Understanding the girlboss era, the sexist backlash, and what's next
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Welcome to Most Innovative Companies. I'm your host, Yasmin Gagne, joined by my producer, Josh Christensen. Hey, Josh. Hey, Yas. So we won't spoil the listeners on how many times it took us to get this introduction right before going into it. But I did want to say, like, I feel like we should have worked out those kinks since we're like six months into this podcast. Can you believe how long we've been doing it?

That's actually crazy. It feels like we just started it. Yeah, it feels like we started like two seconds ago. Who has been, not to play favorites because it is like picking your children, but who's been your favorite guest?

Since we have two very different tracks of guests, we have our guests that are most innovative companies leaders or business leaders throughout. And then we have our fast company reporter staff guests, which I feel like I can't pick one because they're like my children. But if I did have to pick one, it's Jeff Beer. I think everyone loves Jeff Beer. No, we love Max. We love Mark. We love our guests today. Liz, who we'll have on coming on later. They're all great guests.

Man, I really loved your conversation with Jason Blum at Fast Company Innovation Festival, as well as Emma Tammy and David Gorin-Green. You know, I really liked Jens Greed, the CEO of Skims. I felt like... Oh, that was a great interview.

I was like, I don't really know what to expect, but I felt like he had so many kind of surprising but almost obvious insights at the same time. If you're a fan of Fast Company, of course, you know our Most Innovative Companies recognition program where we recognize some of the

best businesses in the country doing amazing things. And we've highlighted a lot of them on this podcast, as well as other companies that have been on the list in the past or just doing really cool things. But we also wanted to take the opportunity to kind of show the fun side of Fast Company.

a lot of news in the business world can be very dense and heavy. So we wanted to approach highlighting the amazing reporting of Fast Company reporters with a little bit of levity, as well as some TV recommendations and some other silly stuff like Daily Mail headlines to give you a little insight into what our newsrooms like and introduce you to some of the amazing people who are your guides to the world of business innovation. So thank you to everyone who's been listening for the past

six months and welcome new listeners. We hope you stick with us for the next six months and years to come. So later on today's episode, I'll be talking with Lindsay McCormick, the CEO and founder of Byte, an environmentally sustainable toothpaste company, about why even though corporations are basically ruining our planet and some people own private jets, you should still consider the ecological impact

of your purchases. But before that, the reign of the girl boss is over and here to explain what even a girl boss is and why their reign is over is Fast Company senior staff writer Liz Segrin. Hey, Liz. Hey. Liz, so first I actually want to go back a bit and sort of set...

some context, I guess. When did the term girlboss come about? And also, how would you, at this point, define what girlboss means? Because for me, when I try and do it myself, I find myself slipping into kind of misogynistic tropes almost by accident. Yeah, I think it's just...

So interesting how this term has evolved and our perceptions of it have evolved. I think it really came to our attention about a decade ago because this exciting at the time founder called Sofia Amoroso told the story of how she started, you know, a fashion brand called Nasty Gal with a memoir called Hashtag Girlboss. I remember being in college when it came out.

and everyone was reading it. It was a good read. I mean, she was talking about how she basically like really liked thrifting and she decided to turn her little thrift business that she started on eBay into a real legitimate company. It was a remarkable story because she actually accomplished that. And not only did she accomplish that,

that. I mean, I think she was trying to show that women could do the kind of exciting entrepreneurial adventures that male founders have done for a long time, right? And she sort of created a playbook for how young women could launch businesses that weren't just small businesses, right? Like little eBay, Etsy businesses. That is what Nasty Girls started off as.

But the ambition was to create a company that would get venture funding and that could compete with big apparel brands. And she accomplished that. You know, Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In had just come out. So we were in this like really exciting moment of female empowerment movement.

through business, right? Through capitalism. And I think that that's, you know, it was a really exciting message. Like you and I both were swept up in that. It sounds like, you know, I remember reading both of those books. I think a lot of young women were, but over the past decade, a lot of the women who we think of as girl bosses who started really exciting, you know, large companies like Steph Corey at Away, Audrey Gellman at The Wing, Tyra

Ty Haney at Outdoor Voices. These women were all sort of lauded as girl bosses, all celebrated as girl bosses. But unfortunately, one by one, their empires were brought down, right? They were taken down by stories about how poorly they were managing their staff and other sort of scandalous stories. And one by one, they had to leave their companies. And so now I think

people really don't like to be associated with that term. When I was reporting the story, all of the women I interviewed wanted to stay as far away from that term as possible. One founder I interviewed called Sally Christensen, who started this amazing suiting company called Argent, said the girl boss is a pejorative at this point. It's an insult, and she doesn't want to have anything to do with it. Someone actually once gifted me Sofia Amoruso's coffee table book called Nasty Galaxy, which...

