Have Fun & Get Sh*t Done: The Leadership System Behind Good Wipes | Ep. 66 w/ Sam Nebel (goodwipes)

Most leaders think “serious” is the price of credibility.

Sam Nebel, co-founder of goodwipes, built the opposite operating system — and it’s not a slogan. It’s a leadership discipline:

Have fun and get sh*t done.

In this episode, we unpack what it actually takes to build trust, momentum, and customer love in a category people don’t always know how to talk about — without turning your brand into beige corporate wallpaper.

This is a conversation about leadership, execution, and the energy required to ship real work in the real world.

In this episode:

• Why “serious” is often just fear wearing a blazer
• How fun becomes a leadership advantage (when it’s paired with real standards)
• The difference between structure, bureaucracy, and chaos — and where winners operate
• Why customer care is strategy (and why most brands treat it like a task)
• The founder reality: it doesn’t get easier — you just get sharper
• A simple audit to run this week: where are we making this harder than it needs to be?

Links

goodwipes: https://www.goodwipes.com/
goodwipes on IG: https://www.instagram.com/goodwipes/
Sam on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kingofwipes/

Work with Adam (Transition Leadership Coaching)

If you’re leading through a transition season and want clarity without burnout:
Book a 20-min Foundation Call: https://calendly.com/adamwbarney/foundation-call-20min
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Creators and Guests

Host

Adam W. Barney

Adam W. Barney helps transitioning leaders navigate career and leadership inflection points with clarity and momentum. Author of Make Your Own Glass Half Full and creator of EnergyOS. Based in Boston, fueled by family and music.

What is Is Anything Real??

Is Anything Real? is the Reality-First Leadership podcast for builder-leaders who want outcomes, not optics. Each week, Adam W. Barney sits down with founders and operators to unpack positioning, marketing, community, energy management, and influence - plus the numbers behind what actually worked.

You’ll hear: a quick Reality Check, a practical Proof Stack (inputs → actions → outcomes), and one EnergyOS habit you can run this week. Specifics over slogans; humane systems over hustle cosplay.

New episodes every Wednesday at 12:00 PM ET.

👉 Book your 20-min Exploration Call: https://calendly.com/adamwbarney/explorationplugin-20min

[00:05.4]
Here's a myth that quietly kills great companies: If we want to be taken seriously, we have to act serious. And that myth creates brands that are safe, beige, and forgettable. Today, we're talking about what's real in leadership when you build in a category most people are too awkward to even mention at dinner and you still win at Walmart with a collab that went top three in two weeks.

[00:31.6]
And this episode is about the courage to be uncool on purpose so you can build something unforgettable. Welcome back to "Is Anything Real?", the reality-first leadership show where we test advice, publish the receipts, and ship what works under constraint.

[00:47.5]
I'm Adam W. Barney, transition leadership coach, author, and host of this show. Today's guest is Sam Nebel, co-founder of Good Wipes. The brand with the guts to say what everyone else is thinking. Toilet paper doesn't clean you.

[01:04.2]
Sam's built a company on a simple operating philosophy that I'm obsessed with. Have fun and get sh*t done. And it turns out that philosophy doesn't just make for great marketing, it makes for strong leadership under pressure. Sam, welcome to the show.

[01:22.0]
Adam, thank you for having me. We are so excited to have conversations about things that people don't really want to talk about today. I like it. I like it. Well, you know, you know, first question. I know the last time we talked, you had an Atlanta run club and you were handing out wipes with Olipop energy.

[01:41.4]
How do you stay that playful without the business turning into chaos? It's super simple. First of all, we have amazing, highly regimented people that work on the team. We've implemented system, structure, and support.

[01:58.5]
Starting years ago, my co-founder had the foresight that before we really turned into a real company doing real business, that we have to implement structure. And that has helped our team immensely. But we still make room to go to a running fest or a running club, and pass out wipes, and it'll get a little chaotic, but that's what keeps it fun.

[02:22.3]
I love it. I love it. I mean, chaos. Chaos, I would argue, is not a bad thing all the time. It actually can be a really strong thing for a business. But I love where we're going here today. You know, the myth is that those serious brands win. And I've worked for so many of those businesses across my career.

