Intro/Outro (00:02):

Welcome to Logistics With Purpose, presented by Vector Global Logistics in partnership with Supply Chain Now. We spotlight and celebrate organizations who are dedicated to creating a positive impact. Join us for this behind the scenes glimpse of the origin stories, change making progress and future plans of organizations who are actively making a difference. Our goal isn’t just to entertain you, but to inspire you to go out and change the world. And now here’s today’s episode of Logistics with Purpose.

Kristi Porter (00:34):

Hi, welcome to another episode of Logistics With Purpose, the only podcast focused on supply chain’s positive impact. I am Vector Global Logistics Chief Impact Officer, Christie Porter here with my fearless co-host, sometimes partnering crime, Enrique Alvarez. So Enrique, we’ve been in multiple meetings together, but this is how we’re closing our day out, so this is much more fun. How are you?

Enrique Alvarez (00:57):

I know this is very exciting. I’m really happy to have the guest that we have today. And I actually noticed, I don’t think that I did in you and Luisa, that you changed the order so you could actually make a better job in introducing the show, which you did. Keep

Kristi Porter (01:10):

You on your toes.

Enrique Alvarez (01:11):

Thanks for doing that. Thanks for doing that. But no, without further ado, I had the pleasure of meeting our next guest a couple of months ago and we had a really great discussion and conversation. We actually hit it off nicely with a cup of coffee in a bench park. So Alstayer Donward, senior advisor at Drops, a mission-driven, cruelty-free B-Corp certified brand, redefining what clean really means through clean chemistry, ethical excellence, and environmental responsibility. Alstari has spent more than 25 years partnering with founders across multiple categories to scale purpose-driven, high growth brands, very efficient and successful. We’re thrilled to have you here, Alstayer. How are you doing? It’s great to see you.

Alastair Dorward  (01:52):

Good afternoon, Enrique. Thank you so much for inviting me to join. And that conversation we had on the park bench was just awesome. We really connected and I think that the thread started there. So I really appreciate the invitation and great to be on today.

Enrique Alvarez (02:08):

It really did. Very casual too. Not a lot of times you get a chance to just have a cup of coffee at a park. I mean, that for me was not a very common thing to do, so I really enjoyed it. So thanks for being here. It was great. You got it.

Kristi Porter (02:22):

Yep. I went to bed early and then the next morning when I saw Enrique, he’s like, “You’re never going to believe the night I had and who I got to chat with. ” And he had such a great conversation. I was like, “Well, I guess that’s what I get for going to bed early.” But I was delighted to meet you the next day. And then we had a lot of fun at the conference. And so we have all these awesome conversations behind the scene, but we love when we get to bring them out for our audience as well. So we’re delighted to chat with you today and hear all about your expertise. And I’ve even put a couple of your laundry tips in action, and so we’ll talk about that later as well. But first let’s get started and warm up with a couple of quick questions, our purpose sprint, and you can respond with the first thing that comes to mind.

(03:01):

So first, favorite hobby?

Alastair Dorward  (03:02):

I love choral singing. I have a baritone bass voice and I sing in a local church choir and it brings me great joy, just blending music with others this time of year and particularly with all the parole. Oh,

Kristi Porter (03:16):

For sure. Now, can we put you on the spot? No. I mean, you really opened yourself up there.

Enrique Alvarez (03:21):

I was hoping you would follow up with us.

Kristi Porter (03:23):

Yeah, that would be a job.

Enrique Alvarez (03:26):

Give us a G minor.

Kristi Porter (03:27):

Yeah.

Enrique Alvarez (03:28):

No, I don’t even know what-

Kristi Porter (03:30):

I was about to say, and then tell us what that is. Yes. It was actually in Mammoth Cave National Park recently, and they do a big Christmas thing there every year, I think, too, down in the caves resonating Christmas. I mean, amazing. I want to be there for that, but that’s not what I expected to come out of your mouth, and I’m super excited to hear it.

Alastair Dorward  (03:47):

I find it’s a great stress reliever, believe it or not, because being an entrepreneur can be death of a thousand cuts. At the end of the day, you can be drained, you could have a stressful day. And without fail, I go to choir practice or a performance and I leave it just completely, my mentality shifted. And I think there’s something about almost the physiological. There’s the vagus nerve that runs down the neck, and that’s when people who practice meditation or say the chanting, the reverberation of the vagus nerve actually physiologically is a calming mechanism. So I think that’s one of the reasons that singing brings beauty and joy to people. So that’s my physiological tip of the day.

Kristi Porter (04:33):

And we just learned a total left field secret to your success. So thank you. So favorite book?

Alastair Dorward  (04:38):

So as my kids will say, I’m very fiercely Scottish and everything starts with being from Scotland. So there’s a book that says it’s entitled How the Scotts Invented the Modern World, whether it’s Adam Smith in Economics, huge enlightenment philosopher in David Hume, entrepreneurs like Andrew Carnegie, you name it, huge advances in medicine. So that book is kind of my little anthem, which I bring out and will remind people at all times that- I

Kristi Porter (05:09):

Love

Alastair Dorward  (05:09):

That. … the Scotts invented the modern world. So that’s one for the archive.

Kristi Porter (05:13):

Yes. Yes. As someone with Scottish Heritage, I’ll jump on that train with you. Okay. What’s one thing you do to stay productive except for singing? Now you’ve already mentioned that.

Alastair Dorward  (05:21):

So here’s a recent tip that I’ve figured out. So for me, getting a good night’s sleep, I think it’s true for all of us, right? Yeah. And high quality sleep just makes the whole day productive. You don’t get that mid-afternoon drag if you’ve had a great night’s sleep. And I figured out that a little piece of strip, micro pore to make sure I am nose breathing rather than breathing with my mouth open just creates a much higher quality sleep. And I think it’s good for the microbiome in one’s oral system. And my wife likes it because I snore much less. So I think I’m not getting that elbow at night without the source of it. A crazy recent pack I’ve tried in the last month, which is a little strip of micro pore over my lips. That’s amazing. And I think my sleep scores have just gone through the roof, so that’s another-

Enrique Alvarez (06:11):

I’m going to try that tonight, actually.

