Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day: Monica Nassif

Summary

How I Built This with Guy Raz: Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day – Monica Nassif

Episode Release Date: February 17, 2025

Introduction

In this episode of How I Built This with Guy Raz, host Guy Raz delves into the entrepreneurial journey of Monica Nassif, the visionary behind Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day. From humble beginnings to building an iconic household brand, Monica shares the trials, triumphs, and invaluable lessons learned along the way.

Early Life and Background

Monica Nassif's upbringing in Granger, Iowa, played a significant role in shaping her entrepreneurial spirit. Raised in a large family with nine siblings, Monica often assumed the role of a surrogate mother, managing household responsibilities from a young age. This early exposure to responsibility and resourcefulness laid the foundation for her future endeavors.

“[07:09] Monica Nassif: Yeah. You know, I don't ever remember as a child being, quote, poor or not having this or that. You know, it was just our reality.”

Monica recounts driving her mother's purple station wagon and balancing familial duties with her personal life, emphasizing the strong work ethic instilled in her.

Educational Journey and Early Career

After graduating from the University of Iowa with a degree in nursing, Monica moved to Minneapolis to support her husband’s career in landscaping. Her tenure as a nurse in the surgical intensive care unit was both fulfilling and challenging, providing her with a deep understanding of resilience and compassion.

“[12:50] Guy Raz: How did you like being a nurse?

[12:54] Monica Nassif: You know, I loved the pace. I love learning about your body. I loved all the science behind it. But honestly, it's... It was a hard job.”

Venturing into corporate communications, Monica transitioned from nursing to marketing by securing an internship at Dayton Hudson (now Target Corporation), where she honed her skills in brand strategy and consumer engagement.

Launching Caldria and Entering the Cleaning Products Market

In 2000, burnt out from her marketing agency, Monica identified an opportunity in the mundane household cleaning products market. With seed funding, she launched Caldria, an upscale cleaning brand positioned in gift shops and upscale stores like Williams Sonoma. However, understanding the limitations of Caldria's high price point in mass retail environments, Monica made a pivotal decision.

“[06:31] Monica Nassif: My mom had a purple station wagon... I always remember I'm holding a baby, she's driving like a bat out of hell, and we're going somewhere.”

Realizing the need for a more accessible product, Monica decided to knock herself off Caldria by creating a second brand that balanced luxury with affordability, ultimately leading to the birth of Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day.

Creating Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day

Naming the new line after her mother, Thelma Meyer, Monica infused the brand with authenticity and a touch of nostalgia. Thelma, a no-nonsense Iowa homemaker, became the brand’s beloved mascot, embodying wholesome values and practical wisdom.

“[53:22] Monica Nassif: ...she was like my mom, you know, she's like the consummate housewife with huge family, huge garden total. She was a child of the depression...”

Monica meticulously designed the packaging to reflect a retro sophistication, ensuring that each product not only performed exceptionally but also appealed aesthetically to consumers seeking elegance in their cleaning supplies.

Challenges and Strategic Decisions

Entering the competitive cleaning market, Monica faced significant hurdles, including limited funding and the dominance of established brands like Procter & Gamble and Reckitt Benckiser. To navigate these challenges, she employed a dual strategy:

1. White Labeling: Partnering with Williams Sonoma, Monica positioned Caldria as a premium white-label brand, ensuring a steady revenue stream while building brand credibility.
2. Brand Building: Simultaneously, she launched Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day, targeting upscale grocery stores like Whole Foods and leveraging public relations to gain media coverage in esteemed publications such as Good Housekeeping and Martha Stewart Living.

“[51:00] Monica Nassif: ...we hired a PR firm out of New York. And all I wanted them to do was to get us placement in all the home deck, home decor, women's fashion, all these magazines.”

Growth and Acquisition by SC Johnson

By the mid-2000s, Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day experienced exponential growth, with products appearing in major retailers nationwide and sales reaching between $20 to $30 million. Recognizing the brand's potential and the challenges of scaling independently, Monica accepted an acquisition offer from SC Johnson, a global conglomerate in household products.

“[72:24] Monica Nassif: ...they said, what can you do for us that we can't do for ourselves?... Their first answer was global distribution.”

The acquisition not only validated Monica's efforts but also ensured the continued growth and distribution of Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day on a global scale. Monica remained as CEO during the transition, fostering a collaborative relationship that preserved the brand's essence.

Subsequent Ventures and Lessons Learned

Post-acquisition, Monica ventured into other entrepreneurial projects, including a luxury sleepwear line for older women. While this endeavor didn't achieve the same success as Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day, it provided Monica with valuable insights into product development, scalability, and market alignment.

“[80:53] Monica Nassif: Yet another lesson learned: before you proceed, another startup, we're not going to do that again.”

She emphasizes the importance of focus and aligned passion in entrepreneurial ventures, acknowledging that bifurcating efforts can dilute the potential for success.

Board Roles and Investment

Transitioning from active entrepreneurship, Monica served on various consumer product boards and invested in startups. However, she discovered that her strengths lie more in building companies than in investing, reinforcing her preference for hands-on creation and leadership.

Final Reflections and Legacy

Monica Nassif's journey underscores the significance of resilience, innovation, and the ability to pivot strategically in the face of challenges. Her dedication to creating products that blend functionality with aesthetic appeal has left an indelible mark on the household cleaning industry.

“[84:52] Monica Nassif: I always said I was never the smartest person in the room, but I could outwork anyone.”

Monica's commitment to excellence and her ability to blend personal values with business acumen serve as a masterclass for aspiring entrepreneurs aiming to build iconic and enduring brands.

Conclusion

Monica Nassif's story is a testament to the power of determination, creative vision, and strategic execution. From launching Caldria to establishing Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day and beyond, her entrepreneurial journey offers invaluable lessons on navigating the complexities of building and scaling a successful brand.

---

Notable Quotes:

• Monica Nassif [07:09]: "I don't ever remember as a child being, quote, poor or not having this or that. You know, it was just our reality."
• Guy Raz [12:50]: "How did you like being a nurse?"
• Monica Nassif [53:22]: "She was like my mom, you know, she's like the consummate housewife with huge family, huge garden."

Transcript

[Guy Raz]

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[Monica Nassif]

She's like the real deal. Yeah. And we would bring her to trade shows and people just, like, loved seeing her. And she just embraced this whole thing. And I'm like, but would they ask.

[Guy Raz]

Like, hey, how did you invent this? How did you start this business?

[Monica Nassif]

Oh, yeah.

[Guy Raz]

What would she say?

[Monica Nassif]

She would act like she did it. And, you know, at first, I kind of always wanted to interrupt and I thought, uh, just let her rip.

[Guy Raz]

Welcome to How I Built this, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built. I'm Guy Raz. And on the show today, today, how Monica Nassif knocked off her first brand of household soaps and launched a wildly successful second one named for her mom, Mrs. Meyer. Imagine you come up with a great idea, and then just as it starts to take off, someone else starts making a knockoff, only cheaper. This is part of the price of success. Some founders ignore it and focus on brand building. Others spend a lot of money trying to fight back. And we've told lots of these stories on past episodes, but rarely do we tell the story of an entrepreneur who actually decided to knock herself off, essentially to make a cheaper, more accessible version of the same product she was already selling. The story begins in the year 2000. Monica Nassev had just stepped away from her small creative marketing agency in Minneapolis. At the time, she was burned out and looking for a new idea. And one opportunity she saw was in household cleaning products. Now, at the time, they all looked basically the same. The same boring plastic bottles, the same boring pistol grip sprays, the same boring brands. So with a bit of seed funding, Monica launched a new cleaning brand called Caldria. Caldria was and still is, an upscale cleaning brand that Monica sold into gift shops and even as a white label brand for fancy stores like Williams Sonoma. The soaps and cleansers and detergents did fairly well. But because they were fancy and pricey, Monica knew the brand would never take off in big box stores like Target or Walmart. So about a year into the business, Monica knocked herself off. She developed another line of soaps and cleansers, a brand that aimed for the sweet spot between luxury and basic. So clean, elegant and simple with fragrances that were a little differentlang ylang, lavender, basil, and so on. And one of the smartest things Monica did was to name the products after her mother, Thelma Meyer. Thelma was a no nonsense Iowa homemaker who would eventually become a beloved mascot for the brand. By the mid 2000s. Mrs. Meyers was in Target and Whole Foods and growing fast. Today, both of Monica's brands, Mrs. Meyers and Caldria, are owned by the giant conglomerate SC Johnson. Now, there are a lot of amazing lessons in today's episode, including how painfully difficult it was to raise money at the beginning. But as you'll hear, Monica's common sense and sense of humor helped her get through the worst of times. Her upbringing probably helped as well. She was raised in the small town of Granger, Iowa, in the 1960s and 70s. Her dad was an engineer for John Deere, and her mom was the type of woman who could manage the household while at the same time raising a huge family. And I do mean huge. Nine kids.

[Monica Nassif]

My mom had a purple station wagon. Like, she drove that thing like a bat out of hell. She got caught speeding so many times. And this was long before seat belts. And since I was the oldest girl, I would be in the front seat. I always got shotgun, and it was always hold a baby. So I always remember I'm holding a baby, she's driving like a bat out of hell, and we're going somewhere.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. That's amazing.

[Monica Nassif]

Yep.

[Guy Raz]

You know, the thing is, is that I wish. I kind of wish I had eight kids, maybe. I wish I had eight kids, but I've got two. But you know what I mean? Like, today, people would be like, how do you. How can you actually afford to have nine children in a house and feed them?

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah. You know, I don't ever remember as a child being, quote, poor or not having this or that. You know, it was just our reality. And there was a lot of large Irish Italian families in our. In our town because it was a homestead area, you know, and that was a law that was allowed people to take on land if they agreed to farm it. And so there was a lot of large families. We weren't alone. And, you know, you don't know any different, quite honestly, when you grow up in a house like that.

