What does it really take to build a purpose-driven brand that lasts?

In this episode of Logistics with Purpose®, presented by Vector Global Logistics and Supply Chain Now, hosts Kristi Porter and Enrique Alvarez sit down with Alastair Dorward, a seasoned entrepreneur and brand builder who has helped scale mission-driven companies from startup to global success.

From launching refrigerated soup routes to helping build Method into a billion-dollar business, Alastair shares candid lessons on resilience, leadership, and what it really takes to win in competitive consumer markets.

The conversation dives into the power of purpose-driven brands like Dropps, the importance of design and sustainability, and how supply chain excellence enables companies to deliver both impact and profitability.

Along the way, Alastair opens up about near-failure moments, leadership transitions, and why understanding the consumer—deeply—is still the ultimate competitive advantage.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why purpose-driven brands win (when they eliminate trade-offs)
• How packaging, design, and sustainability shape consumer behavior
• The real role of supply chain in enabling mission + margin
• How to spot “riches in the niches” and build winning products
• Leadership lessons from scaling brands through uncertainty
• Why resilience—and not perfection—defines entrepreneurial success

Whether you're a founder, operator, or supply chain leader, this episode delivers practical insights on building brands that create both impact and long-term value.

Additional Links & Resources:

• Connect with Alastair: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alastairdorward/
• Learn more about Dropps: https://www.dropps.com/
• Learn more about Logistics with Purpose: https://supplychainnow.com/program/logistics-with-purpose
• Learn more about Vector Global Logistics: https://vectorgl.com/
• Subscribe to Logistics with Purpose: https://logistics-with-purpose.captivate.fm/listen

This episode is hosted by Enrique Alvarez and Kristi Porter, and produced by Trisha Cordes, Joshua Miranda, and Amanda Luton. For additional information, please visit our dedicated show page at: https://supplychainnow.com/purpose-products-persistence-building-mission-driven-brands-last-lwp152

Welcome to Logistics with Purpose presented by Vector Global Logistics in partnership with Supply Chain.

Now we spotlight and celebrate organizations who are dedicated to creating a positive impact.

Join us for this behind the scenes glimpse of the origin stories, change making progress and future plans of organizations who are actively making a difference.

Our goal isn't just to entertain you, but to inspire you to go out and change the world.

And now, here's today's episode of Logistics with Purpose.

Hi, welcome to another episode of Logistics with Purpose, the only podcast focused on supply chains positive impact.

I am Vector Global Logistics chief impact officer Christy Porter, here with my fearless co host, sometimes partner in crime, Enrique Alvarez.

So Enrique, we've been in like multiple meetings together, but this is how we're closing our day out.

So this is much more fun.

How are you?

I know this is very exciting.

I'm really happy to have the guests that we have today and I actually noticed, I don't think that I didn't you and Luisa, that you changed the order so you could actually make a better job in introducing the show, which you did.

So keep you on your toes.

Thanks for doing that.

Thanks for doing that, but no, I.

Without further ado, I had the pleasure of meeting our next guest a couple of months ago and we had a really great discussion and conversation.

We actually hit it off nicely with a cup of coffee in a bench park.

So.

Alstair Dongwaard, senior advisor at drops, a mission driven cruelty free B Corp certified brand redefining what clean really means through clean chemistry, ethical excellence and environmental responsibility.

Alstair has spent more than 25 years partnering with founders across multiple categories to scale purpose driven high growth brands.

Very efficient and successful.

We're thrilled to have you here.

Alstair, how are you doing?

It's great to see you.

Good afternoon.

Enrique, thank you so much for inviting me to join.

And that conversation we had on the park bench was just awesome.

We really connected and I think that the thread started there.

So I really appreciate the invitation and great to be on today.

It really did.

Very casual too.

It's not like you, not a lot of times you get a chance to just have a cup of coffee at a park.

I mean that for me was not a very common thing to do, so I really enjoyed it.

So thanks, thanks for being here.

It was great.

You got it.

Yep.

I went to bed early and then the next morning when I saw Enrique, he's like, you're never going to believe the night I had and who I got to chat with and he had such a great conversation I was like, well, I guess that's what I get for going to bed early.

But I was delighted to meet you the next day.

And then we had a lot of fun at the conference.

And so, you know, we have all these awesome conversations behind the scene, but we love when we get to bring them out for our audience as well.

So we're delighted to chat with you today and hear all about your expertise.

And I've even put a couple of your laundry tips in action.

And so we'll.

We'll talk about that later.

Nice as well.

But first, let's get started and warm up with a couple of quick questions.

Our purpose sprint.

And you can respond with the first thing that comes to mind.

So, first, favorite hobby?

I love choral singing.

I have a baritone bass voice, and I sing in a local church choir.

And it brings me great joy, just blending music with others this time of year, in particular with all the choral.

Oh, for sure.

Now can we put you on the spot?

I mean, you really opened yourself up there.

I was hoping you would follow up with us.

Yeah, that would be a.

Give us a G minor.

Yeah.

No, I don't.

I don't even know what I was about to say.

And then tell us what that is.

Yes.

I was actually in Mammoth Cave national park recently, and they do a big Christmas thing there every year, I think, too, like down in the caves.

Resonating Christmas.

I mean, amazing.

I want to be there for that, but that's not what I expected to come out of your mouth.

And I'm super excited to hear it.

You know, I find it.

It's a great stress reliever, believe it or not, because, you know, being an entrepreneur, you know, it can be death of a thousand cuts.

At the end of the day, you can be drained.

You could have a stressful day.

And without fail, I go to choir pract or a performance, and, you know, I leave it just completely.

My mentality shifted.

And I think there's something about the.

Almost the physiological.

There's the vagus nerve that runs down the neck, and that's when people who practice meditation or say, oh, you know, the chanting, the reverberation of the vagus nerve actually physiologically is a calming mechanism.

So I think that's one of the reasons that singing is.

Brings beauty and joy to people.

So that's my physiological tip of the day.

And we just learned a total left field secret to your success.

So.

Thank you.