is so bizarre if you actually read it because in theory it's like a mood board with some song lyrics and stuff but she also tells a story of a time where she like shat her pants in a car and there's like no explanation as to like how do you expect someone to segue into that like speaking of messes yeah it was just nuts I remember being

Like, does this have anything to do with your business? No. Does it have anything to do with your relationships? I don't really think so. Like, isn't that part of it? Like the personal self, like the kind of cult of personality aspects of this Liz. I remember that book and I thought it was really hilarious because it was like, she wanted to create a whole book based on the pun of like nasty galaxy. Yeah. Get it right. And then she doesn't have anything to do with space. No, but she was wearing a space suit in the cover and I got,

to tell you that I kind of, my eyes glazed over once I started reading the book and, but it was on my coffee table for like, I don't know, a good three months. What made these girl bosses so compelling, right? Was that they knew how to create kind of a cult of personality around themselves. Sofia Amoroso, for instance, Emily Weiss of Glossier. Some of these women were just really skilled at using social media to

This was kind of the beginning of the influencer movement. In one light, these women were really sort of skilled at understanding how to project an image and to gain followers. And what was really cool about it, I think, at the time was that, you know, there are other influencers who are known for

just, you know, their amazing style or, you know, their beauty regimes or whatever. Right. But these women were trying to create an identity around being these sort of trailblazing entrepreneurs. And I think that was a message a lot of us could get behind. But

But I think the point of my story is that by being so public, these women were also easily brought down when things went wrong in their business. And another argument that I make in the story is that male founders...

didn't really feel the need to put themselves out there quite as much. And consequently, when things went wrong at their companies, for instance, right now at Allbirds, right? Like, you know, I don't really know what their families look like, what their houses look like, what their vacations look like. And Allbirds is clearly, you know, having troubles, but we're not attacking the founders. We're talking about the business failings, right?

And so when things went wrong at these other companies, like at Sofia Amoroso's company, she became the target of a lot of that anger and ire and just like scandal in a way that male founders haven't experienced quite as much. You sort of can't win because on one level, yeah, it is misogyny that leads us to like criticize these women more on a personal level. On another level, it's like they also chose to put their personal lives and share more of their own personalities on social media because they're

we kind of expect that more from women in society because that is like a sort of traditional, like performative thing. I also think that there were really important practical reasons for them to put themselves out there. It still is really hard for female entrepreneurs to start fast growing businesses, right? Only 10% of Fortune 500 companies have female CEOs.

even though women make up nearly half of the workforce, female founders only get 2% of venture capital. And by being these very publicly facing individuals, like by being sort of celebrities, these women got in the door, right? Like they were able to get a lot of funding, partly because people knew who they were. And they just had this profile that male entrepreneur heroes like Mark Zuckerberg,

Adam Neumann, you know, these other founders that we had sort of turned into heroes. These women were trying to create a profile that was like on par with that kind of image. And I think that these women really felt like, you know, in order to stand out and in order to create businesses that people would care about, they had to put themselves out there in a way that male founders rarely feel like they need to do. There's two parts to this that I think about a lot. The three examples that you gave, right, are all like pretty thin, traditionally attractive images.

white women, right? I think that was part of the brand. At the same time, they all did this thing that I really fell for, I'll be honest, where it's like, oh, Audrey Gellman loves Nine Inch Nails. Like, me too. You know what I mean? There was this element of like,

Oh, like I could be their friend. And I remember getting lunch with a friend who was a member of the wing. This was like when it first started, when it was really hot. And I was like, how many women in there think that they are or could be personal friends with her? Like that was so integral to its branding, which I think was smart, but also you saw the downside of it. Totally. And I mean, the same is true for like Emily Weiss, Glossier, Ty Haney. I mean,

That was part of their sell, not just to VCs and not just to the business world, but also to consumers. And there's a reason that we buy product from influencers, right?

And the product that they were selling were their own businesses. And I think a lot of us felt like we connected with the brand in some way because we admired the founder. We liked the founder's style. We thought that if we stepped into a wing location, you know, that we would be able to inhabit the world that these like aspirational founders had created. I remember meetings there and it would be like everyone would show up to this co-working space dressed to the nines.

