The "Form Factor" Hack That Built a $500M Empire⏐Ep. #252

Connor Gross (0:00)

It is AG1 in a gummy, all it is.

Chris Koerner (0:03)

Sometimes you hear ideas and you're like, it's too easy. Of course that works.

Connor Gross (0:06)

They launched three years ago. I'm fairly confident it's 500 million in sales.

Chris Koerner (0:10)

Oh my gosh. Dude, that's a whole industry. 500 million in three years tells me way more demand than supply.

Connor Gross (0:17)

Take something that's already really popular and just change the form factor and it'll crush. OxiClean is on five billion plus in sales at this point. Big money industry, very big money. And so I think what you can do is try to figure out what are the other categories that you can put that in. You're selling a very cheap thing for a pretty high markup because you're solving that embarrassment problem.

Chris Koerner (0:37)

Yeah, that is an amazing idea. It's a no brainer. You may recognize Connor. He's been on the pod five or six times. He lives here in New York. So I flew to New York and sat down with him to talk business ideas. Please enjoy. So tell me what you've been learning about Billy Mays.

Connor Gross (0:55)

Man, Billy Mays.

Chris Koerner (0:57)

Is he still alive?

Connor Gross (0:57)

No. RFP Billy Mays, born out of Billy Mays. Yeah, this guy made billions, basically. Long story short, you think like the late night infomercial that maybe like people's crazy cousins or crazy uncles now watch these days. He was the king of it. And what I wanted to come into today's conversation with was kind of understanding how he made so much money and like what the top products were. And like back then, late night infomercials were the way to sell products. It's how you moved volume. Now it's DTC, now it's meta-ads and like it's TikTok, ChatGPT search, a little geo stuff. And so I was like, he's clearly selling stuff that people wanted to buy. How do you sell it again in a way that is not on a TV and not using CTV because the audience for that has dwindled to a fraction of the size. And so I started diving into some of the top sellers. And do you know what the top sellers are? Have you done any research here on this?

Chris Koerner (1:49)

Was he the Flex Seal guy?

Connor Gross (1:50)

Yes, yeah, yeah, the, well, we spray painted an entire boat. We put a screen door in the bottom of this canoe.

Chris Koerner (1:57)

What a visual hook on that commercial.

Connor Gross (1:58)

It was classic direct response marketing, like to the T. And now I feel like you have all these e-commerce guys who are turning around and they're like, we're doing 45 minute long VSLs and we are going after heavy hooks and all that stuff. And all they're doing is they're just taking the stuff that worked in direct response back in the 90s and early 2000s and they're just putting it on meta. And so what I thought it was like, what were the categories and the products that somebody who is as iconic as Billy Mays was? What was he selling and how can you then apply that to social media and sell it again? And so you remember the Flex Seal. Flex Seal is iconic. The Slap It On is like the classic meme. But his number one product, any guesses? Do you know any categories?

Chris Koerner (2:38)

I saw your tweet, so I'm going to act.

Connor Gross (2:39)

It's not that.

Chris Koerner (2:40)

Oh, really? Okay. So your tweet was about rotisserie chicken.

Connor Gross (2:43)

So that was not him, I don't think.

Chris Koerner (2:44)

Oh, okay.

Connor Gross (2:45)

Yeah.

Chris Koerner (2:45)

I don't even remember his products. Let's do this.

Connor Gross (2:48)

Yeah.

Chris Koerner (2:49)

Tell me all of his products and I'll try to guess the more successful ones.

Connor Gross (2:52)

You're going to know when I say it. So it's OxiClean.

Chris Koerner (2:55)

Oh, he was OxiClean.

Connor Gross (2:57)

He was OxiClean.

Chris Koerner (2:58)

Okay.

Connor Gross (2:58)

And OxiClean has done five billion plus in sales at this point. So simple idea of what OxiClean is, stain remover. Now they have it more on a spray. Before it was like this little tub, you would scoop out this powder, you put it on the shirt, you rub it in a little bit and you toss the shirt in the wash.

And so OxiClean was one of the top categories. You look at all of the other products, it's bathroom cleaners, it's like a glue that was remodeled to like fix up seams of jeans. And like if your couch cushion split, like it's a fabric sealant, you have like hardwood floor, like cleaners, stuff like that. So it's all home products, all consumables and the type of thing that like has some unique level of form factor on it. And something that you are going to use time and time again once you build up that habit. And so I'm working with a lot of these seeded brands right now. I think you know this. And I'm seeing the best people that are consistently crushing it today have very small tweaks on form factor and then very good direct response marketing. And so like classic example that everyone's talking about in the news today is Grüns. You know Grüns, like the vitamin gummy?