Brynn Snyder
Being okay with where you are and not being too self-critical is really important, I think, as an entrepreneur.
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. I am your host, Chase Clymer.
And today I am welcoming to the show, the CEO and co-founder of Slate, Brynn Snyder. She leads a women-run dental company that is revolutionizing flossing by making high quality at home care easy and accessible for all.
Brynn, welcome to the show.
Brynn Snyder
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely.
So quickly, just what are the types of products that you guys are bringing to market over there?
Brynn Snyder
Yeah. So my husband is a dentist. He's our co-founder. He was like, “How do I get patients to be less anxious?” So we invented a way to help you floss. So we have our Slate electric flosser, which is much easier to floss, which will help ease your anxiety because you won't have cavities or gum disease if you use our product regularly.
Chase Clymer
That's amazing.
Now take me back in time. Where did the idea for this product come from?
Brynn Snyder
Yeah. So my husband was having all these patients who felt anxious. And he was like, “Our team is awesome. We're able to calm people down. But what if people didn't feel anxious going to the dentist?” And I was like, “Well, I love the dentist. I have always loved going.”
And he was like, “Well, that's because you didn't have a cavity till you were 26. And if you would have had a cavity as a little kid, you maybe wouldn't have liked the dentist.” And I was like, “Well, why don't we make it so that people can take charge of their own oral health?” And he was like, “Well, if people actually flossed, they could do that.”
“How do we get them to do it?” And he was like, “Well, it needs to be easy, but we have floss picks.” Floss picks are easy, but they don't do the job. They don't clean the gums the way they should. So he was like, “How do I get people to do that?”
And that's when we were like, there's electric toothbrushes, where's the electric flossers? So we did a little research and we saw that there were two electric flossers that came out in the 1990s and we were like, “Why didn't they do well? And what could we do better?”
So we're like, “We got to stimulate the gums.” So we invented and we have patented Gum Sweeps. They're like little triangles that go into where your toothbrush misses, where your teeth and gums touch. So they actually have sonic vibrations, massage and stimulate your gums.
And then we were like, “Well, this seems like a great idea.”
But the only way for our product to really know if it's successful is if hygienists and dentists love it. So we sent out our product to 500 hygienists before we decided to put it on the market and ask them.
“Do you recommend it to your patients? Do you think it works well?" And 95% of them said they'd recommend it to their patients and 74% of them said it was better than any product that existed. So I was like, “Okay, we have the green light. We can sell it to consumers. Let's go get them to take charge of their oral health.”
Chase Clymer
That's amazing. I got so many follow up questions already.
So my first one being, how long were you and your husband kind of ideating on this and talking about the concept of this product before you had a prototype?
Brynn Snyder
So my background is actually product design. I went to college to be a product designer. And so it wasn't as long as most... As it could have been if it was someone else.
So in 2017 is when we moved to Spokane, Washington. And he started talking about how he could help patients with anxiety. In 2018, he was like, “We have to get a better way to floss.”
In 2019 was when he was like, “Oh my gosh, an electric flosser.” So we had a prototype within the year. So 2020, February of 2020, we gave engineers our life savings to make the engineering components all work.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely. And then that was obviously an interesting time.
Brynn Snyder
It was very scary.
Chase Clymer
So how did you make the decision to make so many prototypes to send out to hygienists and do that prior to launch? What was the motivation or insight behind that?
Brynn Snyder
So we've seen in the dental world, there's a lot of products that are gimmicky that the consumer doesn't necessarily know were gimmicky. They buy them and they try them. But as a dentist and being in the dental field, we know when there's a product that's awesome and when it would be recommended by dentists.
And I said, I am not investing 10 years of my life to make a product that dentists are gonna say, “That's crappy. Don't put that in your mouth. I don't recommend that.” We see that with a lot of teeth whitening. We see it with the auto brush.
So I said, “The only way this company makes sense is if we actually are changing and innovating.” Like this is a whole new category. So the water flosser market is like a billion dollar market. The electric toothbrush is four billion.
So I said, “I'm willing to invest our time and energy if we have a product that can break through and make us.” Make us financially successful and make people have better oral health.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely.
Now you don't have to give me an exact figure here, but I just want to help customers understand maybe just investments and whatnot like that.
Can you give me a ballpark even of what it cost you to produce those first 500 models and ship them and then just get the feedback?
Brynn Snyder
$320,000.
Chase Clymer
And that's pre-revenue, pre-Kickstarter. You weren't taking pre-orders or anything like that.
Brynn Snyder
Right. So we did invest all of our money and then we asked other people that were family and friends if they wanted to. That was really scary. I don't know if I would have done it the way I did it, but I did it. And because we gave our life savings to the engineers.
