Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Ecommerce on Tap is a world where Supply Chain meets storytelling. Join Nathan Resnick and Aaron Alpeter each week as they offer insights into the backend of successful businesses. Brought to you by Sourcify and Izba Consulting!
Nathan Resnick (00:06)
Hey, welcome back to Ecommerce on Tap brought to you by Sourcify and Izba. I'm your host, Nathan Resnick, joined by my co-host, Aaron Alpeter. Aaron, for those that are joining for the first time here, do want to give a quick overview of what Ecommerce on Tap is?
Aaron Alpeter (00:20)
Yeah, every season, Nathan and I pick a unique category. And then we are telling stories about famous, usually DTC backed companies. And so we're going to tell their founding story, reverse engineer their supply chain, talk about their future and expotential.
Nathan Resnick (00:34)
Yeah, and so this season we're covering fragrance. Last episode we had the Phlur, which was pretty fascinating. This episode we're diving in the DedCool which is another amazing story. But before we dive in here, were there any tidbits that caught your eye the past week?
Aaron Alpeter (00:49)
Yeah, I am not ⁓ much of a pop culture guy. I didn't watch the Golden Globes, but I did see that there was a big trend that came out of that where really for the first time in a major way, one of the major things that people were focusing on was hair perfume. These stylists were using scent as...
another layer in the overall aesthetic of what they were doing as they were addressing people. And so it was just this interesting play that even though people watching the Golden Globes couldn't obviously smell the fragrance, this was still part of the storytelling and some of the...
Reporters or people on TV would just remark to say you know that that's interesting scent on your hair or things like that And so I thought it was just a really timely Tidbit in terms of just how fragrance is is having a moment and how it's being integrated into more broad beauty rituals
Nathan Resnick (01:40)
Yeah, it is, it is really unique and interesting. think on my side, I was engaged in with a few of our friends in the DTC, you know, Twitter slash X community. And, know, last season we covered Gruns which is just this incredibly high growth, you know, supplement brand that do kind of AG1, but for gummies and really an interesting form factor and just their scale is pretty wild. And I was saying like, Hey, I don't really know anyone that consistently takes Gruns.
I don't know if you do, it kind of made me engaged in this conversation around how big these different markets are. Cause here in Utah, where I live, we also have a brand called Just Ingredients, which is, you know, over 150 million in revenue. mean, it's got some pretty solid scale and they sponsor, you know, the Utah Mammoth, NHL team. Like they do some pretty big sponsorships here locally. And, you know, these other kind of DTC Twitter folks have not heard of this brand, right?
And so it's just, think, so eye-opening to realize like, Hey, okay, even if a brand's doing, you know, 150, 250 million revenue, like there's still just so much scale to these markets that oftentimes, you know, we don't realize like, Hey, you know, I've never heard of this brand. I don't know anyone taking this, but it's got huge numbers that they're putting up. so, you know, I just thought it was interesting how, you know, big these markets are really. you know, how kind of
You look at it from a revenue standpoint, you're wow, that is a lot of money. But then you look at it from an actual market size standpoint, you're like, you know, they're less than 1 % of the total market.
Aaron Alpeter (03:16)
I think it's really interesting too because it kind of speaks to what their strategy was just in terms of market density. And it sounds like it's better to own the Intermountain West and really be a household name and to sponsor stuff locally as opposed to just trying to compete on Facebook nationally.
Nathan Resnick (03:33)
Yeah, I mean, it's that dynamic of kind of going wide versus deep. they've definitely, like you said, gone deep here in the Intermountain West. So super, super amazing story if you want to check it out. Just Ingredients, a really fascinating brand. So real quick, for those that are tuning in, we will ask you right now to like and subscribe, leave a review. We really appreciate hearing from everyone that is tuning into e-commerce on tap. And we greatly appreciate you continuing to listen. We're always open to feedback.
Let us know what you think in the reviews. We'll check them out. But today we want to explore a smaller brand that is building in a similar trend of redefinition by challenging the norms about scent in general. And we're going to do this kind of, I think, by asking two key questions to start, right? Number one, what makes a scent feminine versus masculine? And number two,
What if scents were meant to be stacked on top of each other in this kind of unique way, right?