Alastair Dorward  (06:13):

Yeah. Not all the way across. Just

Enrique Alvarez (06:16):

Two.

Alastair Dorward  (06:16):

Just a little like a narrow mustache kind of width. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Kristi Porter (06:20):

Awesome. All right. Yeah, I’m loving these lift-failed answers. We just got the conversation started. And then of course we have to ask you best day or time to do laundry?

Alastair Dorward  (06:30):

Anytime is a great time, of course, particularly with drops, right? That was a setup. But how I think about it is, look, firstly, if you’re using the dryer, that uses up a ton of energy. So firstly, I love to try and line dry or rack dry when it’s decent weather. That just creates a better outcome. But if you’re using a dryer, that’s a huge power drain. So we have solar energy here in Northern California. So I try and do it during when the sun’s generating peak power for us. So it’s generally an energy question.

Kristi Porter (06:59):

Yeah, I love it. Thank you.

Enrique Alvarez (07:01):

And that’s a great segue to the question I had for you. It’s all about the energy consumption and how to actually make it more efficient and more, I guess, better for the environment. Despite 61% of consumers out there saying they really care about the climate change and the environment, we see that behavior just rarely shifts. I mean, when you became CEO, why did you think drops could turn tension into action?

Alastair Dorward  (07:25):

That’s a big question, Enrique, and a really important one. And I think it starts with, I’m a huge believer in looking at other categories. Kind of category arbitrage is one of the themes I talk about. And you look across the retail aisles or the digital shelves on an etailer and the penetration of better for you brands. I mean, ultimately, clean everything is kind of the answer. In beauty, I think it’s table stakes. So it’s like 80% of brands have clean ingredients. But in general, at least 30% share for a better for you brand or the better for you segment of the category is about 30%. But in detergent, it’s only three to 5% because it’s such an efficacy-driven category. And the fundamental reason is that there’s been a trade-off for the consumer. The trade-off was getting a sustainable product that didn’t work. And it was kind of a guilt and sacrifice mission, something where you’ve been a bad consumer, you’ve got to use this almost as a penance that you got to use it.

(08:29):

It doesn’t really work that well. You’ve got to use more elbow grease or something to get it out. And that’s really where Drops has been able to eliminate the trade-off by the advances in green chemistry and the way we formulated the products. For the first time, you have a sustainable laundry and auto dish brand that delivers the same efficacy as a tide or a cascade without praying more or load. And that’s really the breakthrough. And when I arrived at drops three years ago, we were on our way. And over my three years is turning around the business, that’s one of the things I’m most proud of, the huge strides and efficacy. And I’ve just seen that when you eliminate that trade-off, consumers are looking for better for you. And I think it really starts with health, right? And I think people are, if you learn that the chemicals in this product are plant-based as opposed to from petroleum, if you learn that the sensitivity ratios are very, very low or even to zero, then the consumer understands this is better for you, better for the family.

(09:37):

And if you can get a sustainability win, then that’s kind of a free price inside. So you have to deliver on efficacy without a price premium, make it about family health and planetary welfare is a nice free prize inside.

Kristi Porter (09:51):

I love that. Thank you. That’s fascinating. I think it’s such an autopilot action for all of us so that we probably don’t give it enough thought. So it’s been a fascinating conversation even with you in person and now following up, I’m excited for our listeners to hear more about that because it is just more at times it’s a chore. So if you don’t necessarily think about anything like that, you’re healthy or you just kind of roll through it and get it done.

Alastair Dorward  (10:15):

But if you do think of it as ultimately a brand could be an agent of change, you want to go for behaviors that are daily as opposed to once every 10 years I buy this washing machine or something. But you’re running the laundry, running the dishwasher, particularly with the kids coming back for the holidays more and more. And if you can just shift to a better for you product, then with that daily usage, you’re actually getting a much bigger impact from a lifestyle point of view. So I love to your point, it’s a chore, but that’s where the opportunity for impact comes because it’s a daily. Absolutely.

Enrique Alvarez (10:50):

It’s just the creating the healthy habit. It’s a healthy habit that you have. And once you actually get it, then it’s a little bit harder to break it. And once you can achieve that, and if a brand like yours can achieve something like that, I think that the change is not only very impactful and meaningful, but it’s also very recurrent and longer term. Yeah, it’s interesting. If you give the right information to the people and you educate and they have the same choice to make, then they’ll make the right decision. Why wouldn’t you? There’s really absolutely no downside in making the right decision and helping the planet if everything else is actually better.

Alastair Dorward  (11:26):

And we found that for our online business, which is a big chunk of our business, so much of it is on subscription where once people find it, they trial it and it’s like, okay, I just want to make sure that once every month I just need it showing up on my doorstep, I don’t need to think about it. It’s sort of a set it and forget it. So that’s a really powerful business engine as well because the loyalty that we have and the net promoter score that the brand has is pretty remarkably high. I think the churn rate is like 2%, which is exceptionally low. So the business that from that behavioral discussion is one of just great repeat purchase. Yeah.

Kristi Porter (12:06):

Fascinating. Thank you. Well, I want to continue this discussion, but first I want to back up because our listeners probably noticed two things. One, you mentioned Scotland. Two, you really don’t sound all that Scottish. So you walk a lot there.

Alastair Dorward  (12:20):

I can turn it on, Christie. I can turn it on no bother at all, but your listeners will only understand what I’m saying. So I’ve become California IC. And

Kristi Porter (12:30):

Some haggis and all the things. So first, tell us a little bit about who you are and where you grew up in those early years. Give us some of that brogue or not your choice. So I grew

Alastair Dorward  (12:39):

Up in Edinburgh, which is the capital city of Scotland. And I was an only child and my mother was a school teacher and my dad is civil servant. So we didn’t have a business in our family. Most of our family were doctors, but I think I can draw a line from my grandfather’s side to the Tom Watson from IBM. So there must be some entrepreneurial thread that links the family to entrepreneurship in the US. But I think going back to my mother as a teacher, she was a huge influence in my life. And I lost her early. When I was 17, she passed away. So her influence has really been really profound. And she was tough on me in terms of academic expectations. So I remember there’s one story. I was 12 years old and she taught English, so I couldn’t do badly in English.