Be like, oh, Rachel Comey is like in this house. It was so weird because I was like, if I showed up to a WeWork, like I'm wearing sweats. Totally. It was sort of like its own strange world where it was like a fantasy land that you could inhabit. Part of what inspired me to write this story is that there's this new book out about Emily Weiss. It's called Glossy and it's about the rise of...

her company Glossier and as well as like a deep insight into sort of Emily Weiss's world. And it's not all that flattering. It's not all that flattering, but it's also like not that crazy a story. I don't know.

if that makes sense, but I was like, oh yeah, she like built a business, like a consumer goods business, you know? It's so interesting. She does make the point that the women who were able to become girl bosses were very photogenic, right? These were like thin women, white women. She kept saying, Emily Weiss came from such privilege, like as if male

founders don't come from privilege. I mean, I think it takes a certain level of privilege to have the platform to like be able to take the risks. And even have that kind of that amount of confidence. Totally. I'm a person of color. I feel like most people of color, it's like, no, you're going to like go and be a lawyer or you know what I mean?

Like even becoming a journalist, I felt like I had to have a stint somewhere else to be like, oh, okay. As another woman of color, you don't go out there like balls to the walls just saying like, hey, like I'm gonna like, I'm gonna just like ask for $2 million in venture funding. You sit there and you write your stories and you don't make a single grammatical mistake because you gotta, you know, you gotta like do a good job.

But I also think that there is misogyny here because I think that male founders don't feel the need to put themselves out there in a personal way quite as much because it's easier for them to start these businesses and get the funding that they need. But secondly, the minute that anyone of that we could smell the slightest hint of a problem at these companies. Yeah, it was like schadenfreude. Totally.

Consumers were just like, well, like, I guess they're not that perfect, right? And they have such nice wardrobes, right? And they have like such nice outfits. Like, but you see, they also like have problems, right? And I don't know. It was like a weird situation. Because we have parasocial, like fake personal relationship with them. It would be like if your friend did something bad. And it's like, they were never your friend. Let's be clear. Like their lives are so different from yours. People didn't sort of like get that.

And I think like, so some of the problems that we saw at all of these companies, we saw at male founded companies too. Everybody remembers the big away takedown right before the pandemic where, you know, Steph Corey, the co-founder was accused of creating a toxic work environment. Yael Flalo, who is the founder of Reformation and Audrey Gelman were accused of enabling racism at the company, especially during the Black Lives Matter movement when people were thinking a lot about these issues.

It's not like male-founded companies did not all have the same problems. But I think consumers just felt they were particularly disappointed in these women because there were real problems happening at these companies, right? These are serious issues that we're talking about. But I think that we also need to acknowledge that there is some misogyny just more broadly in the way that we want female founders to have a public profile and that we also love to take them down.

the other thing is like, when you think about the reasons why some of these businesses suffered, they're actually all quite different, but we still lump these women in the same place. Outdoor Voices seems to have been poorly managed on the business side. And honestly, they had a model that like, as soon as other companies could copy their styles, it was sort of unclear how they were going to get better. Away had like a abusive work environment. I would argue like men

do that all the time and do not get that level of like slacks leaked everywhere. The wing, I think, donated a lot of money to Black Lives Matter movement while laying off all their staff and not giving them compensation.

And Reformation, I think, yeah, LaFleur didn't want to include plus size models or women of color or something like that. There was an issue with their models. And when you think about all those issues, you're like, these are very different. But we still think of these women in the same bucket, which is so strange to me. That's true. I mean, we just see them as all female founders. So I think in the same way that it was easy to take down individual founders,

because they had a kind of a public profile, it was easy for us to take down these women because they were in the category of woman. Reading the Glossier book, especially one thing that I felt the book did some justice to, these women were incredible brand builders, say what you want, but like, my God, building that brand, building that showroom, the loyalty, like I interviewed some people from Glossier, like during our innovation festival, I was like, I don't know who's going to show up actually.

I'm not totally sure who the Glossier customer is as an aging millennial. And it was packed. It was packed. And people had questions. People were so excited to be there. And I was like, oh, say what you want. But that is a testament to the power of the brand. And I think you could say that about a few of these businesses. I mean...

Away did this amazing thing, which is that they took this super boring commodity product, right, which is the suitcase, and they turned it into this cool item. When you saw somebody with an Away suitcase at the airport, you would be like, oh, like, that's an Away suitcase. And nobody does that with Samsonite or, like, American Tourister, right? Like, I mean, so they created a cool product and a brand around something that was super boring. I really want a Samsonite to become, like, the new Birkin bag. Yeah.

Oh my God. I'm sorry. I got to check in the back to see if we have any more Samsonites. Right. But no, but you can't even imagine a world where that's the case. Right. And it's like Away did that and they, they sold millions of suitcases. I mean, that's pretty cool. And then, I mean the wing, I mean, okay. For all the problems at that company, going into a wing location was kind of a spiritual experience. It was beautiful. It was cool.