Aaron Alpeter (04:29)
Yeah, and I think in order to get started with that conversation, it's helped for us to retrain ourselves a little bit. So let's just start by talking about taste, you know, with your taste buds in general and how we learn to taste as humans. When kids are really young, they stay away from complex flavors. They want plain, very simple foods because they're safe and predictable. In my house, like my kids will eat chicken nuggets every meal if we'll let them do that. And that's kind of why, like, if you look at baby food,
it looks like mush, know, kids want rice and chicken and those sorts of things. But as they get older, they begin to experience and appreciate more complexity and they learn to like things just a little bit different than what they had to. And so, you know, I don't know about you, but like growing up, I didn't like sushi or mustard or kimchi or things like that. But when I, as I grew up, I became more open to those foods and actually kind of like them. And I've got one story where
I was living in Sweden and I had some roommates that were from Finland. And in Finland they just love black licorice. Have you ever had black licorice?
Nathan Resnick (05:31)
Yeah. I don't like it.
Aaron Alpeter (05:33)
No, you're right. It kind of tastes like tar or asphalt, but they had some really good black licorice from Finland. And they said, hey, we're going to give this to you and you have to commit to eating three pieces. I'm like, okay. And so I had that first piece and it was, it was just awful. like, what am I doing? This can't be safe. This can't be healthy. Why, know, why would do that? And so, after, I tried to gag a little bit. I'm like, okay, all right, I committed to it. I'm the second one. Second one was okay. Like it was, it was fine.
Wasn't my favorite thing, but it wasn't terrible either. And then about 10 minutes later, I had my third piece. And the amazing thing was, was that I had rewired my taste buds having those three pieces of black licorice. I was actually like, this is pretty good. Like I actually like this now. And it just, was a really good example of how tastes can be changed and how this complexity can be changed. it like, it was wild because it actually rewired my taste buds. I'm like, this is actually good stuff now.
And so, you know, when you hear that story, I guess the question I have for you, Nathan, is if taste is learned, why do we assume that smell is objective or universal?
Nathan Resnick (06:40)
Yeah, I mean, that is a big question, right? I mean, I think it's kind of this core tension that we're going to explore today because smell is really even more conditional than taste, right? mean, smell is directly tied to a memory and emotion and kind of bypasses this rational processing of thought. like, think rarely when someone says this smells good or bad, do we kind of interrogate them as to why they think it's good or bad, right? And so I think in reality, when someone says there's a bad smell,
often what they really mean is that the scent is unfamiliar, Or socially risky. ⁓ Or they thought, you know, maybe, hey, this smell is associated with a group that, you know, they've been taught to avoid, right? And so I think it's kind of this unique dynamic that, you know, smell is, is, you know, kind of evoking this core, core tension as, you know, even more conditional than taste.
Aaron Alpeter (07:37)
Yeah, and I guess, you know, to your question, how do you actually know if you if you smell bad, right? You know, is it the smell itself that smells better? Is it a fear of how other people perceive it? And when you think about it from that perspective, smell or scent in general is just one of the forms of social signaling that we've done as humans evolutionary. And so early humans relied on other humans for food, for protection, for reproduction, et cetera. And so anything that marks you as
unpredictable or unfamiliar was really seen as a liability. And smell is one of those earliest signs because it would denote whether someone was healthy, whether they were clean, whether they had a disease, or if they were just a familiar scent and should be trusted. And really when you think about social signaling, it is this evolutionary protection mechanism where we try to show other people that we belong in whatever that group is.
that they're safe with us or that we understand the rules of a particular situation. think, you know, one way to think about social signaling is you're not causing friction as part of that group. You're trying to fit in. So, for example, if I were to invite you to the beach and you showed up in a tuxedo, that would probably kind of weird. Like, hey, you don't know about this. You know, maybe you're trying to make a statement to say you don't belong, but, know, that would raise eyebrows for if you showed up in, you know, swim trunks and flip flops.
But if I said, hey, we're going to come to a board meeting or we're to go present to an investor and you showed up in flip-flops ⁓ or you wore a hoodie to a black tie wedding, those things would signal that maybe you don't understand the rules of that situation. If you just think about for listeners, you probably talk very different to your friends than you to your boss. ⁓ You probably interact differently on a Slack channel versus a text versus email. Whether you speak fast or slow
when you're in different types of company is all indications of how we inherently signal socially. And I think each of these decisions as I'm walking through these examples, when I tell you, don't wear a tuxedo to the beach, at least for me, the reaction is, well, duh, right? But what we're actually doing is signaling that we're willing to conform and that we understand the situation, we understand what's appropriate.
and that I don't need to be correct that I actually belong here in this situation.