(13:33):

But I came, we got all ranked. I was like 22nd out of 25 kids in this English exam, and that was not a result. I was happy about … On the way home on the bus, and I remember stepping off the bus near her house and going, should I maybe go sleep at a friend’s house tonight? But I plucked up courage and went home fearing like the wrath of God would descend on me. And I think my moms could see that I was a little anxious and asked what was up. And I told her the result. And she said, “You’ll do better next time, I’m sure.” It was the perception of expectation, not necessarily what parents were delivering that kind of created, I think a sense in me as a young age that love was contingent on performance and therefore it kind of created in me perhaps an insecure overachiever persona for my early days.

(14:32):

And that it was an engine that made me work hard. I got the privilege of going to Oxford University, got a good job in consulting at Bain & Company, out of college, but I was driven by other people’s expectations. And for me, my big shift, I guess was when I was about 25, I figured out that it was actually the path of entrepreneurship that would unlock that kind of pattern of trying to meet other people’s expectations and instead becoming more mission driven and passionate about what I felt was important as opposed to an agenda other people set for me. So to me, that’s a little … I went deeper there, but I think getting an understanding of an entrepreneur’s mindset goes straight back to these years. And the entrepreneurship, I think, does stem from some type of issue. Mine wasn’t a trauma, but for some people, they have traumas in their childhood that create that.

(15:37):

And I was talking to somebody recently who said, often it is a kid who isn’t seen and recognized by a parent, particularly a father figure that creates that desire to be recognized to be seen. And that creates the entrepreneurial earn engine early in people that can be dysfunctional at times, but often that is the sort of psychological underpinning. So I went a little deeper on psychology then- Thank you so much.

Kristi Porter (16:05):

So welcome. Yeah. This is really therapy for Enrique and I. So we welcome these conversations.

Enrique Alvarez (16:11):

This is masterclasses and inspiration therapy at the same time. And thank you so much for sharing that story. And what was the name of your mom?

Alastair Dorward  (16:19):

Elizabeth.

Enrique Alvarez (16:20):

Alyssa. She sounds like a great, great woman.

Alastair Dorward  (16:22):

Yeah. She was a teacher that’s beloved. I still have people writing to me today who were her pupils and go another complete … My entrepreneurial hero was a Scottish entrepreneur growing up, a guy called Tom Farmer. And he was a guy who left school with no qualifications age 16, and he started selling tires in Edinburgh. And he built up a good business. He hustled and worked hard, and he retired at age 28 as a millionaire and went to California for a year and got incredibly bored of retirement, but was inspired by the Midas Tire and Exhaust franchise. And he went back and realized, okay, if I could recreate that business in Europe. And he did. He built up what was Europe’s biggest tire and exhaust business, a company called QuickFit. And he sold it like 20 odd years ago to, I think it was to Ford for a billion pounds, which is pretty darn good.

(17:25):

And then he bought it back again from them maybe five years later for a couple hundred million pounds, these entrepreneurs. But the point is that his son was a former pupil of my mom’s and his life was kind of transformed by my mom’s sort of support. And he funded the Elizabeth Dorward Prize at my mom’s school where she taught that still is today exists. So Tom Farmer is an entrepreneur. If it wasn’t immediately in my family other than Tom Watson, IBM, which is a alleged story, this guy was the real deal and a real inspiration. And I’m still in touch with his son, Johnny, who’s a great guy. And my elder daughter is Elizabeth, and so she carries that name.

Enrique Alvarez (18:05):

Wow, that’s a great story. And it sounds to me that your mom was great teaching entrepreneurs. Maybe she actually, I know you have actually tracked all the entrepreneurs that she has taught in her life, but maybe there’s a pattern there because you turn out to be a great entrepreneur. And I wanted to ask you, what was the first company, like a first story early on that you actually kind of started to play with this entrepreneurial mindset that you clearly have?

Alastair Dorward  (18:31):

Well, I think I was started super young parking cars outside of a rugby stadium. In Edinburgh, there was like big rugby matches a few times a year. And in our yard, we had some space for parking cars. And I’d always leave it, maybe I was 10, 11 years old, to the last minute and you could see people are circling, getting desperate. And so at that last, within 25 minutes before the game started, I’d opened the gates to our side yard and sell parking spots. That is amazing. I think that was the early stage of the spark that was probably predatory pricing. It was spike Uber surge pricing even before, but that was my first little spark. But I fast forward to, I worked at Bain Consulting in London, privatizing some industries in Poland in the early ’90s, came to San Francisco, fell in love with the Bay Area.

(19:28):

And Bain sent me to the Europe’s Best Business School, INSEAD. And so a lot of high, very insecure, overachieving type experience, going to the best business schools and surrendered by the best people. But I think the most profound entrepreneurial training I got was I took some time out from my journey back to Bain to test market, a brand that I’d seen in the UK that I felt had a real opportunity of success in the US market. And it was a refrigerated soup brand called Covent Garden Soup. And the idea was that, okay, soup as a category is very nourishing. It’s very soulful. You make it with love in your kitchen and people are sick, it heals people. And yet the product that you buy on the shelf comes in a can and a can is retorted at high temperature and all the nutritional value, all the flavor is just driven out.

(20:20):

It’s a very safe product, but it lacks nutrition. So this was a refrigerated soup made with only ingredients you’d find in your kitchen and it was perishable. So it had to be refrigerated. So this is me graduating from business school thinking I was the master of the universe, all that kind of puffery in my mid 20s. And the great leveling thing I did was to spend a couple of months driving a sales route, driving a little refrigerated truck, dropping off soup at the back door of the grocery store, meeting the receiving Clark at 5:00, 6:00 in the morning, pretty gruff response from these guys and setting up a business, testing in 50 stores. I could probably cover 10 to 15 stores a day on the route all over the Bay Area and set up these 50 stores and just watched the progress of the business, did demos at the weekend, giving consumers soup tastings and sampling the product and telling the story and seeing what story resonated most.