It was also a safe space for women, right? Well, I think the weird thing about the wing, and I do think that one thing I will say about it way in Glossier is like incredible brand building, terrible financials. For real. Yeah, for sure. Like that was the real issue behind it. The wing was so interesting to me because it, and I say this, like, I totally agree with you. Like visiting the wing early on was like kind of exciting. At the same time, it was like sort of marketed itself as like a bit of an activist thing.

and also an expensive co-working space, which like now I'm like, what were we thinking? Like, I totally agree with you. And yeah, it was it was very exclusionary. I mean, that was like part of the whole thing that kind of brought them down. Right. I mean, it was exclusionary to people of color with people who didn't have as much money. It was expensive. But I do think that there was some value in having a place where women could network

with one another. There was a safe space where women could talk to each other like in the bathroom and like maybe, you know, come up with new business ideas or find people that you'd want to work with. I mean, I think that was like fundamentally like not a terrible notion. Maybe the execution wasn't that great. Maybe it was too focused on

the influencer culture of it all. I mean, the whole place was Instagrammable, right? I mean, like that was the whole point of it. So in this story, I look at companies that were founded around the same time by women who chose not to be as public. You talked about Kuyana, Beauty Counter. What are some others? And Argent, the suiting company, Ritual, which is a supplement, a vitamin company. The founders of these brands are not household names. And

And so I was just really interested to see, you know, what happened at these companies, right? Did not having a publicly facing CEO harm them? The women in each of these cases said that they kind of wish that they had put themselves out there a little bit more because it was much harder for them to get funding. And they really feel like the cult of personality helped these brands grow faster.

The reason that they weren't able to put themselves out there quite as much was because they just didn't happen to be quite as skilled playing the social media game. And actually, you know, when you look at these founders, right, like a lot of them are actually women of color, which I wonder if that plays into it as well. Like the world was just not as excited about seeing a brown founder play the role of influencer starting a company. It didn't like jive with people's idea of what a successful CEO should be.

But at the same time, they also said that their companies were less easily brought down because if there were ever any problems, the media just wasn't as interested in taking down a company where we just didn't really know the main character that well.

Yeah. So I think about Kuyana, for example, which had some struggles during the pandemic, as many businesses did, and arguably is like also a consumer goods company that got quite a bit of funding. But it's like, that's actually not a very interesting story. Yeah, it's kind of a boring story when you don't have a single person to sort of throw your arrows at.

people sort of took pleasure in seeing these women who seem to like have these completely perfect lives, like in tearing them down. And we just didn't feel like we needed to do that with these other brands that were also having a tough time. And as a result, I think, you know, the brands that I profile in this story, you know, they've survived these like difficult periods, right? And they're all continuing to chug along and

They're still here. And importantly, the founders are still running these companies. And part of me just feels really sad that the first generation of girl bosses, many of them are not running the companies that they came up with. They were their brainchild.

It sounds like it's kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation going back to then. Like, this was an avenue, the sort of... You know, we can kind of, like, set aside this sort of, like, linguistic... It's kind of an infantilizing term, girl boss, and whatever. For whatever that is, like, that's a syntax issue. But...

The reality is, is that this was a pathway for financial success for the companies that these women founded. But at the same time, it set them up for falls by being incredibly public and being at the tip of the spear of the basic misogyny that's built into how our business world functions.

What's really sad about it is that we don't really have a model now for the next generation of would-be entrepreneurs. When I was in grad school and Yas was in college, because we're a little bit older than you, Yas, when we were reading those books, there was this idea that any woman who had a great idea and a smart business plan could be the next big founder. There

And because all these girl bosses have been taken down one at a time, we don't really have like a sense of, okay, what is it going to look like if I'm an entrepreneurial person and I want to start a business? We don't have that playbook anymore. There's a lot of speculation that Emily Weiss might be starting a motherhood related business and Steph Corey is already quite possibly starting a motherhood related business. I'm curious, I guess, why you think that is, whether it's just a continuation of their personal brand now that they're older.

How do you see that fitting into this whole story? Oh my gosh, I have so many thoughts. What is interesting is that like the first generation of influencers were fashion influencers, right? A few years ago, a lot of those influencers started having children.

And then all of their content became about like nesting and household stuff and then all their baby clothes and all this kind of thing. I guess what's disturbing to me about hearing this is that these founders are continuing to use the playbook of the influencer, right?

