteristics of a Winning Team
03:37 Scared Money Don’t Make Money
04:29 Guerilla Marketing At Its Finest
06:46 The Dudes’ First Major Deal
07:22 The Shark Tank Effect
09:28 The Great Toilet Shortage of 2020
11:00 Flushing Out the Competition
Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2024/05/17/this-shark-tank-winner-has-a-1-billion-plan-to-replace-toilet-paper/?sh=1b23fac62c17
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Since starting Dude Products in 2011, Sean Riley, Ryan Meegan and a third cofounder, Jeff Klimkowski, childhood friends from the Chicago suburbs, have closely studied the trail left behind by “Big Toilet Paper” leaders like Kimberly Clark and Procter & Gamble – everything from the design of their newest rolls to their latest ad campaigns – and have done the exact opposite.
One of the most successful businesses in Shark Tank history, Dude Products rolled up $110 million in revenue last year, from $70 million in 2022. The company, which has been profitable since 2016, now makes up 1% of the $11 billion toilet paper industry. The founders predict Dude will do $500 million in annual sales within five years and ultimately grow into a $1 billion (sales) brand.
0:00 Who Are The Dudes?
00:19 Meeting the Need for Something Different
02:50 Characteristics of a Winning Team
03:37 Scared Money Don’t Make Money
04:29 Guerilla Marketing At Its Finest
06:46 The Dudes’ First Major Deal
07:22 The Shark Tank Effect
09:28 The Great Toilet Shortage of 2020
11:00 Flushing Out the Competition
Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2024/05/17/this-shark-tank-winner-has-a-1-billion-plan-to-replace-toilet-paper/?sh=1b23fac62c17
Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
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More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00 The American toilet paper market is an 11 billion dollar industry, but using dry paper
00:06 to clean up during a bathroom visit may become a thing of the past if the dudes at Dude Wipes
00:10 have anything to say about it.
00:14 We knew no one had ever made wipes for guys.
00:21 We knew no one was really making flushable wipes.
00:24 We knew the toilet paper space in general had never even said the word "butt" or "poop"
00:29 before, so we just saw this whole thing as so stale and so dry and crusty that we could
00:35 get in there with our fun and our clean wet wipes and make a splash.
00:39 The Chicago-based creators of Dude Wipes sold $110 million dollars worth of flushable wipes
00:45 last year, making up 1% of the entire toilet paper industry.
00:49 They first gained overnight fame after an appearance on Shark Tank in 2015.
00:54 Sharks, are you still wiping the old fashioned way with just toilet paper?
00:59 If so, you're a chump and your ass hates you for it.
01:02 But they actually started their journey four years before their trip to the tank.
01:06 We were just hanging out every weekend doing the post-college thing, dreaming big and trying
01:11 to figure out what was next.
01:13 And I bought a bunch of baby wipes for the apartment at the time, stocked the bathroom,
01:18 everybody was kind of getting hooked on them, and we kind of said, "Well, wait a minute
01:22 here.
01:23 Maybe there's something for babies.
01:24 Maybe there should be something for dudes.
01:25 Maybe there could be a better brand, a better product here."
01:28 Wet wipes weren't themselves a novel idea, but in 2011, most were not geared towards
01:33 adults.
01:34 Dude Wipes are extra large, flushable wipes.
01:37 So ours are meant to go down the toilet, disperse and flush.
01:41 Unlike baby wipes, you're not supposed to flush those.
01:44 And unlike toilet paper, we actually get the whole job done.
01:47 Yo, so how crazy is this?
01:48 This is the original Dude Wipes prototype.
01:51 So when you talk about bootstrapping and grinding and just making it happen, you know, this
01:56 was our idea.
01:57 And we just had a white box that we started getting from the manufacturer.
02:01 You can see we scribbled the logo in on pencil here.
02:04 And so I always hold onto this because this shows you really what you can get done if
02:10 you put your mind to it and that everybody has to start somewhere.
02:14 So every long journey starts with one wipe.
02:16 And this is where our long journey started.
02:19 This wasn't a group of guys with a history in toilet paper, but they were lifelong friends.
02:24 So me and the dudes, Jeff and Ryan, have known each other since high school and even grade
02:29 school.
02:30 So we kind of met growing up, playing sports together, and we all went off to college,
02:36 did our thing.
02:37 They all moved in together after graduating from different colleges and were all working
02:41 nine to five jobs in Chicago.
02:43 Riley in sales for construction tech firm, Megan in marketing, and Klimkowski as an investment
02:48 banker.
02:49 So we had all these different backgrounds.
02:50 What we really shared in common was like a fun, loving spirit and wanting to do something
02:55 entrepreneurial.
02:56 Let me tell you, the three of them are extremely amazing guys.
03:01 They really know their shit.
03:03 No pun intended.
03:06 Okay.
03:07 He's the chief salesman and he's the CEO.
03:11 And you know, I've noticed good CEOs can transition from one topic to another seamlessly.
03:19 This guy does that well.