[02:38.2]
I've worked in the ad agency world where that's the case. But the truth that you've put out on the table here is that courage and clarity wins. You know, and the proof there, what you've learned building Good Wipes, including that Olipop and Good Wipes moment.

[02:56.4]
You know, but how does that get into maybe what's the biggest lie founders believe right now before they water down the thing that makes them special? This is not my idea, but I was watching the Berkshire Hathaway earnings annual shareholder report, which, by the way, is very serious. But they had.

[03:16.3]
They created. Even then, they're creating moments of laughter. And in that environment, the current CEO, his name escapes me. Mentioned what kills companies. Number one, it's arrogance. Number two, it's bureaucracy.

[03:33.5]
And number three, it's. Oh, my gosh. Oh, complacency. Complacency. And so you have to find ways to mitigate and ensure that those never creep into your organization. Bureaucracy being the number one.

[03:51.3]
And that's where it's kind of a spectrum where you could have bureaucracy on one end of structure on one extreme and complete chaos on the other. And your job, the entire team's job and leadership's job is to really find that fulcrum point where you're moving things along that are not overly regimented and become bureaucratic, but also that there's not so many millions of things happening.

[04:15.5]
And you're firefighting all the time. Because then you're missing the forest for the trees. And I mean, it gets into, you know, people saying, if we're funny, no one will trust us. If we're bold, we'll get judged.

[04:31.2]
Or, you know, even if we're in a taboo category, we need to be extra corporate. I think people confuse serious with credible. And that's how you get brands that sound and read like terms and conditions. Which isn't where I think either of us want to be here.

[04:50.1]
That, I think, is one of the best quotes I've heard in a long time. Having a brand that shows up and feels like terms and conditions. You can't have that in consumer packaged goods. Maybe an enterprise B2B. But even then, you look at the Southwests of the world that create environments where you build fun into it, because so many moments of life suck.

[05:13.5]
First world problem. Sure. Boarding an aircraft, going to the bathroom. Any of these little examples, traveling. So why not make it a little bit more fun? Put a smile on someone else's face. You have no idea what else someone is going through. And this is a philosophy that my co-founder Charlie and I have always believed ever since we were working at A Complete Nutrition, which was a supplement franchise back in the day.

[05:39.0]
And we went above and beyond to get to know people and create a relationship and rapport with them that was authentic, where we could make them smile. And then the transaction was this very small moment, but it was about the service that we poured into it, and the fun that we would have with that customer, despite the challenges they were having with their physical health and well-being.

[06:03.0]
There's, I think, a hidden cost when a founder is terrified of judgment, number one. But also, you're not saying, you know, when you say not caring what people think, you know, it's not toeing that line between being bold and reckless.

[06:21.6]
Right. But I would say, what does fun look like on a day that's just legal contracts and operational grind? That's a really good question because there certainly are those days. I'm going back to when I recently read a 170 page contract and I was thinking, I was, I.

[06:39.2]
Adam, I swear to you. Adam W. Barney, I swear to you, I said, man, I'm the fun guy, but we know we have to do this. And then that's where you say, hey, look, you know what? It's like a fun game you can play. You're gonna to run through the contract. I've already read it five times.

[06:56.1]
Let's just prioritize, focus, and make it more of an accomplishment gamification of just going through where you need to, rather than try to turn into something that it's not. Because you're not playing foursquare, you're not playing tic tac toe.

[07:11.9]
You're not, you know, talking about color palettes, what brand collabs you're going to do or fragrances. It's a contract, but also just thinking that business can be fun. Knowing that the partnership, that the party that we're working with on this contract is a good partner.

[07:27.8]
It's not a nail biting negotiation. It's like, wait a second, how many millions of packs are we going to produce, or what are we going to do with this particular partner or sell to them or whatever, whatever the contract may be, freelance that you're working with and thinking of how much business is going to bring to them and that you're, it's just, you're creating a good business environment, which in and of the itself, is fun.