[Guy Raz]

Were you. Oh, I mean, you're the oldest daughter, so you were kind of a surrogate mom. I mean, kind of looking after the others, right?

[Monica Nassif]

Oh, yeah. I was totally second in command. I basically raised my three little brothers. And I could. My mom said when my nose hit the counter at age 9, I could put dinner on the table. She would scribble a note. And it's just what you did. She said, monica, you were capable, and I needed the help. And honestly, what's kind of interesting, she only said this to me a couple years ago. She said, I don't know that if you had a childhood, Monica, you know, and I think about that often. I don't think I did, but I don't remember thinking, oh, that's a bad thing. I was just thinking, hey, she needs help. I gotta, you know, do some laundry or put some dinner on the table or run some brother to some sports practice.

[Guy Raz]

And I think of my oldest sister who also kind of had to kind of look after me. She was six years older and you know, and. But as an adult, she's very competent. She's a very competent adult. So, yes, a lot of responsibilities as a child, but as an adult, she's. She was like out the gate, ready.

[Monica Nassif]

To go without question. You were, you know, our. My parents attitude was get a job. That. That was so much more important than your grades. I don't ever remember saying. Saying my dad or my mom going, hey, Monica, what's your grade? They were like, get out of the house. Go get a job. You know, my mom's big saying was the confidence of a paycheck. If you can just make your own money, take care of yourself, you are going to be just fine.

[Guy Raz]

I've seen you describe yourself in an interview you gave as a wild child in high school, but what does that actually mean? I mean, you were helping raise your siblings. Like, what does that. I mean, were you like, driving fast cars and, you know, drinking beer and getting drunk?

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah, drinking beer. Drinking sty. Hopping on the back of motorcycles with my brother's friends. Being a stone cheerleader. Yeah. I was not.

[Guy Raz]

It was the seventies. It was. It was the early seventies.

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah, that's. Yeah. And I had a lot. I had a lot of fun in high school. I'm gonna be honest.

[Guy Raz]

Did you ever get caught, you know, sort of breaking the rules like drinking or.

[Monica Nassif]

Mostly grounded guy. I spent most of my high school days grounded, but I. I had this amazing. I wish I still had it Jimi Hendrix poster in my bedroom with. He had the floral wreath on his head, no shirt, a zipper, you know, about an inch long.

[Guy Raz]

Yep.

[Monica Nassif]

And my dad came up and saw that, and he goes, you take that down. I said, I'm not taking it down. He goes, well, you got a choice. You can take down the poster or be grounded for 30 days. I said, I'll take the grounding.

[Guy Raz]

Wow.

[Monica Nassif]

I'll take it, man. I just gonna sit back and look at Jimmy for 30 days.

[Guy Raz]

All right, so you, you graduate high school, and then I think you go on to the University of Iowa. And I guess you tried a bunch of different majors before finally settling on nursing. Is that right?

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah. And I tried journalism at the University of Iowa. I tried photography. I think I had four different majors, Spanish. And I kind of thought, well, I do need a job. So I majored in nursing. Took me five years. But I also kind of settled down, too. I thought, you know what? I'm just going to see if I can get straight A's for once. Just might try it. And I did. And so I finally kind of stopped the party and got my head on straight and thought, well, I'll just try this nursing gig, see how it works.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. So you graduate in 1979.

[Monica Nassif]

Right.

[Guy Raz]

And right after that, at a very young age, you get married to your college sweetheart.

[Monica Nassif]

To David. That's right, to Mr. David Nassif.

[Guy Raz]

And you become Monica Nassif. You no longer Monica Myers.

[Monica Nassif]

That's right. Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

So you. I mean, you're like 22. You guys are married.

[Monica Nassif]

I was 24. Yeah. Pretty young.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. And I should say, you're still married to David.

[Monica Nassif]

He hasn't left me yet, Guy. I mean, he had a lot of chances. Trust me, he's a good guy.

[Guy Raz]

I just celebrate 20. So. So, yeah, it's a. It's a. I mean, you're 1980. That's amazing. Okay, so you guys get married.

[Monica Nassif]

You're right.

[Guy Raz]

And he, I guess, was running a landscaping company. And the two of you decide to move to Minneapolis.

[Monica Nassif]

Well, he had a job offer. He got a job offer in Minneapolis. And, oh, my God, I started doing cartwheels. I was so excited because I wanted out of Des Moines. One reason was my mom. And we still laugh at. We were just laughing about this. A couple weeks ago. She would drop off my little brothers so I could still babysit them. And I'm married. I'm like, mom, I'm married. I have left the house. I am not babysitting Pat and Danny. But they loved our house because we had one of the first ESPN channels. So they thought my husband David was a God, that he had espn. That was big. So then we moved to Minneapolis in 81, February of 81, in the middle of a snowstorm. And then I got a job at the University of Minnesota in the surgical intensive care unit. I interviewed on Friday and I started Monday. That's how desperate they were for nurses.

[Guy Raz]

How did you like being a nurse?

[Monica Nassif]

You know, I loved the pace. I love learning about your body. I loved all the science behind it. But honestly, it's. It was a hard job. It's a hard job. You see A lot of. Where I worked in surgical intensive care unit at the U. A lot of train wrecks, you know, a lot of. A lot of sorrow. A lot of transplant patients. Yeah, we. We had the train wrecks on our NNR award. It's hard to see every day.

[Guy Raz]

So you're in. I think you're a nurse for about four years. But in the meantime, while you're a nurse, you get a degree in English.

[Monica Nassif]

So then I go back and get my English degree from University of Minnesota. And I had an advisor, Beverly Atkinson. I'll never forget this. Another guardian angel in my life. I go to her and I go, okay, you're me. I'm 28 years old. I want out of nursing. I have an English degree. What should I do? And she scoots across the table an internship at Dayton Hudson, which is now Target Organization. And she goes, you should just apply for this. Just see how it goes. And I did. And I got it. Which shocked me. But I was probably the oldest intern at Dayton Hudson at age 28 in the history of interns.

[Guy Raz]

And this is the parent company of Target. Right. So some of your work, I guess, involved, like writing speeches for the president of Target at the time.

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah, I was. So it was actually the president of Dayton Hudson. His name was BOC Sells. He was from Iowa. So he kind of took a liking to me because I could listen to his jokes, stand up on my own.

[Guy Raz]

So you were from Iowa. So he's. Yeah, right.

[Monica Nassif]

And I learned a lot from this guy just in terms of how he thought about business. Cause I didn't have a business background, but I just remember thinking, this is super fascinating. And I got kind of a firsthand up close view of the retail industry. And I just loved it. Just thought it was so cool, this industry with consumer products, trends, fashion, all of it.

[Guy Raz]

So, I mean, this basically begins a career in, in like corporate communications. Right. And this is what you are doing and, and, and completely different. So you completely leave nursing behind.

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah, I. I throw. I threw my white shoes into the dumpster. I ripped up my license on the way out. Burn the ships, let's go.

[Guy Raz]

So I know that you had your first child, your first daughter, in 1987, and then two years later had your second daughter, Kala, in 1999. And you continue to work through. I mean, you took leave.

[Monica Nassif]

I took six weeks off through both.

[Guy Raz]

Of those births and pregnancies. But I want to talk about Kala because I know that, you know, within a few months of her birth, she was diagnosed with cancer.

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah. That was probably one of the scariest times in my life.

[Guy Raz]

So I can't even imagine.

[Monica Nassif]

Calla is born without a peep, without a cry. Perfect baby from day one. And all of a sudden, at six months, she's throwing up, she's pulling at her ears, she's cranky. And I'm going, what is wrong with this kid? This is not my baby, Kala. So I take her into the hospital, and looking back, thank goodness her regular pediatrician wasn't there. He goes, okay, let me look in her ears. And he goes, yep, bilateral ear infections. And then he starts to palpate her abdomen, and then he bolts from the room. And I'm going, okay, this is not good. I just had that sinking feeling. He comes back, and he said, have you ever felt this mass in your daughter's abdomen? And I. I go, no. And then, of course, guilt sets in, like, hey, I'm an ex nurse. I should see these things. I just. I just missed it.

[Guy Raz]

How old was she?

[Monica Nassif]

Six months. Six months old. So he goes, take her down to Children's and probably gotta have surgery. So then two days later, she has her right kidney removed, and she has a Wilms tumor. Oh, yeah. It's terrifying.

[Guy Raz]

How far along was it?

[Monica Nassif]

Thank goodness she was stage one, so it only involved one kidney. Thank goodness. So she goes into surgery, she has her kidney removed, and I'll never forget this. The surgeon is standing in front of us, and the oncologist is standing behind the surgeon. And the surgeon turns to us and said, she only lost a tablespoon of blood. I did such a good job. She won't need chemo. And the oncologist is standing behind him, shaking his head no, she will be having chemotherapy. And the surgeon walks off. And then the oncologist steps forward, and I thought, oh, boy, we're not done here.

[Guy Raz]

So just to make sure that we don't freak anybody out, Kala is very much a healthy adult today.

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah, she's doing awesome. She's 33. She's got two daughters of her own. But also, at the time, what was happening was I was on maternity leave because with Calla, I was actually gonna take, like, six to eight months off and stay home with my little baby girls. And then I started to get all this work from my friend at Target, saying, hey, could you work on this, work on that? Well, I took those jobs on. I thought, well, I can do it at night once the kids go to sleep. Well, all of a sudden, I have just a body of work. I have. You know, Cal is six Months old. She has to be in chemo. The oncologist says, hey, she can't be in daycare because she's immunosuppressed, and neither can your other daughter. You've got to stay home. So we have a whole. Dave and I are just trying to figure out what the heck to do, you know, because he wasn't that happy with his job. I'm kind of just getting started to work, and then he just comes home one day and says, I quit my job. Now just never forget it. He laid back on the bed. He goes, yeah, I quit. I think you can make more money than me. I'll stay home with the girls. This is a week after surgery.

