Brynn MacLennan on Slate Flosser: From Idea to $1M+ and Landing Target!

In this episode, Adam Callinan sits down with Brynn MacLennan, founder of Slate Flosser, to break down how she built a fast-growing oral care brand from scratch. From early product validation with dentists to raising $200K on Kickstarter, Brynn shares how she scaled to $1M in revenue and made the jump from DTC into retail.

This is a real look at what it takes to build, test, and grow a physical product brand in today’s market.

🚀 What You’ll Learn

•  How Brynn validated her product before going all in 
•  The path from Kickstarter to $1M in revenue 
•  What it takes to land retail deals with Target 
•  Why DTC success matters before scaling retail 
•  The biggest mistakes founders make with pricing and margins 
•  How to build brand awareness in a crowded category 
•  The mental side of entrepreneurship and staying resilient 

🧠 Key Takeaways

•  Validate first—don’t build blindly 
•  DTC creates leverage for retail expansion 
•  Pricing and margins will make or break your growth 
•  Influencers can outperform paid ads when done right 
•  Focus and consistency beat chasing every new channel 

🔗 Explore More

👉 Pentane: https://www.pentane.com
👉 Growth Mavericks Podcast: https://www.growthmaverickspodcast.com
👉 Slate Flosser: https://slateflosser.com

Creators and Guests

Host

Adam Callinan

Adam Callinan is the founder of Pentane, a financial and advertising command center that empowers brands to drive predictable revenue and intentional profit. Previously, Adam co-founded BottleKeeper, a bootstrapped consumer brand that scaled to $8M in sales within three years – without employees – and was later acquired in 2021 as an eight-figure business with a team of four, marking Adam's second successful exit.

What is Growth Mavericks?

This podcast dives deep into the tactical moves that drive business success, as well as the mental and physical resilience required to sustain it.

Hosted by Adam Callinan, a seasoned entrepreneur with multiple exits, an avid outdoorsman, and an family man with crystal-clear priorities, each episode unpacks real-world challenges, actionable insights, and the mental and physical disciplines that fuel long-term personal and professional growth.

Whether you’re scaling a startup or refining your mindset, disrupting your default is how business and life strike a balance.

Adam Callinan (02:51.846)
So how did you, how did you end up in Washington? Are you from Washington originally?

Brynn MacLennan (02:56.11)
No, I'm actually, so I'm Canadian. I went to college in Utah. I lived, I've lived all over the U S Kentucky, Virginia, Houston. Um, just for some of those were first, my dad's schooling. And some of those were for when I went to school. Um, and then, uh, we realized we wanted to be close to, to like within a day's drive of all of our family, because we thought, Oh, in Texas, we'll our house and gossip less. And we, um,

can fly wherever we want, but I didn't like, I like to go running every morning and I was the only person in Houston running. was like, where, no one else, where are the people to exercise?

Adam Callinan (03:40.028)
So you fled to Washington.

Brynn MacLennan (03:40.366)
So we picked Washington. It's four hours from my lake place, it's ten hours from one set of grandparents, and four hours from another set of parents. So all within a day's drive we can do everything we need.

Adam Callinan (03:59.278)
Epic. And were you always entrepreneurial or did that find you?

Brynn MacLennan (04:03.413)
Yeah. No, so my mom is an entrepreneur. My dad's a lawyer, so very rigid. And then my mom started companies here and there. But actually when I was 13, my brother was 15 and my sister was 17. My parents said, hey, you guys are going to have to pay for college and you're, can choose to work for someone or you could start your own business. So me and my siblings started a bounce house company.

And I ran that company until I was 25.

Adam Callinan (04:39.9)
That seems like an amazing company. Cause I have little kids that are in the bounce house phase and we have on a can in, in, in like our yard and Bozeman we have on occasion rented a bounce house and every single time we pay like $500 for a bounce house that comes out for, you know, six hours in middle of the day. And they're so efficient at getting it out and getting it out from like, man, that thing is just.

Brynn MacLennan (04:44.396)
Yeah.

Brynn MacLennan (05:01.325)
Yeah, so it really was fantastic. actually, we got a $20,000 loan, $10,000 from the bank and 10 from my parents. And then we had it paid off within two months.

But like nowadays there's more competition. When we started, we were the only thing within a 10 hour ride. like anytime people had big events, we'd sometimes drive to the Crowsnest Pass, which is like seven hours away. And we'd like be at the ski hills where they would have the bounce house there. So we made a lot of money.

Adam Callinan (05:41.532)
So it was hardwired into you. Yeah, that's incredible. So you grew up in an environment that was on.

Brynn MacLennan (05:48.588)
Yeah, my mom was awesome in the fact that she was like, I'll teach you how to do anything. So as a 13 year old, I was doing the books for the company and she would just show me like, this is what you did wrong, this is what you did right. I definitely made errors, but I learned how to answer phones and how to work with people. So it was fun.

