306 | Product First: Why Product Quality Outshines Marketing | with Justin Wolff

Justin Wolff

Products should speak for themselves, right? Where if you have to pay someone to pretend they like your brand, your product just isn't good enough. 

Chase Clymer

Welcome to Honest Ecommerce, a podcast dedicated to cutting through the BS and finding actionable advice for online store owners. I'm your host, Chase Clymer. And I believe running a direct-to-consumer brand does not have to be complicated or a guessing game. 

On this podcast, we interview founders and experts who are putting in the work and creating  real results. 

I also share my own insights from running our top Shopify consultancy, Electric Eye. We cut the fluff in favor of facts to help you grow your Ecommerce business.

Let's get on with the show.

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Honest Ecommerce. 

Today, I'm bringing to the show the CEO and co-founder of Junk Theory, the first ultra clean skincare line to be packaged entirely in metal. Justin Wolff. Welcome to the show. 

Justin Wolff

Thanks so much, Chase. Awesome to be here. I'm excited to chat. 

Chase Clymer

So quickly at the top, just kind of let folks know what is Junk Theory? What are the types of products you bring into the market? 

Yeah. Junk Theory, in short, is a premium, ultra clean skincare line that's packaged entirely in metal. The most recycled and recyclable material on earth. Really, the company genesis was founded on the idea that clean has to mean something more than just formula. We can't end the conversation there without giving any thought to what those formulas come packaged in. So it's really a rethinking of the entire idea behind clean beauty. 

The concept of clean formulas deserves to come in sustainable packaging. Why hasn't anyone done that yet? We see a lot of small incremental moves in the category, but nothing that is sort of a game changer in terms of sustainable packaging. 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. Now take me back in time. 

Where the idea for these products and this packaging come from. 

Justin Wolff

Yeah. So in 2014, I co-founded another impact brand called Yoobi. It was a school supply company built on the idea or concept of one-for-one giving. So for every item we sold, we donated a school supply item to kids in need in the US. 

That business grew really quickly. It was picked up by Target. And by our second year, we were giving more than a million kids a year free sets of school supplies all in the US.

My co-founders of that brand had built out a, later on a few years later, a beauty incubator where they had a lot of relationships with celebrities, a lot of relationships with retailers and throughout the supply chain. So everything was kind of done under the same roof. 

And that's where I got my real first peek behind the proverbial curtain to see and learn how that beauty sausage was made. And what I very quickly realized was that it was an industry with very little regulation. Almost no transparency and it was just drowning in plastic. 

And so as someone who's really enjoyed building brands that have impact that go beyond the sort of financial bottom lines, the idea was, ‘Hey, wait a second here, there's this meteoric rise in… let's call it clean beauty, almost no one can really define what that means.’ 

And at the same time, the conversation seems to end around formula. Whereas I had this sense that it should really begin there. If we're going to talk about clean beauty as a category, of course the formula should be good for people and the planet. 

But then maybe it's worth us asking, given the single use nature of all the products in this category, shouldn't we start thinking about what those formulas come packaged in? And that was the genesis of the idea behind what would ultimately become Junk Theory. 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. 

And what was the material that you settled on for the packaging. 

Justin Wolff

Yeah. So I'll take you back a little bit. And really, one of the first things that we did–my co-founder and I– with Jump Theory is we actually took a trip out to Jakarta to film and document and record the legacy of our plastic and the amount of waste that was out there. 

And we found ourselves walking on literally floating islands of plastic off of the coast of Jakarta. That was the kind of thing where once you see it, you can't unsee it. And that sent us down a path of, ‘Okay, well, if we're going to try and do something that's not incrementally better, but really something that's impossible to ignore, we really need to start with material analysis, what could we package these things in?”

Because there's a lot of choices out there, right? And we actually first started with ocean waste plastic. We thought, ‘Hey, let's pull plastic out of the ocean and repurpose it into jars and then when people are done with it, they can either send it back to us or we'll upcycle it.’ 

But what we very quickly realized is that ocean waste plastic is just too degraded to actually effectively use in skincare packaging. There's a lot of what's called green washing out there about what kind of materials can be used and not. There's a different stream, ocean waste plastic and ocean bound plastic. 