They're following that playbook. It's like the profiles of us as like these go-getter founders. And now we're like in a different stage of our life. And now we have families and we're going to put that out there. To me, it feels like, yeah, that doesn't seem necessarily like they've learned the lessons from putting...

you know, themselves out there so much, right? And like the problems that that can have. On the other hand, like, I don't know really like what somebody like Steph Corey is supposed to do next, right? Like she was torn down so viciously, right? In that story, when so many other male founders are also toxic bosses. It's not a new story. It's not, it's a very common story. And also women tend to get taken down faster because people see them as unlikable, right?

With that being said, workers' rights in toxic workplaces are bad for anyone. It's not necessarily that Steph Corey may or may not have deserved the criticisms for what she did, but the fact that there are so many other male founders who get a pass for that for so long. Yeah, I think that these are very serious issues. I think that the only difference is that male founders can often start new businesses when they're taken down from their old ones.

It's been a lot harder for these female founders. It's damned if you do, damned if you don't. We're going to take a quick break, followed by my interview with Byte CEO and female founder, Lindsay McCormick.

So I want to start to give our listeners some context, just talking about Byte and why its packaging and the idea behind it is so innovative. Can you just tell me a little bit about that? Yeah, absolutely. So Byte stands for Because It's the Earth, and the idea is that everything we do at Byte is better for the planet. I

I started Byte in my living room in 2018, and our first product was our toothpaste tablets, which are meant to replace plastic toothpaste tubes. And since then, we've created an entire line of plastic-free personal care aimed at getting rid of plastic from our daily routines. I could make a choice to take all of plastic out of my entire routine, right? But there is still going to be like a billionaire taking private jet flights

There's still going to be companies, you know, that are like have started coal plants. Like, how do you think about our personal responsibility to the environment in that context? I love that question. And I personally think about it a lot. And one of our mottos at Byte is every little bit counts. Our toothpaste tablets, we call them bits.

And I know as someone who literally started this company with $6,000 savings in my living room, pressing out tablets to now having a full team, having our product made across the U.S., I can say that our daily habits really do add up. And my company is a testament to that, to the fact we're a certified B Corp and we're really doing what we can to solve the problems. And we wouldn't exist without people supporting us.

So as much as it is a prop, there are things that we absolutely cannot control. We cannot control if someone's using a private jet or what corporations are doing in terms of massive waste like fast fashion. If there are things that we can do on a daily basis, they truly are making a difference. And I believe the survival, existence, and growth of my company is a testament to that. I know you started making toothpaste tablets in your living room. How have you figured out expanding into other products and

And tell me a little bit about the challenges with developing new packaging or delivery methods for each of those. It's a challenge. When I first got into this, from the outside, you're like, why are things set up the way that they're set up? This doesn't make any sense. And then you get on the inside and you're like, everything is made to support the way that things are set up, right? Even when we wanted to use glass bottles instead of plastic bottles, that's like a totally different thing to do where...

Glass bottles you have to put on by hand on a conveyor belt when they're filled up with tablets, as opposed to plastic bottles you could just dump in a tumbler and they could be pushed out very fast. So when you start looking at how things are set up from a supply chain perspective,

You start seeing why we've gotten ourselves into the habits that we've gotten ourselves into, like why plastic is so important in the manufacturing of these types of products. But we basically had to redesign the supply chain. And I think that like that's something that is incredibly hard to do. But when you do it and you do it right, then you're the only one doing it. You have like a competitive advantage because you're the only one. And for us, especially being a small business, it can help us get ahead of the competition and really stand out.

You talked about, for example, using glass instead of plastic. And to me, at least, that sounds more expensive. Do you end up passing those costs on to consumers?

When it comes to a lot of things, everything that we do is more expensive. Honestly, we're made here in the U.S. We pay our employees and our contractors a living wage. We are made with premium ingredients. We are made with glass, which is more expensive than plastic. This all is more expensive. And what we do is, yes, some of that is passed on to the customer because it's a higher cost product. But we also just operate with lower margin, right? We operate with more word of mouth when it comes to advertising because people are

really passionate about us and our mission, they tell their friends, right? So it's word of mouth and it becomes less expensive and we're able to recoup costs that way. And just to talk about the actual impact of something like regular plastic packaging,

What happens to them once they're thrown away? Tell me about the impact on the environment of us buying all these sort of like cheaper mass-produced goods. Plastic is causing a variety of issues. Once plastic is made, it basically never goes away. So it's finding its way into our ecosystems and the food chain. And because of this, animals are dying from it. They're consuming it, destroying their habitats. But the thing is, it's destroying ours too, right? We're eating it too.

