deodorant founder's start-from-ignorance approach
Sam recounts watching Moïse Alli build the deodorant brand Native from nothing in the same office, then sell it for $100M in cash roughly 20-28 months after starting.
“and he started this deodorant company called Native, and 20 months after starting it, he sold it for $100 million in cash, or maybe 28 months.”
Shaan relays Eric Ryan's (Method, Olly, Welly) line that you must spot the cultural shift before the products that serve it: consumers started reading ingredient labels, which enabled Honest Company, Native deodorant, and Method to take off.
“He goes, you have to identify the culture shift first. And, um, you know, the culture shift happens first, and then the products and services that, um, that meet those cultural values come second. So let's say for Method Soap he was saying, you know, consumers now, they turn their— everything they buy, they turn to the back and they read the ingredients. And so they care about what they're putting in their body, they care about what they're putting in their homes, they care about what they're putting in their babies, etc., etc.”
Steal thisBefore building a consumer brand, name the underlying culture shift it rides; the product is just the vehicle for that shift.
Moiz Ali saw natural deodorant was a top seller on Etsy but sold messily in jars; he figured out how to deliver it in stick form for convenience and sold the business roughly 18 months later for $100 million.
“And he's like, look, people want— people want natural deodorant, but they want the convenience of the stick. If I could figure out how to put natural deodorant in a stick, I think I can make a business that works. And, uh, you know, 18 months later sells it for $100 million.”
Shaan relays Suli's lesson via the Native Deodorant founder: not knowing the industry is the normal starting point. If you understand the problem and roughly what a solution looks like, you'll become an expert within months of diving in.
“He's like, he's like, oh, I don't think about that at all when it comes to business. He's like, when I start a business, of course I don't know anything about it. That's sort of just the starting point. But as long as I understand the problem and like the basics of what a solution might look like, I don't need to be a master of the solution.”
Steal thisDon't let domain ignorance stop you — pick the problem, then give yourself a crash course; expertise compounds fast once you dive in.
An investor dismissed natural deodorant as a tiny $30M/year market. Moiz Ali's rebuttal: Native alone was already doing $30M a year, so they were the whole category.
“the investor was like, the entire natural deodorant industry is something like $30 million a year. So why would anyone be interested in investing in a category that only has $30 million a year run rates? And I was like, if the natural deodorant industry is $30 million a year, We're the entire natural deodorant industry. We're doing $30 million a year at this point.”
Moiz Ali's core marketing frame: aluminum plugs sweat glands like a duct. He argues you wouldn't take a pill to stop urinating, so why block a natural bodily function with an antiperspirant.
“the way I always liken it is, look, if you could take a pill to make you stop urinating, would you take that pill? Doesn't that sound so weird? Like if your body is trying to expel a fluid from itself, shouldn't you let it?”
Steal thisReframe your product against the incumbent by exposing how unnatural the default behavior is, using a vivid everyday analogy.
Native launched with no inventory and only contracted small mom-and-pop manufacturers. Landing on page 2 of Product Hunt, it got a single $12 sale and Moiz Ali nearly killed the company on day one.
“We get one sale and I'm like, okay, this business is over. Forget about— like, I'm not going to do all this hard work to sell $12 of deodorant every day. I can open up a lemonade— like, I'm 30 years old and I'm basically having a revenue of $12 a day, right?”
Self-described as the cheapest person in the world, Moiz Ali launched Native on about a grand: $500 on initial product and $500 on Google Ads, where $500 of spend returned only $100 in sales.
“I probably spent like a grand launching the business. So the first $500 was to buy products and the next $500 is to like buy Google Ads and I'm buying Google Ads and I spend $500 and I get like $100 of sales and I'm like, this is not working out well.”
Moiz Ali got good at Facebook ads by logging every ad's click-through rate, CPA, and ROI in an Excel sheet every single day, finding product-market fit on Facebook after Google Ads failed.
“I created this Excel spreadsheet where every day I tracked every single ad I had, the click-through rate, the, you know, CPA, the return on investment. And I start doing that every day starting, you know, probably August 2015 or maybe September 2015. And like that's really how I started getting good at Facebook ads. I was tracking every single ad we ran on a daily basis.”
Steal thisLog every ad's CTR, CPA, and ROI in a spreadsheet daily until you internalize what works.
Native sends different formula variants (e.g. baking soda milled to different particle sizes) to swaths of customers, then judges which is better by repeat purchase rates at 12 weeks rather than lab tests.
“we'll send, you know, the Shauns of one of the one world, baking soda that's milled to a certain particle size, and Sams of the world, a baking soda that's milled to another particle size. And we'll, we'll monitor your reviews 6 weeks after you purchase and your repeat purchase rates 12 weeks after you purchase and say, you know what, the Sams of the world are buying again more frequently than the Shauns of the world. And as a result, it must be that the formula that we sent to the Sams of the world are better.”
Steal thisA/B test physical product variants across customer cohorts and let repeat-purchase rate, not a lab, decide the winner.