Nathan Resnick (09:57)
Yeah, I mean, it's a really interesting point, right? Because smell is this kind of social signal that, you know, we kind of try to signal that we're healthy, we're socially aware that we're not going to disrupt whatever group we're trying to be a part of, right? And as we mentioned in the kickoff episode where we did a deep dive on fragrances and the history of fragrances, we realized that early fragrances were all derived from botanicals.
And, they kind of inherently smell like themselves, right? And so lavender is just lavender. Musk is just Musk. at some point along the way, we decided that certain smells signal, masculinity and other smells signal, a feminine nature, right? And so.
Once these were kind of socially decided, we treated those assignments as obvious and natural and never gave it second thought.
it's kind of interesting that today we'd assume that anyone that smells anything resembling a floral scent is feminine. mean, our society has kind of dictated that. ⁓ However, this wasn't always the case, right? Historically, floral scents were worn by men in European courts.
Louis the 14th, who was obsessed with fragrance and kind of really went deep into these kind of just spurring a lot of developments of fragrance in France, kind of really emphasized the powdery sweet floral profiles. but that was the norm at the time. Right. And so in fact, gendered fragrance is really a relatively modern.
retail construct.
Aaron Alpeter (11:30)
I think the reality is that 150 years ago, the fragrance industry was moving away from the ultra luxury and exclusivity and slowly moving toward more of a mass business. And so if you have a lot of people who are learning about fragrance for the first time and need to be convinced to spend money on something that they didn't know they needed, you need to make it as easy as possible to kind of part those consumers from their money. And the reality is that a gendered scent really simplified the retail.
It helped reduce the cognitive load to make gift buying easier, which helped these brands become mass scale brands. So if I'm trying to tell someone that they should be wearing a fragrance because it's going to help improve their sex appeal, I can tell them this is a scent that all the ladies love.
And that's a much easier marketing conversation for me to have with someone as opposed to trying to educate them about the tones, the notes, the microbiome, the chemistry, their personal preferences, all those sorts of things. And so I think that this was something that was done to help sell more bottles. But.
looking back on how there was an unintended cost to society by gendering scent. For one, it removed experimentation and turned scent into an identity instead of an expression. And so when we start to put scents and therefore people into boxes, we create a lot of anxiety about potentially wearing the wrong thing and being perceived as the wrong thing. So kind of coming back to that social signal we talked about. And so you have to ask the question, how much of fragrance marketing is about helping you smell good versus helping you not be judged?
Nathan Resnick (13:03)
Yeah, I mean, I think that's a core question here. I mean, when I think about my own experience with, with fragrance, honestly, kind of my earliest memories with Axe Body Spray, if you remember those kind of spray cans that, you know, you just kind of spray endlessly and who knows what chemicals were in there. But, I think I was using it because I had this desire or thought to kind of fit in, not necessarily to cover up, you know, bad smell, but I just wanted to kind of.
Aaron Alpeter (13:15)
yeah.
Nathan Resnick (13:31)
fit in with my friends or my group that we're all ⁓ using Axe right? And so I think this experience is very common with a lot of people's relationship with fragrance, right? I mean, I'm curious for our audience, like, you know, when was the first time you used a deodorant or a body spray or whatever it may be. And I think this kind of relationship and perception is what gave birth to the idea of a signature scent. And so on the last episode, we talked about where people find a scent that they kind of...
liked and help them signal what they wanted to signal. And then that idea was that, you know, we're going to wear this every day, right? Now I don't still wear Axe body spray, but you know, I'm actually a big Dr. Squash fan. So shout out Dr. Squash on that one. That was a great episode, But, but anyway, you hear stories about, my father's cologne or my mother's perfume and having this kind of signature scent was a promise of consistency.
And I think it was a way to be legible to others, right? So people could smell you coming. They knew it was you without seeing it. And that kind of idea was that you're projecting this idea of this is who I always am, right? And so think this is how people felt and a lot of people still feel about fragrance. I definitely think it's been more modernized now. I think people are trying a lot more scents than probably previously. The norms are obviously different.
And so, you know, for example, like we don't eat the same food every day. don't wear the same outfit every day, you know, and we don't feel the same way every day. And so it's kind of odd that fragrance has kind of been the one place where consistency was expected instead of curiosity and experimentation really. And so, you know, I think as we talked about this concept of modern fragrance being tied to an emotion and to a mood in the last episode of a Phlur, you know, what we're getting into with DedCool is that
This is kind of this idea of experimentation and giving the consumer permission to have a variety and how you smell each day and throughout the day. So I think that's enough context, right?
Tell me about DedCool. How did we get to this company?