Plastic has found its way into our food chain. We're eating it, we're drinking it. We found it in breast milk. We found it in our bloodstream. And we're just starting to learn what that exposure and what that consumption does, right? We're seeing that it's linked to reproductive issues. It's disrupting our endocrine systems. And it's

We can't stop the creation of plastic. And that's not what we're trying to do at Bite. When you look at what you're using in your life and take out the things that don't necessarily have to be plastic, that's what we're doing. So when you look at a toothpaste tube, you can have a toothpaste tablet instead, which comes in a glass jar, infinitely refillable. And same with deodorant. Instead of using deodorant that you buy at a drugstore, it comes in a plastic bottle.

container, you use it once, you throw it away. What we have, it's paper refills that come in this like beautiful, reusable metal container. So what we've tried to do is take out these pieces of plastic that we use for a few months and throw away and instead have something that's infinitely refillable and part of a system that is less harmful to the planet overall. I've been so curious about refills because I see them just increasingly from companies. I

I want to get your perspective broadly on how effective companies' sort of marketing refill systems are. Are customers going back and buying refills for things like deodorant? Yeah. So I would say it's been really exciting to see the customer reception, at least at

bite of our refill systems and deodorant especially because we started as a toothpaste company. That is our main product. I mean, we're called Bite, but our deodorant, it has grown very fast and people keep coming back. When it comes to refill systems, a lot that I see out there are kind of done half-heartedly. It's almost like some exec was like, we need a refill system because we do. And then they do it and it doesn't make any sense. And you're like, well, people aren't going to come back. Like I used, you know, one of the mainstream deodorants had one that was almost like a popsicle

the way that the deodorant was like, it just would break off. Right. And so it didn't really make any sense. And then of course that product, I don't think it ended up doing well. And so the problem with that is that then that proves the bigger companies, Hey, people don't want refill systems. But the fact of the matter is people don't want refill systems that suck. They want refill systems that work. And so when you do give them an option of a product that

is better than what's on the market and incredibly easy to refill and looks beautiful on their countertop, they will pay a premium and they will keep coming back. For us, we're a small business. We're bootstrapped. I have no intention of raising money and blowing up and trying to take over the world. We really want to stay small, stay true to the customers that we serve and continue to be able to

to trailblaze so we don't have to make those compromises. But what we do want to do is we want to show the big brands that there's something to be done here. And if you do it right, people will get on board. At one point, Byte used palm oil. That's no longer the case. You've evolved. How did you solve that problem or what lessons did you learn from that experience? I'm still very heavily involved in the creation of all of our products. And when we were using palm oil at the very beginning of Byte, it was because I had done

research at the very beginning and I had found eco-certified palm oil. And from what I had gathered, it was okay to use, right? And so we had that in our original formulated tablets back in 2017 and 2018. And then in 2019, we had some customers reach out because we had gotten a little bigger and

noticing the brand and they were like, hey, you should really look into EcoCert palm oil. Even what's called sustainably sourced palm oil has issues and you should really look into it. And so I did. And then I was like, oh, it's actually really interesting. And the easiest way to explain it is that it's still hard for people to trace diamonds, right? Diamonds, which are like one of the most expensive things that you can possibly get on this planet. And you still can't like perfectly trace where it came from. So if you can't trace perfectly where a diamond came from, how are we supposed to

believe or like have any sort of way of tracing where the palm oil comes from, right? It's so inexpensive. It's sourced from all these different countries. It's then put together and then sold.

And what I realized was that there was no way to get truly sustainably sourced palm oil. And I'm going to say that with a caveat because there's one brand that I actually really look up to, Dr. Bronner's, and they actually have their own palm oil farms. So they are there, they're on the ground, and they're making sure. I would love to be able to do that one day. We're too small for that. But so then the way that we were doing it is just fine. We're not going to support palm oil.

And so we reformulated, we got palm oil out of our, it was in our surfactant, which is our foaming agent. We used a different one and we've have used that ever since. And those are the types of things that I think when you create a brand and you create a product that is for a specific type of person, right? Someone who cares about the planet, just like me, then you're going to get people who are really well-researched on it, who will then give you feedback. And I'm always okay with being wrong if it's true and we can do something better.

And so that's what was one of those things that I was like, wow, I thought eco-certified palm oil was okay. Turns out it's not in alignment with our brand values. And so now it's time for us to explain that to our customers and reformulate. That makes total sense. What was customer reaction, you know, once you sort of explained it and took it out?