03:21 Jeff knows all the numbers intuitively.
03:24 He understands everything about the business that's going on.
03:27 And Ryan is extremely creative on the marketing front.
03:32 So the three of them have complimentary skills that really work.
03:38 After their light bulb moment with the white box, the dudes got into action, investing
03:42 $30,000 to get their idea off the ground.
03:45 We put our heads together.
03:47 We bootstrapped.
03:48 We scraped and clawed to find a manufacturer, make a really cool brand that we thought just
03:53 talked like us, like regular people would talk.
03:56 And we were never scared to take a chance and put our money down and buy these dude
04:01 wipes, even though we didn't know how to sell them.
04:02 We didn't know how to do anything.
04:04 You have to start with that mentality where you should be afraid not to do it.
04:08 Then you look back on your life and say, "Oh, well, why didn't I take that risk or try to
04:12 do something there?"
04:13 So that's how you got to flip your mindset in the beginning.
04:16 It's not the fear of what goes wrong.
04:18 It's the fear of doing nothing and looking back and say, "Why didn't we do something?"
04:22 So scared money don't make no money.
04:25 Once you get them focused on something, they really attack it.
04:29 We were actually just selling product out of the trunk of our car, or we would go to
04:33 a college orientation and hand out product and try and sell them to frat houses.
04:37 And so it was literally that like hand to mouth, boots on the ground stuff in the beginning.
04:44 And then we started selling them more online.
04:46 In addition to handing out samples at frat houses, they found success in subscription
04:50 boxes and selling on Amazon.
04:53 From the beginning, they always knew who they were and what they were selling.
04:57 All along the way, you're going to have people trying to water down your brand, make it a
05:01 little tamer.
05:02 You're going to have people trying to water down your culture, make it more bureaucratic.
05:06 And there is certain ebbs and flows and balances as you grow.
05:10 But what you really can't do is lose all of that magic.
05:14 That dudeness doesn't mean just male.
05:17 These guys will be the first ones to tell you, anybody can be a dude.
05:21 We did some research recently that showed that maybe about over a third of our users
05:30 are women.
05:31 More than that are actually the buyers.
05:34 They're buying it for the men in their household.
05:37 We've built our brand to be the opposite of the toilet paper giants that long dominated
05:41 the industry.
05:42 Instead of avoiding messy bathroom topics, they leaned into them.
05:46 They had done some videos, some absolutely nasty, if you ask me, videos that were online.
05:53 I watched them and I was like, oh God, no.
05:58 There's no taste here.
05:59 But they were funny and, you know, they had gotten them to where they were and that was
06:04 great.
06:06 We weren't afraid to say what this product was for.
06:09 We always say the dudeness is the magic.
06:11 So our dudeness is that we will talk to you just like a normal human being.
06:15 We will say poop.
06:16 We will say butt.
06:17 We will say this cleans better than toilet paper.
06:19 We will say all these things that big toilet paper is afraid to say.
06:24 There's a lot of different brands that some have benefit superiority, some have reason
06:30 why superiority, some have brand character superiority.
06:34 Like you buy Old Spice because of the character of the brand.
06:38 This brand is very much like that.
06:40 You buy it because of the dudeness.
06:42 It may not have been for everyone, but the dude's method hit home for many.
06:46 They landed their first major deal with Kroger in 2015.
06:49 We got invited down to Cincinnati and we got to pitch dude wipes to a national toilet paper
06:54 buyer.
06:56 And he was kind of a cowboy.
06:57 He was kind of a toilet paper cowboy.
06:58 He looked at us and he said, you know what?
07:01 This is interesting, guys.
07:02 I'm going to take a chance on you and don't screw it up.
07:05 We really took that to heart.
07:06 He was making about a $2 million bet on dude wipes.
07:09 He was going to launch them nationwide, put one of our products on the shelf.
07:13 And that was just huge for us.
07:15 We had to figure out how to make that many dude wipes, how to distribute them to Kroger
07:19 distribution centers, all of that stuff.
07:22 It was truly a breakthrough moment.
07:23 In that same year, they finally landed a spot on the hit business show Shark Tank.
07:28 We tried out three times, three years in a row.
07:31 So third time was the charm for Shark Tank.
07:34 We emailed our update over again.
07:36 Now we had just launched in Kroger.
07:38 So the business was starting to gain some real traction.
07:41 We were kind of that perfect size for Shark Tank.
07:43 Like we hadn't made our first million yet, but we had proven out some product market
07:47 fit.
07:48 We were kind of well on the way.
07:49 And so boom, we got the invite to LA.
07:53 300K, 25%.
07:55 Yeah.
07:56 I'm tired of you.
07:59 Shark Tank and Shark Cuban cut them a $300,000 check for 25% of the business.
08:03 And they've become one of the most successful businesses to ever appear on the show.
08:07 We closed the deal with Mark after the show.
08:10 And he's been our only investor ever since.