So, favorite book.

So, as my kids will say, I'm very, very fiercely Scottish, and everything starts with being from Scotland.

So there's a book that says it's entitled how the Scots Invented the Modern World.

Whether it's, you know, Adam Smith in economics, huge Enlightenment philosopher in David Hume, entrepreneurs like Andrew Carnegie, you name it, huge advances in medicine.

So that book is kind of my little anthem which I bring out and will remind people at all times that I love that the Scots invented the modern world.

So that's one for the archive.

Yes, as.

Yes.

As someone with Scottish heritage, I'll jump on that train with you.

Okay.

What's one thing you do to stay productive except for singing?

Now you've already mentioned that.

So here's a recent tip that I've figured out.

So for me, getting a good night's sleep, I think it's true for all of us, right.

And high quality sleep is, just makes the whole day productive.

You don't, you don't get that mid afternoon drag if you've had a great night's sleep.

And I figured out that a little piece of strip micropore to make sure I am nose breathing rather than breathing with my mouth open.

It just creates a much higher quality sleep.

And I think it's good for the microbiome in one's oral system.

And my wife likes it because I snore much less.

So think I'm not getting that elbow at night.

That's the source of it.

But a crazy recent hack I've tried in the last month, which is a little strip of micropore over my lips and I sleep.

My sleep scores have just gone through the roof.

So that's another.

I'm going to try that tonight actually.

Yeah, not all the way across.

Like that's just two, just a little like a narrow mustache kind of width.

Okay.

Yeah.

Awesome.

All right, that's.

Yeah, I'm loving these lift filled answers.

We just got the conversation started and then of course we have to ask you best day or time to do laundry.

Anytime is a great time.

Of course, particularly with drops.

Right.

That was a setup.

But, but, but how I think about it is, look, firstly, if you're using the dryer, that uses up a ton of energy.

So first I love to try and line dry or rack dry when it's decent weather.

That just creates a better outcome.

But if you're using a dryer, that's a huge power drain.

So we have solar energy here in Northern California.

So I try and do it.

The sun's generating peak power for us, so it's generally an energy question.

Yeah, I love it.

Wow.

Thank you.

And that's a That's a great segue to the question I had for you.

It's all about the energy consumption and how to actually make it more efficient and more, I guess, better for the environment.

Despite 61% of consumers out there saying they really care about the climate change and the environment, we see that behavior just rarely shifts.

I mean, you became, when you became CEO, why did you think Drops could turn intention into action?

That's a big question, Enrique, and a really important one.

And I think it starts with I'm a huge believer in looking at other categories, kind of category arbitrage is one of the themes I talk about.

And you look across the retail aisles or the digital shelves on an e tailer and the penetration of kind of better for you brands.

I mean ultimately clean everything is kind of the answer in beauty.

I think it's table stakes.

So it's like 80% of brands have clean ingredients, but in general, you know, at least 30% share for a better for you brand or the better for you segment of the category is about 30%.

But in, in detergent it's only 3 to 5% because it's such an efficacy driven category.

And the fundamental reason is that there's been a trade off for the consumer.

The trade off was getting a sustainable product that didn't work.

And it was kind of a guilt and sacrifice mission.

Something where, you know, you've been a bad consumer, you've got to use this almost as a penance that it's, you know, gotta use it.

It doesn't really work that well.

You've gotta use more elbow grease or something to get it out.

And that's really where Drops has been able to eliminate the trade off by the advances in green chemistry and the way we formulated the products.

For the first time, you have a sustainable laundry and auto dish brand that delivers the same efficacy as a tide or a cascade without praying more load.

And that's really the breakthrough.

And when, when I arrived at Drops three years ago, we were on our way and over my three years is kind of turning around the business.

That's one of the things I'm most proud of, that the huge strides in efficacy.

And I just seen that when you eliminate that trade off, consumers are looking for better for you.

And I think it really starts with health, right?

And when you're, I think people are, if you learn that the chemicals in this, this product are plant based as opposed to from petroleum, if you learn that the sensitivity ratios are very, very low or even to zero, then the consumer understands this is Better for you, better for the family.

And if you can get a sustainability win, then that's kind of a free prize inside.

So you have to deliver on efficacy without a price premium.

Make it about family health and planetary welfare is a, is a nice free prize inside.

I love that.

Thank you.

That's fascinating.

I think it's such an autopilot action for all of us so that we probably don't give it enough thought.

So it's a, it's been a fascinating conversation even with you in person and now following up, I'm excited for our listeners to hear more about that because it is just more times it's a chore.

So you don't necessarily think about anything like you're healthy or you know, you're just, you just kind of burl through it and get it done.

But if you do think of it as, you know, ultimately a brand could be an agent of change.

You want to go for behaviors that are daily as opposed to once every 10 years I buy this washing machine or something.

But you know, you're running the laundry, running the dishwasher, particularly with the kids coming back for the holidays.

Right.

More and more.

And if you can just shift to a better for you product then with that daily usage, you're actually getting a much bigger impact from a lifestyle point of view.

So I love, to your point, it's a chore, but that, that's where the opportun opportunity for impact comes.

Because it's a deal.

Absolutely.

It's just the creating the healthy habit.

It's a healthy habit that you have and once you actually get it, then it's a little bit harder to break it.

And once you can achieve that, and if a brand like yours can achieve something like that, I think that the change is not only very impactful and meaningful, but it's also very recurrent and longer term.

Yeah, it's, it's interesting.

If you give the right information to the people and you educate and they have the same choice to make, then they'll make the right decision.

Right.

Why wouldn't you?

There's really absolutely no downside in making the right decision and helping the planet if everything else is actually better.

And we found that for our online business, which is a big chunk of our business, so much of it is on subscription where once people find it, they trial it and it's like, okay, I just want to make sure that once every month I just need it showing up on my doorstep.

I don't need to think about it.

It's sort of A set it and forget it.

So that's a really powerful business engine as well because the, the loyalty that we have and the net promoter score that the brand has is, is pretty remarkably high.

I think the churn rate is like 2%, which is exceptionally low.

