If you missed the last few emails telling our story, I can summarize it like this: in 2020 I switched from the cheap $1-$3 bars of soap from the biggest brands in the grocery store to natural soaps.
Sure, they cost more, but the ingredients are good for your skin and they smell great.
But at the time, all I knew was that I loved the soap.
I also had this nagging voice in my head that kept saying: wouldn’t it be cool to start a company for conservative men, just like me, who don’t believe any of the craziness that our government and the big corporations are pushing?
Like, an anti-Disney and an anti-Bud Lite.
I was kicking the idea around to start a company making and selling these soaps, but I was pretty busy at my day job and didn’t want to add to my plate.
But at some moment in mid-2022 (yes, 2 years after I started using natural soaps and hearing this pestering voice), I made the commitment to start RWN.
It started with a visit to a master soap maker.
This guy has been making cold-pressed natural soaps for 30 years. He is an American “Soap Sensei”.
He helped me with the formulas. He told me where I should buy the ingredients. He told me what I should avoid putting in the soaps, and which products would add benefit to the soaps.
For example, you can use oatmeal or sand as an exfoliant.
You can use olive oil inside the soap to nourish your skin and leave it feeling smooth.
I remember driving home from that first meeting feeling like the clouds had opened up and the heavens gave me what I needed to make this happen…
I was SO MUCH CLOSER to being able to start this company!
But, I was still wrestling with the commitments I had at my day job.
I was busy all the time, often even on the weekends. I was traveling a lot, and that left little time for anything else.
Then, an epiphany.
What if it could all be for fun?!
That changed my thinking. What an insane concept.
I thought to myself: what if, rather than setting huge goals and stressing about them all the time and feeling guilty about not achieving them, I would set small goals that I always knew I would hit and have fun all along the journey…
That was crazy!
It meant that instead of balancing my work with this new project, I could use this new project for fun in my free time (without the stress of high goals and massive demands).
Just like that, I WAS IN!
I quickly wrote down this goal: create a website and sell 1 bar of soap by December 31st, 2022.
SPOILER ALERT: we didn’t make it ☹️ (the first bar wasn’t sold until January of 2023)
But, that wouldn’t matter. The breakthrough had already given me insane momentum and energy to go forward.
I decided to:
- Make unique, masculine formulas that I personally loved and used
- Manufacture the soap
- Build a website
- Sell the soap…but how?
Ahh…Number 4.
How would other conservatives find our brand?
As I had already committed to doing this for fun, it was obvious our WHO were going to be people just like me.
Conservative Men. People that think society has lost its mind. Who can’t believe what’s happening in this country. Age? Doesn’t matter.
Just logical people with Traditional American Balues.
Big Soap, Big Grocery Store Brands, DEI, LGBTQ+++, loose immigration, printing money, woke corporations, men winning awards for Best Female this or that…NO THANKS!
I wanted to create a company that stood for something, that shared my values.
What I think are Traditional American Values.
I knew I wanted to stand for “good, natural ingredients” and “Made in the USA”.
Right Wing Naturals was born!
Just writing this story again makes me think I have to add this as a core value:
**DO IT FOR FUN!**
P.S. - In case I’m making this sound like it was easy…it took about 11 months to answer “how do we sell the soap?” and “how will people find us?”
...more on that next time.