[07:56.5]
And I think, probably the thing here that you and I both Sam, have realized, is that fun is not the opposite of discipline. Fun is often what makes that discipline sustainable. Absolutely. And discipline doesn't have to be, discipline doesn't have to be this naughty thing and this bad word or routine or monotony.

[08:17.5]
None of that is bad. I do believe that the human mind, body, soul, spirit wants some novelty injected in, and I think that's where the day to day wit, or just finding humor. If you're going on a seven day around the world travel trip and you're just thinking of how laborious will this be?

[08:37.2]
There's so much time to crack jokes during these endeavors. Right. There's always little moments of fun, moments of magic that you could have fun with. That. That's really where I think you could say like have fun and get sh*t done. You're doing things, you're making things happen.

[08:54.6]
And along the way the drudgery, and the moving at a snail's pace, or feel like you're in quicksand, and everyone around the table could just crack a joke, and it just makes it easier. It makes a better environment to be a part of.

[09:13.7]
Well, I want to talk about the moment that I see is basically a masterclass in bold and disciplined. It's that Olipop collaboration. You know, isn't just a cute collaboration set of content. It's real execution. You know, can you break it down for our audience here, like an operator, why does that inline placement matter?

[09:35.8]
Why do you think it hits emotionally? And what did you have to do internally to kind of pull that magic off? That's a great question. This collaboration was a function of a few key ingredients that ended up working really well for us. It's the buy-in that Walmart had, it's the buy-in that Olipop had.

[09:55.6]
But what made it so simple, and what lent itself to having so many people want to lean in is because it was so obvious that it was going to benefit who? The consumer? It's the party that matters most in this equation. You have two brands that think it's going to be fun.

[10:12.8]
You have a retailer, but at the end of the day it only matters if there's consumer response. And for us, for the past five weeks in a row, it's been the number two selling item for us at Walmart. So it's clear that we created something that was exciting. We got buzz, we have consumers sharing it online.

[10:28.9]
Some consumers are surprised by it. That's bound to happen when you're pushing the boundaries of boldness. At the same time, we see in the data, that it's exciting consumers. The other part of the equation is what our marketing team, the effort our marketing team put behind it to make sure that it wasn't just a one day flash in the pan.

[10:48.0]
It started as an April Fool's joke. And because we then said, just kidding, we actually made it, we're the first brand to ever do that out of thousands of brands that always say, oh, what if we did this, what if we did that and it's getting old and tired. And we said, wait a second, we really did do that.

[11:05.3]
And that created a skyrocket hockey stick of excitement from consumers and the trade. And that's the other piece that lent itself to the success of this product across all parties. And that got consumers going in an excited way as well.

[11:22.4]
And then when you bring in the fact that our marketing team went so hard with so many digital assets, bringing it into the 360 world holistically, going to music festivals, outfitting our Golden Porta Palace and bringing it to Revolve Fest in the Peaches and Cream collaboration outfit, people were beside themselves that we took it that far.

[11:46.3]
And it's given us this extended runway of 45+ days of fun since the April 1st launch. I mean, I wish we could drop an image here of that Porta Palace reskin, but that's one of the most incredible full- immersion brand experiences I've seen in the last handful of years.

[12:05.1]
Oh yeah. What did you have to say no to in order to make this a yes, though? That's a really good question. There's always trade-offs, there's always prioritization as a company. We said, hey, this is going to be. We just. Coming off the heels of Wet January, the campaign against dry toilet paper with Hallie Batchelder and a number of other influencers at the beginning of the year.

[12:29.0]
We said, we just came out with a moonshot evergreen moment. Let's create space for this. Let's prioritize this so that it wins. And if this wins, then we can continue to win with momentum, and it will bring more eyeballs onto the brand because we're utilizing the power behind the Olipop brand and the Walmart brand.

[12:53.4]
Which, by the way, Walmart posted us on their Instagram feed, which is crazy. And it was Mario, Ben Stiller, and Good Wipes and Olipop Peaches & Cream. And when I saw that I, for the first time, I'm pretty easily excited. But I had goosebumps.

