Eric Ryan

Find the cultural shift a category missed

Eric Ryan's core method for picking what to build: hunt for a 'sea of sameness,' then spot a big macro trend or cultural shift that category has missed. The gap between the trend and where the category sits is the business opportunity.

“So my kind of core thesis as an entrepreneur is to look for these, you know, like you said, these kind of white spaces where, um, there's a sea of sameness and it just kind of smells ripe to go in and do different. And what I do is I look for a cultural shift or a big macro trend that, that, that category has missed. And then in between that and where the category is, is the business opportunity.”

Steal thisPick a stale category, name the macro trend it has ignored, and build the product that closes that gap.

Steal from as far away as possible

Ryan's design rule: never copy competitors, steal from the most distant industry you can. For Method he lifted color and fragrance from personal care and vase shapes from housewares so cleaning products became 'objects of desire.'

“And so a lot of like I always say, like I'm a bit of a thief too. Like, I don't steal from our competition, but I try to steal from as far away as possible. So in Method, there's two areas I stole. I stole from personal care. So if you looked at the colors, the fragrances compared to like how home care, which was these like really toxic um, cleaners at the time. So I brought a lot of that personal care approach over to home care.”

Steal thisWhen designing a product, copy from an industry as far from yours as possible, never from your direct competitors.

Attack categories that take themselves too seriously

Ryan targets categories that are unnecessarily complicated or take themselves too seriously, treating that as a sign of insecurity. He brings an 'inner child' approach: gummy vitamins for adults, patterned Band-Aids, soap a kid would want.

“And also I love categories that take themselves way too serious. And so I love to bring almost like an inner child approach into the categories that I create. So if you look at Method, it's, it's kind of like what a kid would use to clean the kitchen. If you looked at Ollie, like I got adults to take gummy vitamins, you know, in masses. That didn't happen before.”

Steal thisFind an over-serious, over-complicated category and disrupt it with a simpler, playful, inner-child take.

The further apart the dots, the more powerful the idea

Ryan's 'what if this, but for that' rule: combine two disparate ideas to create creative tension, but keep them at the intersection of familiar and novel. Method fused high design and deep sustainability into 'eco chic.'

“So I try to look for the most two disparate ideas that could come together. The other part that, that unpacks is this idea of, of, of finding something that lives at that intersection of familiar and novel. So if it's too familiar, right, it lacks complete differentiation. If it's too novel, it's incredibly foreign and it becomes harder to get somebody to try it.”

Steal thisCombine two far-apart ideas, then dial it to sit right between familiar and novel so people will actually try it.

Method's 10x laundry detergent failed by over-innovating

Ryan says he's failed more by being too novel than too familiar. A 10x-concentrated detergent the size of a shampoo bottle did 50 loads, but consumers couldn't believe something so small could work after decades of giant jugs.

“Like, we launched the most amazing laundry detergent years ago. It was 10x concentrated. So it was the size of a shampoo bottle for 50 loads of laundry. But because it was so small, this was an idea I got out of Japan too, where I saw they had bigger laundry detergent, but they would use these almost like the Axe mouthwash where you squeeze it, pre-measures it.”

Change only one thing: the one-egg rule

Ryan's golden rule from fashion: change one thing off the core and your odds of success rise; change two or three and you'll probably fail. Like throwing eggs at a consumer, one gets caught, but two or three get dropped.

“which is if you change one thing, like if you do, you know, one iteration off of the core, you have a higher probability of success. The second you change 2 or 3 things, you're most likely going to fail. It's almost like in advertising we used to say if you throw a consumer an egg, they're going to catch it. If you throw 'em 2 or 3 eggs, their chances are they're gonna drop it cuz you're throwing too much change at them too fast”

Steal thisChange exactly one variable off the category norm; resist the urge to innovate on two or three at once.

Simplification is the biggest hack in entrepreneurship

Ryan says ego drives founders to overcomplicate products to seem special. The best entrepreneurs take complex ideas and simplify them so consumers get it instantly and teams can execute.