Aaron Alpeter (15:35)
Yeah, it's kind of funny because I met our founder, Carina Chaz, at a conference a couple of months ago. And at the time, I didn't really know DedCool I think I'd maybe heard of it once or twice, but didn't really understand the story. And I can't wait to see her at another conference and be like, hey, I am so fascinated by what she did. But Carina was born in the early 90s and grew up in California. And she describes herself as growing up in a green, organic household.
not really being allowed to use conventional fragrances. It's just a kind of family decision they had. And so the choice for her growing up was really between no fragrance at all or making her own. And early on, it was really this hobby and a craft and she would make fragrances for herself or her friends because she wasn't allowed to use these mainstream fragrances. And she also dealt with some various health issues and ingredient sensitivities due to different products or skincare routines that she would have as she was growing up.
And so at a very young age, she started to ask these questions of what's actually in these products that I'm using? Why do certain things trigger reactions to me? And why is fragrance so vague compared to skincare? And you don't have to look far in a bottle, just be something called fragrance. And they will put that on the ingredients as an ingredient, even though the fragrance is made up of a bunch of other stuff. And so just this opaqueness was really difficult to look at. ⁓
At age 13, her hobby became a little bit more established as she formulated her first perfume, which she called CCN, which she said was modeled and inspired after Chanel number five. Of course, what else, right? And these were really just small things that she and her friends would enjoy. But eventually she got approached by an unnamed large corporation who had come in contact with one of her scents and wanted to license one of the compositions for the Twilight Saga franchise.
And surprisingly, she decided to turn down working with this big company or licensing her scent and instead wanted to work along the fragrance house instead.
Nathan Resnick (17:39)
That's crazy. mean, as a teenager to be in that position to potentially get that kind of exposure, mean, I'm surprised she turned it down. She obviously felt different. mean, was it worth it for her?
Aaron Alpeter (17:51)
she would say that this experience was really formative for her because it helped give her the language and the vocabulary to help describe scents. And so, you know, just as someone learns to appreciate food, she learned how to identify and isolate the different notes that she liked and how different materials behaved over time on her skin. And, you know, she also kind of learned this experience that compared to the skincare ingredient transparency, that fragrance was opaque by design.
And there were lot of things that were, you know, kind of wrapped under the rug ⁓ or swept under the rug because they were protected by trade secrets and just made it very difficult to understand. And so what she noticed while she was digging into these ingredients and the marketing positioning was she recognized that lavender wasn't lavender or musk wasn't musk. It was masculine or feminine. And this whole concept of a signature scent meant that one bottle was supposed to represent you kind of indefinitely as a consumer.
And so as she was building out her own personal vocabulary, she noticed that she was personally drawn to more traditionally masculine leaning scents and her personal palette was starting to shift. And Carina started to recognize and question the rules around how certain smells were gendered. And she couldn't really remember as a consumer agreeing. ⁓
to say that this is going to be explicitly a female scent or this is explicitly going to be a masculine scent. And this would be a really big insight that she would later on have a huge impact in the trajectory of DedCool
Nathan Resnick (19:19)
Yeah, I mean, I can see how she developed an appreciation for fragrance while growing up, but, you know, there are a lot of fragrance lovers that don't start companies, right? So, I mean, I'm curious what provided that extra push in her development to go, you know, want to start her own company here.
Aaron Alpeter (19:35)
Yeah, so she had been toying with making fragrance for long time and she had one ⁓ other major impact in her life that allowed her to do this. And she found herself spending more more time after school and over the summer working in her mom's small formulation lab in West Adams, LA. ⁓ And she was kind of helping with the family business where she would make lotions and soaps for hotels, which is what they were selling.
And she would do everything from stocking inventory to packing out orders, but was always consistently drawn back to the fragrances that existed within these formulations. And while she didn't necessarily grow up in a traditional perfume house,
She grew up close enough to a lab to begin to understand the ideas and the concepts for how a fragrance needs to survive manufacturability. So for example, you know, the formulation is the constraint management she has to worry about. You can't fall in love with one ingredient if it won't behave well on the base. ⁓ Then she also recognized kind of these small batch realities where lead times, minimums, packagings, fillings, labeling, those things will really impact what you're able to do economically and at scale.
Nathan Resnick (20:44)
Wow. Yeah. mean, so eventually her passion projects really starts to come together. You know, she'd been researching clean ingredients, playing in a formulation lab and really kind of, guess, questioning why certain genders had a monopoly on certain scents. And so this actually led her to formally start DedCool in 2016 at the age of 21. So, you know, I mean, she started very young, which, is awesome. And she didn't have a formal business plan per se.