Anyway, the key thing that kept us from going down the ocean waste plastic route beyond just how ineffective the material was as a packaging solution was the fact that less than 5% of plastic gets recycled in the US. 

So we were thinking, ‘Okay, it's great that we could do this. Maybe we can pull it out of the ocean and make packaging. But at the end of the day, when people are done with our products in two months, it's going to end up right back where it started.’ 

So that moved us away from there. Then we started looking at a whole range of bio polymers and materials, sugar cane and wood polymers and all kinds of things like that. However, the challenge that we have with that is that as compostable as they would like to call themselves out, they really need to be industrially composted to be effectively composted and the infrastructure is just not there in the US. 

So that led us down to some old thinking on, ‘Hey, how was stuff packaged before plastic was ubiquitous around the world?’ And metal was a real solution back then, metal and glass. And then we began to analyze the sort of recyclability of both, the carbon footprint of both. And long story short is that we ended up with metal, aluminum, most recycled and recyclable material on earth. It's lightweight. And we didn't want the consumer to have to do any kind of heavy lifting. 

As soon as you ask the consumer to start going outside of their normal behavioral patterns, the efficacy of your impact program could be severely impacted. So any sort of, ‘Hey, ship this back to us.’ Okay, we're adding carbon footprint. ‘Hey, take this into a store.’ What are the odds of someone actually doing that? 

So we just said, ‘Hey, how do we meet the consumer where they're at and create something that they can just responsibly recycle curbside?’ So at the end of the day, it's our jars and our bottles here all made from metal. And when you're done with them, you just pop them in the recycling bin and it will get recycled.

So ultimately, we felt like metal was... aluminum was the material to really change the game and wake the industry up in terms of its sustainability problem. 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. 

And so you've got the story and the green power behind this recyclable packaging. But some might argue the more important part of the brand, the makeup itself, the skincare itself. So walk me through that and how that all played out. 

Justin Wolff

Yeah, that's a great question. Look, at the end of the day, people are buying formula, not packaging, right? It's not like we go into a store and, ‘Hey, I need my moisturizer and I'm thinking only about packaging.’ So you're absolutely right. 

I think that was one of the most important lessons that I learned actually in my time at Yoobi where I was a Chief Giving Officer over there. So my job was basically to build out and communicate the impact side of that brand. And I always wanted to put impact first and put that messaging there about how much we're giving away and how important it is that everyone has access to basic school supplies. 

But I think the most important lesson that I learned during my time at Yoobi was that if the product itself does not win and it's not better than what sits to the left or the right of it on the shelf, whether that's digital or in the real world, then you don't create any impact. 

So we took that philosophy into Junk Theory. For example, we just did not do any shortcuts when it comes to formulas. One of the biggest investments that we made at the beginning of the company was to actually go ahead and develop these formulas from the ground up with one of the best green chemists out there. 

Kind of a dirty little secret in the beauty industry, you're just gonna see brands popping up every two seconds. You will almost never see a brand that builds formula from scratch. Essentially what they do is what's called white labeling, which is essentially a formula that will have some standard stock formulas out there. You maybe sprinkle a couple of ingredients, new ingredients in it and you call it yours. 

We didn't do that and we built these things from scratch. Our formulas across the board have been winning awards across the category since we started. And I actually think that's been one of the best drivers of sales and brand loyalty is the fact that our formulas are so good, so effective and they actually do what they say they're gonna do.

The other thing that I think is really important with our formulas that you don't see often in the industry is that we have a hundred percent ingredient transparency. So in the beauty industry right now, if you have ingredients that are less than 1%, you don't even need to disclose those things. 

And our thinking is this is just part of the junk in our industry, right? In terms of what kind of ingredients can go into formulas and what kind of packaging those formulas are housed in, it's all junk. At the end of the day, we're talking about stuff that people need so they're going to buy it. 

The question is, how do we do it in a way that doesn't create more junk in the world? So I think at the end of the day, we created best-in-class formulas that are housed in the most responsible and sustainable packaging the category has ever seen. You need those two together. 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely, Justin. Alright. So you guys have put in the work, you've made a product that you're proud of. 

Now how do you get eyes on it? How do you get out there? How do you find customers? What was that go-to-market strategy? 