[Guy Raz]

I mean, I can understand that a thousand percent. I just cannot imagine how stressful that was for you and your husband.

[Monica Nassif]

She would come home from chemo, she'd sit in the high chair, she'd throw up. Yeah. It was a difficult time. Without question.

[Guy Raz]

All right, so part of. Probably not to sort of psychoanalyze this, but I imagine part of you just saying, you know what? I'm gonna put my. Put my head down in work, probably. It gave you focus.

[Monica Nassif]

Oh, without question. I mean, I would get in the car and just go, failure is not an option. I gotta hustle enough work here to make the mortgage payment, make the insurance payment, put food on the table. Yeah, I gotta hustle, and I gotta hustle.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. And so, I mean, from what I gather at this point, you start to do a bunch of freelance gigs. You were, like, writing and marketing, and I think a lot of it for Target. Right. They were kind of a big client.

[Monica Nassif]

Yep.

[Guy Raz]

And you were basically a free agent. Right. But I guess you started to see that there were a bunch of other freelance people doing this kind of work. And what did you. Did you get to thinking, you know, maybe, like, maybe I should turn this into, like, an actual business, like a marketing business.

[Monica Nassif]

A business, yeah, without questions. And Target started teaming me up with a creative director on a lot of projects. And finally we just said, hey, we should just team up, put our resources together. You know, she was an amazing art director. I was more on the sales side and the strategy side. And so we ran an agency for 10 years called Kilcher. And I learned a lot. You know, that's when I really learned how to build a brand, how to design a brand, how to make it, you know, highly competitive in the marketplace.

[Guy Raz]

So, 89, you start this marketing design company with this colleague, and. What was her name?

[Monica Nassif]

Cynthia Knox.

[Guy Raz]

So you and Cynthia started And you grow it to, like, almost 30 people.

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah. So we were doing work for, you know, Rainforest Cafe, LiveTouch, Medtronic. Mostly consumer brands, but other big brands.

[Guy Raz]

Big brands.

[Monica Nassif]

Out of the big brands. Yeah. So there was a lot of work for us, without question.

[Guy Raz]

And were you guys making a lot of money?

[Monica Nassif]

No, we were not making a lot of money. It was, I would call it a hand to mouth kind of business. You know, I always said all your assets are going down the elevator every night and all your talent and. Yeah, I mean, we made a good living. Did we make millions of dollars? No. You know, and then while we had kilter, we thought we were so smart. Let's start a watch company.

[Guy Raz]

A watch company?

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah. It's always an utter.

[Guy Raz]

You and Cynthia said this.

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Guy Raz]

This, like, wristwatch company.

[Monica Nassif]

Like a wristwatch company. Yeah. This was our brainchild. And at the time, there was this huge gulf between a Swatch watch, you know, 100 bucks.

[Guy Raz]

Yep.

[Monica Nassif]

And a Rolex. Thousands of dollars.

[Guy Raz]

Yep.

[Monica Nassif]

And we saw this, this merchandising opportunity, like, oh, my God, we should fill the void. Right.

[Guy Raz]

Somewhere between a Swatch and a Rolex.

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah, and a Rolex, like an upscale Swiss watch. So we went after it. It was the stupidest thing we could have done because, well, for a whole variety of reasons, we could design product, but we knew zero about selling into retail stores. We were marketers, we weren't salespeople, we weren't manufacturers. We didn't know any of that.

[Guy Raz]

But how far along the path did you go? Did you actually get, like a prototype?

[Monica Nassif]

Oh, yeah, we made watches. We went to Switzerland, found a manufacturer, spent way too much money, lost all that money. But I learned several powerful lessons with that. And one was never, ever, ever do two businesses at once. Because let's be clear, the designers and people thought that was about the sexiest thing around, was to develop a product. Well, it didn't pay the bills.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, the bills were paid by Target and Medtrona and Rainforest Cafe that you guys are doing work for them.

[Monica Nassif]

Exactly.

[Guy Raz]

But everybody wanted to work on the watches.

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah. Because it was cool.

[Guy Raz]

And so the idea was you would have. And what would the watches sell for?

[Monica Nassif]

I think they're around like 189, 175. So they were slightly above a swatch, but a lot more fashion.

[Guy Raz]

Were they leather straps?

[Monica Nassif]

Oh, yeah, leather straps. Plastic, really clean Swiss faces. Very sleek, very moma esque. Yeah, they were cool. I still have some. Believe me, I have probably too many.

[Guy Raz]

Wow. Yeah. So you thought, all right, let's see if we can get a brand going. And I mean, before we get into some more details, what was the total timeline that you worked on this? Like, more than a year?

[Monica Nassif]

Probably about a year, year and a half. Cynthia went to a trade show in Switzerland, found a manufacturer, and we just didn't invest in selling. I remember thinking, this is the stupidest thing I've ever done. We've got a product, and we think, oh, it's so cool, people are going to beat a path to our door. Well, we were just ignorant. And I just remember thinking, when we shut that thing down, if I ever have a product, that is all I'm going to do, is it? I'm going to sell, sell, sell. I'm not coming home till I got a fistful of pos. That was like the vow I made to myself when we had that watch company. So it was painful. It was expensive.

[Guy Raz]

How much money did you think you lost?

[Monica Nassif]

75,000 savings.

[Guy Raz]

So a lot of money, certainly.

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. Okay.

[Monica Nassif]

Not devastating, but it was a lot. Our savings for our family. Yeah, it was. It was a painful lesson in many ways.

[Guy Raz]

All right. But you can continue doing this work for. And I guess one of the things that you got frustrated with, I read, was that while you were running a marketing firm, you would make suggestions to some of the brands, like, hey, you guys should do this or that, or you should consider introducing this kind of product or that kind of product. And most of the time you were. That advice was ignored.

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah, well, two things would happen. One, they would take your advice, run with it, and be entirely financially successful, or two, fail to execute and then blame us. And I was like, you know what? I'm kind of tired of this. Consulting's hard. You know, I was getting restless, and I looked into the future and went, I'm gonna be 60 and doing the same old stuff. And you know what? I'm bored. I want my own product.

[Guy Raz]

And you were about to turn 40, or you were in your early 40s.

[Monica Nassif]

I was 40, yeah. It was kind as I was looking at 40, going, I got to do something else. Then, you know, a couple years later, I'm at this store in Atlanta, a big box store, probably a Linens and things or a Bed, Bath and Beyond. And I see this huge pallet of cleaning products, and they're all tipped over. They look pathetic. And I just. I stood there for the longest time going, this is the saddest, most pathetic consumer category I can think of.

[Guy Raz]

And these were like, cleaning products, like.

[Monica Nassif]

Cleaning products, like window Spray and to name something, you know, yellow goo with these military handles. And they were all, you know, it was as if somebody took a basket and dumped it on a wooden pallet. And I thought, this could be awesome, this category. It could be like Aveda. That's what I was standing there going, Veda. Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

Because Aveda.

[Monica Nassif]

Aveda's based in Minneapolis.

[Guy Raz]

I knew a lot about Minneapolis by. I think he's an older lie, but an Austrian American businessman. He start. And Aveda became this kind of first mover in that kind of world. One of the most influential. Like, right. Hair care.

[Monica Nassif]

Oh yeah. Hair care. Beauty products be products.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Monica Nassif]

And I just thought, why can't it be like that?

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. I mean, you think of Aveda and I think they even have like Aveda spas or there are spas.

[Monica Nassif]

Oh yeah.

[Guy Raz]

Products. I'm sure I've been in one in the past. And you can just. There's like a, like a harmonious, calming, zen like feeling.

[Monica Nassif]

Oh yeah. And. And you can smell Aveda from across the block. You know, they have a great fragrance. Oh, I love the brand.

[Guy Raz]

Great brand.

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah. I buy still a ton of their product. And I just remember thinking, this could be the Aveda of cleaning. Why can't it be? Who said?

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, exactly. Who said?

[Monica Nassif]

And then I got on the plane after that store visit and I still have this little scrappy sheet of paper where I wrote down the outline of my business plan, how it could be singular fragrance. So if you wanted to clean your house, the whole thing could be in lavender or citrus or whatever.

[Guy Raz]

When you say the whole house, you would do window spray, floor cleaner and dish soap, laundry detergent, everything in lavender.

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah. If that's your fragrance of choice.

[Guy Raz]

That's your fragrance.

[Monica Nassif]

Right. You know, and. And then all the products would be earth friendly. They would have that a Veda esque aroma, which, you know, is so captivating and people just love the product. And I thought, why can't we love this category? You know, instead of like, I have to use it. But I became obsessed and I started to do all this research, you know, in the dark of the night, go to the library, try to find out what, what was used for cleaning Pre World War II, you know, when all the, when all the big brands blew up after World War II, the Procter and Gambles, the Reckitt banisters. And it was all these homespun remedies, lavender from the garden and all these kind of rituals of spring cleaning. And I thought, no one's telling. Romantic's probably Too strong of a word. But no one's telling this positive, healing, cool story about what cleaning could be. And I thought the other problem with cleaning products is they look horrible. They look like guns, military guns. And I thought, why can't they be on par with all these beautiful kitchen appliances? Like we always said, jewelry on the counter. Jewelry. This has got to be jewelry on the counter. It should be able to. You should be able to have a bottle of hand soap and a bottle of dish soap proudly sit by your sink.

[Guy Raz]

Right. Because most people used and still use dawn or Fantastic or Mr. Clean or. Right. I mean, they were tied. I mean, that, that was that. Those products did and still do dominate the category. But you're thinking, hey, there must be a corner of this multi billion dollar industry that I could cleave away with a higher end, sort of more thoughtful, thoughtfully designed product.

[Monica Nassif]

Exactly. I kind of. I drew this triangle and I went, okay, on the bottom triangle we have Procter and Gamble. What are they good for? Performance. They're awesome. Right? They get everything clean.

[Guy Raz]

Yep.