Adam Callinan (06:12.508)
So after that, you went to college, self-funded on Bounce House revenue, which is epic. Where did you go to school?

Brynn MacLennan (06:19.446)
Yeah.

I went to school at Brigham Young University in Utah.

Adam Callinan (06:25.148)
Okay. And then did you stay in Utah?

Brynn MacLennan (06:26.605)
So I wanted to be a product designer. No, I did for a year and then I moved to Kentucky and I started my own company in Kentucky.

Adam Callinan (06:38.33)
And in college, you're saying that you wanted to be a product designer.

Brynn MacLennan (06:41.355)
Yeah, so I went to school for product design.

Brynn MacLennan (06:46.379)
I thought at one point that I wanted to work for Nike and design shoes. But then I did an internship with Johnson & Johnson in Ohio. And I was like, what? I can make products that literally change people's lives. And that's when I became excited about the medical industry.

Adam Callinan (07:05.648)
Did you then go into the medical industry? Like, did you go to work for Johnson & Johnson or did you, what happened next?

Brynn MacLennan (07:11.189)
Yeah, no. So then I did my capstone with a medical company. and then I was, I got married at 21 and my, I'm now divorced, but my husband at the time, we moved to Kentucky for him to go to dental school. And while he was in dental school, I just started a, a company that was for design, but not for medical. And then that's when, we decided to invent our product in 2019.

And he came up with, it's like all dentists invented, but we're very excited and we've just been bringing the product to life since then.

Adam Callinan (07:53.372)
How did the concept come up for the product?

Brynn MacLennan (07:56.558)
So we bought our dental practice in 2017 and we realized people didn't like going to the dentist, but I loved going to the dentist. So I was like, why do I like it? But other people hate it. I was like, most people are getting cavities or SRPs, which is like scaling and root planing. And I was like, why, what if we, if people didn't get those things, they probably like the dentist. And we were like the

The one thing that people need to do to not have cavities or gum disease is to floss correctly. But no one's doing it. And if they're doing it, most of them are doing it wrong. So we're like, how do we make it so easy that people do it, but so effective that the dentist notices? And that's when we invented a three in one. So it's floss and what dentists would call interdental brushes. We call them gum brushes so that people understand.

what that is and then a tongue scraper. So our product is patented and it's been really fun because people use it and they're like, my gosh, I flossed every day. I've never flossed in my life and now I floss every single day.

Adam Callinan (09:13.242)
And that's a really interesting way to get to a product. mean, generally, and people that listen to this podcast are going to hear me as a broken record. Like generally we like have a problem that we have, and then we create a solution to that problem. And then we realized that other people have the same problem. We started selling that solution to them and now we have a company. So to go to it from trying to understand the problems, those other people already have sort of skips that step, which is cool. That's a really, that's really interesting way to get there.

Brynn MacLennan (09:41.432)
Yeah, I mean it helps solve it for me too. I have five kids and I was like, how do I get them to floss? I was always like, if I can teach them how to make a bed by the time they leave the house, that's great. Now it's like, okay, how do we teach them to floss? Because most kids, cavities is the number one child disease in the world. And so you're like, okay, this is something I need to teach them so that they can be better when they're older.

and all my kids floss, so it worked.

Adam Callinan (10:15.943)
So make it, let's talk about making beds. How do you teach them to make that? I can tell you if I seven year old has not figured it out. It's like, come on. That is not a made bed. You literally just took your sheets and blankets and hucked them into the middle of the bed. That's not the same.

Brynn MacLennan (10:17.079)
We love it.

Brynn MacLennan (10:30.049)
Well, how many kids do you have? Okay, so this is what I've learned is you can get one kid to make their beds. You then praise that kid. You go and you wake them up and you're like, thank you so much for making your bed. And all of a sudden the other kid wants to make their bed. But also what I do in the morning when I wake them up, I'm like, if you get out of the bed fast enough, I will make your bed for you.

Adam Callinan (10:32.331)
to.

Adam Callinan (10:54.301)
Ooh, that's a good one. We had one of those this morning that would have been really helpful.

Brynn MacLennan (10:56.021)
And then...

And then they're like, okay, I'll get out. And then they're at least out of the bed. And then a lot of times your kids just want to spend time with you. So they'll make the bed with you. And then before you know it, you have a habit.

Adam Callinan (11:10.727)
Yeah, seven years later, they figured it out. Perfect. Awesome. Okay. Noted. Okay. So with your, with that product, when you came up with the idea and your husband at the time was a dentist, like a practicing dentist. Okay. Got it. Okay. So obviously there's some really, there's a really unique perspective and purview into what's needed and what it needs to accomplish in order to meet the goal, which is good to have.

