I started making soap in a dorm room. Sixteen years later, we’ve donated 60M+ bars and sell in Walmart, Target, Amazon, and beyond. I’m David Simnick, co-founder of Soapbox. AMA.

I started making soap in a dorm room. Sixteen years later, we’ve donated 60M+ bars and sell in Walmart, Target, Amazon, and beyond. I’m David Simnick, co-founder of Soapbox. AMA.

Hi Reddit, I’m David Simnick, co-founder and CEO of Soapbox, a hair and body care company that donates a bar of soap for every product sold. In 2010, my best friend and I made our first batch of soap in our dorm room. We had no beauty industry experience and no idea how difficult it would be to build a consumer brand. We just wanted to find out whether a company could make doing good part of its everyday business model instead of an occasional charitable campaign. We went full-time in 2012. Since then, Soapbox has grown from hand-making soap to selling hair and body care at major retailers including Walmart, Target, Sally Beauty, Ulta, Amazon, CVS, Walgreens, Meijer, and Wegmans. Along the way, we’ve become a certified B Corp and donated more than 60 million bars of soap. We’ve also learned that getting onto a retail shelf is hard, staying there is harder, and building a mission-driven company does not make you immune to bad decisions, failed products, cash-flow problems, or sleepless nights. Ask me anything about: What actually works in haircare and what is mostly marketing How shampoo and conditioner are formulated How a small brand gets into Walmart, Target, and other major retailers What retailers really look for when deciding whether to keep a brand How the buy-one-give-one model works financially How we select nonprofit partners and measure whether donations help The mistakes we’ve made over 16 years Staying committed to a mission while still trying to build a profitable business What it’s really like competing against enormous beauty companies Happy to answer the hard questions too. AMA! EDIT: proof submitted by /u/SoapboxCare [link] [comments]