Before you continue reading this, do me a favor. Go to your bathroom and take a look at the toiletries you keep next to your shower.
Have you done that? Good. Now answer me this question: What shape was your soap bar?
I’m certainly no soap aficionado, but if I had to guess, I’d say it’s probably curved. Why?
Because just about every time we chat, Jimmy Gould emphasizes the prevalence of curved soap bars.
“When you think about the number of curved bars that are sold, I mean, it's huge,” he said. “It's hundreds of millions of bars.”
A new offering
As random as it might seem, Gould has a key reason for making this point. He’s the founder and principal of SoapStandle, which has a product — also called the SoapStandle — that serves as a handle for soap bars and eliminates the gooey, sludge-like mess typical of bar soap.
So far, his business has been successful. The SoapStandle is sold on Amazon — where its sales numbers have increased significantly over time — and in boutique stores. It’s buoyed by a deal with the subscription soap service Dr. Squatch, which has purchased hundreds of thousands of SoapStandles and rebranded them as the “Squatch Gripper.” In total, more than 850,000 of the products have been sold, and the one-millionth SoapStandle is set to be sold in 2023.
Still, the company has been somewhat limited in its reach, as the current model of the product works most effectively with flat soap bars, not curved ones. So, Gould has developed a version of the product that’s designed to work with curved bars, and it’s set to become available for sale by March 1.
A full product line
This could significantly increase the size of SoapStandle’s potential market, and it’s not the only new offering Gould has on the horizon. He has plans for an entire product line, and in addition to the original SoapStandle and Curved SoapStandle, the roster is poised to include a Stainless Steel SoapStandle, a SoapStandle ‘mini’ — for shampoo bars and cosmetic bars — a SoapStandle Soap Dish, a SoapStandle Travel Case, and a SoapStandle Shower Caddy. Like the curved SoapStandle, the stainless steel version, the mini version, and the soap dish are all expected to be released by the end of 2023, while the travel case and caddy are slated to be released in early 2024.
The soap dish, travel case, and shower caddy will all be designed to hold both soap and the SoapStandle; and having a full suite of offerings could do more than just increase the amount of options for customers. It could get SoapStandles into major retail chains — a place Gould has wanted to be for a long time.
“It's really a key to open the door,” he said.
A big retail presence
Since he started the company, Gould has been told that it would be difficult to get attention with only one product. And a Chicago-based retail consultant he’s working with has shared a similar sentiment, explaining that a full product line is his best chance of scoring a presence on the shelves of name-brand retailers.
“We have been able to sell a lot of just one SKU [stock keeping unit], which I think speaks to the fact that it is unique,” Gould said. “But I do realize that as far as getting a big retailer’s attention and capturing shelf space and all those kinds of retail issues go, that you're not going to do that with one SKU.”
With a fleet of products in the works, though, the chances of seeing SoapStandles on the shelves of nationally known chains are increasing. Gould’s goal is to have conversations with big retailers in the first half of the year, and deals lined up by the end of the year.
And completion of this goal could go a long way toward one of his over-arching objectives, which he’s mentioned in the past: to have SoapStandles all over the country in five years, and all over the world in 10. Already, the product has been sold coast to coast, and it’s been shipped to around eight locations overseas. But its penetration of the market could get much deeper.
“I'm not saying that we're going to be all over India and Russia, but I think it can be pretty widespread, and a lot that is just that soap is all over the world, used by everyone in the world,” Gould said. “And I think the mistake that could be easily made is thinking that this doesn't have legs that could travel pretty far."