[13:10.7]
This was a dumbfounded, speechless moment to see what the manifestation actually brought out into the universe. And that's actually a great real-time example to share, Sam. You know, most founders are working to that headline that you just mentioned.

[13:29.9]
You got those goosebumps during, few work toward the infrastructure, but the infrastructure based on the way you just described that process is actually what drove you to that headline. It's a deeper set of work there. It's a deeper set of work.

[13:46.5]
It's focus. It's prioritization. It's saying no to other things. And in this instance, it was clear, even among all the realm of possibility. The beauty of Good Wipes in a flushable butt wipes company is there's a never-ending stream of ideas that you can do.

[14:02.2]
It's a gift and a curse. But, we just knew intuitively internally like hey, let's, let's not just make this a, hey, let's put it in the store and let it have fun. Let's get all the way behind it. Let's get all the way behind it and see what happens.

[14:17.6]
And having that happen worked, and we get to see what the fruits of our labor can actually produce. And It's a net 25% increase in social views, view through rate, and followers.

[14:34.7]
And it's having a brand new seven-figure item in Walmart. There's so many benefits that can come out of that and it creates a moment in time that has hang time, which is very rare in a collaboration world, and especially a world that can consume so much content in a day.

[14:56.8]
Well and this is also something I love in what you've built with Good Wipes, you're in a category where people legitimately just get weird. But you know, these are great examples of where you've turned, you know, let's say awkward, into actually an advantage.

[15:13.2]
You know, I think there's something very real about selling something people are embarrassed to talk about. But what would you say weaves in there that founders can learn about leadership and messaging? What I really think it is, and this is going to be a little bit of patting ourselves on the back is we were ahead of a trend early.

[15:32.4]
We knew that we could break down the barriers of the taboo and social taboos. And when Charlie and I started the company, recognizing that people would adopt this hygiene routine, this bizarre hygiene routine that we had, is a combination of my ravenous IBS and Charlie's skin sensitivity and passion for ingredients.

[15:57.1]
And combining those together created this perfect storm that ties back to a brand that is serious about the job to be done. You need to feel clean after wiping your butt. You need to feel hygienic. But you also have to have fun. Because we're talking about butt wipes. We're not talking about cardiac surgery or selling insurance.

[16:15.9]
This is a fun category. And so lightening the load for us, unburdened us, and also being ahead of the trend, where now you have Bustle doing articles on poop maxing. And if you go on Instagram, there's people talking about farting and going number two.

[16:31.1]
And we were early. We knew we could break this down, and we knew the rest of the world would follow. And I mean, you know, I probably should have mentioned this earlier. I, for about the last four years, along with using Athletic Greens, AG1, have actually paired it with what's called Colon Broom.

[16:55.2]
And, you know, I don't know if you've heard of that in the midst of things, but you know, that confidence in sharing these kinds of things, it's not volume. That confidence is actually clarity under the guise of awkwardness, right?

[17:11.3]
Adam, 100%. And what I was going to tie back to with the Olipop is not only does it work for the consumer, not only is it fun with the peaches and cream, it makes perfect sense. Gut health and butt health. And gut health is a massive topic that consumers are talking about.

[17:27.7]
Fiber intake. 95% of the United States population under-index in fiber consumption. So now there's a number of companies, Colon Broom being one of them, Olipop being another, that are talking about fiber prebiotics and probiotics, and your gut health.

[17:44.1]
And we've always seen the consumer as a holistic human being, not just one body part anatomically. What leads to going to the bathroom? What you're eating. What you're putting in your mouth. So there's these multidimensional planar universes that we can participate in that make it actually a natural part of your day.

[18:03.0]
Not something to be shied away from. And you know, that ultimately I think gets into, Sam, I'm sure in your journey with Good Wipes, you've also learned from your mistakes and not just the highlight reels. Do you have one early Good Wipes moment that makes you personally laugh now, but at the time it was like, oh no, you know, we really did that.

[18:27.0]
Yeah. Packaging, you know. 2015. Excuse me. One of our first or earliest runs, we were not as involved in product control.