“And the best entrepreneurs I've always met are the ones who take incredibly complex ideas and simplify it down. And it, then it's easy for consumers to get it, for their teams to execute. And I think that, that, that art form of simplification is the, the biggest hack in entrepreneurship.”

Olly was 'the SoulCycle of vitamins'

Standing lost in the supplement aisle, Ryan saw millennials treat wellness as a lifestyle and asked what the SoulCycle of vitamins would look like. That insight produced the square jar, big logo cap, and benefit-named blends (sleep, beauty) instead of ingredient names.

“And so my inspiration a little was like, all right, what would the soul cycle of vitamins look like? And if we reimagine a vitamin as a lifestyle product, so then to your point, it's like, all right, well, it's gotta be a square pack.”

Steal thisAsk 'what's the SoulCycle of [my category]?' to reposition a commodity as an aspirational lifestyle product.

Selling is a transfer of emotion

Pitching grumpy 6am grocery managers for Method, Ryan realized the manager never believed in the product, only in him. Selling is transferring your energy and persistence until the buyer believes in you.

“And I realized a lot of ways selling was just really this transfer of emotion. Like, I don't think he ever believed in the product that we were selling, but you gotta get him to believe in you. And in, in some cases believe that you're gonna keep showing up until he says yes to that persistence.”

The 24-hour trend-trip turnaround that wowed Target

On retail trend trips Ryan ran a scavenger hunt, then phoned briefs to his San Francisco creative team overnight (time-zone arbitrage) so by breakfast they presented polished product concepts to Target, selling in new products before the flight home.

“and then as we're going to dinner, I would call it into our creative team who's sitting in San Francisco where it's morning. And then they would have all day to work on the brief that we just gave them. They would send it at the end of their day. We would wake up and then at breakfast we would present like what looked like polished products, ideas to Target. And so by the time we got on that plane to go home, we actually had sold in, um, new products.”

Steal thisUse a time-zone handoff to turn raw ideas into polished concepts overnight and close while the excitement is fresh.

Sell at the intersection of altruism and narcissism

Ryan's brand framework: hook the customer on narcissism (it looks and tastes great, good for me), then keep them with altruism (good for the planet, good cause). Method won because it delivered both.

“I always say the framework of like, you gotta find that intersection of altruism and narcissism. So the case of Method, you bought it for very narcissist reasons. You love the fragrance, you love the design of it, but the altruism, it's good for me, good for the planet, brought you coming back. And if you can deliver on both, I think is real power.”

Steal thisDesign the product so it satisfies the buyer's narcissism up front and their altruism on the repeat purchase.

Name brands from a 'jumping-off word'

Ryan starts naming from a single concept word that captures the brand idea, then finds the name from there. Method came from 'technique' (cleaning without force); Olly came from wanting to sound friendly in a pseudoscience-heavy category.

“I wanted, I wanted the name with each case I come up with a jumping off word. So for Method, I wanted to represent technique, right? So you're in the gym. You use good technique to get force, 'cause this was gonna clean without force. So I was like, we want something that represents technique. And he is like, how about Method? I was like, that's it.”

Steal thisBefore brainstorming names, pick one 'jumping-off word' that captures the brand essence and generate from it.

Hire operators who can live in startup uncertainty

Ryan's incubator pain point: accomplished hires whose careers were linear (good grades unlock good college unlock good job) crumble when startup things go wrong. The rare operator takes the clues, adjusts, and keeps the team confident through chaos.

“And what I found is there's a certain personality that can live in that uncertainty of a startup and stay committed to it. So when something doesn't work, instead of panicking, they quickly start taking the clues, figuring out, making adjustments, keeping the team confident and bringing along with them.”

Steal thisHire operators with non-linear backgrounds who stay calm and iterate when things break, not just credentialed high-achievers.

Use the FSA Store as a D2C acquisition channel for boring health products

Steph Smith points to fsastore.com — where millions of high-intent shoppers rush to spend expiring pre-tax FSA money — as an acquisition house for reinvented versions of boring health products like Welly Band-Aids.