[Monica Nassif]

On the bottom triangle we have Seventh generation. Right. They're earth friendly. Performance at the time was kind of sketchy. I think that's changed. And at the top of the triangle, I put our brands up there and went, let's take the best. Let's take the best from these two categories and just make something killer at the top that no one's ever thought about before.

[Guy Raz]

Do you like cleaning?

[Monica Nassif]

Actually, I do like cleaning.

[Guy Raz]

So you do.

[Monica Nassif]

One of my early jobs was, you know, I had a lot of. I have a checkered past guy. I was a truck stop waitress. I was a typist. I walked beans. I was a crew boss for soybean walking. But I was also a janitor in a beauty shop in a trailer park.

[Guy Raz]

This is in college or high school.

[Monica Nassif]

Even before high school. So this is. I'm trying to get hairspray off the floor cleaning. That is not a job I like at all.

[Guy Raz]

When we come back in just a moment, Monica gets a cleaning job she loves and finds a job for her mom too. Stay with us. I'm Guy Roz and you're listening to How I Built this. We've all got our own professional goals. Maybe to impress an investor or show off your next big creative idea. Well, Canva can help achieve your goals with the power of visual communication. We spend a lot of our lives at work, so it's time to find ways to enjoy it. Canva lets you jazz up your documents with images and charts from their massive media library or add animations to make your presentations pop. And I just love how easy it is to make designs. So whether you work at a small or a big company, in a team of two or two thousand, Canva empowers workplaces everywhere to design compelling content, save time, and be more productive together. Love your [e-mail] while you're away. Your home could be an Airbnb Just like the incredible home I stayed in in Mexico City just a couple weeks ago. It was absolutely beautiful and the perfect base for exploring the city. Maybe you're planning a trip for a long holiday weekend. And while you're away, you could Airbnb your home and make some extra income toward the trip. Find out how much your place is [e-mail] host imagine getting a message from your favorite brand that feels like it was created just for you. Chances are they're using Attentive, the SMS and email marketing platform designed to help brands build and connect with their ideal audience. Attentive helps marketers create unique messages for every subscriber, transforming the consumer shopping experience and maximizing marketing performance. But how does it work? Attentive's AI learns what subscribers actually want based on their real time interactions with your brand. That means it customizes the content, tone and timing of every message so they always resonate. Ready to take customers on a journey created just for them? Visit attentive.com built to learn more. Hey, welcome back to How I Built this. I'm Guy Raz. So it's the year 2000, and Monica is ready to launch a new line of upscale and elegant cleaning products. And her first task? Finding someone to make them.

[Monica Nassif]

So the guy who used to cut my hair had an Aveda salon. And I said, hey, Mick, I got this idea for putting stuff into bottles. I didn't tell him the concept. I said, who do you, do you know anyone? I mean, I didn't know anybody in this business. Do you know anyone who knows anything about putting liquids into bottles? And he goes, you know what? I gotta, I cut the hair of a fragrance consultant. I'll, I'll call her and see if she can call you. Well, he did. And I met with her and she said, here's what you gotta do. And so she kind of walked me through the whole process. You know, you gotta build a fragrance profile which is not unlike a marketing profile. You know, who's your demographic, what's it supposed to do, what are your big ideas, et cetera, et cetera. And then she said, you gotta go find this Manufacturer out west of town. Go find them. They'll help you too. So I go out there, it's called Boomerang, and it's a bunch of ex employees from the Redmond hair care business. They pooled their esop funds after that company was sold and started a manual, a contract manufacturing facility.

[Guy Raz]

They were making like shampoo and stuff.

[Monica Nassif]

For shampoos and, yeah, all kinds of stuff. So I go out and see this, this person and I, I, at the time I already had some dummy bottles. I would fill them up with a slight tint. I had all these pet, which are clear plastic bottles and I had a designer already create the labels for me. And I go out, I kind of share briefly with my business plan with her. And she sits back and she goes, okay, you cracked the code, I'll help you. Meaning she goes, I've been waiting for someone to figure this out. So she gave me the name of three chemists and I called them all, just tracked them down as fast as I could. Two just looked at me like I had like four eyeballs. They just thought I was crazy. They're like, no, I'm not going to help you. The second one, no, I'm not going to help you. And the third one said, oh, I'll help you. And that was Pam Helms. And at the time she was a chemist for a personal care company in town. So she agreed to moonlight for me and help me figure out how to make this product. So we met every Wednesday night at 9 and every Saturday morning and she would create these formulations for. We started, I think, with five products. It was hand soap, dish soap, ironing spray and something else. Oh, countertop spray. That was it. And three different fragrances. And she goes, well, now we have to test them. And I went, what do you, what do you mean we test them? Don't you test them? She goes, no, we gotta give them to 25 people and have them rate the product on a whole variety of factors. Fragrance, performance, streaking. So every Saturday morning I would take these little tiny samples of bottles in a brown paper bag with an evaluation form. I had 25 deliveries every Saturday morning. And I would go around, I found 25 of my friends and family and they would rate the product and they would fax, fax back, believe it or not, their evaluations of the product.

[Guy Raz]

And what gave Pam confidence in you? Do you think it was your background in marketing?

[Monica Nassif]

I don't know if I gave Pam a lot of confidence, man. I asked her to come work for me three or four Times, and she said no every time. She kept moonlighting. And finally it took, I think three years after we got up and running, she finally said yes to me to come work for me full time.

[Guy Raz]

So you were just kind of paying her as a consultant?

[Monica Nassif]

I just kept paying. I'm like, pam, come on, just join us. And she's like, no, no, I don't know if you guys are going to make it or not. And I totally get it. And finally when she said yes, she said, why did you keep asking me? I said, pam, are you kidding me? If I stopped at no, I would never get out of bed. No is just the beginning of a conversation. You know, I hear no. I've heard no my entire life. It means nothing.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, when you, I mean, when you. So you start to work on this and then Pam's working on this and. But meantime, what were you doing to earn money? Or was David your husband? Was he working at this point?

[Monica Nassif]

So he's working at this time. So he's actually still at our former agency. And I had also saved up two years of income. Like I really spent the several years before I left the marketing agency saving money. So then what I do is I'm writing the business plan and I'm out raising money. And it took. I was just trying to raise about 700,000. That was the first round. And honestly, that is the hardest, most humbling part of the whole deal.

[Guy Raz]

How did you raise the money?

[Monica Nassif]

Shameless. Cold calling. Shameless. I just had this vision of a funnel in my mind thinking if I get a hundred names, I get one call. I mean, I was so desperate, a friend of mine, he gave me the church directory for his well affluent church in Minneapolis. He goes, monica, just work down the list. Just start calling down the list. So I did. I literally called everybody and anybody and I, I mean, I ran into some characters, believe me, and I, I went to every meeting. I thought, you know what, I don't care if they're the right investor or not. I'm just going to practice, you know, because when I finally find someone with a bucket of money and interest, I gotta be ready. So I went to so many meetings that were so ridiculous. I mean, here's one that's very funny. So someone said, hey, there's this old guy who's got a lab and back and he's helping this woman with this personal care company. You got to go see him. So I go see him, his office is full of smoke, he's got more crap on his desk. I thought he was Going to light himself on fire. He's got these long ugly yellow fingernails from smoking since birth. And he grabs the business plan out of my hand and he starts going through and he flips right to the back, right to the financials, pro forma financials. And he goes, hey, here's how this works. I'll give you a million dollars in cash. I get 75% of the company and I own all the formulations in two years. He goes, in two years, if you make these numbers, these numbers you're showing me, you get it all back, you get back to 75% ownership. You get back ownership of your formulations. And I thought, oh my God, get out of here as fast as you can. But what did I learn in that meeting? That you owned your formulations?

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Monica Nassif]

I didn't know that. So that was a huge learning.

[Guy Raz]

So you turned that offer down?

[Monica Nassif]

Oh my God. I ran from the building as fast as I can. I mean, I once saw a guy who, from the office, he says, come in here, little filly. And I thought, what is this? I spend the next hour listening to him tell me about his stud farm and his Arabian horses. Artificial insemination. And I'm thinking, well, this is a mismatch. So I mean just the crazy people that you have to go see. It almost became like a comedy show. So I had to change my strategy. So I finally call this woman and she goes, hey, Monica, you gotta find this guy named Dick Magnuson. He was an early investor in the Nerf ball. Believe it or not, Nerf was invented in Minneapolis. Find him, he might help you. So it took me six weeks. Finally tracked him down, got his cell phone and he goes, okay, meet me out here at 8:00 on this Friday morning. I got to this crappy old office again, smoke filled room. And I'm like, oh God, here we go again. Well, Dick Magnuson is sitting there smoking. Sit down on this folding chair. He grabs my plan, he flips through it and he goes, you know, I hate consumer product deals. I just hate them. He goes, but I kind of like you. So I'm going to read this plan over the weekend and if I like it, I'm going to call you at 8am on Monday morning. And he called me 8am on Monday morning and he helped me.

[Guy Raz]

He said, I'm in.

[Monica Nassif]

He said, I'm in.

[Guy Raz]

And how much did you raise total?

[Monica Nassif]

We raised about 800,000 the first round from a whole variety of investors. But he's an ex investment banker. But one thing he really taught Me was, okay, Monica, we're not running for political office. That's what he said to me. He goes, we're not running for political office. Stop smiling so much. We're doing a business deal now. Let's get serious. So I'm gonna be honest. It helped to have an old white guy at the table asking other old white guys for money. So I've started to see a big breakthrough after that.

[Guy Raz]

So, all right, so you have. And I mean, this is what you're doing full time. David is bringing in some income from his job. You decide that you are going to pursue this sort of higher end cleaning supplies. And by the way, how many different products did you want to have? You wanted to have like window cleaner and detergent and dish soap.

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah, we didn't start with laundry detergent. We started with five products in three different fragrances For Caldrea. The fragrances are lavender, pineapple, green tea, patchouli and citrus mint Lang Ylang. And they're in these gorgeous bottles. And so. And the five, five products each.

