Let's Eat, ep. 188 Part 3 with Sean Riley from DUDE Wipes

Show everybody your shirt one more time because it's a good one. If you ain't first, you're last. You're last. Talladega Nights.

It's a classic line. Remember that. That's very, by the way, and it's so on brand. It's so on brand.

I know you do this on purpose. Did you have that shirt set out because you knew we were doing episodes? What did we talk about? It was either this one or I went sleeveless tank top, which I was tempted to do on your pod.

But you got sleeves on, so I feel like I made the right choice. You're the man. I don't know. Do you want to do this episode shirtless?

Do you want to take them off for this one? We can get so weird. We might get flagged, though. That episode might get buried on the algorithm.

Let's do lay of the land of the space. Now that you've been doing this, everybody, people think that Dude Wipes has been around. Oh, this overnight thing, three years. No, they've been grinding for 10 plus years and they're in a position right now because of all of that.

Right. It's never like an overnight thing. I want to just talk lay the land of the space today because you've been in it. You've seen it, you know, five years ago, three years ago, now two years and now today.

Like, let's just start having a conversation about the space. what is the first thing that comes to mind uh it's competitive you know it's more competitive to launch products online than it was 10 years ago when we did it um so there's just there's more people learning things on the internet there's more people able to do things on a budget um you know where you used to have to hire a graphic designer now you could use an ai thing Like, so that is a down, you know, a downside, I guess.

Like, hey, there's just a lot of people. And I see a lot of this, especially on Amazon, just like fast launches and stuff. Now, the downside of like those hyper launch, like either aggregators or just like small Amazon guys is they're trying to do a lot or like Timu or something like that. Like they're trying to just do anything.

and hey, there's a little opportunity here. There's a trend there, like blah, blah, blah. So like the stuff that still works for Dude Wipes is the trying to do something where you're creating just net newness. So yes, there is a lot of competition in the market that wasn't there.

I still don't see more or less net newness than we used to. And I think just talking to anybody who's like trying to start something, sometimes, and I know you got journeys of different products, like sometimes the best thing you could do is launch some me too shit to understand, oh, how do I make a skew? How do I price this? Just like it teaches you so many things.

So that's probably the other thing about the landscape of today. It's still execution over everything. Don't let the academia or like the weight of trying to be so unique prevent you from doing something. Yeah, but it's intense shark infested waters right now.

I like that though. I like that you say it. We always think that our category is competitive right Somebody recently said something to me like we always think it our category that the most competitive right Right, right, yeah. You go ask them, hey, what's happening?

Oh, we're in a really competitive category. You're gonna hear the same thing from whether the guy's selling berries in the frozen aisle to the guy's, okay. And so, but today is even more competitive. It's not only what I hear, but I'm with you that it's just easier today to launch a product.

Definitely easier online. We always knew you and I've talked about this. Like you can go down your local grocery store, you know, the one in the corner who's owned by Billy. And actually funny enough, the grocery store down here is owned by a guy named Billy.

He wears a shirtless shirtless stuff too shortly. So, um, and say, Hey, I've got these cookies that I've been baking. you know, I put a label on, like, is it cool if I throw them up? Like, they'll be like, yeah, sure.

Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

And then, and then on the, on the online piece, like you said, like you can get on Amazon, you could do your own, your own shops, you know, yourself on the, on your own, on your own store. The, the, it goes back to all those other things though, that is it going to work? Is it not? Are you wasting your time?

Are you wasting your money? You don't of it you're probably a me too you're definitely not differentiating on brand yeah yeah you don't see this ever going away right like you when you're at now there's utopia what's the thing called utopia right happening right now no topia new topias who knows yeah yeah yeah yeah the show yeah that's this week like there's going to be another thousand brands there right yeah no I don't I don't think I see it going away I think there's some doom and gloom about oh you need so much money and you know all that stuff but I still think you're just gonna see people hustling and grinding and trying to figure things out and and failing along the way and succeeding um and that's still what you have to do just get in the game try something you're gonna suck you well um so that's probably something that's still the same anybody new entering the game is going to suck at it um and that's the same thing we were we were entering the game so that's probably the hardest part about thinking about re-entering the game is knowing too much I think sometimes like oh I know all this stuff now and if I was gonna do it again you know but guess what worked was not knowing anything and getting in and figuring things out.

And so it's that balance that you have to maintain of I know nothing versus I know a lot now. Yeah, being naive is such an asset sometimes, right? It can come to crush you for sure. But when you don't know anything and you're making decisions really off of what I consider is pure gut, it sometimes is to your advantage.

you know it's especially the market is trying to do all the this tried and true shit and you're just coming in there with this rookie mentality and you develop something a little bit different so that's never going to go away right like that's mark zuckerberg makes facebook out of the harvard dorm like that's going to happen in tech it's going to happen in food you're just going to continue innovation doesn't come out of a boardroom it comes out of a bedroom you know and that's not going away.

