Brainstorming $100M Ideas with the $1B+ King of Brands

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
So, we have with us today, the king of commerce, the titan of Target, the big man of the brand, Eric Ryan is here. You're the co-founder, the inventor of products that sit on a lot of people's shelves. There's some in my kitchen right now. Method Soap, Olly Gummies that my kids have every day, Welly Band-Aids and then your investor and a whole bunch more. So you are here and you're kind of the magic man when it comes to reinventing consumer categories. So when we did our call before this, we agreed to do two things. I said, I want to know your playbook. How do you do this? How do you go into the category and figure out which product to select and how to disrupt it? And you have this like four step process or whatever you outlined to me. And the other thing is we agreed that we would each bring a couple of ideas, of kind of half-baked ideas of brands that we think an entrepreneur could go do. And we're going to kind of pitch them back and forth to each other. We didn't tell each other beforehand. And so we'll see what we came up with. How's that sound?

**SPEAKER_2** (1:09)
Amazing. That sounds great. And that is way too kind of an introduction. So thrilled to be here. And I know way too kind. Thank you.

**SPEAKER_3** (1:17)
How big were some of these businesses? Just so we understand the the magnitude here?

**SPEAKER_2** (1:22)
They are they're both probably getting close to a billion dollar brands now. But would you go in and see like even 10 million of soap or vitamins sitting in a warehouse? That's what always blows me away of like how many units we actually have over these products and that are sitting in people's homes today.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:39)
And I've been looking forward to this because I remember Sam used to host this conference called HustleCon and he would invite founders, entrepreneurs to come speak. I didn't know your story at all. I was sitting there in the crowd and I remember you got on stage and you talked about how you started Method, how you started Olly, how you started Welly, and you had all these little phrases. You were like, I walked through the aisles and I saw just a sea of sameness. And you had a picture of the soap aisle or the dish soap aisle. And it was like every single one was green and looked like a green packaging and looked just like an old school, like my mom's cleaning product. And then you had this like totally different shape of a bottle. It was like blue or purple or whatever and it stood out. And I remember the way you talked about it. I really had never thought about how much thought goes into, which category to go into, how do you actually bring something fresh and new to the table, and then how do you hustle to get it off the ground? You had a great talk that day. And so I know that was like whatever a decade ago. But if we can get even close to that, this will be a success from my perspective. And you said it in passing just now, but Method is probably a billion dollar brand now.
Olly Gummies is also, Olly, the vitamin company, is also probably half a billion to a billion dollar brand. And so that's pretty amazing. And I think one of the other claims to fame is, Target loves you, don't they? I feel like somebody told me this. They go, Target loves that guy.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:06)
Well, I love Target. So it's a mutual love affair.

**SPEAKER_1** (3:10)
You've launched brands with them even from the start, right? You have a unique relationship with them, is that right?

**SPEAKER_2** (3:15)
I do. I mean, what we did back in, oh god, 2002, when we pitched this idea of designer commodities, like, it was at a time where no mass retailer worked with startups. And so through a lot of Hail Mary passes and some good luck, we were able to be the first to kind of go in there. And it's just, it's been an amazing partnership ever since.

**SPEAKER_1** (3:33)
So can we do your process before we brainstorm the ideas? I want to hear the process you outlined. And I took a couple of notes so I can kind of prompt you. But you basically had told me these four, three or four things that you do when you go in. Because I was like, you've done this not once, not twice, but three times. And I was like, can I nerd out with you a little bit?