(21:20):

And to me, that grounding, driving the soup truck was the most important sort of foundation as a consumer products entrepreneur because it made me understand the realities of how to get things done

Enrique Alvarez (21:32):

In

Alastair Dorward  (21:32):

Retail, which starts with working with store personnel, getting their support, cooperation, getting things done through other people and being really close to the consumer. And that to me was, I still go back to that these days. And whenever I’m talking to people about launching brands, it’s like you got to be close to the consumer. You got to do demos. Whether you’re the CEO, you’ve got to be talking to consumer and you don’t have to necessarily do demos all day long, but you have to test messaging and you can do that digitally these days, but you got to understand what aspect of your narrative is that moment of aha that causes the consumer to reach further. And that’s magic of a brand to know what that narrative is and just to completely test it and undersee the moment when their eyes go from, “All right, I’m going to buy this.

(22:22):

”

Enrique Alvarez (22:22):

Well, it sounds just like a lot of work. It sounds like such a lot of work. It is too hard, right? And it seems to me, and of course you just mentioned it, that it’s just not enough to have a good product, right? I mean, you have to roll your sleeve, you have to be able to really understand the need. You have to do all the testing. It just feels like right now, or at least in the more consumerism society that will leave, it’s just more about like, “Well, let’s see if this works. Let’s just throw it out there, see if it sticks.” But you’re saying, no, that’s just not the way you’ll build a good, long-lasting brand, correct? Yeah.

Alastair Dorward  (22:56):

Look, I think there are probably 10 to 12 attributes in a brand that need to be dialed in precisely for a brand to succeed. And that’s everything from brand positioning, the pricing, your packaging, the go- to-market strategy you’re setting, the margin you have in the business, the scalability, is there IP? There’s whole range of elements that have to be absolutely on point. And you may have eight or nine of these things well nailed, but if one or two are off point, your business isn’t going to work. And that’s what makes consumer products the CPG world challenging. And I think what it does as an entrepreneur is you get a feel for pattern recognition, right? And that’s what this hard work has done, I think for me over the last 25, even 30 years, I suppose. I get a sense of what when something isn’t misaligned, you get a nose for it.

Enrique Alvarez (23:57):

Well, and you went from Cobb and Garden Soup, which it’s a very interesting story in a very different industry as the one that you’re moved into to Method. So could you tell us a little more about the transition and then also the story around Method? Because I’m sure everyone out there that’s listening to this has heard the brand and has used it and probably has bought it too.

Kristi Porter (24:17):

Great brand.

Alastair Dorward  (24:17):

Yeah, thank you. It’s probably the brand I’m best known for. And it was a privilege to take it from zero to a hundred million in revenue. And now it’s, I suppose, a billion or so a dollar brand under the ownership of SC Johnson. So it’s kind of one of these exits that a lot of people were early stage investors pretty happy with. But for me, it was the opportunity to work with just amazing people. And the story of how I went from to soap was through an application. I was hiring a head of marketing at my little soup company and I got an application from a young man, Eric Ryan, and I called him up immediately and said, “Listen, Eric, I got your application and I’ve got good news and bad news. I’ll give you the bad news first, which is you didn’t get the job.

(25:05):

You’re an agency guy. I’m looking for somebody with brand management experience, but look, there’s something in your cover letter that really spoke to me. So I can see you’re a budding entrepreneur. I love the way you think and you expressed yourself in the cover letter. Let’s meet. Let’s figure out how we’re going to work together.” So long story short, Eric’s ultimate act of revenge for my rejection was to hire me as his first CEO, as he and his old buddy from high school, Adam Larry, were establishing method. And I became their full-time CEO from the very beginning, pre-revenue, before even it was named methods. So that was the forming of the business. And there were so many near death moments. I think that’s the thing that you tell stories of brands that are now a billion dollar brand, and gosh, it must have been easy.

(25:53):

It must have just been a rocket ship. And it was a great journey. And we had the privilege of being the Inc Magazine saying we’re the fastest growing privately held brand company in California, which is not bad for a soap company in the world of Silicon Valley. But there were so many near death moments in that business. There was one time when we had $13 in the company bank account, $1,000 on payables, we had no salaries, no healthcare, and about to close our first financing and nine eleven happens and everything is on hold. And it took … These are kind of the foxhole moments when you’re in adversity and it was Eric Adam and myself, and we could have just shrugged our shoulders and said, “I think let’s just go get jobs and all of us are employable, go do something else here.” But we said, “You know what?

(26:41):

Let’s give it a go. ” And we stuck through it and got our first financing. And there were many moments where you could call it quits because it just wasn’t going to work. But I think that’s the hallmark of entrepreneurship.

Enrique Alvarez (26:53):

You’ve been incredibly deep and open and candid with us. Yeah. Do you know? I mean, maybe it’s one of those things that you just don’t really have an explanation for and it’s just something built into your character. Maybe it’s your mom kind of upbringing and your dad. Do you, in this particular example, know why you guys didn’t fault after being facing so many challenges?

Alastair Dorward  (27:13):

Look, I think it was the resilience of the partnership that we’d established early. We kind of looked each other in the eye and said, “Are we ready to let this go? ” They had put in a small … Each of them had written checks for $45,000, which was from grandma. That was their start in life, and they weren’t going to

(27:32):

See that evaporate. They weren’t going to give up on grandma’s legacy. For them, it was something they’d fight for, and I could see that and knew I could help, and I’m not a quitter either. So I think it was really the mutual commitment, and that set a very important tone. And we told that story to every new employee at Method, one of resilience, one of overcoming adversity, one of going the extra mile and kind of commitment to each other and to the greater, which is to the success of the brand. So I think that was what it took. The other thing that I would always do is read the consumer emails. When things were dark, things were going wrong, I knew that we had a brand that created a beloved reaction in consumers, an unusually deep emotional reaction. And when things were rough, I’d just go through the ritual of reading these emails and sensing that consumer love.