They were so happy. And I do believe that we're still the only palm oil-free tablet on the market. And I know that because it's so hard to do, dealing with that particular surfactant and dealing with all of the other things that go into a tablet. It is an incredibly challenging thing. And luckily, we're very close to our manufacturers. We've been working with them for years. And they were willing to take that on with us, even though it's a harder ingredient to work with. And not only did it become a differentiating factor for us on the market, but it's something that we believe is right. Beyond...

Reducing your consumption of goods in plastic packaging. What are some of the small steps we can all take to just make the way we live more ego-friendly? One of the first things that we say is to look at what you're doing on a daily basis and try to swap out those things.

whether it's your toothpaste, because we have a toothpaste company, but even if you could go meatless Monday. Or the great thing about sustainability and what we're up against is that it's a multifaceted problem. So whatever solution fits into your life is helpful. So, you know, if you're someone who you love to cook

and you want to make a change that way, you could substitute out maybe something that has a higher carbon footprint, like a beef, like beef, or something that has a higher plastic footprint, like fish, and instead use something that's maybe locally grown from a farmer's market of a vegetable. If you're someone who's really into self-care and personal care, then switching out the plastic items that you're using, and not just with our products, with anything that you can use, swapping out your hand soap to bar soap,

Those types of things that can help because there are so many issues. There's something that everyone can do that aligns with something that can make them feel good. Because I do think something that gets lost in this messaging is it can feel good to do good, right? It doesn't have to be

If you hate vegetables, you don't have to participate in Meatless Mondays. You can take public transit. There's so many other things that you can do to make a difference. I want people to be leave-inspired as opposed to feeling icky when it feels like you're just not doing enough. And taking public transit and using bar soap rather than liquid soap are both not super expensive options. But what would you say to people who basically say...

Going to a farmer's market and buying organic or buying things in glass bottles is obviously more expensive, right? Like, how do I live in an eco-friendly way without breaking the bank? What's helpful, too, is to understand that it's not just about taking the public transit. It's not just about going to the farmer's market. It's not just about using the barstook. It's the fact that when you do those things, it's not about your individual contribution. It's how it all adds up, right?

To zoom out big picture for a second, if you are making the choice to use public transit, you are making the choice to use public transit, that means more people are using public transit. That means more funding can go to public transit. That means public transit can get better over time.

And same with the using bar soap. It's not because I think people are like, who cares if I just throw out one more thing of plastic? Yeah. Yeah. But it's not just about that piece of plastic you're throwing out. It's the fact that when you bought bar soap, you then told the company you bought that from that bar soap is marketable. Make more bar soap.

And so if especially these big brands, right, they're trying to figure out what do customers want? We don't really know. And so what they're trying to they're trying to figure out, like where customer sentiment is going. And if you're choosing the bar soap version of a soap as opposed to the liquid soap, they're going to see that over time.

And those are the types of things. And then they're going to make more bar soap. And so I think like those are the things of the way to look at this. It's not just about your exact action right now. It's about collectively over time really seeing drastic shifts. And I think that it doesn't need to be expensive. It really doesn't. It's not necessarily about the exact thing that you're doing, but it's the fact that when you're doing it, it's almost like you're casting a vote for it. That's a really good way to think about it. Yeah. What's coming next for Byte?

Do you have any new product launches we should look out for? We have seasonal flavors coming out. So we have our Forever Flavors, which is our mint, mint charcoal and berry twist, which is great for kids. But we like to have a lot of fun and our customers love to be able to share it with friends and have something that they can talk about. So we also come out with new flavors. And so we have two new surprise flavors coming out for the holidays. Very exciting. Well, Lindsay, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us. Thanks, Yasmin. I really appreciate it.

Okay, we are back with Liz and it's time to wrap up the show with Keeping Tabs. This is where each of us shares a story, trend, or company that we are following right now. So Liz, since you're our guest, what are you keeping tabs on? Okay, so I'm super excited about how big secondhand clothing is becoming. I know it's kind of a weird thing to get excited about, but I mostly cover fashion and sustainability. And over the last 10 years, I've been

All kinds of brands have been talking about how like, oh yeah, we need to become more sustainable. We're going to create like better fabrics. We're going to get organic cotton. We're going to replace the plastic in garments with like recycled plastic, right? But the real problem in fashion is that we're producing too many clothes, right? So we're making a hundred billion articles of

clothing every year for 8 billion human beings on this planet. And that is like way too much, right? Yeah. One solution is for brands to start investing in platforms that will allow us to buy products secondhand because if they start making money from selling secondhand products, they can potentially stop making as many clothes and

every year while still maintaining their revenue. And so what's really cool is that like all these brands, you know, are I'm seeing are like beginning to do this. Diane von Furstenberg, for instance, now has a part of her website where you can buy and sell secondhand Diane von Furstenberg dresses. And then there are all these other brands that are doing it as well.