So that's kind of a, the, the business benefit from that behavioral discussion is one of just great repeat purchase.

Yeah, fascinating.

Thank you.

Well, I want to continue this discussion, but first I want to back up because our listeners probably noticed two things.

One, you mentioned Scotland.

Two, you really don't sound all that Scottish.

So you want I can turn it on, Christy.

I can turn it on.

No bother at all.

But your listeners will only understand what I'm saying.

So, yes, I've become California icy and.

Some haggis and all the things.

So, yeah.

So first tell us a little bit about who you are and where you grew up in sort of those early years.

Give us some of that, bro.

Or not your choice.

No.

So I grew up in, in Edinburgh, which is the capital city of Scotland.

And you know, I was an only child and my mother was a schoolteacher and my dad a civil servant.

So we didn't have a business in our family.

Most of our family were, were doctors.

But I think I can draw a line from my grandfather's side to the Tom Watson from IBM.

So there must be some entrepreneurial thread that links the, the family to entrepreneurship in the US But I think going back to my mother as a teacher, she was a huge influence in my life and I lost her early.

When I was 17, she passed away.

So her influence has really been really profound.

And she was tough on me in terms of academic expectations.

Right.

So I remember there's one story.

I was 12 years old and she taught English, so I couldn't do badly in English.

But I came like, we got all ranked.

I was like 22nd out of 25 kids in this English exam.

And that was not a result I was, I was happy about on the way home on the bus, and I remember stepping off the bus near her house and going, should I maybe go sleep at a friend's house tonight?

But I plucked up courage and went home fearing like the wrath of God would descend on me.

And I think my mom could see that I was a little anxious and asked what was up.

And I told her the result and she said, ah, you'll do better next time.

I'm sure it was the perception of expectation, not necessarily what parents were delivering, that kind of created, I think, a sense in me as a young age.

That, you know, love was contingent on performance and therefore it kind of created in me a perhaps an insecure, overachiever person Persona for my early days.

And that, you know, it was an engine that made me work hard.

I, you know, got the privilege of going to Oxford University, you know, got a good job at, in consulting out of Bain Co. Out of college.

But I was driven by other people's expectations.

Right.

And for me, my big shift, I guess was when I was about 25.

I figured out that it was actually the path of entrepreneurship that would unlock that kind of pattern of trying to meet other people's expectations and instead becoming more mission driven and passionate about what I felt was important as opposed to an agenda other people set for me.

So to me that's a little give you.

I went deeper there.

But I think it's, I think the getting an understanding of an entrepreneur's mindset goes straight back to these, these years.

And you know, it's the entrepreneurship I think does stem from some type of issue.

Mine wasn't a trauma, but for some people, they have traumas in their childhood that create that.

And you know, I was talking to somebody recently who said often it is a kid who isn't seen recognized by a parent, particularly a father figure, that creates that desire to be recognized to be seen and that creates the entrepreneurial engine early in people that, you know, can be dysfunctional at times, but often that is the sort of psychological underpinning.

So I went a little deeper on psychology.

Thank you.

So therapy.

So welcome.

Yeah, this is really therapy for Enrique and I, so we welcome these conversations.

Yeah, this is master classes and inspiration therapy at the same same time.

And thank you so much for sharing that story.

And what was the name of your mom?

Elizabeth.

Elizabeth.

She sounds like a great, great woman.

Yeah, you know, she's, she was a teacher that's beloved.

I still have people writing me to me today who were her pupils.

And you know, there's go another complete.

My entrepreneurial hero was a Scottish entrepreneur growing up, a guy called Tom Farmer.

And he was a guy who left school with no qualifications.

Age 16 and he started selling tire in Edinburgh and he built up a good business.

He hustled and worked hard and he retired at age 28 as a millionaire and went to California for a year and got incredibly bored of retirement and but was inspired by the, the Midas tire and exhaust franchise and he went back and realized, okay, if I could recreate that, you know, that business in Europe.

And he did.

He built up what was Europe's biggest tire and exhaust business.

Wow.

A company called Quick Fit.

And he sold it like 20 odd years ago to I think it was to Ford for a billion pounds, which is pretty darn good.

And then he bought it back again from them maybe five years later for a couple hundred million pounds.

These entrepreneurs and.

But the point is that his son was a former pupil of my mom's and his life was kind of transformed by my mom's sort of support and he funded the Elizabeth Dorward Prize at my mom's school where she taught that still today exists.

So that's.

Tom Farmer is an entrepreneur.

If it wasn't immediately in my family, other than Tom Watson, my bm, which is a alleged story, this guy was the real deal, a real inspiration.

And I'm still in touch with his son Johnny, who's a great guy.

And my elder daughter is Elizabeth and so she carries that name.

Wow, that's a great story.

And it sounds to me that your mom was great teaching entrepreneurs.

Maybe she actually, I know you have actually tracked all the entrepreneurs that she has taught in her life, but maybe there's a pattern there because you turn out to be a great entrepreneur.

And I wanted to ask you what was the first company like a first story early on that you actually kind of started to play with this entrepreneurial mindset that you clearly have.

Well, I think I was started super young parking cars outside a rugby stadium.

We in Edinburgh there was like big, big rugby matches a few times a year and in our yard we had some space for parking cars and I'd always leave it.

Maybe I was 10, 11 years old to the last minute.

And people, you could see people are circling, getting desperate.

And so at that last, within 25 minutes before the game started, open the gates to our, our side yard and sell parking spots.

I think that was the early, early stage of, of the spark of that was probably predatory pricing.

It was the, it was spike, Uber, Uber surge pricing even before.

But that was my first little spark.

But you know, I fast forward to, you know, I went to, I worked at Bain Consulting for.

In London privatizing some industries in Poland in the early 90s, came to San Francisco, fell in love with the Bay Area and Bain sent me to the Europe's best business school in Sead.

And so a lot of kind of high, very insecure, overachieving type experience.

You know, going to the best business schools and surrounded by the best people.