(28:30):

And that was kind of beyond just character and mutual commitment. There was something there. There was something that was unusual that was true. And sometimes it’s just instilling and putting that belief and love back into the veins kind of created energy and spark to go at it again.

Kristi Porter (28:47):

Very cool. That’s amazing. Thank you. Yes, because at 13, you can barely afford your own product at that point. So

Alastair Dorward  (28:55):

Thanks for- I think Eric bounds to check as well. You got a pretty thin margin for error when you got 13 bucks in the bank account.

Kristi Porter (29:05):

Wow. Amazing. One of the things you’ve highlighted and has been a staple in your career too, is sort of moving in and out of companies into executive roles and then sliding in, helping build them out and then moving on. That’s a very unique skillset. And so I want to hear a little bit more about that. What is your approach to integrating, especially in an existing company, whether it’s an existing company of two, but they’ve already kind of been at it for a while, or a larger brand because there could be a lot of perceptions, there could be a lot of egos, there could be a lot of things in that mix. So I’m curious as to what is your integration approach there and how to, and then also how to exit well, which is also not something people do very

Alastair Dorward  (29:46):

Well. Christie, that’s a lot of one question.

Kristi Porter (29:51):

Tell us all.

Alastair Dorward  (29:52):

Let me just focus on founders, because that’s really the core of the question, working with founders. So I’ve been a founder Sure. And I’ve also been the founding CEO. And for me, I’m better when I’m the partner, the commercial partner for a founder. I’m at my best. And I like it because you can be objective. You can look at something and point to where the problems are. It’s hard as a founder to acknowledge that your baby’s ugly or that there’s part of this your own creation that is flawed. I think founders intrinsically have a strong ego, a strong sense of their abilities and often tie the product or service that they’re creating with themselves. Actually, there’s very little separation. And I much prefer being able to point out here, your gross margins too weak, your pricing’s wrong, you’ve got the emphasis in product the wrong way around, you’ve got the wrong mix.

(30:52):

I like to be able to point to the parts of the 10 to 12 things that have to be nailed down and be clear about what’s not working. So I find myself drawn to helping founders unlock their business and that comes at different stages. It could be as early as it was with Eric and Adam. It could be later where they have a particular inflection point they want to get to. For example, we’ve built a successful online only business, strong success DTC and Amazon, but we know for this brand to really win, it has to be an omnichannel business and succeed at retail. So sometimes it’s helping them solve that problem. In other cases, they’re trying to launch in a new market. I get a lot of interest from European-based brands who are looking to launch in the US. And so that’s an area where we’ll often help.

(31:40):

And in some cases, it’s because either the founder has come to the conclusion that their investment in their own company would be best served by handing over the reins to somebody else to take it to the next level, or the board has come to that conclusion for them. So there’s been moments where … And that’s often the toughest transition where culturally a group of individuals has been nurtured around the decision making and style of a founder. And then there’s a transition point. And your question about integration, that’s the moment where the baton is being passed that is often challenging. In other cases, it’s okay, the founder’s still there, but they’re focusing on something that is their sweet spot that they love to do. And these conversations are easier where, okay, you’re no longer running the company, but you’re bringing something uniquely special. In the case of method, Adam Larry’s skillset was from a sustainability point of view.

(32:40):

His title was chief greenskeeper. So when it came to sustainability, Adam could see the stitching on the ball better than anybody else in the market. And his sense of and vision for sustainability was remarkable. So rather than having Adam running supply chain and innovation as Adam, go figure out this whole sustainability vision. That’s where your passion and sweet spot is. And that was a conversation that actually took years to get us there. So where it’s a situation that you have a evolution of the founder’s role, that’s a gradual thing. So it’s like therapy because it’s like understanding self-awareness is really important for a founder. And if a founder isn’t self-aware, that’s hard for me to do something with. It has to be a real conversation. But in the situation where there’s a baton being passed, i.e. They used to be CEO and now are no longer CEO, that’s a tougher cultural integration.

(33:34):

And often it requires kind of doubling down on some themes that the founder really preached and emphasized and saying, the founder believed this, very special point of view, really respect and honor that point of view. And we’re going to double down on that. However, there’s a couple of other aspects of the business and the way of working that we’re actually going to change because these were holding us back. And I think being explicit with the team around what’s sacred to the brand that the founder brought, that you’re going to continue to honor and in fact amplify, but then be equally explicit that there’s a couple of things that we’re going to do differently. And often as simple as decision making, often founders will want to be involved in every decision, micromanage, and not really give the space and growth to the team around them to make recommendations, develop a point of view and grow as individuals and leaders.

(34:32):

And that can often stifle the growth because you’re effectively, you can only grow as far as the bandwidth and capabilities of the founder, which can ultimately hit a maximum point. And so typically my style is different from a leadership point of view. And this is something that I learned from my mentor, Tim Kugel, who was our lead director and lead investor at Method, which is instead to actually make a point of hiring people better than you, people smarter than you, and pushing down as much responsibility as possible, being really clear about what success looks like, being really clear about the cultural and values parameters of how you’ll get this done, but then to get the heck out of their way and be a servant leader, helping resolve ambiguity, helping bring resources where there’s a sticking point. But to me, that’s the transition that often will occur working with a founder, and that will often need to be a challenge for some of the organization.

(35:35):

If they’ve been used to being told what to do very specifically, and now they’ve got a new CEO saying, “What’s your point of view? What’s your recommendation?” Deer in the headlights. But often you can find people and do find people that have been held back and all of a sudden that ceiling is gone and they flourish. And that’s to me the integration path, which is to emphasize what you’re doubling down on, articulate what has to change, and just seeing who’s able to grow and work the organization that way. It’s not for everybody. You don’t have everybody in that transition staying on the bus necessarily, but it unlocks the growth of the individuals that have the desire to grow.