Brynn MacLennan (11:13.559)
Yeah.

Brynn MacLennan (11:27.393)
Yeah, he still is a dentist.

Adam Callinan (11:41.159)
How did you make the first product? Did you find a product engineer and prototype things out? Did you go with the patent route first and like go through intellectual property searches and how did that all work for you?

Brynn MacLennan (11:50.35)
We did them at the same time. So we started because of my background, like I knew different engineers and we knew what we wanted it to look like on the outside, but we needed someone to make sure all the components worked on the inside. So we found an engineer. If I could do it again, I would do it differently. So this is what we did and then I'll tell you what I would do. So we found an engineer, we worked with them and then we found a factory.

So we sent our like life savings into the engineers February of 2020. And then we, yeah. And dental offices got closed for three months. And I was like, we are, I asked, can we get the money back? Like, how are we going to survive without this money? But we didn't. So we did the patent at, before.

Adam Callinan (12:30.289)
Rough timing.

Brynn MacLennan (12:49.729)
We sent the money, but we had been working on it for a while. So we started the patent, which I'm really glad we did. We are the first patented electric flosser in the 2000s. So there was a product that was similar to ours. And that's actually why ours is, I think, better. 1990s, a product came out called the Hummingbird. And it did electric flossing, but it

like didn't catch on and it wasn't successful. So we actually looked at that and we said, what's wrong with it? Why didn't it succeed? It was like pretty small. So it didn't have a long handle. So it wasn't like easy to get the back molars. And then it didn't have the gum brushes or a tongue scraper. So we were like, we need to get people to clean where your gums and teeth touch. Cause your toothbrush only cleans 60 % of your mouth.

and we wanted to clean the dirtiest part of your mouth, which is that 40%.

Now I don't know if I answered your question.

Adam Callinan (13:53.767)
Did you, no, no, it's totally fine. This is great. We're just gonna keep going down the rabbit hole. When you filed that patent originally, was it a provisional patent or did you just file a utility?

Brynn MacLennan (14:04.205)
Um, I, this point I can't even remember. Oh, very expensive. Yes. It was, yeah, we did a utility patent. Um, and we like did it in the whole world too. So we also had to pay for international stuff. first, actually I was like, I don't know if we were going to have the funds to do all of this patent work, but ultimately our goal is to become so big that we're either.

Adam Callinan (14:05.789)
Was it cheap or was it expensive? Okay, you filed a utility patent. Okay.

Brynn MacLennan (14:32.749)
acquired by someone because they want the technology and the only way to do that is to have a patent otherwise the big guys will just knock us off.

Adam Callinan (14:42.717)
Yeah, I mean, there's tremendous value in having patents. In my last company was a consumer product company and we got acquired by private equity because of our patent portfolio. had 43 patents, 42 patents at the end of that company. And that was all, they were interested in that and the brand, because it was a high margin brand, but their primary interest was the patent portfolio. So there can be tremendous value in.

Brynn MacLennan (14:55.842)
wow, good job.

Adam Callinan (15:07.931)
in that intellectual property thing. So bravo. It is expensive and painful. And then once you get into having to defend it, it gets even more expensive and more painful, but it's so important.

Brynn MacLennan (15:08.237)
Thank you.

Brynn MacLennan (15:15.725)
I know, that's like, I'm like, I can't. People are, sometimes I'm like, it's actually really important to do both at the same time because some people are like, I'm gonna wait till my patent's done. I was like, you gotta get market share and be known because otherwise you won't have money to defend anything.

Adam Callinan (15:34.725)
Yeah. And then when you go to defend it, the people that you're defending it against don't think you have the resources to actually deal with it. And it all depends on who is violating your patents. mean, in your world, in the medical world, I imagine you can get into a place pretty quick where you're fighting with some big, you know, big gorillas in the room. In our world, was, you know, it was like Chinese companies were trying to resell fake versions of it on Alibaba. like, you know, some person

Brynn MacLennan (15:53.729)
Yeah.

Adam Callinan (16:02.833)
would buy them on Alibaba, a case and it ended up in their basement and they'd be selling them on Amazon's like that. So we were fighting against was an entirely different scenario. wasn't a medical, medical grade device style product.

Brynn MacLennan (16:10.753)
Yeah. Have you heard of ipmote.com or i.ai? It's a really cool software. ipmote.ai. They actually make it so that you can keep your pet, like you can shut people down on Alibaba. You can shut people down on Amazon that are selling knockoffs. So it's.

Adam Callinan (16:29.287)
Yeah, that's to centralize. would be epic. We were doing it individually on Alibaba and on all the marketplaces and even on Amazon. this, at that time, this was 2000, our first patent.