[18:42.2]
We were doing $8,000 a month, and we sent our product to a podcast, Mind Pump, that we're still friends with to this day. Really love them. Have been a longtime listener and Adam Schafer, the host, said, I got this product, I really like it, but honestly, my finger poked through.

[19:04.7]
And that is the cardinal sin of flexible wipes. And he announced it live on his podcast that is a 100k+ download. And then it's probably similar actually. And they're one of the top health and wellness podcasts.

[19:21.9]
And even then we got an influx of orders, so we're just like, we just got to get our name out there. But, but two, we really have to take product development and product Q&A and QC seriously at all times. That's a great example. You know, I think every solid growing brand out there has a private museum of cringe.

[19:40.4]
Oh, private museum of cringe. That's absolutely true. The winners here just keep building anyway, right? Yeah. Keep going here. Yeah. I mean, I would love to translate the philosophy though into leadership mechanics, because, I think that "have fun and get sh*t done" sounds like a poster until you realize it's actually a management system.

[20:00.7]
Right? What do you see as the rules underneath it might be, what does your team do, let's say week to week, so the fun doesn't turn into sloppiness. Like I mentioned, the team is incredibly structured. We have, I don't want to say a managerial layer, but our leadership team are a combination of doers who also lead excellently.

[20:26.6]
We have folks that are rigorous. So we, we've always wanted to. We hired for rigor around the support of the intuition. Especially with marketing. And everyone we hired has that in their DNA. And so really, it's culture more than a management ethos, whereby we've, in the hiring process, you've almost self-selected for that.

[20:50.2]
You've self-selected for people that under stress or duress can still put a smile on their face. You're hiring for people that can solve challenges that are extremely immense and full of pressure, but not lose their cool.

[21:08.0]
And who could have disagreements in a civil and collaborative way. The list can go on and on, but it's more about, culturally how you act and behave, rather than how we have to tell people to live day to day.

[21:24.8]
It's almost more of something that we say outwardly, because it is innate to us. Inward of who we really are as a company. The DNA. Not just Charlie and I, but every person that is in this organization. 23 strong.

[21:40.3]
And as a leader, you know, you're getting here to culture isn't necessarily what you say, although that's a piece of the puzzle. It's what you tolerate, especially when it's inconvenient. But I love the traits that you mentioned there that help to ensure that someone will thrive in that kind of a culture.

[21:58.1]
You know, and also stay playful when the stakes get higher, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. And the stakes get higher every day that you're more successful, every day that you're serving more consumers, every day that your manufacturing runs are bigger, every day that you have more shelf space in a room retailer, the stakes are always getting higher.

[22:15.7]
It's something that. It's actually a myth. You brought up myths. It's something, I think maybe in our early 20s, when we started it, we would have thought, oh, it's. Well, as we get bigger, when we hit this milestone, it's going to be easy. That is not true at all.

[22:31.7]
But you rise to the occasion with your team and can handle the higher stakes better and better. And you professionalize as well. And we professionalize without losing the fun that has gotten us here in the first place. And the retailers can feel that in meetings, and investors can feel that, the team knows it.

[22:51.5]
Consumers feel it. People feel it at events that we go to. And that's why we're so passionate about sharing ourselves and how we do things with the world. Because we don't even have to say it. We just pass them a Good Wipe. We give them a presentation, we talk, we have fun.

[23:08.4]
And they could feel that something's different. I think an easy way to maybe bring this down, that listeners could run with this week. Sam, I would maybe call it the "Fun and Done Audit." Right. And it should only take 15 minutes, no fluff.

[23:24.2]
Open a note. Two columns. Column one is Fun. You know, what are three things you're say brand or team does that create energy, personality, and memorability? Column two is Done. You know, what are three fundamentals that have to be flawless for customers to trust you?

[23:43.0]
And then just circle one item in each column and answer, what would it look like to raise this by say, 10% in the next week? Or what's the smallest action that proves that we would mean it? Because I think the truth there is that most teams are either all fun, which translates to chaos, or all done, which leads to that soullessness here.