It was really just only an Instagram page and this conviction that there was others interested in learning what she had learned. So about a year into the business or so, she received an Instagram message from Nasty Gal, which was one of the most popular fashion retailers at the time, expressing interest in carrying her products. ⁓ only challenge was that the product didn't exist yet. It was really just an Instagram page, but un-debted.
She started calling suppliers, got free samples made, and hand-delivered a box of makeshift products to Nasty Gal in downtown LA. And she was patiently waiting for them to get back to her and tell her how much they loved her products. But two weeks later, she got a newspaper article from her dad, which had showed that Nasty Gal was going out of business.
Aaron Alpeter (22:02)
Ooh, that had to hurt. think every founder has stories of things that almost happen. I've got them, I'm sure you've got them too. But for her it sounds like, maybe whether it was her age or just feeling her big opportunity, she put so much emotional capital into this opportunity. It must have been really difficult for her to get that news.
Nathan Resnick (22:21)
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure it was devastating, right? Especially at the time being a young founder, right? I mean, it kind of felt like a big shot and that, you know, she was waiting and it had come and gone because Nasty Gal was going out of business. And so she kind of thought like, Hey, if Nasty Gal was interested in this product, that means that other people are going to be interested in this as well. And so, you know, I think it really shows her kind of grit and hustle here because she decided to spend the next couple of months really just going door to door, different mom and pop shops across LA. ⁓
asking other retailers to carry her products on consignment. And so for four years, these small mom and pop shops were really the backbone of her business here. You know, each customer PO has used the fund next batch of inventory and these early retail partners were really important laboratories for her as well because she was able to get customer feedback in real time. You know, as she was refilling,
the inventory at these small retailers. And so she was able to kind of adjust her approach on what she was saying. And she made lots of, I think, really intentional and thoughtful bets and trials here with these independent small retailers. And I think that kind of helps shape the backbone of the brand. And so for six years, I mean, for six years, quite some time, she was the solo employee of the brand. And when asked, she was just, you know, likely to call it a hobby or craft as she was a call it a business, but
she recognized that when retailers called to switch from consignment over to regular retail terms, that she actually had a viable business here.
Aaron Alpeter (23:50)
Wow, six years as a solo printer, that's a very long, very lonely time. But as you mentioned, it really allowed her to develop some foundational learnings that shaped her business. And so I thought it was really interesting looking at the six year period, what were some of the things that she might've learned? And I think as an outsider, it's probably a little bit easier for us to plot her journey and her thinking, because when DeadCole launched in 2016, she wasn't going out to try to build a category defining company.
Instead, she was trying to figure out if she were to build a fragrance the way that she wanted it, would other people care to use it as well? And as a result, the concept was still very loose. The products were limited and her brand voice was very exploratory on Instagram. But she was using Instagram as both a marketing tool and as a market research tool. And because she only had perfume sprays at the time,
you know, she had very limited quantities. think actually she had some Roland fragrance too, but she was interacting with these customers, both virtually and in person. She was able to explore this idea of a mood based scent and the flexible identity and that she had been able to create with the brand and, know, with her own journey and fragrance really de-emphasize the whole concept of a signature scent. And so she started to ask people, why, why do you combine scents? ⁓ You know, she'd see some of her customers that were buying
multiple scents at once. He said, well, why are you doing this? And she started to hear that people were talking about how DedCool fit inside their life instead of what it smelled like. And so these sorts of questions and conversations provided the feedback loop for her to help hone her offering in the process. And you start to see the milk fragrance family which she launched, those soft kind of musky skin scent ⁓ products that came out that were really developed and honed during this time.
And while she didn't invent the concept of layering fragrance, she did decide to lean into it more and more and recognize how it changed how people thought and related to smell. And this layering removes the permanence of fragrance. It removes gender signaling. And it removes kind of this fear of getting it wrong because it's just a mood. It's just a flavor. And you suddenly start to shift fragrance from being a label to being more of a tool of self-expression.