And then a month later, my husband was told, “You can't work for the next four months.” How are we going to pay our office? How are we going to pay for rent? How are we going to pay our employees? How are we going to pay ourselves? Well, we can't. We have no money.
So I asked him, “Can we get the money back?” And he was like, “We already... They already started. Let's just do it.”
Chase Clymer
Oh, that's wild. So you're doubling down on it.
So the learnings that you had from hygienists, did it go beyond just validating it was a good product? What else did you learn from that core sampling at the beginning?
Brynn Snyder
Yeah, we asked them a lot of questions. We said, like, how much would you pay for this? How much do you think your patients would pay for this? What do you think it's worth? How many other tools do you need in your mouth? Because for us, we wanted to be able to say, “This is the only thing you need other than your toothbrush.” Because it does three things. It flosses, it stimulates the gums, and it cleans your tongue.
I mean, I don't know if you know this, but if you ask a dentist or a hygienist, “Is water flossing enough?” They're all gonna say no. You need another tool other than water flossing. So you need to string floss.
So we were like, we want them to be able to say, “Is this the only other tool you need?” And we were able to get 74% of them said yes. You just need this tool.
Chase Clymer
That's amazing.
I don't think I've spoken with a brand that's done so much market research on their product with the right people the way that you did. But I mean...
Brynn Snyder
Now we need consumers to know that though. That's the hard part.
Chase Clymer
Well, how'd you let them know? That's my segue right there. Alright, so you're done talking to hygienists. How do you put this... What was the go-to-market strategy? How did you get people outside of your bubble to know who Slate was and what this flosser was and all these awesome things that you had learned?
Brynn Snyder
Well, we're still learning that every day. But at the beginning, we were like, “Okay, we know that hygienists love it, let's do a Kickstarter.” Because there's a lot of cool dental products that no one knows about. And so how do we get... So we did a Kickstarter. We did ads with our Kickstarter. Hit the broader audience and we were able to raise $194,000 with our Kickstarter.
So we knew, “Okay, we have people interested. We have hygienists that back it.” So we mostly do Google ads, meta ads, and we go to dental trade shows. And so we want hygienists. We still put a big focus on hygienists and dentists.
But we reach the normal consumer, I feel like, through ads.
Chase Clymer
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Chase Clymer
It's almost like you have two different marketing strategies to get in front of two different buyer personas. One is the in-customer like me. I'd buy this thing off of an ad or after some education or after a PR piece.
And then there is your second buyer persona, which is the dental hygienist that's going to be an advocate for Slate. And then by winning their trust, they're going to help you sell through more products to their clients, I guess would be the proper term.
Brynn Snyder
Yes, so we definitely have those two groups. I would say for the hygienist side, if we can get a hygienist to love it, their dentist will then get behind it. Almost every dentist is too busy, so if you can get their hygienist to review it–the hygienist is the person who's recommending preventative care anyways to their patients, so we know if we can get a hygienist to love it, we're off to the races.
An example of that is here in town, I went to a study club, which was just full of 20 dentists. And I said, “Hey, I have this product. I want to teach you about it.” “They're like, cool.” At the end, a bunch of them were like, “If you give it to my hygienist and she likes it, then I'll recommend it to my patients.”
And so a periodontist here in our city, which is a doctor who only deals with gum disease pretty much, he's like, “Give me two to give to my hygienist and I'll get back to you.” And his hygienist was like, “We didn't think it would work and it was amazing and all of our patients use it and we love it and we recommend it to everyone.”
And so it's so fun because they were so passionate about it. And they're like, “We haven't seen our patients' pocket size,” which is usually like a five or lower, like five, six, seven, if it's a periodontist disease. It usually doesn't change, they just stay at a 5.
But with our product, we see people are improving to a 4 and then to a 3, which is mind-blowing for a hygienist.
Chase Clymer
That is great. It's showing great results. Obviously, the product... You did a lot of research and you spoke with a lot of really smart people to get some awesome feedback and iterate upon it.
I think that just to take a step back from that strategy though, real quick, to maybe make it make sense for a lot more listeners real quick.
Brynn Snyder
Yeah.
Chase Clymer
There's always this concept of finding where your customers are, but also, what are the levers you can pull that are a little out-sized. This is a perfect example of if we win this one specific type of customer, we'll see a waterfall effect of multiple sales coming from this one effort. And so I would almost challenge the listeners out there that are struggling to find some creative ways to win customers.
There's someone that would like your product that outweighs, give you more business and you got to just really think about it.