[Guy Raz]

And Caldria was the name. Tell me about the name Caldrea.

[Monica Nassif]

Oh, so Caldrea comes from Cala and Andrea.

[Guy Raz]

Oh, your dog.

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah. So it was a combination of my daughter's names.

[Guy Raz]

And so you were gonna. And, and let's. So you have the, you've got the funding to kind of get this manufactured. But, but tell me about, let's first talk about the bottles. What was so special? Were they plastic bottles? Were they glass bottles?

[Monica Nassif]

They were called pet. I don't know what that stands for. But they were these beautiful clear bottles usually reserved for food or personal care. You know, they were not typically used for cleaning products. They were very upscale. So I found this guy who became a bottle distributor for us. And Ray would bring me so many samples. I think he too, he felt sorry for him. But he also thought, well, I don't know, this might work out. I'll give her some free bottles. So he gave me a bunch of bottles to work with so I could dummy up some products and take these small little brown fragrance bottles into these meetings so I could share. Hey, this is what we're trying to do. Here's how it's going to look. Here are the aromas, you know, so people will get a sense of this is what this is going to look like on shelf.

[Guy Raz]

So you start to get this produced. This co packer, co manufacturer in Minneapolis where you were experimenting with this stuff with, with the, with the product. They, you, you hire them as your contract manufacturer, right?

[Monica Nassif]

They become our filler. And they were awesome. They, you know, they too, were a startup, so they. They help us just in terms of. I mean, I didn't. I didn't know how you price this stuff. When I wrote my business plan, I would spend a lot of time at grocery stores. I didn't have another category from which to model. And I'm a big believer. I think I learned that in marketing. Let's find some models for pricing, brand extension, all that stuff. And I couldn't figure out how to price this from a retail standpoint and then work back to the cost of goods. That was really tricky. We didn't, because we had. Nobody else was doing what we were doing with cleaning and the other thing that was going on. We had a difficult time with the vendors supplying us with aromas, surfactants, olive oils, all the things we wanted at the personal care grade level for cleaning. They're like, we don't. We're not doing that. That's ridiculous. So we had a hard time finding vendors on the manufacturing side to believe in our concept of upscaling this whole category of cleaners.

[Guy Raz]

Where were you buying the fragrance from?

[Monica Nassif]

Usually from Switzerland. That's. It came through most of the offices on the East Coast, I think New Jersey.

[Guy Raz]

And by the way, was Caldria just you at this point and some. Some sort of contract employees or did you have.

[Monica Nassif]

No, I had. I had probably maybe two to four employees at the time.

[Guy Raz]

Okay, and what were they doing? So I had the roles you hired for.

[Monica Nassif]

I had a CEO who was kind of in charge of manufacturing operations. And then I had a warehouse person. And then that was kind of it, for starters. You know, we were doing everything right.

[Guy Raz]

Okay. And when it comes to strategy, I'm assuming you guys. I think you guys initially wanted to get Kaldria into gift shops, right? Like shops where people buy, you know, homewares and things like that.

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah, like ABC Carpet and Home out of New York, for example. At the time, that was a major coup for us. We got in there, they had a kitchen area where it had all these upscale kitchen gadgets. So that's the other thing we looked for. Could we be, you know, saddled up next to upscale kitchen, upscale gift? Because we could definitely make our product giftable, you know, because the bottles were so beautiful, and it was kind of a new category. So slowly, over the, you know, one or two years, I finally had all the rep groups set up, and then we started going having a booth at all these gift shows. Atlanta was a big market New York was a big market, Texas. And so what we learned really quickly was that the coasts were very good for us.

[Guy Raz]

What about like William Sonoma, was that was. Were you. Did you guys approach them?

[Monica Nassif]

So Williams Sonoma, it's an interesting story. So that January, before we shipped our first product, I saw on the back of their catalog our concept. They had lavender dish soap, hand soap, candle. And I literally hit the panic button. I'm like, oh, crap, they're in this business. And if anybody can do it, these guys can. So lo and behold, fast forward to this houseware show. Our first houseware show in Chicago. And we have a hutch. That's all we have, a hutch and all of our product. William Sonoma sees us at ABC Carpet Home. When they're doing their trend trips, they come and say, hey, would you make. We love what you're doing. We love your fragrances. We've tested your products, we've used your products. Would you make this for us?

[Guy Raz]

Wow.

[Monica Nassif]

So they want. And they were having problems with their vendors getting their dish soap made. They were, they couldn't fill out, they couldn't fill their supply line. So we're like, oh my God, this is awesome. So anyway, we have to go out and have a meeting in San Francisco. And I thought to myself, okay, when we come back and show them our dummy product how this is going to look, I'm going to fill this table. Because they're very creative, they're very consumer focused. I thought, we're going to build a huge display here. Just like to see it in a store. Because that's how their minds work. Because I thought, let's put on your marketing hat, Monica. This has got to be like bold and competitive and killer. So they just go, oh my God, I gotta go with these guys. And that was a significant revenue program for us and it served as our financing for the rest of the. For the rest of the life of the company.

[Guy Raz]

But it wasn't a brand builder.

[Monica Nassif]

It wasn't a brand builder, but it was a category builder.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Monica Nassif]

And that was just as important in my mind. And a lot of our advisors said, oh, Monica, don't do it. You're crazy. Private label, it's a low margin business. But if Williams Sonoma gets behind a category of premium cleaning and they sell their dish soap for 799 and Caldera for 7999, we all went. Because Williams Sonoma was landlocked to 250 stores. This is long before Internet shopping. So I wasn't worried that I was competing with them. I took the attitude of, hey, all boats float in a rising tide. We're all going to grow this huge premium category together. I thought it benefited everybody.

[Guy Raz]

So they didn't sell Caldria in addition to the. They just sold the white label brand.

[Monica Nassif]

They just sold the white label brand, they say.

[Guy Raz]

But on the bottle, it did say made by Caldria, right?

[Monica Nassif]

Yes, because I gave them a margin point for that.

[Guy Raz]

Got it. Okay.

[Monica Nassif]

So again, it was validating our position in the marketplace where you could find it in all these gift stores.

[Guy Raz]

Let me ask you about the price point here, Right? Because I imagine a strategy can be pricing something higher because it gets people interested. They're thinking, wait, $10 for a bottle of. Of, you know, Windex. Like, this must be really good Windex.

[Monica Nassif]

Right. So our dish soap is priced at $7.99. And so that's why I knew we would never survive in mass, because, let's be Honest, Don was $1.99 or $2.99, whatever.

[Guy Raz]

Right?

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah. The customer would go, who are these? This makes no sense. It can't be that great. It's not like specks of gold are in there.

[Guy Raz]

So it had to be at a gift shop where people might be like, oh, this is interesting. It's not Don.

[Monica Nassif]

Right.

[Guy Raz]

So here's my question. I mean, you're. You start. You're working with distributors, right? And you're getting into more and more gift shops, but still, like, how are you getting people to buy them? I mean, now you're just. You're just hoping that people will notice them in the stores. So it's still. It's got. I mean, imagine, because you launched this business in 2000, I imagine, 2001, when these are in stores, it's slow going.

[Monica Nassif]

Oh, yeah.

[Guy Raz]

It's not like they're, like, flying off the shelves.

[Monica Nassif]

No, exactly. But what we had done is, because I learned this from my past careers, we hired a PR firm out of New York. And so all I wanted them to do was to get us placement in all the home deck, home decor, women's fashion, all these magazines.

[Guy Raz]

Martha Stewart Living.

[Monica Nassif]

Martha Stewart Living. Real simple. You name it, that's what we wanted to be in. And it worked. It started to put us on the map. Good Housekeeping. So that is how we spent our marketing dollars at the time.

[Guy Raz]

All right, so you've got Caldria out there, and it's doing okay, and you've got the Williams Sonoma business, But I guess you started to pretty early on get worried that, you know, some other better funded brand or company could come in and just basically do the same thing and, and, you know, or, or introduce a kind of a cheaper knockoff that would really damage your business.

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah. Oh, I, I did start to worry because, you know, when I started, I knew, I knew the statistic was that, hey, almost 80% of all household cleaning products are purchased in the grocery store and discount stores. So that was the market. But when I got started, I honestly didn't know how to get there. I didn't have the expertise, I didn't have the funding. I didn't know how to start there. But all of a sudden I went, you know what? Let's knock off ourselves.

[Guy Raz]

Let's knock off ourselves.

[Monica Nassif]

Let's knock off ourselves. I had a boss who always said, hey, Monica, saw the branch you're sitting on and reach for the one above you. And I kept thinking about that with Mrs. Meyers, and I thought, let's just knock off ourselves. So we're going to go to mass, we're going to figure it out. We're going to create a whole nother brand. And, you know, that's what I knew how to do. I knew how to build brands because a lot of people said, oh, Monica, you're not focused. You're building all these brands. But that was, to me, the easy part, the hard part was the selling, the operations, the manufacturing. I didn't have expertise in that area. So we're like, okay, we're going to knock off ourselves. We're sitting around, probably five of us at the time were brainstorming, and we're going, all right, if we wanted to take out Caldria, how would we do it? Caldrea's European, she's fancy, she's high priced. Let's make something Midwestern, wholesome out of a garden. And then all of a sudden it was like, wait, this is like my mom, you know, she's like the consummate house wife with huge family, huge garden total. She was a child of the depression. Waste Not, Want not is her operating model for everything. So that's how he came up with.

[Guy Raz]

The name Mrs. Myers.

[Monica Nassif]

Mrs. Myers. My mom. Yep. So I called my mom after we've, you know, first of all, you have to make sure you clear it with the trademark office. I call my mom and I go, hey, mom, do you want to be a brand? And she goes, of course. She's in the garden. She goes, what's a brand? I said, I'll just explain it to you later. Just Just. Just agree to this. We got it. Because we got to get running with this, and then I'll call you later and explain what we're going to do. I didn't really know what we were all going to. Anyway, I wanted her nod to get running.