Nathan Resnick (25:56)
Yeah, I mean, by late 2020, early 2021, she realized that she was not just selling perfume, but she'd actually built a brand for the business, right? She was selling the repeat customers in a very distinctive aesthetic and tone. And she made this concept of layering more explicit, right? And so she recognized that customers were already doing it and that her products supported them very well. So by 2022, we have what would be recognizable today as a really strong kind of business identity here. And I think there wasn't kind of
just any one thing that happened, but this wholesale interest that she had been cultivating for the past few years had earned and helped kind of validate demand beyond just DTC. And so she found that her customers were treating DedCool, not just as a gifting purchase or a single thing, but as a routine. And so she kept enough skews and complexity in her portfolio that eventually she needed to bring in additional support on ops and finance. so, I think for six years, there's definitely a lot of
notes we can take here because that cool was essentially a conversation between Carina and her customers. And so there was, you know, no people in between her and her customers. And she learned a lot through that process. And I think you can feel that in the product. And when the team finally came in, it wasn't to change the idea. It was to keep it intact.
Aaron Alpeter (27:18)
Yeah, Nathan, I'm just curious, like, what kind of companies do you think benefit from being founder-led longer?
Nathan Resnick (27:26)
Yeah, that's a good question. mean, I think in general, it stems from, you know, really knowing your customer, right? At the end of the day, most founders kind of have a unique insight that enables them or pushes them to start their business, whether it be a brand or software or whatever it may be, right? Usually it stems from a unique insight or it could be a passion, right? In this case, think Carina was just really into fragrance and, you know, cultivating a scent. And so I think through that, she just became...
such an expert in understanding what her customers desire out of her products. And she focused on that, right? I think as you grow, oftentimes you lose focus, you have people that are less connected to your customer. And so I think one of the key benefits here is that she stayed so connected to her customer.
Aaron Alpeter (28:10)
It definitely feels like being solo for so long was something that allowed her to test and learn and to do things that kind of be a rule breaker to some extent. And I think if this had been any other traditional fragrance brand, they would have followed the existing playbook to design one signature scent and that everything would be seen as kind of revolving around. And you know, most fragrance brands start with the assumption that people
know who they are and that they want to wear their product all the time. And when you have one scent that identifies you, that's a pretty good business. But what Carina recognized is that while signature scents assume certainty, she personally was living in a world that was very uncertain and very dynamic, very changing a lot.
And so when you consider her personal sensitivities and being unable to wear traditional scents growing up, instead of asking yourself, what do I want to smell like? The question that she was implicitly asking herself was, what can I tolerate? What won't give me a reaction? What feels good on my body today? And as someone who made her own scents for a long time, she noticed that when she, didn't want the same thing every day. And this was because her mood was changing, kind of what she felt like she needed was, was changing. And so because of this,
ever-changing environment all of these things that Signature Sense forced people to do, which is just saying pick one and say this is you, was really being shown as not being a viable thing. And so her life experience and what she was seeing her customers say they needed was that
They needed something that would allow them to say to the world, this is me today, but it won't be me tomorrow.
Nathan Resnick (29:43)
Yeah, I mean, I think this was a pretty key insight here because she recognized that fragrance wasn't really failing because people wanted fewer options. It was more so failing because it was forcing a scents of consistency that most people couldn't relate with. Right. And so people were already kind of layering, ⁓ scents in their own way. It was, you know, do I wear something today or not at all? And obviously people made different choices based on if they're going to work on a date or, know, just kind of hanging out. Right. And so.
She recognized this while she was talking to clients and customers who were buying more than one cent at a time, that people were already beginning to layer her fragrance. And so what she learned was that people did this when they felt one cent was too strong, that they felt it was missing something or that they wanted to try to personalize it without risk. And so she thought, well, if I create a product that actually supports this idea and this kind of behavior of layering, how is that going to look? And so instead of making the behavior an exception,
I think what she stumbled upon was that when you create something that emphasizes layering and differences in complexity, it actually reduces social risk. And so instead of having a, you know, very strong, noticeable scent that is yelling, this is who I am, judge me, you get things that can soften or change or respond to the environment. And I think that really allowed people to kind of lower the cost of participation when it came to this notion of experience fragrance.
Aaron Alpeter (31:08)
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense so at this point, you know, she's been a solopreneur for six years. We're in 2022 and she's got the real makings of an actual company here. The concept of removing gender and gender stereotypes when it comes to certain senses and packaging has been fully formed. This concept of layering is something she's embracing and she's always had this focus on clean ingredients because of her sensitivities. But we still need to go from DedCool being a single woman with an Instagram page to a viable platform.