But I think the most profound found entrepreneurial training I got was I took some time out from my Journey back to Bain to test market a brand that I'd seen in the UK that I felt had a real opportunity of success in the US market.

And it was a refrigerated soup brand called Covent Garden Soup.

And the idea was that, okay, soup as a category is very nourishing.

It's very soulful.

You make it with love in your kitchen.

People are sick, it heals people.

And yet the product that you buy on the shelf comes in a can, and a can is retorted at high temperature.

And all the nutritional value, all the flavor is just driven out.

It's a very safe product, but it lacks nutrition.

So this was a refrigerated soup made with only ingredients you'd find in your kitchen.

And it was perishable, so it had to be refrigerated.

So this is me graduating from business school, thinking I was the master of the universe, all that kind of puffery in my mid-20s.

And the great leveling thing I did was to spend a couple of months driving a sales route, driving a little refrigerated truck, dropping off soup at the back door of the grocery store, meeting the receiving clerk at 5, 6 in the morning.

Pretty gruff response from these guys.

And setting up a business, testing in 50 stores.

I could probably cover 10 to 15 stores a day on the route all over the Bay Area and set up these 50 stores and just.

Just watch the progress of the business.

Did demos at the weekend, giving consumers soup tastings and sampling the product and telling the story and seeing what story resonated most.

And to me, that grounding driving the soup truck was the most important sort of foundation as a consumer products entrepreneur, because it made me understand the realities of how to get things done in retail, which starts with working with store personnel, getting their support, cooperation, getting things done through other people, and being really close to the consumer.

And, you know, that to me was.

I still go back to that these days.

And whenever I'm talking to people about test, you know, launching brands, it's like, you gotta be close to the consumer.

You gotta do the demos whether you're the CEO, you gotta be talking to consumer.

And you don't have to necessarily do demos all day long, but you have to test messaging, right?

And you can do that digitally these days, but you gotta understand what aspect of your narrative is that moment of aha.

That causes the consumer to reach further.

And that's magic of a brand to know what that narrative is and just to completely test it and undersee the moment when their eyes go from, all right, I'm going to buy this.

Well, it sounds just like a lot of work.

Feels like such a, like a lot of work.

It feels it is too hard.

Right.

And it seems to me, and of course you just mentioned it, that it's just not enough to have a good product.

Right.

I mean you have to roll your sleeve, you have to be able to really understand the need, you have to do all the testing.

It just feels like right now, or at least in the more consumerism society that we leave, it's just more about like well let's see if this works.

Let's just throw it out there, see if it sticks.

But you're saying no, that's just not the way you'll build a good long lasting brand.

Correct?

Yeah, look, I think there are, you know, probably 10 to 12 attributes in a brand that need to be dialed in precisely for a brand succeed.

And that's everything from brand positioning, the pricing, your packaging, the go to market strategy, you're setting the margin you have in the business, the scalability, you know, is there ip, there's whole range of elements that have to be absolutely on point and you may have eight or nine of these things well nailed but if one or two are off point, your business isn't going to work.

And that's what makes consumer products, the CPG world, challenging.

And I think what it does as an entrepreneur is you kind of get a feel for pattern recognition.

Right.

And that's what this hard work has done I think for me over the last 25, even 30 years.

I suppose I get a sense of what when something isn't misaligned, you kind of, you get a nose for it.

Well, and you went from Covent Garden Soup, which it's a very interesting story in a very different industry that's the one that you're moved into to Method Soap.

Could you tell us a little more about the transition and then also the story around Method?

Because I'm sure everyone out there that's listening to this has heard the brand and has used it and probably has bought it too.

Great brand.

Yeah, thank you.

That it's probably the brand I'm best known for and it was a privilege to take it from zero to a hundred million in revenue and now it's I suppose a billion or so dollar brand under the ownership of SC Johnson.

So it's kind of one of these, these exits that you know, a lot of people were early stage investors pretty happy with.

But for me it was the opportunity to work with just amazing people.

And the story of how I Went from to soap was through an application.

You know, I was hiring a head of marketing at my little soup company and I, I got an application from a young man, Eric Ryan.

And I called him up immediately and said listen Eric, I got your application and I've got but good news and bad news.

I'll give you the bad news first, which is you didn't get the job.

You're an agency guy.

I'm looking for somebody with brand management experience.

But look, there's something in your cover letter that really spoke to me.

So I can see you're a budding entrepreneur.

I love the way you think and you expressed yourself in the COVID letter.

Let's meet, let's figure out how we're going to work together.

So long story short, Eric's ultimate act of revenge from my rejection was to to hire me as the his first CEO.

As he and his old buddy from high school, Adam Larry were establishing Method and I became their full time CEO from the very beginning, pre revenue, before even it was named Method.

So it was a, that was, that was the forming of the business.

And there were so many near death moments.

I think that's the thing that you know, you tell stories of brands that are now a billion dollar brand and gosh, it must have been easy, it must have just been a rocket ship and you know, it was a great journey.

And we had the privilege of being the Inc Magazine saying we're the fastest growing privately held brand company in California, which is not bad for a soap company in the world of Silicon Valley.

But there were so many near death moments in that, in that business.

There was one time when we had like $13 in the company bank account, a thousand dollars on payables.

You know, we had no salaries, no healthcare and about to close our first financing and, and 911 happens and everything is on hold and it took.

These are kind of the foxhole moments, you know, when you're in adversity.

And it was Eric, Adam, myself and we could have just shrugged our shoulders and said I think let's just go get jobs and we can, all of us are employable, go do something else here.

But we said, you know what, let's give it a go.

And we stuck through it and got our first financing and there were many moments where you could call it quits because it just wasn't going to work.

But I think that's the hallmark of entrepreneurship.

You've been incredibly deep and open and candid with us.

Yeah.

Do you know, I mean, maybe it's one of Those things that you just don't really have an explanation for.

And it's just something built into your character.

Maybe it's your mom kind of upbringing and your dad.

Do you, in this particular example, know why you guys didn't fault after being facing so many challenges?

Look, I think it was the resilience of the partnership that we'd established early.