Patagonia, Eileen Fisher. My hope is that in a couple of years, it's going to be completely normal for us to buy secondhand clothing in great condition and use it for a long time. And that will allow brands to start manufacturing fewer clothes and that will save the planet.

That would be great. And I say this as somebody like I'm a secondhand shopper and I have a few favorite brands that do have secondhand tabs on their site like La Ligna, but very little gets posted on them, which is a problem. And I do feel sometimes like it's almost more of a marketing tool for these brands to be like, we're sustainable. And it's like, yo, no one's using this shit, though.

- Totally, I mean-- - Well, because so much clothes that people like, I mean, like we all shop at Fast Fashioned. - Yeah. - And I try not to a lot, but it's just, it's cheap and it's just like-- - Josh is she in addiction. - I'm a she in boy. - What?

No, I bought a lot of shirts for shit. I'm going to stop, I swear. But like H&M shirts, like I shop at H&M because you can buy a $10 shirt that will disintegrate off your body in three wears. Like this is the reality of the shirts that we have. They're here for a good time, not a long time. That's kind of what it is. Josh, what are you keeping tabs on? So I have another reality TV show suggested.

I don't know if you've heard about this new franchise on Bravo called The Real House Members of Federal Hill. What? Sorry, that's a bit of a misdirection. I'm following the Speaker of the House drama that has been straight out of a reality TV show. For anyone who hasn't been, who's been living under a rock, the Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, was ousted by his Republican cohorts, mainly Matt Gaetz-led Republicans.

right-wing psychopaths. A.K.A. Jimmy Neutron. A.K.A. Jimmy Neutron. That's true. He does have the hair of that. Anyways, terrible person Matt Gaetz led a revolt against terrible person Kevin McCarthy. And now there's no Speaker of the House at a time when a lot of shit needs to be done. And it was awful

All over, the two strikes for Kevin McCarthy was he didn't collapse the economy by not raising the debt ceiling, and he didn't collapse the economy by shutting down the government and cast a 45-day continuing resolution. So it's just the worst people. If there weren't such dire consequences, there would just be so much joy in watching the worst people in the world fight with each other and just being able to sit on the side and watch.

the drama with your popcorn. So you're keeping tabs with politics is what you're trying to say. I'm keeping tabs with politics. I am. If they were on TV, everybody would be like better looking at least. Everything's just a little bit wrong about a Republican male congressman. Like there's just like... Yeah. A lot of them have like the hallmarks of like a traditionally attractive person, but then there's just...

Something uncanny valley about it. I think that's accurate. It's just off. Yeah. Anyway. So basically you're saying that America would be more engaged in politics if they were better looking and had better stylists. No shit Liz. Exactly. Yeah. Okay.

Well, that's the solution. I think we've solved the climate crisis and we've also solved politics and both really are about fashion. And misogyny. So we're good. We're good. Next problem. That's all we need. Yaz, what are you keeping tabs on? So I have two. I'm going to begin with the first

one it's a daily mail headline and um i just wanted to read it i wanted to read it for the pun yellow stain kevin costner appears to have an unfortunate spill over lunch as he sports wet patch on trousers leaving western themed restaurant i will leave that there that's the reporting we need that's boots on the ground baby that's really service journalism at its finest what's your real keeping tab my real keeping tabs is um

Sam Bankman Freed's trial is ongoing. We have Stephanie Clifford. She's a novelist. She's a court reporter. She's amazing covering it for Fast Company. So I have been reading everything she posts and she'll post about everything from like his haircut to like the arguments made by the prosecution. So really something for everyone in there. I think the trial is fascinating. And yeah, I think you guys should go check it out on FastCompany.com. And I think we can end it

there. That's it for most innovative companies. Liz, thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. This was so much fun. And hopefully in the one year celebration, I will make it to your like top three favorite guests.

That's my hope. Yeah. Josh has like, you know when you had MySpace top friends and you'd like move them around every night based on who your best friends were? I'm just obsessed with Jeff Beer. I just... I mean, I'm obsessed with him too. I'm obsessed with him too. I'm number one fan in the Jeff Beer fan club.

I don't play favorites with our staff. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. I appreciate that too. Our show is produced by some other favorites, Avery, Avery miles and Blake Odom mix and sound designed by Nicholas Torres. And our executive producer is Josh Christensen. Remember again to subscribe, rate and review, and we'll see you next week.