[24:04.0]
And the leaders who win install both. "Fun and Done", that is genius. What's the first done fundamental you'd fix in almost any early stage company? And then what's the first fun lever you'd pull to make a brand feel alive?

[24:21.0]
The first done.

[24:25.6]
I'm going to bust a done myth that I allowed myself to fall victim to is, we were so scrappy for such a long time, and it was the right thing to do. It created this mindset for me, which was almost like the anti-delegation or hey, we don't need to hire people mindset.

[24:42.7]
And, there's positives to being lean. But what my eyes open to were what happens when you bring A+ talent into the organization, and you step back, and you just watch them soar? That is the Done.

[24:58.1]
That is the Done that you learn that there's going to be people that can do anything and everything that you think you could do well better than you. And then I learned that whatever I thought was B+ or A- work was really probably C- work compared to the people that come in.

[25:15.1]
And by the way, the speed at which they execute and the rigor that they put behind it. That's the beauty of team. It's not about the founder anymore. A founder can hustle or founding team can hustle possibly up to $20 or even $30 million digitally. It doesn't scale.

[25:31.8]
It does not scale. And you don't want it to scale, even if it could. You don't want it to. You want to bring people in that could do it better, that you're empowering them so that you can help work in the bigger picture picture of the enterprise and what the mission that you're trying to fulfill, and help the team get there.

[25:53.1]
That's fantastic, Sam. I love that. After everything we talked about here today, whether it's as simple as just making sure we wipe our butts, and it's cleaner, is anything real in this world? Is anything real in this world?

[26:11.3]
The only thing I know that I'm an expert on is how to wipe your butt. That's it. That's all I could say. I know that's real. Well, you know, and I think, you know from our conversation today, what's real is this, right? It's the courage to be judged.

[26:27.4]
It's pairing it with operational discipline, and that helps to create brands that people actually remember. Right? That's right. Memorability and shareability is everything. It really is, Adam. You're giving me so much perspective. It really is about that combination of instilling mthe operational discipline, embedding it with the, hey, we're gonna get things done here, but we're gonna have a good time doing it.

[26:54.3]
And we're not gonna break our backs. We're not gonna work seven days a week. We're not Elon Musk. We could try, but no one's ever gonna do that. We're not Steve Jobs. You can try, but no one's ever gonna do that. Who are we? We're Sam, Nemo, Charlie Siciak, and all the way down the line, of a great team of Avengers that have come together to join forces to make people feel good and empower them to feel good every day, wiping their butt with good wipes.

[27:21.6]
That's what we do. I love it. Sam, where should people find Good Wipes? Walmart is clearly the answer there. Follow the Olipop collaboration and just get involved with a cleaner rear end. Absolutely. Thank you.

[27:39.0]
We totally invite people to join any conversation. Comment. Provide feedback ideas at GoodWipes, G O O D W I P E S. You can buy us on Amazon.com TikTok shop, Walmart, every single Walmart.

[27:54.3]
Every single Target, Kroger, Albertson, Safeway, Shoprite, H E B, Market Basket, Hannaford, Meyer, Raley's. Come and get us. We're there waiting for you. I love it. And of course, we'll link to that below so people can get to that store finder and all the other things Sam, here that you mentioned.

[28:15.1]
I have one last question I did want to ask you, though. If Good Wipes had a company anthem song, what is it? That's a really good question. I think it would be between "Wipe Me Down" by Lil Boosie, but I think there's a little bit more fun pop-oriented melody.

[28:37.7]
What's the Beyonce song, "I don't think you're ready for that jelly." That song honestly always comes to mind for me. Fantastic. I expect you'll open your next all-team meeting with that that one then, bring that into that conversation.

[28:53.2]
Awesome. 100%. You know, if anyone listening knows a founder who's allergic to being seen, send them this episode ASAP. And if you're leading through a transition and want a reality first reset, there's a 20-minute foundational call linked in the show notes below with me.

[29:11.0]
No pitch, just space to get honest and choose the next move. But until next time, proof over performance and ship what works. And Sam, thanks for joining today. Thank you, Adam. Amazing conversation. Appreciate the thoughtful questions and excited for the world to see.