Brynn Snyder
Yeah, I think for us, what we realized is that hygienists are like a long game. In five years, the hygienists will really benefit our company. In the beginning, it's a lot easier to do D2C and Ecommerce. So that's why we have both because we know if a consumer gets this, they'll try it almost faster than a dentist, because dentists are slow to change and they're more apprehensive.
But you are looking for a way to floss. You need a solution. You just went to the dentist or you don't want to go to the dentist. And we're making it so that you're like, “I can go there. I can tell them I actually flossed.” What I realized is we all know we need to floss. When I worked at the dental office, I was like, “You guys are missing a huge educational piece because people don't know why they need to floss. We all know we need to. But the reason isn't big enough for people to actually take the steps to do it.”
And when I learned that dementia, heart disease are tied to flossing, I was like, “We need to tell people those things.”
Chase Clymer
Absolutely. Now with Slate, just building a direct-to-consumer business, period, is hard. And I think that oral care, like other categories across CPG, is very, very crowded.
So what do you think helped Slate connect with customers and stand out?
Brynn Snyder
I think that our product is easy, fast, and effective. So usually, we see that people don't leave reviews on our product till they've gone to the dentist. So they're able to see the feedback within a few days of themselves, but then they go to the dentist and they're told, “Wow, you're doing something different, this is great.”
So we've tried a few things. At Slate, we actually try a lot of things and then they don't work and we try something new. Because to me, I think education helps reach people, but there are some people that don't resonate with. So we just try a lot of different ads. And we see what people connect with. What people have connected with the most is education and a dentist telling them that it's working. So I don't know if that answers the question.
Chase Clymer
No, no, no, it definitely does.
And it helps to educate the listeners on just the trials and tribulations of running an ad... Not running an ad, but running a business. It's like, “Well, we're trying a lot.” And then failing fast and doubling down on what works is just how you do it. At the end of the day, it's just a grind.
Brynn Snyder
Yeah. I mean, we tried TikTok ads, we tried Pinterest ads. They didn't work for us. So we do meta and Google ads. And then we see that if we can do partnership ads with people…We've tried a bunch of different ones.
We tried like lifestyle moms and we tried things that I thought women would connect with. But they didn't. People connect best with the dentist. So we have dentists that love our product and then we ask them, “Hey, will you make an ad for us?” And it's all 99% organic, it’s just them just telling why they like it.
Chase Clymer
Oh, see, that's a great little tidbit there too.
I think a lot of younger brands feel like they have to be... They need too much control over the tone and the copy, even, of the message of the ad, which I think is just like, “No, just let people say what they want to say and see what happens.”
Brynn Snyder
So we've done both. We tried the like, we want you to tell them this. Because there's so many cool things about our product. We want them to tell them it has three different functions. People forget that. But what we've learned is that the most important thing is that someone is telling you from their heart that they love the product. And you can't script that.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely.
Now, Bren, is there anything I didn't ask you about today that you think will resonate with our audience?
Brynn Snyder
I think it's hard because I've noticed as I've grown, I grow with like... An ad agency gets bigger with me or I grow on email marketing.
You can't expect to be where I am now, and where I was a year ago was very different. And you just have to pivot and change. I think… expecting it to last a long time, like a business is not successful in a year or two years. It takes five to 10 years. So don't give up.
And I tell myself, Slate so far has been able to do $3 million this year, which was really exciting. But I wanted to, once I started doing really good, I was like, “I want to do $5 million this year.” And so being okay with where you are and not being too self-critical is really important, I think as an entrepreneur.
Chase Clymer
Yeah, I think that people forget to take the time to pat themselves on the back. You built something crazy here that other people would be ecstatic to be at this size. And yet you aren't even taking it in the moment and being like, “Wow, I've done something pretty cool here.”
I think it's a curse of entrepreneurship and shiny object syndrome. It's like, “Well, I'm done with that. I have to do this now.” You can't take a beat and appreciate it.
Brynn Snyder
Yeah, I remember meeting someone two years ago and she told me her company made $2.5 million. And I was like, “That is so amazing.” And then when I hit 2.5, I was like, “Okay, how do I get to 5?”
So I was just like, I needed to enjoy the moment a little more.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely.
Now, obviously, so many hygienists recommend this product. You've done so much research on it. I know you guys just put out a new version of the product. You listen to the customers.
Now, if I'm curious about the actual product and I want to go check one out, what should I do? Where should I go?
Brynn Snyder
Yeah. So you can go to our website, slateflosser.com. We are also available on Amazon. But I think our website is going to educate you and show you the best way to get it. So I'd get it from there.
Chase Clymer
And the margins are better bought at their website.
Brynn Snyder
Yes, exactly.
Chase Clymer
Awesome. Brynn, thank you so much for coming on the show today.
Brynn Snyder
Thank you, Chase.
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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