We kind of looked each other in the eye and said, are we ready to let this go?

They had.

Had put in a small amount.

Each of them had written checks for $45,000, which was, like, from Grandma.

That was their start in life.

And they weren't gonna see that evaporate.

They weren't gonna give up on grandma's legacy.

For them, it was something they.

They'd fight for.

Right.

And I could see that.

I knew I could help.

And I'm not a quitter either.

So I think that was.

It was really the mutual commitment, and that set a very important, important tone.

We told that story to every new employee at Method.

One of resilience, one of overcoming adversity, one of going the extra mile and kind of commitment to each other and to the greater, which is to the success of the brand.

So I think that was what, you know, what it took.

The other thing that I would always do is read the consumer emails.

When things were dark, things were going wrong.

I knew that we had a brand new that created a beloved reaction in consumers, an unusually deep emotional reaction.

And when things were rough, I'd just go through the ritual of reading these emails and sensing that consumer love.

And that was kind of beyond just character and mutual commitment.

There was something there.

There was something that was unusual that was true.

And sometimes it's just instilling and putting that belief and love back into the veins kind of created energy and spark to go at it again.

Very cool.

That's amazing.

Thank you.

Yes.

Because at 13, you can barely afford your own product at that point.

So thank you.

I think Eric bounced a check.

So you got a pretty thin margin for error when you got 13 bucks in the bank account.

Amazing.

One of the things you've highlighted and has been a staple in your career too, is sort of moving in and out of companies into executive roles and then sliding in, helping build them out, and then moving on.

That's a very unique skill set.

And so I want to hear a little bit more about that.

What is your approach to integrating, especially in an existing company, whether it's an existing company of two, but they've already kind of been at it for A while or, you know, a larger brand.

Because there could be a lot of perceptions, there could be a lot of egos, there could be a lot of things in that mix.

So I'm curious as to what is kind of your integration approach there and how to.

And then also how to exit well, which is also not something to do.

People do very well.

Kristy, that's a lot in one question.

But so as we're losing, as we're.

Losing, tell us all.

Let me just focus on founders because that's really the core of the question.

Working with founders.

So I've been a founder and I've also been the founding CEO.

And I, for me, I'm better when I'm the partner, the commercial partner for a founder.

I'm at my best and I like it because you can be objective, you can look at something and point to where the problems are.

It's hard as a founder to acknowledge that your baby's ugly or that there's part of this, your own creation, that is flawed.

That's.

I think founders intrinsically have a strong ego, a strong sense of their abilities, and often tie the product or service that they're creating with themselves.

Actually, there's very little separation and I much prefer being able to point out right here, gross margin is too weak, your pricing's wrong, you've got the emphasis in product the wrong way around, you've got the wrong mix.

I like to be able to point to the parts of the 10 to 12 things that have to be nailed down and be clear about what's not working.

So I find myself drawn to helping founders unlock their business.

And that comes at different stages.

It could be as early as it was with Eric and Adam.

It could be later where they have a particular inflection point they want to get to.

For example, we've built, built a successful online only business, strong success, DTC and Amazon.

But we know for this brand to really win, it has to be an omnichannel business and succeed at retail.

So sometimes it's helping them solve that problem.

In other cases they are trying to launch in a new market.

I get a lot of interest from European based brands who are looking to launch in the US and so that's an area where we'll often help.

And in some cases it's because either the founder has come to the conclusion that their investment in their own company would be best served by handing over the reins to somebody else to take it to the next level, or the board has come to that conclusion for them.

So there's been moments where, and that's often the toughest transition, where culturally a group of individuals has been nurtured around the decision making and style of a founder.

And then there's a transition point.

And your question about integration, that's the moment where baton is being passed.

That is often challenging.

In other cases it's okay, the founder's still there, but they're focusing on something that is their sweet spot that they love to do.

And these conversations are easier where, okay, you're no longer running the company, but you're bringing something uniquely special.

Right.

In the case of Method, Adam Lowery's skill set was, you know, from a sustainability point of view, his title was Chief Greenskeeper.

So when it came to sustainability, Adam could see the stitching on the ball better than anybody else in the market.

And his sense of envision for sustainability was remarkable.

So rather than having Adam running supply chain and innovation as Adam, go figure out this whole sustainability vision.

That's where your passion and sweet spot is.

And that was a conversation actually took years to get us there.

So where it's a situation that you have a evolution of the founder's role, that's a gradual thing.

It's like therapy because it's like understanding self awareness is really important for a founder.

Right.

And if a founder isn't self aware, that's hard for me to do something with.

It has to be a real conversation.

But in the situation where there's a baton being passed, I. E. They used to be CEO and now are no longer CEO, that's a tougher cultural integration and often it requires kind of doubling down on some themes that the founder really preached and emphasized and saying.

The founder believes this very special point of view really respect and honor that point of view and we're going to double down on that.

However, there's a couple of other aspects of the business and the way of working that we're actually going to change because these were holding us back.

And I think being explicit with the team around what's sacred to the brand that the founder brought, that you're going to continue to honor and in fact amplify, but then be equally explicit it that there's a couple of things that we're going to do differently and often simple as decision making, often founders will be want to be involved in every decision, micromanage and not really give the space and growth to the team around them to make recommendations, develop a point of view and grow as individuals and leaders.

And that can often stifle the growth because you're effectively, you can only grow as far as the bandwidth and capabilities of the founder, which can ultimately hit a maximum point.

And so, you know, typically my style is different from a leadership point of view.

And this is something that I learned from my mentor, Tim Kugel, who was our lead director at and lead investor at Method, which is instead actually to make a point of hiring people better than you, people smarter than you, and pushing down as much responsibility as possible, being really clear about what success looks like, being really clear about, about the cultural and values parameters of how you'll get this done, but then to get the heck out of their way and be a servant leader, helping resolve ambiguity, helping bring resources where there's a sticking point.

But to me, that's the transition that often will occur working with a founder where.

And that's, that will often need a, be a challenge.

Right.