[Guy Raz]

You know, this is really interesting. I mean, you start to recognize that Caldria alone is going to be vulnerable because it's small, it's not well funded. You know, you might get lucky, but there's a good chance that a competitor is going to come in and crush the brand. And so you start to say, it's so interesting because many years ago, I interviewed Kenneth Chenault, the former CEO of American Express, and another show I do called Wisdom from the Top, and I asked him about how he thinks about business. And he said, you always want to think, how can I become my competitor, my future competitor? How do I become my future competitor now? It's like a great strategy.

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah. You know, when you have eight siblings, it's. It's a dog fight. Highly competitive.

[Guy Raz]

Right.

[Monica Nassif]

You know, and I'm like, I'm not letting anyone take this concept. I'm gonna do it. You know, I'm super competitive. And I thought, let's just. Let's knock ourselves off.

[Guy Raz]

What would be different between the. The Mrs. Meyers products and the Caltrea products?

[Monica Nassif]

Well, we kind of had this marketing philosophy that it has to come out of Mrs. Meyer's garden in Iowa. It has to be a authentic, it has to be authoritative, and it has to be priced slightly above the mass. And it's going to be based on a real person. We're not going to make this up, you know, in terms of it's going.

[Guy Raz]

To be my mom, it's going to be my mom.

[Monica Nassif]

And, you know, she's the real deal in many ways. And, you know, we were raised to kind of take care of what you have and it will take care of you. And she was very thrifty, and my brother had a saying she could make a nickel squeal. You know, she had a hard life as a child. You know, she didn't have probably running water, electricity until she was 10 on a Kansas farm. I mean, we didn't have to make up that much stuff about her.

[Guy Raz]

One of the interesting things, because your mom's name is Thelma, right? Thelma Meyer. One of the interesting things about this product was that the original packaging had, like a little character on it. It was like a sort of a 50s housewife with a dress and an apron. Am I right about that it's not on there anymore, but I think it was. And that's a little bit. I mean, I remember seeing that. And, you know, there are different ideas that might come in someone's head. Like, I see that, and I think of, like, Judy Jetson, you know, or I think of. Oh, that evokes a certain image in my mind. Right. And I think that was a point. But that's risky, right, because there could be backlash. There could be people saying, hey, wait a minute. What are you doing? Playing into stereotypes.

[Monica Nassif]

Right? So much for women's lib. And at the same time, this was my mother joyfully accepting her role in life. And so we just embraced that. And this designer I worked with who did all the packaging. Werner design work, Sharon Werner. When I approached her, I knew her from other projects in Minneapolis. She goes, oh, my God, this is my mom. She just totally got it. And so as we were creating the design, we had all these mood boards with all these little icons from the 50s, because we kind of wanted to make the packaging look like Thelma could have made it in her basement. You know, the bottles weren't too slick, the labels weren't too slick, but slick enough, you know, so it had a kind of a retro sophistication, if you will. You know, it's not like you have to be that person in an apron cleaning your house. You don't. It's that you. We. You have the authority of a domestic mentor. And she's real. Yeah, that's how I viewed it.

[Guy Raz]

Interesting. It's often the. It's often people who are least affected by those things that are the most alarmist about them. Right. So. All right, so you basically, you start to work, and between the time that you come up with the idea and the time that you actually have a bottle with, you know, the label and the story. How long did that take, roughly?

[Monica Nassif]

It was probably less than a year. Because, you know, we had a lot of the product developed. So, you know, anytime you make a product like this, it has to go through seven months of stability testing. So you've got. That alone is within your time frame for launching. And so we had the packaging all created. We were working on the fragrances, much simpler. Lavender and lemon verbena. Very different packaging. And we go to another trade show, and Restoration Hardware stops by. And at the time, Restoration Hardware actually had a cleaning section. I don't know if you remember that this is long before, but it was enough. It was a real authentic. With the best mops, the best brooms, you know, Camp, you know, all that stuff. And the buyer comes by and goes, man, I love what you're doing. So that was. Our first customer was Restoration Hardware.

[Guy Raz]

All right, so when Mrs. Meyers is going to be ready by 2002.

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

And what was your. Was your plan to go after? Was there, like, in your mind, did you say, okay, let's just go right into the big box stores? Or did you again say, let's start small?

[Monica Nassif]

Like.

[Guy Raz]

Because we did. We did the story of Method, which also was introduced around this time, but you probably didn't hear about it because it was just in Molly Stones in the Bay Area for a couple of years before, you know, it got bigger. But did you think, hey, maybe we should start small with this?

[Monica Nassif]

I thought we should get in Whole Foods.

[Guy Raz]

Whole Foods, okay.

[Monica Nassif]

Oh, yeah. I was like, that was my target.

[Guy Raz]

So you thought, we gotta get to Whole Foods where the sort of the. Let's just say I hate this term, but, like, influential buyers happen.

[Monica Nassif]

Oh, for sure. Yeah, they are.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Monica Nassif]

Because all the target buyers, other groceries buyers, what are they doing? They're snooping around Whole Foods and major markets in the Columbus Circle, Whole Foods and the San Francisco, they're. Oh, what. What products do they have? How are they selling all that? So at the time, what I. The other thing that I really wanted to pull off was brand blank. And that is before we showed up, if you had dish soap, it went with dish soap, window spray, went with window spray, and it was all scattered throughout the cleaning aisle. And I thought, we're gonna die. We're just gonna be.

[Guy Raz]

Oh, you. In other words, the window sprays were together, the dish soaps were together, which meant that if you had multiple skus, your brand was, like, scattered around.

[Monica Nassif]

Oh, scattered all over.

[Guy Raz]

I thought you couldn't have all the Mrs. Meyers together.

[Monica Nassif]

Right. And hold Whole Foods would. They allowed us. Because one thing they had was personal care. You know, they had a personal care section, and they were used to the Burt's Bees of the worlds coming in there and saying, no, we gotta be all together. Because then you validate your price point and you kind of make a promise to the consumer that, hey, if the hand soap is awesome, the dish soap is going to be awesome. You know, it has this halo effect.

[Guy Raz]

All right, so you get into whole. Into those Whole Foods. And I guess again, I mean, you're in some of these. I mean, you had Caldria in some of these magazines. Now you've got this very unusual. Because I remember the label. You've got the Judy Jetson or whatever. The June cleaver on there. Mrs. Meyers. And so it stood out. But how are you gonna get people to buy it? What was the approach you took?

[Monica Nassif]

Well, again, we had the PR firm working on Mrs. Meyers, but we also started doing sampling. So this is when we got my mother, Thelma, to go into stores in Columbus Circle in San Francisco, and we made tiny little samples. Like the personal care business.

[Guy Raz]

Yep.

[Monica Nassif]

Hand soap, dish soap. And my mom would stand there in her little uniform we created for her, and she.

[Guy Raz]

What was the uniform you created for?

[Monica Nassif]

Oh, it was like a plaid shirt, a denim apron, and little red capris and red shoes.

[Guy Raz]

That's. And. And she was like, oh, my gosh, I'll play ball.

[Monica Nassif]

I mean, she was like, I'm in. I love everything about this.

[Guy Raz]

And was that what she wore normally?

[Monica Nassif]

Oh, well, she wore red. She wore work shoes. My mother believed in German work shoes. So these are red work shoes.

[Guy Raz]

And did you make her, like, get her hair done in a certain way.

[Monica Nassif]

And just a little more upscale? But, you know, she had a mop of gray hair. Thick mop of gray hair, and she wore makeup. She. She just thought she was, like, a movie star.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. And it's called Mrs. Meyers. And she's like, I'm Mrs. Meyers. But it wasn't like the Charmin Squeeze guy.

[Monica Nassif]

No.

[Guy Raz]

Like, she was.

[Monica Nassif]

She's like the real deal.

[Guy Raz]

She was actually the real person.

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah. And we would bring her to trade shows, and people just, like, loved seeing her, and she loved. You know, she just embraced this whole thing. And one thing I learned early on was, so, you know, when you come out of corporate communications, you learn, hey, if you're getting somebody prepped for media relations, give them three. Three key messages. Well, I tried that on my mom. That was a disaster, because she'd be interviewed by a salesperson or a media, and she'd say, was that a key message? She'd look at me.

[Guy Raz]

Oh. While she was being interviewed, she'd turn to go, hey, was that the right key message?

[Monica Nassif]

Was that the right key message?

[Guy Raz]

I'm like, but would they ask her, like, hey, how did you invent this? How did you start this business? You know, what would she say?

[Monica Nassif]

She would. She would act like she did it. And, you know, at first, I kind of always wanted to interrupt, and I thought, just let her rip. I mean, to this day, people think she started it. And then if I'm around standing around, she goes, oh, no, no, no. My daughter did.

[Guy Raz]

Right. But at some point, I mean, you and your mom joined forces to go on QVC. Right? And you pitched both of the brands, Mrs. Meyers and Caldria.

[Monica Nassif]

Right. We went on QVC. QVC wanted to bring us on. They brought in my mom. Disaster. I went on a novel.

[Guy Raz]

It was a disaster.

[Monica Nassif]

It was a disaster. You know, there's something about QVC that we just didn't understand.

[Guy Raz]

Wait, what happened?

[Monica Nassif]

It just. So if you know anything about qvc, you sit in the green room when someone's on and you can just see the lights blink when the calls come in. It is a whole different type of selling environment. And you know, I came out of traditional retail. I didn't understand TV shopping. I should have never said yes to this. But I thought, oh, heck, let's try it. Why not?

[Guy Raz]

Wait, was she not funny or interesting?