At roughly 10-11 months, Native was selling $100K of deodorant a month as a solo operation, but with no economies of scale the company only netted about $8,000 in profit on that revenue.
“I'd say on $100,000 in business, I'm guessing, cuz I don't really remember, I'd say the company probably made about $8,000 in net profit, right? Uh, selling $100,000 of deodorant.”
Native went from $100K to $1M/month on three compounding forces: growing word of mouth, more ad spend justified by proven product-market fit, and a higher repeat purchase rate (the most important).
“There's 3 things. One, word of mouth is growing a ton. Like, you know, it's, it's small. It's hard to have word of mouth when you're doing $50K a month. It's a lot easier to have word of mouth when you're doing $250K, $500K a month. So that's growing a ton. Two, we're spending more on ads because we understand product market fit and we understand that we're profitable when we spend money on ads. So we're spending more money on ads. And then three, we have a higher repeat purchase rate, uh, which was the most important thing.”
Steal thisFor consumables, obsess over repeat-purchase rate; it compounds with word of mouth and ad spend into a snowball.
Native priced at $12 by working backwards from cost: ~$6 to make, ~$3 to ship, ~$1.50 for box and inserts, an all-in cost over $11, so $12 was the floor to avoid losing money on every order.
“early on, the deodorant cost us about $6 to make. It cost us, $3 and some change to ship. And then it cost us like another $1.50 for random expenses like the box and like a, you know, a card in there and a bunch of other expenses. So we were looking at an all-in cost of like $11 and some change. And so I was like, look, uh, I can't lose money on every deodorant I make. I'm not brandless, so I have to charge $12.”
Steal thisSet price by stacking every all-in unit cost first, then pricing above it; never sell below your loaded cost.
With 12-14 suitors and a 2.5-year-old company, Moiz forced an aggressive process: here's all the diligence, mark up a draft merger agreement, give us an offer, and be ready to close the day you hand it over.
“Here's a draft merger agreement, mark it up, give us an offer, and you should be ready to sign that. You should be ready to close that offer the day you give it to us. And, you know, look, that's really aggressive. Incredibly aggressive. We're basically like, look, we've got— we've got this awesome business. You want it. There's a bunch of you guys. There's one of us, right?”
Steal thisWhen many buyers want you, compress the process: hand over diligence and a draft agreement, and demand a sign-ready offer.
Native sold only deodorant, only online, only in the US. Moiz pitched acquirers on the upside they could unlock, retail distribution at Target, new Native-branded products, expansion into Canada.
“one of the things that we sell is like the sizzle, right? We're like, look, if you, uh, you know how to sell in, you know, P&G, do you know how to sell into Target? If so, imagine how Native would do at Target. Do you know how to make other products with the word Native on them? Help us do that and we can make this a bigger business. Do you know how to sell in Canada? Great. This is gonna be a bigger business. So we sell that sizzle.”
Steal thisSell acquirers the upside only they can unlock, distribution, line extensions, new geographies, not just your current numbers.
A trademark Native didn't own delayed the entire sale; P&G refused to buy until Native owned its mark. They bought it on Nov 3rd and closed the deal on Nov 8th, negotiating with the owner down to the wire.
“we had a trademark issue until we sold the business. This was a serious part, like, that delayed the transaction with everybody and that I think made it harder for us to sell the business. We simply didn't own our trademark. Yeah. Uh, until 5 days before we sold the business. So we bought our trademark on, like, we sold the business on, like, November 8th. On November 3rd, we purchased the trademark, and that was the one thing that we still had to do in order to sell the business.”
Steal thisLock down your trademark and core IP early; an unowned mark can stall or sink an acquisition at the finish line.
Moiz Ali's core lesson: advisors told him to launch a second product, do influencer ads, open pop-ups, and raise millions. He rejected it all and doubled down on what was already working in his business.
“stop listening to other people. And start listening to yourself. I remember when we were growing the business, people were like, look, you're not gonna be able to sell this until you launch a second product outside of deodorant that really is a home run again.”
Steal thisWhen something is working, double down on it and politely reject well-meaning advice that pulls you off course.
Native raised only ~$500K total, so Moiz and his family controlled ~97% of the company at the $100M sale. His first investor, Weigo, saw his $50K turn into $1M on the same day his first child was born.
“I was like, we turned your $50K to $1 million. And he's like, fuck, this is awesome. You know, he's like, all these people in China told me I didn't understand American consumers.”
Ali and his brother started Native by buying deodorants off Etsy, applying them under each armpit, running a mile, then sniffing each other's pits to find which one worked. Native was later sold to Procter & Gamble in a 9-figure deal.
“So we put some of the deodorant that we bought from Etsy under each of our armpits. We go run a mile and then we sniff each other's armpit to see, is this deodorant actually good? Highly scientific. It's totally unscientific, but also very effective.”
Steal thisValidate a physical product with the crudest possible real-world test before building any brand around it.