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#199: Supergoop – A Cancer Scare Jumpstarts An Empire
- 2025/04/02
- 再生時間： 25 分
- ポッドキャスト
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サマリー
あらすじ・解説
When a family friend is diagnosed with skin cancer, Holly Thaggard polls a bunch a skin care chemists and comes up with the Unseen Sunscreen. Dave Young: Welcome to The Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick in business partner Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients, so here's one of those. [No Bull RV Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to The Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young here with Stephen Semple, and we're talking about empires. And so Stephen said we're going to revisit one. And I think really, Stephen, what you're doing is just testing my ability to remember shit. Supergoop is what you told me, that it rings a bell, but help me out here. Stephen Semple: This is a rerecording because we did one recording, which didn't work out so well, and here I am in a hotel and you immediately informed me, "Boy, the microphone doesn't sound so good, so we might be recording it again in the future." Dave Young: It'll be Supergoop part three. Oh, dear. On the plus side, the listener doesn't remember this episode because it was never released. Stephen Semple: No, that's true. Dave Young: Okay, good. Stephen Semple: That's true because we had some real recording issues that we could not recover from. Dave Young: All right, we get another mulligan on Supergoop. Stephen Semple: Supergoop, for those who don't know, is a sunscreen and- Dave Young: Oh, that makes sense. Stephen Semple: ... basically- Dave Young: Now it sort of rings a bell. I think probably. Stephen Semple: It sort of rings a bell, does it? And in 2022, Supergoop did $250 million in sales, so that's- Dave Young: That's a lot of goop. Stephen Semple: That's a lot of goop. It was started in 2007 by Holly Thaggard who's from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. And she has no background in cosmetics or sunscreens or any of those things, so again, another one of these empires that came from somebody completely from outside the industry. Dave Young: She wasn't a Nickelodeon child star or anything like that? Stephen Semple: No, she was none of those things. Dave Young: I'm looking for something goop related. Stephen Semple: Well, that'll come. That'll come. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: She started in 2007, and the inspiration started in 2005 when she had a close family friend who was diagnosed with skin cancer. And what she found out was that basically 70% of people don't wear sunscreen regularly, and you really need to be wearing it, it's not just about the beach, you really need to be wearing it all the time. And this whole issue with this skin cancer diagnosis sent her down this path of doing a lot of research. She had an entrepreneurial bent. Both of her parents were entrepreneurs, and she started a business when she was in high school. Dave Young: Oh, wow. Stephen Semple: She played the harp. Dave Young: That was a bigger reminder to me than the goop. Stephen Semple: She started Holly the Harp in high school, and she would go on weekends to country clubs and things along this lines, and she charged $100 an hour because there was no competition. Here she's this kid in high school charging a hundred bucks an hour going around playing the harp. Dave Young: Cool. Stephen Semple: Now, at one point she went into teaching and there was a bunch of things that fell apart on that. And there's a certain point where her brother moves to the Dallas area and she's helping her brother move. And she looks around and she's like, wow, this is a pretty swanky neighborhood and there's all these country clubs around,...