And I think this is where Carina starts to expand beyond just traditional fragrance. In fact, in 2020, they launched a laundry detergent called Milk Detergent. And by the summer of 22, they were starting to legitimize this at scale because Sephora brought DedCool into about 200 stores and used DedCool to enter the laundry space and the air freshener space. looking at what Sephora wrote at the time, they framed this as a really big moment for them because they were now
curating laundry detergent and air fresheners alongside fragrance, which is something that Sephora had not done before. And in 2022, they doubled down on this detergent ⁓ by launching Extra Milk, which became the hero anchor of the brand's soft, clean, layerable identity. And so you think about it, you've got smell to your clothes, and if you're gonna layer your scent on, you should be ⁓ figuring out ways to deliver scent in every aspect of your wardrobe. ⁓
By 2023, they were big enough and mature enough that they took on their first round of investment from Sandbridge and they began to launch room and linen sprays. So think, you know, air fresheners and you're going after Febreze a little bit.
This really seems to be something that they were trying to do and test and they were looking for specific moments in the consumer's life where DedCool could exist without needing to create a new fragrance every time. And so the thought was that if I'm going to go into layering, why not just, you know, really lean into it? I'm not going to do stuff that only goes on the skin. I'm going to go in every aspect of your home, of your life, your laundry, your car, et cetera. And this really let fragrance be something that you experience beyond just the normal applications of fragrance.
Nathan Resnick (33:12)
Yeah, I mean, this is a really interesting development because, you know, we've seen companies in the past, especially ones we've covered on e-commerce on tap, try to tap into other categories and expand. And it is a huge risk. It is a huge challenge. And so I've got to ask, you know, what do you think were some of the key considerations that they had to think about as they expanded their product line here?
Aaron Alpeter (33:35)
Yeah, it's risky, ⁓ But, know, Carina and DedCool have always existed in trying to break and reframe rules. But I think some of the key questions would be, all right, if we launch an air freshener do people want it? ⁓ You know, do you know, if people want it, do we have the appropriate expertise to go out and actually make this thing? And, you know, does this do something where it's bringing
more people into our brand that maybe didn't know they were shopping for a fragrance, but knew they needed a laundry detergent or an air spray or things like that. And by doing so, does this bring more people into our scent platform and into the brand, or does it cause confusion and feel like it leaves them out because they don't fit the mold of who they think the brand is for?
Nathan Resnick (34:17)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting to think about because there's a lot of risks when you expand into product categories. think DedCool, you know, had enough kind of expertise and brand loyalty to do so. But yeah, I think another unique aspect is that like in 2024, you start to see early signs of international exclusive and expansion. Right. So it launched a couple of SKUs that were exclusive to the Australian retailer Mecca.
So in 2025, they launched Mokey milk, which bill a 5,000 person wait list ahead of its release in March, 2025. They also took on some investment capital years. So they raised 7.5 million from Sandbridge capital. And it was reported that they're doing about 25 or 30 million in sales. And I they really just started to blow up.
you know, all over the place when it comes to what they were doing and being seen across socials and in the press. so, you know, I think today, DedCool doesn't see itself as a fragrance brand, a scent system with, you know, just sprays, fragrance oils, detergent, dryer sheets. They just have so many product categories. I air fresheners, body washes.
Instead of asking consumers, you know, what's your signature scent, DedCool's portfolio asks, you know, where do you want your scent to exist in your life? And so I think this added kind of context has brought in new customers, increased frequency, which is a key in e-commerce brands and just lean into layering as a core consumer behavior here.
Aaron Alpeter (35:41)
Yeah, it's fascinating. Where do you think DedCool is going to go from here?
Nathan Resnick (35:45)
Yeah, it's a good question, right? I think there's a lot of really interesting trend lines that we could envision continuing to hear.
I think number one, they're really leaning into scent wardrobe even harder. So there's more formats, more refills, more bundles, more collaborations. They're starting to look at all these different occasions when people could experience and interact with fragrance. And so like a good example that they're doing right now that, you know, leans into the idea of adding scent into your routine is like the DedCool Ouai laundry campaign. ⁓ So they're just trying to find unique ways to kind of partner and lean in. And I think
You'd expect to see some expansion in retail as well, getting into deeper parts of your house in your life and expect more, you know, in candles and things like that. And so I think there's kind of this question of what they do next, right? Do they want to become this house of scent or stay kind of lightly curated and tightly curated there? you know, I think they're going to come across this kind of key question of like,
Are you going to stay independent or try to keep compounding or look for a larger liquidity event? And, know, I think it's important to discuss what could this event look like really.