“And so what I found interesting about this is there's all these other kind of product lanes that you can just like walk down and CVS or something like that and be like, oh, that's boring. That's boring. I haven't seen that reinvented. And actually one of, um, people have probably heard of Eric Ryan. He's the founder of Welly, but he's also done Ollie Gummies, which people are probably familiar with, and Method Soap. So he's basically doing this, but I think there's a lot more room for other people to do the exact same thing and use the FSA Store as almost this like really interesting acquisition house for your store.”

Steal thisPick a boring health-aisle category, build a beautiful D2C brand around it, and acquire customers through fsastore.com's expiring-money rush.

Sea of sameness: find the boring aisle where every product looks identical

Shaan relays Method/Welly/Ollie founder Eric Ryan's repeatable playbook: walk any retail aisle, spot the 'sea of sameness' where every bottle looks the same, then differentiate with a better shape, color, name, and pronounceable ingredients.

“And what he described is his method that he's used for Method Soap, for Ollie Gummies, and for Welly, which is he goes, walk down any aisle. What you're looking for is what I call a sea of sameness. And so he put up this photo of the soap aisle and it was just like all a bunch of green bottles.”

Steal thisPhotograph a retail aisle, find the sea of sameness, and ship a differently-shaped, differently-named version with benefits on the label instead of ingredients.

Eric Ryan's 'sea of sameness' playbook for differentiating commodities

Shaan describes Method founder Eric Ryan, who walks store aisles looking for a 'sea of sameness' (55 identical green soap bottles), then differentiates with new shape, color, risque marketing, and a chemical-free angle. He repeated it with Olly vitamins and Welly band-aids.

“he goes, I walk down the aisle in a grocery store. He goes, anywhere I see a sea of sameness, like an ocean of the same thing. And he showed a picture of the soap aisle and it's like 55 green bottles of liquid that are all shaped the same and all look exactly the same.”

Steal thisFind an aisle where every product looks identical, then differentiate on shape, color, and brand personality.

Eric Ryan: the serial chemical-free brand builder behind Method, Welly, Ollie

Sam celebrates Eric Ryan, who built Method Soap (chemical-free soap in Target), then Welly (cute Band-Aids), then Ollie (bullshit-free kids' vitamins) by repeatedly applying the clean-alternative playbook to old categories.

“this guy named Eric Ryan, he started Method Soap, which you've seen in Target. Maybe Target bought him actually, but you see him in Target all the time and it's basically soap without chemicals. I buy it, I love it. Then he started Welly and then he started Ollie.”

Identify the culture shift first

Shaan relays Eric Ryan's (Method, Olly, Welly) line that you must spot the cultural shift before the products that serve it: consumers started reading ingredient labels, which enabled Honest Company, Native deodorant, and Method to take off.

“He goes, you have to identify the culture shift first. And, um, you know, the culture shift happens first, and then the products and services that, um, that meet those cultural values come second. So let's say for Method Soap he was saying, you know, consumers now, they turn their— everything they buy, they turn to the back and they read the ingredients. And so they care about what they're putting in their body, they care about what they're putting in their homes, they care about what they're putting in their babies, etc., etc.”

Steal thisBefore building a consumer brand, name the underlying culture shift it rides; the product is just the vehicle for that shift.

Sea of sameness + culture shift: Eric Ryan's brand-building formula

Shaan recounts Method/Olly founder Eric Ryan's repeatable playbook: find a 'sea of sameness' in a retail aisle, then pair it with a cultural shift the old 50-year-old brands don't understand (e.g. readable, non-toxic ingredients for Method).

“he had this talk that I thought was the best talk there, and he said something at the beginning. It's like, yeah, he created Method Soap and like, you know, won in the soap category. Then he created Alli Vitamins and he won in the vitamin category. Now he's doing Wellii. He's going to win in the Band-Aid category. It's like, "Okay, what's the formula here? Is it just like walk down the aisle and pick one of Target?" He said, "Yeah, pretty much." He's like, "I look for a sea of sameness."”

Steal thisWalk a retail aisle, find the 'sea of sameness,' then attack it with a brand built around the current culture shift.