2000, November of 2016. So this was like 1718. We had to go and we had to go and sue like 10 of those tiny companies selling a case out of their garage, not to ruin their lives, but to make them stop. And then we had to make it go through the court system and have the court system, including the defendant and the court system agree that they were violating our patent and signed what's called a consent judgment that then gives you a court order number that you can use to defend the thing on Amazon at that time. So the world is a little bit different now, but like,

Brynn MacLennan (16:46.273)
Okay

Brynn MacLennan (17:10.881)
Yeah. So IPmo is awesome. I just press a button and then it gets taken down.

Adam Callinan (17:14.833)
Yeah, that's, that's insane though. That would have, that would have saved us. I mean, we spent a half a million dollars in one year just doing that process. Like it was, it was the worst part of that company. It was the absolute worst part of that business, but it was, it was important. It drove a ton of value at end of the day, but it was brutal. So I have people, sounds epic. I will, I will remember and repeat that. So when you, you had that idea, how did you prove out the concept?

Brynn MacLennan (17:22.797)
I'm so sorry. That's so, so frustrating.

Adam Callinan (17:45.191)
Did you go and build engineering and IP and all that stuff before you had buy-in from customers or did you, I know there was a Kickstarter component in there somewhere, but.

Brynn MacLennan (17:53.537)
Yeah, so what actually happened was, I said to Danny at the time, was like, I am not investing five to 10 years of our life or more if dentists and hygienists don't back this product. And I was like, you think it's good, but everyone thinks their own idea is good. then his hygienists loved it and they talked about it, but we actually, we decided to make the mold.

and make product and send it to 500 hygienists and 200 dentists and find out if they liked it. And if they backed it, then I was like, then I will, then I will invest my life in this. And 74 % of them said it was better than any tool that existed on the market. And 95 % of them said that they would tell their patients to use it. So I was like, okay, we can do this.

Adam Callinan (18:48.283)
Okay.

Brynn MacLennan (18:51.647)
So that's my name.

Adam Callinan (18:52.005)
So what happened next? Because I assume they weren't, and maybe this is an incorrect assumption, so correct if it's wrong, they weren't buying the product. They were just effectively like endorsing that it was a use, like an important and useful tool. So how did you get to the consumer then?

Brynn MacLennan (19:04.161)
Yeah.

So that we started a Kickstarter. I wouldn't do it again. I wouldn't do a Kickstarter again because I didn't. But I learned a lot. So maybe I would if I, now that I have the knowledge. We didn't charge enough on Kickstarter because we didn't have enough experience to know that shipping is so expensive. And so our margins weren't right on Kickstarter. But.

we were able to, we raised $200,000. We were in the top like 2 % of Kickstarters. So that also then proved consumers wanted it. And then we started fulfilling product in November of 2022. And in 2023, we were able to do a million dollars. So I was like, okay, we figured out we're solving a problem, but now we just need to let people know we exist.

And I would say we've been learning how to do marketing ever since.

Adam Callinan (20:06.887)
Yeah, let's get used to learning how to do that forever. As long as you own the company.

Brynn MacLennan (20:10.38)
This is different this year than last year. Okay, this is different than two months ago.

Adam Callinan (20:17.273)
In 2023, you know, get crossing or hitting that $1 million mark. Was that entirely direct to consumer? Like on a Shopify site? Okay.

Brynn MacLennan (20:24.364)
Yeah. We actually, launched Amazon in September of 2023. It wasn't, it wasn't like a, it was a beneficial channel, but it wasn't a big channel at that point. Um, so most of it, we, we also lucked out. We sent, we sent product to some like influencer people and we were hoping that people would post and all the lifestyle influencers didn't post, but.

Adam Callinan (20:40.199)
Do you?

Brynn MacLennan (20:53.932)
a dentist tried it and he's an influencer and he told people about it on December 17th, which is technically after the cutoff date. I was like, we're going to get these. So like that day, we sold $70,000 in one day because of his post. And he did it. He just did it organically, which was so awesome. So then we spent the next two days fulfilling it.

with, we had our neighbors come, our kids do it. It was really fun.

Adam Callinan (21:28.613)
Oh, we had one of those too. And it probably in like our second or third year, Christmas was a huge thing. We were a gift product. was like a drinkware, you know, beer related drinks product thing. And we would, we like my, our warehouse, my cousin was my co-founder was warehousing and shipping out of in Phoenix. And I was at the time in Southern California, we like flew in family from everywhere and just like spent two days in the warehouse, crushing product out the door, all of our aunts and uncles and cousins and brothers and sisters.

Brynn MacLennan (21:38.793)
Awesome.

Brynn MacLennan (21:50.572)
I need you!

Adam Callinan (21:57.211)
It was an amazing memory.

where all the good stuff is.