08:12 That we've been able to grow with and be a huge mentor for the business and also a big
08:17 spokesperson for dude wipes to help promote dude wipes.
08:20 Now that's fresh.
08:22 The Shark Tank effect was almost immediate.
08:24 Sales jumped tenfold to $3 million in 2016.
08:28 They were able to leverage the momentum from the show for a trial in 1,500 Walmart stores
08:32 in 2018.
08:33 Walmart's a big deal.
08:35 We know there's a lot of Walmarts, but really, if you can be successful in Walmart, you're
08:39 kind of part of the American brand lexicon, right?
08:43 Like you can apply to people at any price anywhere around the country.
08:48 And now your brand is expected to be there.
08:51 Today sales in Walmart stores and on Walmart.com make up about 15% of dude's total revenue
08:57 with retail comprising about half of dude's overall sales.
09:00 Its biggest channel is Amazon, which makes up 38% of revenues.
09:05 The retailers are looking for productivity in that paper aisle.
09:10 They got these big bulky things that take up a heck of a lot of space and they need
09:16 to make sure that they're turning the dollars there.
09:19 As a result, wipes are a wonderful item for them to add to their offering to consumers.
09:27 Another key moment for dude was when COVID struck and toilet paper aisles across the
09:31 country emptied at an alarming rate.
09:33 So all of a sudden retailers are saying, "We'll take as many dude wipes as you can make.
09:37 We're selling out on Amazon.
09:39 We're doing millions per week and it's just crazy business."
09:43 And we tripled our manufacturing capacity overnight and just started pumping out as
09:48 many dude wipes as we could, making them here in the USA allowed us to make them and get
09:53 them out to people super quick.
09:55 So we were able to capitalize on the shortage of toilet paper and really come in and serve
10:01 people in a time where maybe their moods were down.
10:04 From there, an interesting trend began to emerge.
10:06 75% of customers who bought wet wipes for the first time during the pandemic went back
10:11 to buy the products again, according to dude's own studies of consumer data.
10:15 It wasn't just that we were out of toilet paper so we bought dude wipes.
10:19 It was, well, we were out of toilet paper.
10:21 We tried dude wipes.
10:22 Now we really like them and we're going to keep buying them.
10:25 Data from Nielsen Analytics shows the overall category has grown in size by 35% since 2020,
10:31 compared to 5% growth in dry toilet paper during the same period.
10:35 Part of that is because of the sheer size of the dry toilet paper industry, which did
10:38 $9.9 billion in sales in 2020 versus $530 million for wet toilet paper.
10:45 Dude wipes has made up more than 40% of this category growth.
10:48 It was almost like a big awareness moment for our brand and for wipes in general that,
10:55 hey, you should try these.
10:57 And we were able to, you know, serve the customer and grow from there.
11:00 But there is the possibility that other giants in the toilet paper industry, like Kimberly
11:04 Clark's Cottonelle, will move to stamp out dude's success with their own wet wipes.
11:09 So when you do something interesting and unique, there's going to be knockoffs and followers
11:14 and all of those things.
11:16 And really that means you've created a category where other people think they can draft off
11:20 it.
11:21 But it comes back to if you ain't first, you're last.
11:24 So anybody trying to do the same thing as we're doing, they're running a fool's errand.
11:30 They're in a loser's position.
11:32 Cottonelle is one of our biggest competitors in some of our mass outlets.
11:37 We have overtaken Cottonelle recently.
11:40 So we are becoming the number one brand in several retailers.
11:47 Dude Wipes has embarked on their first mass media campaign.
11:52 Our marketing goal is reach as many people as possible with our superior cleaning message.
12:00 And we've got some indications that that works really well, especially in the advertising
12:05 that we've just completed.
12:06 Why do Dude Wipes clean better?
12:09 Because they're extra large.
12:11 Because they're flushable.
12:12 Because obviously wet cleans better than dry.
12:15 With big plans to take over more of the toilet paper industry, Dude is doubling its marketing
12:19 spend and pulling off even bigger stunts.
12:21 For this year's Super Bowl, Dude bought multiple giant billboards overlooking the Las Vegas
12:26 Strip, which it populated with potty jokes.
12:29 I told the dudes, "Look, you've got this major advantage.
12:32 The other guys can't crap on toilet paper because they sell that stuff.
12:39 You don't.
12:41 You can go after this."
12:42 And the toilet paper market is about seven or eight times the size of the flushable wipes
12:49 market.
12:50 Now we are growing dramatically, but it will take a while.
12:54 But just by comparing ourselves to that, we get ourselves in that mix.
13:00 And that's a good place to be.
13:02 Dude still has some catching up to do to reach category leaders, but their wipes are now
13:06 available in more than 20,000 stores across the U.S., with some big deals on the horizon.
13:12 Just because you didn't know how to do it doesn't mean you can't learn how to do it.
13:16 And we're living proof of that.
13:17 Guys with no experience, no capital, no investors have really been able to grow a company into
13:23 a big disruptor of the toilet paper aisle nationwide.
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