[Monica Nassif]

I think she was good, but I think, I think she was. And I have to say, I was too. It was kind of intimidating to be on for a half hour. You know, it's one thing to have like a two to three minute little news clip. It's quite a different animal when you've got to keep that energy and the demo and everything up for 30 minutes. And you know, my mom wasn't that person. We just didn't understand like kind of the demoing part of it, you know, like, oh, look at this as a hot mess. Oh, now it's clean. And then I thought, is that what we're about? No, we're not. We're about fragrance. And it's hard to communicate fragrance over a television. So we walked away from that.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Monica Nassif]

And nothing was considered a failure. It was always like, oh, well, that didn't work. Well, now we know when we come back.

[Guy Raz]

In just a moment, Monica learns another lesson. Do not put your brand in Target until you are absolutely ready. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to how I built this. Like a lot of people, your New Year's resolution may be to drink less alcohol. Luckily, dry doesn't have to be boring. Thanks to Athletic Brewing Company's fun and flavorful non alcoholic beers, Athletic has a huge variety from IPAs, extra dark sours, Hazies Belgian style whites, and an Irish style red. No matter what you're looking for in a great non alcoholic brew, the answer is always athletic. Athletics brews are perfect for any occasion. Plus the zero hangover the next day. My personal favorite is Upside Down Golden. There's nothing dry about Athletic Brewing Co. Non alcoholic brews. Give it a try and head to athleticbrewing.combilt to find it near you. That's athleticbrewing.comb u I l T to grab some fun and flavorful brews near you. Athletic Brewing Co. Fit for all Nier beer. Have you heard about the latest tech partnership that's making waves? Lenovo and intel have been working together for years. And now they've really outdone themselves with the new Lenovo Aura Edition AI PC imagined. With intel. You can work seamlessly with smart experiences to block distractions, share photos in a tap and instantly get expert support. This isn't just any laptop. It's packed with AI capabilities that could really give your business a boost. Now you can work without limits. It's possible on your Intel AI PC. Learn more about Lenovo Aura Edition AI [e-mail] Aura hey, welcome back to How I Built this. I'm Guy Raz. So it's the early 2000s, and Mrs. Meyer's products are in some top Whole Foods locations across the country. And Monica decides it's time to pitch to the buyers at Target.

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah, so I knew the Target folks. I went over there, I made a presentation, and they go, great. We'd love to do a 200 store test. But I'm going to be honest, I secretly had this instinct that we were premature.

[Guy Raz]

It was a mistake.

[Monica Nassif]

It was a mistake. We didn't have the funding. We weren't in enough locations. I said yes. Anyway, so we were given a hurdle, you know, a sales hurdle for, you know, how to fly off the shelf. Well, we completely missed it. And I decided I'm going to take myself out.

[Guy Raz]

Wait, wait, you were Target? Okay, we should clarify here because Target usually gives you one shot, right, to come in. And if you. It's like Sephora, some of these companies, you go in, if you don't make it, they're not gonna bring you back in. And so you agreed? Hey, let's. I mean, I think I would, too. It's Target. But why didn't they sell there? I mean, were you just not able to bring your mom to enough stores? Like, what. What was the problem?

[Monica Nassif]

I just think the whole problem was not enough brand awareness for Target. And the other thing that I really tried to do and it didn't happen was I tried to have those Target stores in the same market as a. As a Whole Foods. So I had concentration in a market that people would see it. Oh, if I went to Whole foods, I saw Mrs. Meyers. Oh, if I go to Target, I'll see Mrs. Meyers. And that didn't happen. We couldn't control the stores. The 200 store test. And so I had no market concentration. We had zero brand awareness. We were so premature with the brand. We didn't really know what we were doing. So I saw the numbers every week, and I decided we got to take ourselves out. So, I mean, I went over to Target and I said, you know what? We're not ready for you. I thought, I'm going to kick myself out because I want back in.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. So at what point did you feel comfortable re approaching Target? Like, what was the metric that you were using?

[Monica Nassif]

Oh, boy. I don't know if I remember having a metric. I just remember thinking, I think we're in enough stores, you know, and they often asked us to come back and provide an update of how the brand was doing. So I'd go back, you know, every six, nine months, pitch all the new products, tell them what we're doing. I never asked for a P.O. i thought, no, I'm gonna, you know, let them ask me. So a couple years later, they said, okay, do you guys think you're ready? And I did think we were ready because we were in a lot more stores. I can't remember the number of stores, but we were probably in, you know, several thousand stores by then, and in all of the major upscale grocery stores. And that's, you know, Target likes. Likes it if brands are in places like that.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. So when you. I mean, by the time you sort of. You're back in Target, I think, in the mid-2000s.

[Monica Nassif]

Yep.

[Guy Raz]

And you're nationally in Whole Foods, do you remember, you know, by 2007, let's say, do you remember what your. Your revenue was? Was it over $5 million?

[Monica Nassif]

Oh, yeah, for sure.

[Guy Raz]

Over 10?

[Monica Nassif]

Yes.

[Guy Raz]

Over 20?

[Monica Nassif]

Yes.

[Guy Raz]

30?

[Monica Nassif]

No. Close.

[Guy Raz]

No.

[Monica Nassif]

Okay, very close.

[Guy Raz]

Between 20 and 30.

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

So you were. So you were really. I mean, you were. And were you profitable?

[Monica Nassif]

We were probably profitable around 15, 20 million. Once we got the margin, the cost of goods sold figured out. For Mrs. Meyers, that was really our struggle in the beginning because we were. So. We wanted to get that product to market, and we didn't quite have the. What I want to say the formulation engineered for a good price point to be at the mass level.

[Guy Raz]

Was your husband, David. Did he eventually join you?

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah, so he. He joined us very early. And finally we were getting to the point of where we were moving into an office. And honestly, I didn't know how to hook up the computers. And I said, dave, he didn't really want to help me. He's like, I don't know what you're doing. You're kind of crazy. But I said, could you just come down and hook up the computers? He goes, I'll do it. He goes. Then he turns to me and he goes, how big did you say this industry is? I said, Dave, almost 10 billion. I just want a corner. I want a corner of it. He goes, I'm going to help you on one condition. I said, what? He goes, you never, ever start another business. I said, okay. I did. But. So he came and helped, and he got involved. And thank goodness that he did, because he was really our finance expert. He ran the books. All the accounting, the shipping, all of that was his forte.

[Guy Raz]

So, all right, so you've got this growing business. You hit, you know, between 20 and 30 million in revenue in sales. And this category is exploding, right? I mean, this sort of premium category. There's method out there, you guys. There's other brands coming out today, obviously, even bigger and more brands, I should say. But you get an offer, you get an acquisition. An acquisition offer comes to you, or you approach, or you. You put yourself up for sale. What? Tell me what the story was.

[Monica Nassif]

So throughout the history of the company, I had mostly private equity. Mostly guys come and say, oh, my gosh, we're really interested when you guys are ready for the next stage of financing. Yada, yada, you know. And so I kept a running list of everybody who approached me, usually at a trade show. And I always asked them one question. And the question was, hey, what can you do for us that we can't do for ourselves?

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Monica Nassif]

And do you know, I never got a good answer. I mean, I just. Okay. An obvious one was throw money our way. But it always stumped them. And I thought, this is not the partner I'm looking for. So finally, in late 2007, I get a phone call. Do not ignore this voicemail. You've ignored so many of my voicemails I've left with you. Please don't ignore this. Call me back. And I thought, who is this guy? So I called him back. He identifies himself, and it's Essie Johnson. And I was not surprised whatsoever, because they had been in every trade show booth since our first trade show. And I understand why. They had a, you know, huge glade business. They really understood fragrance. They understood the cleaning category. They were experts in this department, you know, and so they were really fascinated by what we were doing. And so when I asked them that question, hey, what can you guys do for Us, we can't do for ourselves. Their first answer was global distribution. And I'm like, well, that's kind of cool. I don't know that we could do that, you know? And something else happens when you kind of have a business that's up and running. You start to get a little. I always run paranoid, but you start to get a little more paranoid that, I don't want to screw this up, man. We got something. Something here. I. Maybe we should get out while the getting's good, you know, that was another feeling I had, quite honestly.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. So you agreed to be acquired by them. Right. I mean, it's. It's. I think the outcome was probably great. It was undisclosed amount, but, you know, it's. If you guys are doing between 20 and 30 in revenue, you can imagine what. What that acquisition price was. I imagine that, in a sense, it was a relief. Right. Because here you. Here you are. I mean, you know, you didn't have. Really. Didn't have money, a lot of money, most of your life, and now you are 2008. You must have been close to fit. Maybe just a couple years after.

[Monica Nassif]

50. Yeah. 52. 53.

[Guy Raz]

52. And for the first time in your life, you have this opportunity to actually have a significant amount of cash that probably can support you and your family for the rest of your life.

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah, you know, it's a. It's a bittersweet decision. You know, first of all, you're selling your mother. You know that, right?

[Guy Raz]

Because. That's right, because she was the brand.

[Monica Nassif]

She was the brand.

[Guy Raz]

Her likeness, her name, her name.

[Monica Nassif]

So it's like selling your child. And. And that's. You know, people think, oh, you got a bucket of money for it. But, you know, that was hard. We grew that brand from nothing. And that was the whole fun of it for me, was building a brand.

[Guy Raz]

And so when you sold the business, you stayed on. You agreed to stay on, or you want. I'm sure you wanted to stay on, too. And Pam Helms, who's your chemist and who joined you, she also stayed on.

[Monica Nassif]

Oh, yeah, she's still. Still with them.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, she's still with Essie Johnson.

[Monica Nassif]

Yep.

[Guy Raz]

Amazing. You stay on. And what was your job?

[Monica Nassif]

I stayed the CEO, and I just saw my future as death by PowerPoint. I just thought, I am a creative idea person, and I just thought, somebody else needs to come in here and run this. And as my brother once said to me, monica, you don't have the keys to the car anymore, and so you have to kind of accept that's your new role. And I fulfilled my contract and left the company.

[Guy Raz]

They also acquired Caldria.

[Monica Nassif]

Yes, they acquired everything.