Brynn MacLennan (22:00.653)
That's kind of how I remember though, like in October of 2023, my goal was to do 700,000 and then November was really, really good. So then I was like, no, let's try to do a million. ended up doing 1.2.

Adam Callinan (22:14.821)
Epic. So have you remained, know you mentioned going into Amazon, which, know, really like functionally still sort of sits in that direct consumer space. Cause when you're spending on meta and tech talk and all those places, like people were still ending up on Amazon. have you ventured? mean, I kind of know the answer to this, but I want to hear how you got to this, like ventured out into the B2B retail world since then.

Brynn MacLennan (22:26.538)
Right.

Brynn MacLennan (22:39.468)
So because being dentist recommended is extremely important to us as a company, we launched like two dentists at the very beginning. It's not a huge channel for us, but it is. We love that dentists recommend us that people can find it in high-end cosmetic dental offices and different places. But in 2024, I read the book.

10X is better than 2X. I don't know if you read that by Benjamin Hardy. And I was like, okay, if I want to get where I want to go, how am going to get there? And in February of 2025, I decided I have to get into retail. 46 % of people buy their oral health in store. So I was like, okay, I need to be in store. So luckily I got invited to this.

a VC dinner in Utah. So I flew to Utah. I went to the dinner. I almost didn't go. And when I was there, I this VC that was going to Target in four days and at the dinner. And this is why it's so important to just stand up for yourself. I said to him, I would really like to be at that meeting. How do you get invited to something like that? And he said, if you can be ready in four days, you can come. And I went.

And Target tried it and then they said, we will have you in stores in 2026. So that was really cool.

Adam Callinan (24:16.797)
How did you, what did you show Target versus what ended up in Target from a product standpoint?

Brynn MacLennan (24:24.554)
Yeah, actually. So when we went in February, we showed them our rechargeable. knowing that I wanted to be in retail, I knew that our product is too expensive for most retailers. It's $129. So I said, we need to come up with new products. So in February, we showed them our rechargeable and that's what they got and they tried.

By May when we had our liner view, I had two new products designed. A mini flosser, which is non-electric, and then a battery powered one. So I then had three different price points for three different demographics. So Target ended up taking our mini flosser and launched it in 844 stores, which at first I was like, I don't want to do that many stores.

Adam Callinan (25:19.58)
You

Brynn MacLennan (25:19.936)
But we're in a, we're in this really cool display. And so it, it works perfectly for us. really excited about it. but that's how I've gotten, I mean, most people that I know get brokers and then the brokers get them into stores. But because oral health hasn't really changed, I don't think oral health buyers are typically used to that. think they're used to working directly with like the big guys like P and G and so.

I've just messaged all the companies and I've gotten like to do line reviews with them because I just messaged them. Which I know is not normal.

Adam Callinan (26:02.205)
Yeah, but if that works exceptional, I mean, that's, that's good. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, our, when we went into retail, we had a lot of pent up demand because we had said no to it for a long time and it was ACE hardware found a broker to come and find us with basically like a, want you in 2,500 stores or are you open to that? Um, so which, which is atypical, but it still happened through a broker. Like we, you know, we

Brynn MacLennan (26:05.472)
Yeah, it's worked for me.

Brynn MacLennan (26:26.06)
You're like, yes, I think.

Robert's like, for us, CVS just reached out to us and said, we'd like to have a line interview with you. And I was like, okay, cool.

Adam Callinan (26:36.273)
Yeah, that's epic. That's the way that you want it to be. I always looked at it like a GoPro kind of model and that they sold direct to consumer and got to control the consumer and their experience to build the brand and the voice and the message and all the stuff like the customer service and the engagement. And so by the time they went to retail, they had that demand there and they got to control more of it. Not to be jerks about it, but to be able to control that pricing and be able to control who could sell online and who couldn't and where it goes in the store.

Is how I always modeled that and it worked. That worked really well. I mean, it was hard to get to that point.

Brynn MacLennan (27:10.026)
Yeah, I think it's great if you can be that way. was interesting because the tariffs happened at the same time as my Target line review. And I was like, I don't know if we should do it. I'm so scared. I don't know what's happening. but I called it. That's why it's nice to have other friends. And I called a friend that knew someone in oral health and I was like, should we still go to Target even with tariffs unknown? And he was like, yes. And so just someone telling me like that, that's the right choice. I was like,

Okay, I'm just gonna do it.

Adam Callinan (27:43.003)
Yeah, that sounds like it has worked out well. Has Salthru been positive?

Brynn MacLennan (27:49.739)
Yeah, so we, I'm a very open book. So, you know, sometimes that hurts me, but we're like a third, a third, a third. So a third of our stores are crazily exceeding our expectations. A third is where our expectations are. And then a third are lower than our expectations. So we're trying to learn right now. that because people don't know about us? Is it because that's happening in every store in this, like that whole category is selling that, that same rate? We, we've only

been out for like a month and a half. So we don't have enough data to really know. But overall, we're so excited that we're in Target and we're grateful to work with them.