Enrique Alvarez (36:20):

It’s very powerful what you’ve said. And I think that after working with so many founders and that you have gotten into mastering what you’re saying and just really understanding what their strengths are and then being very candid and professional about what their weaknesses are. And then of course it has to be, I’m sure there has to be some introspection from the founder’s side saying, “Well, I have to let ego aside and I have to make those decisions thinking in the goal of the brand and the goal of the company, if I can take it 10 times higher with someone else and why wouldn’t you do it? ” But you mentioned the founders and I was wondering in terms of the more emotional intelligence that you need to have with these employees, and you mentioned the employees, sometimes you have to make a trade-off between, you just have to do what I tell you right now so we can get through this and then well, you got to start thinking on your own so that we can really, really grow it beyond what I can control as an owner.

(37:15):

What do you say the top two, three kind of tips for people that are listening to us, people that are employees or founders that are listening to this interview and are thinking, “Well, what could be something practical that I can just start doing to really get a better understanding of what you are saying?”

Alastair Dorward  (37:31):

Yeah, I think the first basic is to, if a team member has a problem, never allow them to come to you with just the problem, ask them to come to you with a problem and their recommended solution. No, I like that. And that’s the basic, right? Right. And in time, their solution may be right or it may be wrong, but it helps create that sense of they own the solution and that they can’t come to a meeting just with the problem. They have to develop their recommendation. And in time, it’s like that pattern emerges where, yeah, here’s my recommendation. Yeah, you just go with it. Here’s the other way, if you thought you offer alternative, I think it’s in debating the two alternatives that you can impart the way that decisions should get made and it builds confidence. And if you keep saying to somebody, “Yeah, your instincts are right on, go with that.

(38:23):

” They build their confidence and their sense of agency because that’s really important. And the other part is around time management, around being clear in priorities with the individual. And if something news emerged, typically it’s important to decide what’s coming off their plate and to work through priorities with individuals. And we often like to put what’s the Eisenhower matrix we kind of use quite a lot, which is what’s urgent, what’s non-urgent and what’s important and what’s less important. And you kind of focus on the urgent, important, and try and delegate a lot of the other stuff. So there’s using the Eisenhower matrix as a way to help prioritize with the individual. But then, I mean, that’s for more early stage in their career individuals. I think as you grow and build the business, what I try and do is the kind of metaphor I use is T-shaped people, which is if you have a high growth business, you want some folks in your leadership team who think like general managers and see the complexity of the business for what it is, not just their own particular vertical.

(39:31):

And I encourage, and I try and assemble in a team, a couple of folks who think like general managers and their T-shaped. So they have a vertical of their particular expertise where they’ve grown up in that function, but they’ve built real expertise in other areas and can think like a general manager. And it’s these T-shaped people that I think are some of the most important to help you think through business problems and really think like holistic general managers. And these are the ones I’ve seen to go on to be CEOs in the future. Greatest joys of the method experience was to have so many people who’ve gone on to lead great businesses as CEOs. And you might’ve had a tiny part in their career just influencing their direction and unlocking their potential. So these are some of the experiences I’ve had and maybe some tips, Enrique, that I’m inquiring about.

Kristi Porter (40:27):

Excellent tips. Yeah. I feel like after every question, I’m like, “Well, we could end here and this would be great, but we’re going to keep going a little longer.” So I want to ask, you’re now, of course, that drops at B Corp. We love our B Corp community. I don’t know if this is your first B Corp experience, but wanted to ask about that. And then also you mentioned both the soup company and then Drops is the same way. Different packaging than you would expect different packaging than its competitors. So with Drops, it’s not the big plastic buckets or anything like that. It’s paperboard, a completely different just visual experience as well. So for the consumer product brands listening, talk a little bit about packaging in both of those instances and how that has helped shape both the environmental commitment to drops as well as just the customer experience of it.

Alastair Dorward  (41:13):

I’ll talk about packaging in a moment, but I’m going to pick up on the first comment about the whole B Corp piece, which is such a powerful, kind of now a global force for good. And it’s all this premise that business is an agent of change and for the good within the community. And that’s just such a fundamental thing. So I think what the BLAB team have established is a community, a sense of best practice and a scorecard that is measurable, repeatable, global in the areas where business can have the biggest impact on community, on environment and in employee, so many important parameters where capitalism unfettered has hurt society. And I think what this being a B Corp or even as drops as a public benefit corporation, which takes it to the next level, it’s a really important community that I think will help propel business as an agent of change on a global basis.

(42:23):

And I remember meeting Joel and one of the other founders of B Lab back in 2006, Method. And Method is proud to say we signed up right there in that meeting to be, I think, one of the founding B Corp members. And most brands I’ve worked with, well, all brands I’ve worked with are mission driven and most are B Corp. And I think the other inspiration for me, the other sort of thread through this is working with Bill McDonough, who was the author of Cradle to Cradle with his partner, Michael Brumgart, and this whole notion of sustainability being defined by cradle to cradle principles, so a closed loop where the output of consumption becomes a future ingredient for future production, that is just fundamental. So long way round to say that sustainability and packaging has become a very important parameter and is a signal on the shelf to the consumer of something better for you.

(43:23):

And in the case of drops, I mean, our founder Jonathan Proper invented the first liquid laundry pod. And that was an amazing breakthrough from both a consumer convenience. You don’t have to pour a heavy jog or lug a heavy bottle home. And it’s also a breakthrough in you don’t need a bottle anymore. And so all the big players, ironically though, went from bottles, big plastic bottle jugs to big plastic tubs containing these monodose pods. So it defeats the purpose of the whole getting away from plastic point of view. And that’s why drops has always been packaged in boxes. Only 9% of plastics in the US get recycled, whereas 67% of paperboard gets recycled. So

(44:11):

It’s a fundamental shift towards a more recyclable curbside recyclable option, and that’s fundamentally important. But the other aspect of packaging is of design, and I’ll go back to method days here where design was such an important element of the method story. In fact, I think when you’re starting a consumer brand, you have to look for some type of disconnect. I told the disconnect about soup. It’s nourishing nutritious, yet canned soup is less so. When Eric Adam and I were kind of setting up method, and one of the insights was your home and the decor in your home and the design you put into your home is a really important part of self-expression. And yet the products and brands that you’ve been using to maintain your home are so ugly, you hide in the mundo sink. And so that was kind of one of the disconnects.