[Guy Raz]

Everything. So you leave and you still have the itch. And now you've got your own money, so you don't have to beg and plead with other people for their money if you want. If you didn't want to. You had money to start something new.

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

And you decide, hey, I want to. I want to get back into the game, Guy.

[Monica Nassif]

I should have just stayed home. What was I thinking?

[Guy Raz]

I don't think so. No, I don't think so. I think it's. It's. I mean, listen, it makes sense. You don't want. You. You don't want to just sit around, let your brain cells die.

[Monica Nassif]

No.

[Guy Raz]

You don't want firing those synapses. Right?

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah. Oh, no. For sure.

[Guy Raz]

So you come up with a new idea.

[Monica Nassif]

So I have a new idea, and it really comes from staying home for about a year.

[Guy Raz]

Staying home?

[Monica Nassif]

I'm bored out of my mind.

[Guy Raz]

You're bored out of your mind?

[Monica Nassif]

I got gas in my tank. So I grew up in a family of seamstresses, and my sister was a fashion. She grew up in fashion. My mother made all of our clothes. My grandmother made all their clothes. So I have a long history of making clothes. So I have this idea that, God, you know, lingerie and sleepwear for older women my age, in their 50s, is terrible. It's either the Victoria's Secret junk or flannel. And why can't you have somewhere in between and have it out of gorgeous fabric?

[Guy Raz]

So, like, when you like silk and.

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah. With gorgeous Swiss cotton. So I thought, I'm going to do some research. So I do some research. I go to a couple trade shows in Europe, look at fabrics, and I thought, I'm just going to start a small line of luxury sleepwear. Caftans, Pajamas.

[Guy Raz]

Luxury pajamas, yeah.

[Monica Nassif]

And this was before. You know, somebody once said to me, after they saw the line, they said, monica, you were two years ahead of Instagram. Had you just waited two years, Instagram, this would have worked. But social media wasn't there for a fashion brand. So I had a couple of employees, I had a pattern maker, and we made our. We manufactured our goods in New York. And I set a revenue goal for myself, and I set a cash flow goal, and I set an investment goal. And I said, if I don't make this revenue, I'm not going to spend any more money on this brand. I'm just going to shut it down.

[Guy Raz]

How much Money. Were you willing to put into it a million dollars? Okay. And by the way, anybody listening? You can Google Sophia Graydon. I don't know if you want people to do it, but it's interesting because you can see pictures of what this looked like. I mean, this is.

[Monica Nassif]

It was beautiful.

[Guy Raz]

It's really nice. Well made pajamas, robes. Yeah, right.

[Monica Nassif]

So I got into it and I realized, oh, my God, this is gonna take like $10 million. This is. You know, once I saw how you have to bring in fabric and the different sizing, you know, I just.

[Guy Raz]

And you were buying expensive fabric. This is not like, just like mass produced in a factory in Chengdu.

[Monica Nassif]

No, they were Swiss cottons, they were French silks. It was. Yeah, no, it was. It was beautiful things. And I wanted to have it all made here in the United States. And, you know, we had great reception. We had great. Again, I hired a PR firm out of New York to promote the product, but I could see how expensive it was going to be. And honestly, I did not want to go out and raise a bucket of money. I just thought, I've been through this. It's so hard. So I got to my revenue goal or short of it, and I got to my cash flow goal. And I said, it's, we're done. And I learned a lot. And I also learned, you know, before you proceed, another startup, we're not going to do that again. Okay. I think that was when I finally said, I think my startup days are over.

[Guy Raz]

Did you love, did you love this idea? The pajamas? I mean, did you like, really love it?

[Monica Nassif]

I loved it, but I didn't really love it. I didn't love it as much as Mrs. Meyers. And the thing with Mrs. Meyers, I could see it in my mind. I could see the end cap from day one when I stood over that pathetic palette in Atlanta. When I first had the idea, it just, boom, came to me.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Monica Nassif]

And I was obsessed. I didn't have that same obsession. It was kind of a whim. And a whim never makes a business. And I know better. I know better.

[Guy Raz]

So you. So that ends. Meantime, Mrs. Meyers is growing like.

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah, a rocket ship.

[Guy Raz]

Like, wild. Because, you know, it reminds me of an episode we did a couple, a couple months ago about barefoot wines. Right. I think it's a best selling wine brand. Brand in the world. And the year before, Gallo bought it from, from the founders, I think they. They did like 4 or 500,000 cases. The next year, Gallo produced like 4 million cases.

[Monica Nassif]

Wow.

[Guy Raz]

Like, that's how Quickly they could scale this brand over, like it just, they acquire it, boom. And now it's the best selling one of maybe the five, two or three bestselling wines in the world. And I, I think there's a similar parallel with Mrs. Meyers. Right? Like they, SC Johnson was able to basically with a snap of of their fingers, put it in every Walmart, every Target, like everywhere.

[Monica Nassif]

And that, that was the attraction to selling to them. I thought they can do what we can't do.

[Guy Raz]

So did you, I mean, after that ended, after your time building that brand ended, did you just shut it out of your life or did you continue to follow what they were doing?

[Monica Nassif]

Oh, no, I continued to follow. And, you know, to this day, I go into a store and I straighten out the bottles on the shelf. I mean, do you really? Oh, I, I'm always counting. I'm always like looking by hand and pulling up product. You know, if it's not, I can't help myself. And my girls do it. You know, in high, they were in high school with their friends. I used to pay them a couple, you know, some like $10, go and get all the shell, pull up the product from behind the shelf, and they say, mom, I still straighten out the product on the shelf. He said, just can't help yourself. It's like your children. You got to make sure they look good.

[Guy Raz]

Can I make a confession to you?

[Monica Nassif]

Please.

[Guy Raz]

I do that with my book. One of my bookstores.

[Monica Nassif]

Yes.

[Guy Raz]

They take it out and I put it front facing so it looks like the bookshop might leave it front facing. So if you ever see my book front facing, you know that I was probably in that don't be ashamed guy.

[Monica Nassif]

I do it all the time.

[Guy Raz]

So I get it. All right, so you, and once you were done with that second business, Sophia Grayden, which really was your third business, right?

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

Did you think, all right, I'm done with starting businesses now?

[Monica Nassif]

No, I didn't think I'm done. I just thought once you've built a Mrs. Meyer's business, it's hard to settle for a little business. You think, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to go big, baby, I'm going to be bold. Competitive is going to be another product category, not a product item business. And I haven't seen that yet.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Monica Nassif]

You know, that's probably why I haven't gone after it.

[Guy Raz]

Tell me what you started to devote your, your time and your energy to, because you're obviously, you're super vibrant, you're super energetic. You're, I mean, you know, just talking to you over the course of this interview, I mean, you're very talented. You've got a lot of ideas in it. And so what have you. How have you been keeping yourself energ?

[Monica Nassif]

Well, I've been on a lot of boards of consumer product companies, and I've also been an investor in a couple startups. And I've learned one big lesson with that. I'm a far better entrepreneur than I am an investor.

[Guy Raz]

Most, most. By the way, 95% of entrepreneurs are better entrepreneurs than investors.

[Monica Nassif]

So I'm not doing that anymore. Yeah, I like to think I'm a quick study, but sometimes not.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. And you know, in terms of like, just looking at these brands. Right. That you built and they're, you know, obviously Mrs. Meyers is a huge brand. Your mom is still around.

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

But you really are the. I mean, you created this brand.

[Monica Nassif]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

And when you think about, you know, the journey you took and how you built this business, this brand, and then, you know, had a successful exit, how much of this do you attribute to the work you put in the grind and how much do you think had to do with luck?

[Monica Nassif]

You know, I always said I was never the smartest person in the room, but I could outwork anyone. I worked my tail off to make this happen. But I'm also a big believer in if a little ladybug comes on your shoulder, it's a sign of good luck. And when that happens, you better run. It means it's go time.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, just. Just to get back to your mom for a second. Does she still work as a mascot for the brand? Like when SC Johnson bought you out, did she still show up to pitch the product?

[Monica Nassif]

Oh, she still did work for them. In fact, she did the Rose bowl parade with them. She'd still made some appearances, but, you know, let's be real. At the same time, my mother's aging. You know, she's 92, she's still super healthy, but that's not a gig she can keep up anymore, you know, But I'm telling you, she had a garage sale this summer and she wanted to know if she could put on her outfit, hand out samples. I mean, she still tells everybody that she sits next to on a plane who she is. Yeah. And they love her for it.

[Guy Raz]

That's Monica Nassif, founder of Kaldria and Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day products. Is the five second rule real if you drop something? I mean, you know, you're a client cleaning expert. If you drop something on within five seconds. Can you still eat that Twinkie or what? Like, let's say it's something very absorbent, like a.

[Monica Nassif]

Like Julia Child did with the roast. Like, just drop the roast.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Monica Nassif]

You know, I don't know. I. I asked. I had to. I'd have to ask Pam the chemist. But, you know, as Julia Child said, there's no one in my kitchen. Is there anyone in your kitchen? She picked up the roast and continued to cook.

[Guy Raz]

Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the Follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show. And if you're interested in insights, ideas and lessons from some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs, please sign up for my [e-mail] or on substack. This episode was produced by Kerry Thompson with music composed by Rontina Rabloui. It was edited by Neva Grant with research help from Carla Estevez. Our engineers were Patrick Murray and Jimmy Keeley. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, J.C. howard, Catherine Cipher, Chris Masini, Sam Paulson, John Isabella, and Elaine Coates. I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening to How I Built this. If you like How I Built this, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short [e-mail] survey it takes a lot to grow your business. You've got to attract audiences, score leads, manager all the channels. It's a lot of long days and late nights, but with Breeze HubSpot's new AI tools, it's never been easier to be a marketer and crush your goals fast. Which means pretty soon your company will have a lot to celebrate, like 110% more leads in just 12 months. Visit HubSpot.com marketers to learn more.