Adam Callinan (28:35.943)
Have you seen on the direct consumer side of the business with paid ads and things like that? you figured out how to measure the impact those paid ads like top of funnel paid ads specifically have on those retail channels? Like have you seen it all kind of float? No, you have not, okay.

Brynn MacLennan (28:52.266)
No, we don't know. just don't haven't had enough time to figure it out. And we've been trying to be like, okay, for geo doing geo targeting ads, like, because we want to do it right near the stores. Are those beneficial? We just don't have enough time yet to make that data. But I think, yeah, but it's, it's been cool. Like we were like, we started doing some ads on Target's platform, which is Rundell and

Adam Callinan (29:10.201)
Yeah. mean, a month and a half is a really short period of time.

Brynn MacLennan (29:22.272)
It has, they've been like 6X, which is great for us.

Adam Callinan (29:27.025)
Yeah, that sounds, that's great for most companies. That's generally really good.

Brynn MacLennan (29:29.74)
yeah, I'm like our meta ads this year, like to be completely honest, have not done fantastic this year. And I feel like with the algorithm change, it's just like, can something stay consistent for just a minute so that we can figure this out? But so we're learning, okay, our ads can't, we can't run five of the same ads with different hooks anymore. They have to all look different. They all have to act different. So that's fun.

Adam Callinan (29:32.765)
Yeah.

Adam Callinan (29:58.619)
Yeah, there's like the ever changing, never ending strategy shift in and around paid media and how it works and where to use it and how to use it. And it's been going on for forever, frankly, since it started a decade ago, 13 years ago.

Brynn MacLennan (30:09.409)
Yeah.

Brynn MacLennan (30:14.07)
So I'm secretly hoping that word of mouth will be this thing, you know, like people don't usually talk about flossing, but our product makes it so good that I think people like once they're like, my gosh, I'm sorry. I'm hoping people start talking about flossing when they're out on dates or with friends.

Adam Callinan (30:33.661)
How do you, that seems like a thing that could be made really fun. Like some marketing strategy.

Brynn MacLennan (30:37.612)
I think it should be talked about making out because like let's if someone has nasty breath or nasty tongue like they need our product and then they can kiss more.

Adam Callinan (30:48.953)
I, that is your new slogan, headline kiss more. That's funny. Yeah. There could be some really fun stuff in there from a content creation stamp.

Brynn MacLennan (30:58.165)
Yeah.

Adam Callinan (31:00.605)
So what happens next? You gonna continue expanding into retail, keep pushing on direct to consumer, just trying to basically grow top line?

Brynn MacLennan (31:08.842)
Yeah, so for us, when D to C does good, everything does good, right? And so really brand awareness is the biggest play. We want to eventually be in a few retailers that we feel like will make a big impact. So Target is...

Is our consumer right now target is their demographic, right? And Costco. So I really want to be in Costco by 2028. So I'm going to do everything to do that. But you know, Costco has some really cool rules, but they're also like hard because you have to, they don't want to put you out of business. So you have to have Costco can only be 30 % of your revenue. So, and then they like have.

If you want to be national, at least in the electric device category, they told us we have to be at a certain dollar amount. So we need to get there this year so we can get into Costco in 2028.

Adam Callinan (32:15.517)
That's smart that they do that. I can remember early on talking to a Costco person and them literally just being like, you're not even remotely close. We'll ruin you in like a nice way. That's great. I think that's responsible. Yeah.

Brynn MacLennan (32:23.53)
Yeah, and I think I and I don't want to get put out of business. And so it's nice that they think about that.

But also I'm like, know how, so owning a dental practice, we would just tell our people, go buy it at Costco. And a lot of dentists do that. And so I think, I could be wrong, but if I was to guess right, I think most electric toothbrushes are bought at Costco and at Amazon.

Adam Callinan (32:55.837)
Yeah, I mean that that makes sense. How does it is so your you started this with your ex-husband when you were married. Are you still working actively like working together in this?

Brynn MacLennan (33:10.156)
We do not work together anymore. We're cordial in the fact like if I need help or have a question and we're also working on another patent that he helped us with and he asks like answers questions. What we learned was we had different visions for the company, right? And then we got divorced. So he was really great. And he was like, I'm going to continue to be a dentist and help whenever you need help.

Adam Callinan (33:20.081)
No, cool.

Brynn MacLennan (33:40.076)
But I'm gonna let you take it from here. So that was really nice. Because it could have ruined the company getting divorced.

Adam Callinan (33:46.077)
Yeah, I always.

