Brand Strategist and Dentist Team Up To Sell Coconut Oil Mouthwash

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

Hey there, what's up? Welcome back. This is Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School. Now a while back, maybe it was a couple weeks ago, I told you about this industry called co-packing, which I had to admit was totally new to me. I've never sold any kind of food product except for coffee long ago, but that was pretty simple.

I just had bags of coffee come to my house. I repackaged it. I did it all myself. I sent them out. And this was literally when I was first learning to work for myself 20 years ago.

But I'm learning along with you here on Side Hustle School. And I learned about the co-packing industry where if you have an idea for a food product or a health product or anything that takes different ingredients and puts them together, there are companies that will help you do this, saving you a ton of time and probably doing it more efficiently and allowing you to work on other stuff. Since most of the people who listen to Side Hustle School have limited time, they don't have the luxury to spend 30 or 40 hours a week on their business. They just have maybe a few hours a week. Well, anyway, today's story is about mouthwash, specifically about a brand strategist and dentist who team up to create coconut oil, mouthwash, special kind, and they too use a co-packer to make this happen.

So if you've ever thought, oh, I have this idea for something, but it sounds really complex, might not be able to do it myself, well, you might not have to do it yourself. So I'll tell you how they were able to succeed along with a lesson that might help you as well. That's coming right up. [Music]

Today's story comes from two people, Darryl Weber and Aaron Schwartz in Atlanta, Georgia. By day, Darryl is a brand strategist who consults and freelances with marketers, and Aaron is a pediatric dentist.

Their Side Hustle is a coconut oil mouthwash called Yala. Now fun fact, Darryl is half Sri Lankan and Jewish, while Aaron is half Indian and Jewish. Now this fact is relevant because the kind of mouthwash they're making comes from an ancient tradition called oil pulling, which is said to have originated in India thousands of years ago. And oil pulling is basically swishing with coconut oil for various benefits, including teeth whitening. And it goes back to the Ayurvedic medicine tradition.

Aaron thought oil pulling was great, and it could be introduced to the US, but he also thought they could do it better. So they began by researching the trend, the market, the existing competitors, and then they began to formulate prototypes in Aaron's kitchen. They actually spent about two years off and on experimenting with formulations, ingredients, and packaging. They tested out flavors, including a cinnamon chai that was delicious, but was ultimately scrapped out of concern about negative gum effects from cinnamon oil. They tried jars instead of tubes, but those were messy.

They even tried twist caps, but those would get clogged. Finally, they decided on their current flavors, peppermint and lemon, in a convenient toothpaste-like tube. And the final formula is, of course, free of additives and artificial ingredients. Aaron and Darryl tested the formulas on groups of friends, and once they felt good about them, then they had to decide whether to make it themselves in the commercial kitchen or to use a co-packer. Now, as I mentioned at the top of the episode, a co-packer is a company that will take your recipe, your list of ingredients and instructions, and then make that product for you.

Now, that's what they specialize in. They can probably do it better, faster, and cheaper than you. And of course, they make money by doing it. That's their business model. Since Aaron and Darryl were both busy, Aaron in particular with his dental practice, they decided to go with that co-packer option.

Darryl, the brand strategist, started looking around and talking with different companies. Some of them had issues, one couldn't process oils, one couldn't work with coconuts because of allergy concerns, but they finally found one called Blue Ridge Food Ventures, a natural food and cosmetics manufacturer in Asheville, North Carolina. Blue Ridge charged them $500 to do a test run, and then they came up with a per-unit cost for labor and manufacturing. That price seemed fair and reasonable, so Aaron and Darryl hired them to produce their product. That product was called Yala, and it just so happens that Yala is far better for your teeth and gums than traditional teeth whiteners, which can dehydrate your teeth and remove enamel as they whiten.

Whereas Yala actually improves gum and teeth health. There are a couple of other manufacturers on the market now, but among other factors, those competitors use wasteful packaging and cost much more than Yala, which provides a month's supply for the same cost as theirs, which is a two-week supply. To handle fulfillment, they had the product from Blue Ridge, the co-packer, shipped to a different company called ShipBob with a warehouse outside of Chicago. ShipBob, as you might guess, handles all the shipping. So Aaron and Darryl don't have to make the product, and they don't have to ship it.

All they have to do is market it. Now, Yala has been selling online to a bunch of different people around the country. It's still new, but it did about $7,000 in sales last month. They're selling on their website, tryyala.com, and they're also beginning to get stocked in retailers. Urban Outfitters reached out to them after seeing them on Instagram.

They asked for samples, and they're now carrying Yala online and in many of their brick-and-mortar free people stores around the country. Next up, Aaron and Darryl are hoping to continue to build awareness through marketing and PR efforts. I hope Side Hustle School helps, and to get into more retail locations. To pay it forward, Yala also donates a portion of profits to a great charity called Healthy Smiles Healthy Children that provides dental care to children of low-income families who may not be able to afford it otherwise. You might say they're putting their money where their mouth is.

[Music]

So I hope you picked up on a couple of those key points. These guys had an idea. They definitely spent a lot of time developing it, making sure it was genuinely helpful, useful, working from Aaron's background as a pediatric dentist, then also thinking about what Darryl was good at in terms of brand strategy and creating a product that would stand out. And then, as if that wasn't smart enough, they partnered with two different companies, a co-packer and a fulfillment agency, so that they wouldn't have the situation of having to constantly assemble all this different product, as well as to handle shipments to all these different people ordering it. So the co-packer handles the assembly of ingredients.

They send that off to ShipBob, this company in Chicago, and then ShipBob ships to the end users who actually make the purchases. Now, I will link up all these things in the show notes. And by the way, these are also small businesses, Blue Ridge Food Ventures and ShipBob. There are some larger companies doing this as well, but Aaron and Darryl liked the idea of working with other people who had similar vision, who were just getting started as well, but also seemed reliable. It seemed like they had the support they needed to see it through.

So as you listen to the show, if you have an idea like this, you might think, not just how do I develop the idea, but how am I actually going to get it to people? And it might be helpful to think about solutions like these. Either way, I hope this is inspiring to you, but of course, I also hope you take action. I hope you're thinking about your side hustle. Today's show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/179.

By the way, what does a dentist call his X-rays? Toothpicks. I'm Chris Guillebeau, this is "Side Hustle School." I'll be back tomorrow. [Music]