For some of the organizations, if they've been used to being told what to do very specifically, and now they've got a new CEO saying, what's your point of view?

What's your recommendation?

You know, deer in the headlights, right?

So, but often it's, you can find people and do find people that are, have been held back and all of a sudden that ceiling is gone and they're, they, they flourish.

And that's to me, the integration path, which is to, you know, emphasize what you're doubling down on, on articulate what has to change and just seeing who's able to grow and work the organization that way.

You know, it's not for everybody.

You don't have everybody in that transition staying on the bus necessarily, but it unlocks the growth of the individuals that have the desire to grow.

It's very powerful what you've said.

And I think that after working with so many founders and then you have gotten into mastering what you're saying and just really understanding what their strengths are and then being very candid and professional about what their weaknesses are.

And then of course, it has to be, I'm sure there has to be some introspection from the founder side saying, well, I have to let ego aside and I have to make those decisions thinking in the goal of the brand and the goal of the company.

If I could take it 10 times higher with someone else, and why wouldn't you do it?

But you mentioned the founders and I was wondering in terms of like the more emotional intelligence that you need to have with this employees, and you mentioned the employees.

Sometimes you have to make a trade off between.

You just have to do what I Tell you right now so we can get through this.

And then, well, you gotta start thinking on your own so that we can really, really grow it beyond what I can control as an owner.

What do you say the top two, three kind of tips for people that are listening to us, people that are employees or founders that are listening to this interview and are thinking well, what could be something practical that I can just start doing to really get a better understanding of what you are saying?

Saying.

Yeah, I think the first basic is to, if a team member has a problem, never allow them to come to you with just the problem.

Come to the, ask them to come to you with a problem and their recommended solution.

I mean that's the, that's the basic.

Right, right.

And in time, you know, their solution may be right or it may be wrong, but it helps create that sense of they own the solution and that they can't come to a meeting just with the problem.

They have to develop their recommendation.

And in time it's like that pattern emerges where yeah, here's my recommendation.

It's like, yeah, you just go with it, you know, here's the other way.

Have you thought about, you offer an alternative?

I think it's in debating the two alternatives that you can impart the way that decisions should get made and it builds confidence.

And if you keep saying to somebody, yeah, your instincts are right on, go with that.

They build their, their confidence and their sense of agency.

Right.

Because that's, that's really important.

Important.

And the other part is around time management, around, you know, being clear in priorities with the individual and if something new's emerged.

Typically it's important to decide what's coming off their plate and to work through priorities with, with individuals.

And we often like to put what's, you know, the Eisenhower matrix, we kind of use quite a lot which is what's urgent, what's non urgent and what's important and what's less important.

And you kind of focus on the be urgent important and try and delegate a lot of the other stuff.

So there's using the Eisenhower matrix as a way to, to help prioritize with the individual.

But then I mean that's for more early stage in their career individuals.

I think as you grow and build the business.

What I try and do is the kind of metaphor I use is T shaped people, right.

Which is if you have a high growth business, you want some folks in your leadership team who are, think like general managers and see, see the complexity of the business for what it is, not just their own particular vertical and I encouraged and I try and assemble in a team a couple of folks who are you know, think like general managers and they're T shaped so they have a vertical of their particular expertise where they've grown up in that function but they've built, you know, real expertise in, in other areas and can think like a general manager.

And it's these T shaped people that I think are, are some of the most important to help you think through business problems and really think like holistic general managers.

And these are the ones I've seen to go on to be CEOs in the future.

Greatest joys of the method experience was to have you know, so many people who've gone on to lead great businesses as CEOs and you know, you might have had a tiny part in their career just influencing their, their direction and unlocking their potential.

So these are some of the, you know, experiences I've, I've had and maybe some tips and recover kid that.

Thank you.

Inquiring about excellent tips.

Yeah, I feel like after every question I'm like well we could end here and this would be great but we're going to keep going a little longer.

So I want to ask.

You're now of course at Drops B Corp. We love our B Corp community.

I don't know if this is your first B Corp experience, but wanted to ask about that.

And then also you mentioned both the soup company and then Drops is the same way different packaging than you would expect.

Different packaging than its competitors.

So with Drops it's not the big plastic buckets or anything like that, it's paperboard.

A completely different, just visual experience as well.

So for the consumer product brands listening talk a little bit about packaging in both of those instances and how that has helped shape both the environmental, environmental commitment to Drops as well as just the customer experience of it.

I'll talk about packaging in a moment but I'm going to pick up on the first comment about the whole B Corp piece which is such a powerful kind of now a global force for good.

Right.

And, and it's all this premise that business is an agent of change and for the good within the community.

And that's just such a fundamental thing.

So I think what the B Lab team have established is a community, a sense of best practice and a scorecard that is measurable, repeatable, global in the areas where business can have the biggest impact on community, on environment and you know, an employee, you know so many important parameters where capitalism unfettered has hurt society.

And I think what this being a B Corp or even as meth as Drops as a public benefit corporation which takes it to the next level.

It's a really important community that I think will help help propel business as an agent of change on a global basis.

And method is proud to say we signed up right there in that meeting to be, I think one of the founding B Corp members.

And most brands I've worked with, well, all brands I've worked with are mission driven and most are B Corp. And I, I think the other inspiration for me has the other sort of thread through this is working with Bill McDonough who was the author of Cradle to Cradle with his partner Michael Brungart.

And this whole notion of sustainability being defined by Cradle to Cradle principles.

So a closed loop where the output of consumption becomes a future ingredient for future production.

That is just fundamental.

So kind of long way round to say that, you know, sustainability in packaging has become a very important parameter and is a signal on the shelf to the consumer of something better for you.

And in the case of, of Drops, I mean, our founder, Jonathan Proper, invented the first liquid laundry pod.

And that was amazing breakthrough from both a consumer convenience, you don't have to pour a heavy jug or lug a heavy bottle home.

And it's also a breakthrough in you don't need a bottle anymore.

And so all the big players iron from bottles, big plastic bottle jugs to big plastic tubs containing these monadoz pods.