For sure. sure. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that sounds like an amazing outcome. Given the scenario, I always find it really interesting when you have spouses working together in the same company. And I like learning about that because I, you know, as an entrepreneur, like it doesn't stop at the office. Like it comes, it lives. It's like your whole thing. can't be your only thing. We have kids and that obviously generally is the big priority, but it invades every part of your life. So trying to have it separate from

Brynn MacLennan (33:53.643)
Yeah.

Adam Callinan (34:17.629)
from spouse and family is unrealistic. And it is something that my wife and I have always been generally really good at. And in my company now, she's way more engaged in like the day to day and plays an active role. And so I always enjoy learning how other people have managed that inside of a house where it's like, when you're done with work, you kind of want to be done with work, but you can't really not be. And then you go to dinner and it's like, now you're still talking about the same stuff because your spouse is involved in it.

Brynn MacLennan (34:42.644)
Yeah, definitely. I think we did it poorly and now we're divorced. So I definitely think that work can creep in. And the cool thing is, is it's also fun though for my kids. So there's positives and negatives. I do work a lot. But how much I work now compared to two years ago is a lot. I have a much better balanced life.

Adam Callinan (34:47.805)
Okay, yeah, yeah. Point taken.

Brynn MacLennan (35:11.382)
this year than I did two years ago. So I just think if people don't learn to have a life balance, it's going to negatively impact their relationships. to me, relationships are way more important than a business.

Adam Callinan (35:31.581)
So what do you do shifting gears a bit? You mentioned running being like a big part of at least your history in Houston. What do you do to like manage the ups and downs personally?

Brynn MacLennan (35:32.14)
Thank you.

Brynn MacLennan (35:45.453)
I am a external processor, so I need someone who's willing to listen to me talk about my business. luckily that's like, you have team members on your team. So I have like my CFO and I get to complain about things that aren't working well, which is really nice. But I also, I'm a person where I like have work brain and then I turn it off and then I have play brain.

So then I'll go like mountain biking or running or water skiing. then that like, that calms me down enough to be able to go. But I also go to therapy every two weeks. it's rare for me that therapy is about work, but I definitely know that at least every other month I talk about how to.

Adam Callinan (36:31.453)
Great. Yeah.

Brynn MacLennan (36:40.928)
How do I be a better boss? How do I interact with this person better? What am I doing wrong? How do I get them to be their full potential versus where I'm at right now?

Adam Callinan (36:50.941)
Yeah, I mean, think a huge, again, going back to sort of like the life of an entrepreneur, a huge part of it is that it's impossible, as hard as we try to like fully separate the two, it's easy to say, like it stops at five o'clock and then I just go into this other phase. It's just not realistic for 99.9 % of people.

Brynn MacLennan (37:08.908)
Well, and when you're in startup mode, you have to think about it 24 seven, like otherwise it will fail. Um, so I felt super duper lonely at the beginning and like in 2021, I was like, I am the only woman doing this in my city. Like I need another Ecom person. So I actually found a group called female founders only, and I went on a trip to Morocco with them and it was one week and it changed.

Adam Callinan (37:12.421)
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

Brynn MacLennan (37:38.57)
Like my perspective on everything, most of the people there were doing five to 10 million. And I was just able to ask them all these questions and. now we're all really great friends and we usually go on a trip once, once a year. So find, find people who are doing better than you so you can have them be your mentors.

Adam Callinan (37:55.367)
Yeah.

Adam Callinan (38:00.829)
Yeah. I mean, I would, would caveat that with start with find people because you're absolutely right. Like there is an Island feeling that we all have. Every single one of us has. And that's why, that's why I always bring this up in, in this podcast, because I think it's so important to talk about because we all feel like we're on an Island and we're not. There are resources. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Brynn MacLennan (38:19.88)
And you are if you don't reach out. It's all up to you. If you want to feel alone, you'll feel very alone. But we all want help. like just two days ago, I sent a message to all of the girls and said like, hey, I want to do this. Does anyone want to participate with me? Or does anyone know someone who will do this? Who's your ad buyer? Who's your whatever? We all help each other out.

Adam Callinan (38:47.131)
Yeah, that's really good. And having the support from externals and having the time and space to get out into the woods makes a massive difference. I that's where I find a lot of outlet to be really helpful.

Brynn MacLennan (39:02.528)
And so what do you do? Who are your people that you reach out to?

Adam Callinan (39:07.841)
I have, I have a small group of, of very close friends that I probably three that I can go really into some weird places with some like deep, weird, odd places with. one of them is in Africa right now. So I actually have a call with him tomorrow morning at 9am, which is like 7pm or 6pm in Kenya or wherever he is in Africa. I know he's in the military side or never ever know where he is.

Brynn MacLennan (39:21.494)
That's so awesome. Yeah.