(45:04):

And the opportunity of category arbitrage is to, what if we took some of the design language from home decor and applied it to the world of household cleaning and hand soap. And the method liquid hand soap in the teardrop shape bottle kind of became iconic for the brand and kind of the bestseller. And it actually shifted household penetration of liquid hand soap, which was a huge deal because if you can go to a retailer and say, “We’re growing your category and we’re bringing in premium dollars from outside of your mass channel,” then you’ve got something that’s worth gold to them. But there was this notion that if you use great design in your packaging and it’s very simplistic, but very pure in its design form, then you spend, I don’t know, $20,000 in a bathroom remodel maybe, and are you really going to put an ugly pottery

Enrique Alvarez (45:59):

Of

Alastair Dorward  (46:00):

Soap on that brand new … How about you put something that’s maybe a dollar more that is a beautiful design and beautiful fragrance and make it an experience. And as a result, that kind of unlocked. So I think design in general can unlock a better consumer experience, and that is really where an insurgent brand can win. And I think you can ever get lower cost of production than a big multinational, but if you can find a way, and packaging is often the way to deliver a better experience, then you can help bring growth and an alternative to the incumbents that really don’t have much of an incentive to change.

Enrique Alvarez (46:41):

Right. Well, thank you so much. I mean, we met at the Consumer Impact Conference in 2025, of course, here in Bentonville. And one of the things that as you were presenting the story and your story drops, you mentioned that, and it’s something that you’re alluding to is the riches are in the niches. And I think I’m almost quoting you, if not quoting you, because that really stuck with me. And that’s basically what you were talking about just now, right? Identifying those things that might not be matching well enough for a consumer or for the experience or for the great performance that you want out of your product. Now, it sounds very rational to me, but you have to pay attention to these things. And I’m probably not very good at that. How do you spot these trends? How do you spot this unmet needs and decide this is one of those riches in the niches scenario, and I’m just going to invest as heavily as I can.

(47:39):

I

Alastair Dorward  (47:40):

Mean, one of the advantages of the classic David versus Goliath is that if you look at a business plan or a category evaluation for a big and multinational or P&G, they probably won’t get out of bed if it’s less than a billion dollar business opportunity

(47:57):

To create a brand behind that. There’s got to be that size. But as an entrepreneur, if you can create real value in a hundred million dollar segment and own a decent chunk of that, I’ll take that all day off.That’s a great business. Particularly if there’s limited competition or the competition has been sleepy. I’ll give you a couple of examples. One at Method and one at drops. For Method being counterworthy and its packaging was important, and often that was in the kitchen. And there’s a lot of higher end homes that would have a granite or marble countertop. And that category was pretty small and really underserved by hardware store type brands that might have a following amongst professionals. But as a brand, it was very unappealing. You certainly wouldn’t leave it out. And so we created this marble cleaner, marble and granite cleaner with very elegant packaging that would look perfectly nice leaving out on the counter with this beautiful aroma of fragrance that by the time you’ve done all the dishes, you’ve cleaned the kitchen.

(48:59):

I’m going back to Thanksgiving experience. The finishing touch is cleaning the counter. And if you get this rewarding bouquet of aroma that, okay,

(49:10):

The kitchen is now clean, the market share we got in that category was ridiculous. It was something like 30 or 40% and able to price premium, good margin. So that was a case where there’s no way Clorox P&G would go after that sort of segment, but it was a heck of a way to get into the category. And I think at drops most recently, we’ve had a launch of an odor eraser product. So laundry’s been historically focused on getting stains out,

(49:41):

But there’s a growing consumer need around odor because it’s slightly societal in that we are increasingly wearing athleisure synthetic fibers, right? We’re increasingly washing with cold water because that’s good. It uses less energy. But the combination of the two means that our clothes are less stained. Our kids are playing on their devices rather than playing in the yard or on their bikes rather tragically, but our clothes are less stained, but tend to retain odor more. And so we launched this great odor eraser product with brand new technology that actually eats the biofilm, the DNA that’s in that gets trapped in your workout kit or in the pet blanket. The efficacy is so much better than the leading brand in the category, and yet it’s bio-based. So it’s not a huge kind of core detergent category, but it’s one where we’re getting a lot of great traction with

Enrique Alvarez (50:42):

It. Right. And that’s the future is heading in that direction, as you point out. I mean, I have teenage kids, so it’s really, I don’t care if it’s stained. I’m fine if you have a stain here or there, but yeah, you’re thinking about the odor and you’re right. But I think that you somewhat answered the question, but not quite. So if you don’t mind- Okay, don’t let me off the hook.

Alastair Dorward  (51:02):

Enrique. Yeah.

Enrique Alvarez (51:02):

How do you find those things? I mean, who does this? I mean, I know you have that talent. Is this something that you learn? Is it just by paying attention? Is it by just having that connection with the consumer that you alluded to earlier?

Alastair Dorward  (51:16):

Look,

Enrique Alvarez (51:16):

How do you figure out these little things that most people will completely miss, right?

Alastair Dorward  (51:21):

Look, I think it’s a talent that I don’t claim to have wholly. And people around me have amazing insights. And I’d say something like Eric Ryan has an incredible nose for this type

Enrique Alvarez (51:33):

Of

Alastair Dorward  (51:34):

Issue. But to me, the way the process works for me, and this is why I love consumer products, because it’s part data and rational and part emotional. It’s a left brain, right brain integration

(51:47):

Because you can look at the category data all year round and look at where the opportunities, where the growth is. And that informs a fair amount and you can identify where the big players are playing, where the sustainability. So there’s an analytic process that I’m sure you can deploy AI and get a lot of insights, but that’s not really going to get you all the way there. A lot of it is in the depth of emotional experience or pain point for the consumer. And if you can take an experience from being a need to a want to make it more aspirational and improve the consumer experience, then that’s part of the trick. So I would say that elegance of you’ve got emotion in remodeling your bathroom or having a home that is attractive. So if you can look at a disconnect that a bottle of, I’m sorry, soft soap, I’m going to call you out now as a brand, not necessarily very