Justin Wolff

Yeah, it was not easy. Look, when we first started this company about two weeks later, the entire world shut down from the pandemic. So raising capital was difficult, supply chains were difficult, and having face-to-face meetings with... So all these things were difficult. It ended up taking a lot more time and resources to actually get the company to launch. 

But one of the things I'm really proud of is that this is very different from how we launched Yoobi, for example. Yoobi, we launched from Target, 1800 Target stores with eight feet of shell space. So it was just a huge retail presence. 

I think when we think about Junk Theory and what it's meant to do and what I hope to achieve in the category, this is a very different approach to growth. I think one of the most important things is that we've done it organically. So initially at launch we just didn't have the budgets to do five figure performance marketing campaigns at launch and all of that. 

What we did is, we have to be very nimble with the resources that we had. So for the most part, it was a strategy of two things. One is just basically organic outreach. My co-founder and I reached out to every person that we knew, every ally that we had and reached out and said, ‘Hey, give this thing a shot and tell a couple of your friends,’ which was great.

And then the other strategy that we really leaned in on was PR, right? How do we make this company, you know, give it legitimacy? How do we start to win awards in our category and get mentioned by outside people? Like not us telling you that these are great formulas, but actually some of the industry leading publications saying, ‘Hey, this is the best new beauty launch of 2023, best new cleanser of 2023, best overnight treatment’ and the like. 

So it was a combination of sort of real organic outreach through value alignment and PR, which was able to highlight us in ways that, again, in such a crowded category, no one is really doing what we're doing. So those two strategies were how we kind of launched the brand. 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely.  

And how did that fare for you? 

Justin Wolff

So it's been great. Actually, within one year, we were cash flow positive strictly through digital channels, which is amazing. So we've seen growth, we've seen a repeat purchase rate. It's about 50% higher than our category average right now. I think that's a testament to the quality of our formulas. There's a lot of ways you can do that first sale. 

To achieve that second sale, your product really has to do what it says it's gonna do. The efficacy needs to be there and it needs to be something that the consumer is actually receiving benefit from. So I'm really happy to see those numbers all in a very healthy place for where we're at right now.

Chase Clymer

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Chase Clymer

We're recording this heading into Q4 of 2024. Obviously, Black Friday, Cyber Monday is right around the corner, the holiday sales season. So how has your strategy changed since going so heavy in PR and digital to now? 

Justin Wolff

Yeah. So I think right now where we're at and what I'd like to see is I'd really like to start to test our digital chops at this point. At some point, we have to go beyond organic, right? That'll only get you so far. Now what we really need to do is start to test our fundamentals on digital channels. 

I want to know what my actual customer acquisition cost is going to be, my ROAS and what my LTP is going to be. And the only way to really understand that is to begin a performance marketing campaign. So we are, for the first time this month, going to be investing in performance marketing to grow and start to learn those fundamentals. 

But we're doing a couple of other things that I think are really interesting as well.

One is, we launched our email marketing program. We didn't even have that for most of the first year going out. So now we're able to communicate much better with our existing customers and new people that have left us their email, et cetera. So that's been really great. 

We're also doing a lot of cross-brand partnerships. I think it's really interesting because we're able to speak to other brands, non-competitive brands that have a shared value of life in a way that I just haven't seen other brands be able to do. So there's another brand that's made the conscious decision. 

For example, a water brand that says, ‘Hey, we're going to package our water in aluminum jars instead of cans, instead of plastic bottles,’ and things like that. There's a real opportunity to connect with our audience at a value level. So I think that's really important. 

Or there's debit cards now that you get rewards when you buy from sustainable brands. So we are doing a partnership with a debit card company where they're kind of pushing their audience to, ‘Hey, shop here and you get this additional money off.’ So those kinds of cross-brand partnerships, I think are really interesting. 

And the final thing is our impact partnerships. So we have a couple of partners that we work with to help bring awareness around plastic pollution and the dangers and harms of plastic. So us being able to work with nonprofits like that and help contribute to their cause, they help give us research and information that we can then publish and share with our audience. 

And also they have pretty big followings as well, whereby almost all that audience feels very strongly about the core issue that we feel very strongly about, which is ending the plastic era in beauty. So those are just some fun ways that we've begun exploring how to grow digitally and beyond the organic sphere. 