Adam Callinan (39:37.297)
And so I have to be, I have to be really diligent about pushing on that. And then I also have, because I'm in Montana, like, you know, probably similar to what you have in Spokane, I have really close access to the woods. So I spend a lot of time, you know, just out in the woods with, with, or without family. And there, you know, there are seasons with hunting and archery and things like that where it increases. but I, I intentionally go out and find hard, hard things to do out in nature.

that is a massive perspective reset for me.

Brynn MacLennan (40:11.36)
Yeah, me and my CFO, was having a hard day and we needed to make some decisions. She's like, let's go on a hike. We can talk about this in the office or we can talk about it on the mountain. And it was just so nice to do that. But I also think you need to be real with people. So find people that you trust that aren't going to spread negative things about your company. But like when you have a crappy day, you need to tell someone like, my gosh, I just lost a hundred thousand dollars because this didn't happen.

Adam Callinan (40:42.557)
I 100 % agree. And the reality is, you know, what we see in the world and particularly in socials is all the good stuff. You never ever hear about the bad stuff. And like, I get it, I guess, but nobody learns from the good stuff. All the education is in the pain. And I know it sucks.

Brynn MacLennan (40:58.955)
Yeah.

Yeah, like I just got a bill from customs because they decided to change my HS code for $50,000. I was like, you can't just change my HS code because you thought it would be fun. So now I get to deal with that.

Adam Callinan (41:15.995)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's, and there is some educational piece that will come out of that. I don't know what it's going to be, but I'm sure there's something.

Brynn MacLennan (41:26.166)
Well, I'm pretty sure they're gonna change it back. Well, I'm going to will, that's my will. They're gonna do

Adam Callinan (41:28.912)
Yeah.

Adam Callinan (41:33.915)
Yeah, that's perfect. Awesome. What else? What are we? Where do you want people to find you? Where do you want people to find? Stay Flosser.

Brynn MacLennan (41:45.164)
Yeah, so one, I want to help people change their habits. That matters. So if you use my product or not, I'm going to give three reasons why you need to floss. then, so if you have gum disease and 50 % of Americans over the age of 30 do, you're 70 % more likely to develop dementia.

Adam Callinan (42:04.945)
Yeah, let that sink in.

Brynn MacLennan (42:06.09)
Okay, so you're going to floss for your brain. Okay, the next thing is if you have, your gums are bleeding, the barrier to your brain and to your bloodstream is broken. So all of a sudden the bacteria from your mouth can now go to your heart. My sister's friend's mom died from endocarditis. She was perfectly healthy and then died because of a bacteria from her mouth in her heart. So heart and your brain.

and then the bacteria from your mouth also affect your gut. So the reason you want to floss has nothing to do with popcorn or beef jerky. It's actually about your brain, your heart, and your gut. So start flossing, and if you want an easy and effective way to do it, slateflosser.com. I just want to make everyone healthy.

Adam Callinan (42:59.921)
That's an amazing shout out. We're learning so much more about brain health and gut health and the interconnected nature of all of these things that have, you know, in at least in like human known history been so disconnected that are actually not disconnected or quite connected.

Brynn MacLennan (43:15.626)
Yeah, I just did a Ted talk on how flossing is connected to your whole body. So people could go listen to it if they want, but it talks about it's crazy. we, okay. Here's one. Are your listeners mostly men or women?

Adam Callinan (43:29.362)
Yes.

Brynn MacLennan (43:30.634)
Okay, did you know that if you have gum disease, you're two to three times more likely to have erectile dysfunction? So, you should floss.

Adam Callinan (43:40.315)
I did not know that. Add it to the list. Add it to the list of known problems that result from dirty mouth. That's amazing.

Brynn MacLennan (43:48.266)
Yeah, so the bacteria in your mouth, like porphyrimone or gingivalis, like just is so bad for your body.

Adam Callinan (43:57.049)
noted, well, we'll make sure that we have links to the Ted talk to sleigh Foster's website. Are you spending any time on social screaming and yelling at people? You want to add some links there?

Brynn MacLennan (44:07.744)
Yeah, yeah, so Slate Flosser is our Instagram. And then if you want to follow me on LinkedIn, Brynn MacLennan.

Adam Callinan (44:19.013)
Epic. Well, don't hang up here when we're, when we're done. Cause we got to let the thing upload, but thank you a ton for coming in and joining, joining us today, especially with the sore throat post New Orleans.

Brynn MacLennan (44:32.576)
I thought it would be better this morning, but it did not get better. So, well, I would love to send you and your family some flossers.

Adam Callinan (44:43.536)
man, absolutely. We would love that.

Brynn MacLennan (44:45.494)
So I'll send your kids some minis. What color do they like? We have blue, purple, green,