Yeah, and I tell people that we've seen it before, that not only is there no playbook there is no playbook to this And then well yeah there kind of is if you well okay if there was why do we continuously see failures and more importantly failures from folks who have done it before you know there's some really great people that i admire who've gotten back into the game and sometimes maybe you're different sometimes i'm like oh i don't know if you should be doing that. You should run home with the goods, dude.

But there's an entrepreneurial thing that goes on and you believe you've got the playbook and there's just no such thing. I'm sorry. There just isn't. I'll let you run with this one.

I saw the guy, Ray Hall, is coming out with the protein bar now. I'm the dude on the sidelines who's like, I can't wait to see what happens here. Good, bad, indifferent. I hope it's the question.

But man, it's hard. It's hard to do it twice, especially in this space. But who knows? Do it twice in the same category.

Same category. No, I mean, if I had to bet that that's going to work, because you can feel like the energy, you can feel that they're trying to come at it from like a new angle. Like, I can already feel that it's a good position. I could be wrong, but then they're going to put all the know-how behind it, and they got some money and all of that.

So my intuition says that that is going to work. I think as long as they don't bury themselves in like too many raises. Because you've got to remember, our X-Bar came up without the raises and like the gritty attitude and stuff like that. So like I'm sure those guys still have that.

But that's what they've got to maintain. I think that's the question you've got to ask yourself on like that second try is like how hungry are you still? Because you've got to compete with the hungry guys. You know, and if you're not if you're not the hungry guy anymore, you just got to be careful and make yourself hungry and all of that.

So I think as long as you're acknowledging that and then executing all the expertise you've learned, you'll be in a good spot. Yeah, it's a different business when it's like, yeah, but we got money in the bank and I'll go a step further. And there's a checkbook behind that money, too. I could be wrong.

I'm just saying because it's like we raised - they raised it, and it's like, no, no, no. I think the guy cut a check out of the pot, right, which I'm like all good. Like why not, right? Take some of the winnings, right, and go parlay this thing and go round two.

House money, you know. It's house money. There's a big piece of the winnings that's definitely house money. Like, let's go play a hand here, right?

Right, right. Well, it's about playing the game. And I hope that's why guys like that, like Peter with Rx or, you know, John with Once Upon a Farm, like, just want to be in the game. And, like, as long as they love to play the game, like, I don't care about the money.

And like you know if you used to have no money in the bank and now you got a lot like you just got to be hungry and willing to still play the game Like you know you you in great shape and you doing the fitness competition stuff and you could easily sort of like be in a coast and maintain mode and still be one of the most fit dudes your age that anybody runs into on a day-to-day basis but you enjoy still playing that game and that's you know as long as you're enjoying it and that's what you want to do you're going to figure it out you know yeah yeah all right fine two minutes though to wrap this one up and again it goes back to the original question it's like where you're you're good right now the the industry is good it's somewhat stable we're hearing newer things there's some transactions going on so it's like okay you know things are happening here right like are you in optimistic mode i know your answer already it's kind of ambiguous but But like, are you, you know, or is it we're doing what we got to do right now?

We're grinding like we always have. But do you still think that there's a couple more years of us getting out of whatever it is that we saw the last 24 months? I don't really give a shit about Wall Street, to be honest with you. I care about our customers and like continuing to do the right things for them.

and I'm fine continuing to play the long game and just focusing on what matters, which is the people who buy Dude Wipes and giving them fun experience with our brand, giving them better product. We came up through a depression era sort of company. We didn't have money. And so we're comfortable with that.

Like, yeah, now there's money and profit flowing around, but we don't care if a dark storm comes. We're going to be fine. And we've already been through a lot darker storms. So you can't control the noise.

You can't control everything you're doing, your mindset internally. And so I find the Wall Street stuff interesting. Don't get me wrong. But I don't really care that much about it.

That's such a beautiful way to close. And it's a good reminder. It is, though. If anybody just watched the last 60 seconds, you say something that is so wildly missed, in my opinion, with the majority of these folks, which is this is all about the customer.

It's a forget you, forget that they forget that. Give the customer a great experience. Everything from the product itself, which has to be great, That's be fantastic. For sure.

What you're delivering as far as filling that void for them, right? Like I need this because of X. And then how are you communicating with them and treating them from start to finish? That could be everything from communication to an email to my social media to did I answer their question on my website?

All of that. That's all this is about. Treat them like family. You know, the Olive Garden had it right.

When you're here, your family. Kendra Scott says everyone's got to treat the girl who walks in the store like you would your own sister. Like Jeff Bezos is obsessed with the customer, built the biggest company ever. Like, you know, customer obsession turns into sales and, you know, you can figure everything else out.

But if you're hung up on EBITDA or like what the latest VC guys are doing or all of these other stuff, they're important. They're little things going on, but they're not your customer. They're not your business. Well said.