Aaron Alpeter (36:56)
Yeah, well, the nice thing about dead cools, they've got options right now. I think one path would be to grow the business to 75 or 150 million bucks over the next five years and aim for a strategic exit. In order to do this, they need to make sure that you've got a tight set of hero fragrances, not signature scents, but hero fragrances. And then they can start to begin to expand into formats where they're already winning and doing more on detergents and refills and home and body and things like that.
Another option would be to try to scale into more of the scent platform, which appears to be the path that they're on right now. This is much harder to do. ⁓ because it also makes the picture a little bit murkier for an acquirer because they're like, well, know, if I'm Estee Lauder, I want the fragrance, but do I want a laundry business? You know, if I'm Unilever, maybe I like the laundry business and fragrance isn't something I've gotten into. And so it's this really interesting piece here where I
they are kind of on the default path of trying to become the everyday scent system brand. in order to do that, they're going to have to make sure that they have a lot more revenue coming from laundry, home, body, etc. And those have to be a very mature percentage of revenue.
So when you think about fragrance, it has a higher frequency, lower cacti type of payback, whereas laundry may be different or it just has different dynamics. And so the real thing you to do is just make sure that they've got a coherent system in place where they don't just have lots of products, but they have lots of really hero fragrances and products that are doing very, very well. So they can be more balanced instead of being a fragrance brand with a detergent habit or an air freshener habit or things like that.
And once they've got that platform down in North America, then I can think they can expand internationally and really have these deeper collaborations that they're starting to dip their toe into.
Nathan Resnick (38:46)
Yeah, I mean, it's been a really interesting example of how consumer preferences and kind of the fragrance market are shifting. I think together with the Phlur episode, it kind of helps us identify fragrance is about how you feel, not who you are. as we
look at DedCool and their growth and their journey. I mean, what are some key takeaways that you'll have here?
Aaron Alpeter (39:07)
Yeah, I think that DedCool didn't go to market or didn't try to win by inventing whole new stuff smells. They won by observing how people were actually behaving with scent. And so this idea of that, you know, finding that the people were already layering scents that people wanted to avoid strong signals so that they can not stand out socially, and then starting to really use scents as a mood. And so I think the key lesson here for any founder is to don't is to not ask consumers what they want.
but watch what they're already doing and try to remove the friction for what they're already doing. I think the other piece that was really telling for me was under the right circumstances, the solo founder time can be a major strategic advantage for a brand. For Carina, it let the concept emerge naturally instead of her trying to force it. ⁓ And she was able to build taste consistency across the product. She had this voice in this expansion was very authentic because it grew slowly.
And DedCool feels calm because it wasn't overly optimized, especially early on. And I think when you hire too early, you take on investment too early, you start to lock in assumptions that you haven't fully proved out. And the reality is that some ideas need time to reveal themselves.
Nathan Resnick (40:21)
Yeah, those are good takeaways. mean, I think what I saw is that, you know, fragrance is kind of moving from this identity into, you know, environment, right? mean, historically it's like one bottle equals one person equals one identity. And it seems now it's going into this multi-format approach of moods and spaces and routines. And thought it was really interesting how they leaned into layering. think the other thing that kind of DedCool leaned into is that, you know, gendered fragrance is a retail artifact, not necessarily a truth.
Um, I think especially in today's day and age, people are trying lavender in different ways or musk in different ways. And so I think DedCool kind of removed this dynamic that, you Hey, this scent must be for this gender. Right. And that's a unique approach that they took to go to market and try to capture more market share. So, you know, I think overall, I just was amazed and really inspired by.
Carina's dedication to really lean into her passion. mean, you hear of just very few founders that kind of started testing fragrances in their house growing up and got this ⁓ opportunity to work with this fragrance house and just really an amazing story. ⁓ I think it'd be fascinating to chat with Carina and just learn more about her journey because she is definitely an expert in fragrance, that's for sure.
Aaron Alpeter (41:42)
Absolutely. Yeah, I can't wait to see it at another conference and see what we got right, what we got wrong here. But what a fantastic episode to kind of take us through for fragrance and kind of the season so far, because we've got, you know, Phlur reshaping things and helping you understand that fragrance is no longer about identity, it's about emotion. And then we've got DedCool, which is a great example of just challenging the status quo and letting people rediscover a whole
aspect of scent that they had previously said they couldn't touch because of ⁓ social constructs and things like that.
Nathan Resnick (42:18)
Yeah, yeah, amazing. Well, thanks for everyone for tuning into e-commerce on tap brought to you by Sourcify and Izba leave us a review. Let us know what you think of this episode. We always read those. Thanks again for tuning in. We'll see you next time.