So it was kind of a defeats the purpose of the whole getting away from plastic point of view.

And that's why, you know, Drops has always been packaged in boxes.

Only 9% of plastics in the US get recycled, whereas 67% of paperboard gets recycled.

So it's a fundamental shift towards a more recyclable, curbside recyclable option.

And that's fundamentally important.

But the other aspect of packaging is of design.

And I'll go back to Method days here where design was such an important element of the Method story.

In fact, I think when you're starting a consumer brand, you have to look for some type of disconnect.

I told the disconnect about soup.

It's nourishing, nutritious, yet canned soup is less so when method, Eric, Adam and I were kind of set setting up method and one of the insights was your home and the decor in your home and the design you put into your home is a really important part of self expression.

And yet the products and brands that you've been using to maintain your home are so ugly you hide them under your sink.

And so that was kind of one of the disconnects.

And the opportunity of category arbitrage is to what if we took some of the design language from home decorations core and applied it to the world of household cleaning and hand soap?

And the method, liquid hand soap in the teardrop shaped bottle kind of became iconic for the brand and kind of the bestseller and it actually shifted household penetration of liquid hand soap, which was a huge deal.

Right.

Because if you can go to a retailer and say we're growing your category and we're bringing in premium dollars from, you know, outside of your mass channel, then you've got something that's worth gold to them.

But there was this notion that if you use great design in your packaging and it's very simplistic but very pure in its design form, then, you know, you spend, I don't know, $20,000 on a bathroom remodel maybe.

And are you really going to put an ugly bottle of soap on that brand new?

How about you put something that's maybe a dollar more that is a beautiful design and beautiful fragrance and make it an experience and as a result felt that kind of unlocked.

So I think design in general can unlock a better consumer experience and that is really where an insurgent brand can win.

I don't think you can ever get lower cost of production than a big multinational, but if you can find a way and packaging is often the way to deliver a better experience, then you can help bring growth and an alternative to the income that really don't have much of an incentive to change.

Right.

Well, thank you so much.

And one of the things that as you were presenting the story and your story drops, you mentioned that and it's something that you're alluring to is the richest are in the niches.

And I think I'm almost quoting you, if not quoting you, because that really stuck with, with me and it.

Yeah, this is something that's basically what you were talking about just now, right.

Identifying those things that might not be matching well enough for a consumer or for the experience or for like the great performance that you want out of your product.

Now, it sounds very rational to me.

Right.

But you have to pay attention to these things and I'm probably not very good at that.

How do you spot this trends?

How do you spot this unmet needs and decide this is one of those richest in the niches scenario.

And I'm just going to invest as heavily as I can.

I mean, one of the advantages of the classic David versus Goliath is that, you know, if you look at a business plan or a category evaluation for a big and multinational P and G, they probably won't get out of bed.

If it's less than a billion dollar business opportunity to create a brand behind that.

Right.

There's gotta be that size.

But as an entrepreneur, you know, if you can create real value in 100 million dol dollar segment and own a decent chunk of that, I'll take that business.

Right.

Particularly if there's limited competition or the, the competition has been sleepy.

And I'll give you a couple of examples.

One at Method and one at Drops.

You know, for Method, being counterworthy in its packaging was important and often that was in the kitchen.

And there's a lot of kind of higher end homes that would have a granite or a marble countertop.

And that category was, you know, pretty small and really underserved by kind of hardware store type brands that, you know, might have a following amongst professionals.

But as a brand it was very unappealing.

You certainly wouldn't leave it out.

And so we created this marble cleaner.

Marble and granite cleaner with very elegant packaging that would look perfectly nice leaving out on the counter with this beautiful aroma of fragrance that, you know, by the time you've done all the dishes, you've cleaned the kitchen.

I'm going back to Thanksgiving experience.

The finishing touch is, you know, cleaning the counter.

And if you get this rewarding bouquet of aroma that okay, the kitchen is now clean.

The market share we got in that category was like ridiculous.

It was something like 30 or 40% and you know, able to price premium, good, good margin.

So that was a case where there's no way, you know, Clorox P and G would go after that sort of segment.

But it was a heck of a way to get into the cash category.

And I think at Drops, most recently we had a launch of an odor eraser product.

So laundry's been historically focused on getting stains out, right.

But there's a growing consumer need around odor because, you know, it's slightly societal in that we are increasingly, we're wearing athleisure synthetic fibers.

Right.

We're increasingly washing with cold water because that's good, it uses less energy.

But the combination of the two means, means that our clothes are less stained.

Right.

Our kids are playing on their devices rather than playing in the yard or on their bikes rather tragically.

But they're.

People are less, their clothes, our clothes are less stained but tend to retain odor more.

And so, you know, we launched this great odor eraser product with brand new technology that actually eats the biofilm.

The DNA that's in that gets trapped in your workout kit or in the pet blanket.

The efficacy is so much better than the leading brand in the category and yet it's bio based.

So it's not a huge kind of core detergent category, but it's one where it's a great, we're getting a lot of great traction with.

Right.

And so the future is heading in that direction as you point out.

I mean I have teenage kids, so it's really.

I don't care if it's stained.

I'm fine if you have a stain here or there.

But yeah, you're thinking about the odor and you're right, it's.

But, but I think that you somewhat answered the question, but not quite.

You don't mind me.

Don't let me off the hook.

Don't let me off the hook.

Enrique.

Yeah.

How do you find those things?

I mean, how, who, who does this?

I mean, I know you have that talent.

This is something that you learn.

Is it just by paying attention?

Is it by just having that connection with the consumer that you alluded to earlier?

Look, how do you figure out these little things that most people will completely miss?

Right.

Look, I think it's, it's, it's a talent that I don't claim to have wholly.

It's.

And I've, you know, people around me have amazing insights and I'd say something like Eric Ryan has an incredible nose for this type of issue.

But to me it's a, the way the process works.

For me it's, and this is why I love consumer products because it's part data and rational and part emotional.

It's a left brain, right.

Brain integration.

Right.