Chase Clymer

Yeah. 

And I mean, putting in all the work upfront to get that earned media from all the PR stuff from getting editorials written about you, being on podcasts, all of that. All that does is it raises your organic traffic and gives you some more SEO juice. 

So when you go and start to spend money on paid, you're going to see better performance than just starting paid from day one. 

And it's something that I always like to call out when I meet brands. They crawl, walk, run, as opposed to going right to run for performance is something you've often seen. While it takes longer, obviously, to grow the business, you're going to see better results. 

Would you agree, disagree? Feel free to disagree. 

Justin Wolff

No, I actually agree. I'll agree and disagree. 

I'll agree in the sense that one of my favorite things about Junk Theory is that we did not take on institutional money. So we did not take on VCs. We took on friends and family and angels, which keeps us in control of the brand and doesn't force us into a position where we have to make decisions about growth that are really determined by a venture capital timeline versus what's the right thing to do for this brand and how do we grow it responsibly. 

I'll give you an example: If you want to go into retail, it seems like such a fantastic opportunity, right? You want to go into some big Sephora or something like that right off the bat so, ‘Hey, we're in Sephora, we're a national brand,” all of that. A lot of brands don't realize the risk that you're actually taking on when you're going into a major retailer. 

Inventory risk, for example. If you don't sell through the products that they bought from you that's sitting on the shelf, you have to buy them back in almost every case. That can bankrupt the small brand especially, very, very quickly. So I think it's just much better to grow it organically and honestly. 

Also, you see all kinds of digital tricks and tactics to make brands look bigger. ‘Hey, let's buy our first 10,000 followers on Instagram,” or whatever it may be. And I just think at the end of the day, people are gonna see through that. 

And I would rather have our numbers, which is a four figure number of followers, where every single one of those people legitimately went on and signed up and took an interest in our brand, than paying some company abroad to get 10,000 people to sign up just so it looks like I have a bigger following. 

Again, I just think there's so much junk in this industry that part of the ethos of this brand is to clear through that and show people how to see through it, what they should be looking for and thoughtful of and mindful of. 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. The name of the game for the podcast, Honest Ecommerce, is to cut through the bullshit. And I feel like we've got a lot of similar values between what we're doing there. 

Justin, this has been a fantastic chat. Now...

Is there anything I didn't ask you about that you think would resonate with our audience today? 

Justin Wolff

What I'd be curious to hear from your audience today is there's so much talk around influencer marketing and everything like that. We actually have not engaged in that. I just think that there's something really dishonest about the idea of paying someone to say or pretend that they like your brand. And I'm very curious to hear where your audience is right now along with something like that. 

Because to be quite honest, I think one of the first paid campaigns that I'm going to do or that we're going to do with the brand is centered around the idea that products should speak for themselves, right? Where if you have to pay someone to pretend they like your brand, your product just isn't good enough. 

I'm so happy to welcome anyone with a following who believes in what we are doing and the importance of the mission and vision of this brand to help us spread that word. But I just think, at least for now, it feels like there's a sort of dishonesty. And I know that that probably goes against what most brand founders will say in terms of their influence or strategy. 

But I just like the idea of preserving and holding onto the honesty of this brand and the transparency of it, just letting people know that when someone says something good about this brand because they actually feel it versus it was a paid opportunity for them to say something like that. 

So very curious to hear what your audience thinks about that kind of engagement digitally.

Chase Clymer

Well, if they have an opinion, how do they get a hold of you? What should they do? 

Justin Wolff

Get in touch with Junk Theory. We're on Instagram @junktheory or my email. I'd love to hear from you. It's justin@junktheory.com. 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. And then obviously, if I am curious about the products, I want to give them a try. I want to give you an order. What's the website? 

Justin Wolff

junktheory.com. 

Chase Clymer

Justin, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Justin Wolff

Amazing. Appreciate it, Chase. Keep doing the amazing work you're doing. 

Chase Clymer

We can't thank our guests enough for coming on the show and sharing their knowledge and journey with us. We've got a lot to think about and potentially add into our own business. You can find all the links in the show notes. 

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Until next time!