Enrique Alvarez (52:45):

Efficient. We’re not going to offend the soap. It’s

Alastair Dorward  (52:48):

Fine. But probably not the most elegant product. And that’s a disconnect where the consumer joy of something that’s very simple. That makes sense. The idea of that calm after cleaning your kitchen and that little old factory fragrance reward. The real fundamental problem of, oh my God, my teenage son who’s a football player, his room stinks, how the heck are we going to get the football kit clean? Or my God, the dog’s blanket or my wife will not wash her stuff with my athletic gear. So you see the little conversations and the emotion that

Enrique Alvarez (53:24):

Goes

Alastair Dorward  (53:24):

In the household and you see, huh, that’s something that people really care about and you want to go for depth of emotion. And if you can provide a technical solution that is superior and scale that, that’s the process. There’s something analytic, something analytic, something emotional. And if you can deliver something that resolves that either technically or through design or potentially the combination of the two, then that seems to be a winning formula. Does that answer … You put me on the hook there, Enrique.

Enrique Alvarez (53:53):

That did answer the question and I appreciate your examples because they were very practical. One,

Kristi Porter (53:59):

Two, three steps to write down.

Enrique Alvarez (54:02):

I love bullet points. Yeah,

Kristi Porter (54:04):

A hundred percent. Yeah. One of the things that I think is so beautiful about your answer, and your career certainly speaks to it, is while so many people are out, of course you mentioned AI is everywhere, people are always trying to chase trends. “What’s the next thing? What’s the next thing? “And you’re like, ” Soup, soap, cleaners, these are the things that you have your hands on every day. “The

Alastair Dorward  (54:25):

Unsexy categories.

Kristi Porter (54:28):

Very

Alastair Dorward  (54:29):

Useful.

Kristi Porter (54:30):

Right. And they’ve made all of our lives better. So thank you. Yes, appreciate that so much. Well, we’ve talked about your past, we’ve talked about your present, but I want to talk about your future as well. So what can we expect from you? Where can we find you? Where can we see you?

Alastair Dorward  (54:43):

Well, I’m about five days into my transition from being full-time CEO to senior advisor at Drops. And my wife will say that a lot of the projects, deferred maintenance. I got my outdoor lights working. So there’s a lot of stuff that have been given. They’re giving a household joy. You

Enrique Alvarez (55:01):

Mentioned the kitchen remodeling quite a bit. Is that something that you have to do?

Alastair Dorward  (55:06):

No, not right now.

Enrique Alvarez (55:07):

No battery remodeling.

Alastair Dorward  (55:08):

We do have the outdoor kitchen, which just got remodeled, which was great for Thanksgiving. So I’m just catching up with life and enjoying with four kids coming back for the holidays. And one of them’s turning 21, so we’re going to Vegas for the nice to celebrate. So watch out Vegas. But seriously, beyond the personal to- do list that has been amassed over the last few years, I love working with founders. And over the last few months, founders have been coming to me with their businesses and saying, Hey, would love your thoughts on how to accelerate. Many of them are early stage businesses. Some are making money and growing nicely, but still have a problem to unlock. So I know that I’ll be working with founders to help accelerate their business, whether it’s in food, personal care, baby, beauty, or household. I just get a lot of joy from finding that unlock.

(56:07):

And I think a little bit of pattern recognition from the last 25 odd years, particularly the mistakes that I’ve made, which are boundless in their accountability. But I just love building brands and I also like to see that intersection of how technology can transform categories. And I love to see David beat Goliath. And you look at the beauty category, for example, where indie brands have just won the share and the heart of the consumer, it’s a revolution underway in everyday consumption across all these categories. I just love being part of the revolution and change. So that’s going to be my journey over the next few months.

Enrique Alvarez (56:49):

Very exciting. And thank you so much. I mean, as we wrap up, and it sounds to me that there could be a couple of books in your future as well, because it’s been a lot of very interesting experience, Share, from your end, and we truly appreciate that. So as we wrap up, what does the kind of phrase logistics with purpose mean to you?

Alastair Dorward  (57:10):

I think that what I’ve come to see in consumer products is that the role of supply chain has gone from tactical and something that is not the most important C-suite priority to one that is driving fundamental excellence and fundamental survival of brands. And so whether it’s COVID issues, tariff issues, logistics deliver a solution that unlock, particularly in my world of brands, the opportunity to deliver a mission is only possible when you’ve got margin. So to me, there’s a couple of aspects to logistics. One is creating efficiency in the value chain and supply chain so that if you don’t have margin, you don’t have a mission, and that’s just fundamental. And the other part is consumer trust and reliability. So to me, retailers, whether it’s a Walmart or an Amazon, if you are not in stock when doing what you say you are going to do is how you build trust.

(58:18):

And the retailer is exacting on that front and the consumer has exceptionally high expectations, same day delivery in many categories. So to me, I’d say logistics unlocks purpose because it empowers brands to do what they do best. And when that is done with a partner that shares the values as a B Corp, looks at sustainability, looks at employee welfare, looks at community impact, then you’ve got a partner that really is aligned fundamentally, not just with your economics, but with who you are as a business. So that would be how I’d articulate that.

Kristi Porter (58:58):

Thank you. Well, we can’t let you go without asking exactly where to find you in between your honeydew list items. So where can people go to find drops and order drops and then LinkedIn or where’s the best place to find you?

Alastair Dorward  (59:12):

So you can find drops at drops.com, great subscription offers on Amazon if you prefer to shop that way, and in lots of retailers, including Target. So you can find drops in many places. And you can find me on LinkedIn and you can also drop me an email, Alastairm for marydorward@gmail.com. Awesome. Mary being my late mother’s middle name. So that’s how I got that one in there.

Enrique Alvarez (59:39):

Alistair, thank you once again, and thank you everyone that’s listening to this conversation. If you like the conversation we had, as well as some of the others in the past, don’t forget to sign and join and subscribe. And thank you so much, and we’ll see you in two weeks.

Kristi Porter (59:54):

Thank you.

Alastair Dorward  (59:55):

Thank you so much.