Because you can look at the category data all year, all year round and look at where the opportunities, where the growth is and that informs a fair amount and you can identify where the big players are playing, where the sustainability.

So there's an analytic process that, you know, I'm sure you can deploy AI and get a lot of kind of insights, but that's not really going to get you all the way there.

A lot of it is in the depth of emotional experience or pain point for the consumer.

And you know, if you can take an experience from being a need to a want to make it More aspirational and improve the consumer experience, then that's, that's part of the trick, right?

So I'd say that elegance of, you know, you've got emotion in remodeling your bathroom or having a, you know, a home that is attractive.

So if you can look at a disconnect that a bottle of, I'm sorry, soft soap, I'm going to call you out now as a brand, not necessarily very efficient.

We're not going to offend the soap,.

You know, probably not the most elegant product.

And that's a disconnect where the consumer joy of something that's very simple, the idea of that calm after cleaning your kitchen and that little olfactory fragrance reward the real fundamental problem of, oh my God, my teenage son who's a football player, his room stinks.

How the heck are we going to get the football kit clean?

Or my God, the dog's blanket or, you know, my wife will not wash her stuff with my athletic gear.

Right.

So you know, you see the little conversations and the emotion that goes in the household and you see, huh, that's something that people really care about.

And you want to go for depth of emotion.

And if you can provide a technical solution that is superior and scale that, you know, that's, that's a process.

So there's something analytic, something analytic, something emotional.

And if you can deliver something that resolves that either technically or through design or potentially the combination of the two, then that seems to be a winning formula.

Does that answer.

You put me on the hook there.

Enrique did answer the question.

Initiate a brief.

Appreciate your, your examples because they were very practical.

1, 2, 3 Steps to write down.

I love bullet points.

Yeah, A hundred percent.

Yeah.

One of the things that I think is so beautiful about your answer, and you know, your career certainly speaks to it, is while so many people are out, you know, of course you mentioned AI.

AI is everywhere.

People are always trying to chase trends.

What's the next thing?

What's the next thing?

And you're like soup soap cleaners, you know, like these are the things that you have your hands on every day.

Unsexy categories.

Yeah.

Very useful and.

Right.

And they've made all of our lives better.

So thank you.

Yes.

Appreciate that so much.

Well, we've talked about your past, we've talked about your present, but I want to talk about your future as well.

So what is, what can we expect from you?

Where can we find you?

Where can we see you?

Well, I'm about five days into my transition from being full time CEO to senior advisor at Drops.

And my wife will say that a lot of the projects deferred maintenance.

I got my outdoor lights working so there's a lot of stuff that have been given.

They're giving household joy.

You mentioned, you mentioned the kitchen remodeling quite a bit.

Is that something that you have to do?

Not right now.

No bathroom.

We do have the outdoor kitchen which just got remodeled, which was great for Thanksgiving.

So I'm just catching up with life and enjoying with four kids coming back for the holidays and one of them's turning 21.

So we're going to Vegas for the night to celebrate.

So we watch out Vegas.

But seriously, beyond kind of the personal to do list that has been amassed over the last few years, I love working with founders and you know, you know, since I, you know, the last, over the last few months founders have been coming to me with their businesses and saying, hey, would love your thoughts on how to accelerate.

Many of them are, you know, early stage businesses.

Some are, you know, making money and growing nicely but still have a problem to unlock.

So I know that I'll be working with founders to help accelerate their business whether it's in food, personal care, baby beauty or household.

You know, I just got a lot of joy from finding that unlock and I think a little bit of pattern recognition from the last 25 odd years, particularly the mistakes that I've made which are boundless in their accountability.

But I just love building brands and I love, I also like to see that intersection direction of, you know, of how technology and can transform categories.

And I love to see David beat Goliath and you look at the beauty category, for example, where indie brands have just won the share and the heart of the consumer.

You know, it's a revolution underway in everyday consumption across all these categories.

I just love being part of the revolution and change.

So that's going to be my journey over the next few years months.

Very exciting and thank you so much.

I mean as we wrap up and it sounds to me that there could be a couple of books in your future as well because it's been, it's been a lot of very interesting experience.

Share from your end and we truly appreciate that.

So as we wrap up, what does the kind of phrase logistics with purpose mean to you?

You know, I think that what I've come to see in consumer products is that the, the role of supply chain has gone from kind of tactical and something that is not the most important C suite priority to one that is driving sort of fundamental excellence and Fundamental survival of brands.

Right.

And so whether it's Covid issues, tariff issues, logistics deliver a solution that unlock, particularly in my world of brands, the opportunity to, to deliver a mission is only possible when you've got margin.

Right.

So to me there's a couple of aspects to logistics.

One is, you know, creating efficiency in the value chain and supply chain so that if you don't have margin you don't have a mission.

Right.

And that's just fundamental.

And the other part is, you know, consumer trust and reliability.

So you know, to me, you know, retailers, whether it's a Walmart or an Amazon, if you are not in some stock when doing what you say you're going to do is how you build trust and the retailer is exacting on that front and the consumer has exceptionally high expectations, you know, same day delivery in many categories.

So to me I'd say logistics unlocks purpose because it empowers brands to do what they do best.

And when that is done with a partner that shares the values as a business, B Corp looks at sustainability, looks at employee welfare, looks at community impact, then you've got a partner that really is aligned fundamentally not just with your economics but with who you are as a business.

So that would be how I'd articulate that.

Thank you.

Well, we can't let you go without asking exactly where to find you in between your honeydew list items.

So where can people go to find drops and order drops and, and then LinkedIn or where's the best place to find you?

So you can find drops@drops.com Great subscription offers on Amazon if you prefer to shop that way and in lots of retailers including Target.

So you can find drops in, in many places and you can find me on LinkedIn and you can also drop me an email.

Alistair M for marydorwardmail.com Mary being my late mother's middle name.

So that's how I got that one in there.

Alistair, thank you once again and thank you everyone that's listening to this conversation.

If you like the conversation we had as well as some of the others in the past, don't forget to sign and join and subscribe and thank you so much and we'll see you in two weeks.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Sam.