Zoë Levin founder and CEO of Bim Bam Boo, a Minneapolis-based startup that makes bamboo toilet paper, is determined to "wipe away" staggering statistics around deforestation related to paper production.
Everyday 27,000 trees are flushed by way of paper toilet paper. Meanwhile, a 24-roll box of Bim Bam Boo toilet paper saves 32 pounds of trees through the use of rapidly renewable bamboo. (Bamboo matures much faster than trees used for conventional paper products.)
Bim Bam Boo is now expanding its product line beyond toilet paper into 500 Whole Foods Market stores nationwide. The company's environmentally-conscious personal products now include paper towels and regionally available facial tissue, which are all made without inks and fragrances, and whitened without chlorinated bleach.
In 2020, Bim Bam Boo's annual revenue grew over 900% to over $2.5 million as it expanded its retail presence to 850 stores nationwide, including Lidl a German-based grocer that's establishing a U.S. presence.
Since its founding in 2019, Bim Bam Boo has grown 100% organically, without raising money from outside investors.
Levin said any strategic partner joining the company at this stage would have to come to the party with more than money.
"I've said this to our team here at Bim Bam Boo 'We're not in the business of making other people rich. We're here to make ourselves rich.' " she said.
If Levin were to seek investors at this point, it would be based around building the company's own fulfillment center.
Currently, all of Bim Bam Boo's products in the Midwest market are shipped out of the company's Minneapolis headquarters. However, the team is currently testing a program that would bring everything in house, which Levin says would allow for a higher level of service and customizability for its customers.
This higher level of service is what differentiates Bim Bam Boo from its competitors, which sell directly to consumers through online marketplaces. In Levin's mind, this is a singular view of a marketplace that could eventually grow to encompass the janitorial market, as well.
Levin said Bim Bam Boo straddles both worlds by being a digitally native brand that has operational excellence in supply chain and brick and mortar distribution.
"When I sit down to develop a product, I sit down with both an incredible knowledge of our core consumer, the stresses of supply chain, and also, what it means to develop an omnichannel offering," Levin said.
Looking ahead, Levin's long-term goal is to sell Bim Bam Boo to a global company in order to expand the company's mission.
"I see a vision for pioneering the toilet paper company, or the paper company, of the climate generation, and that will require a bigger player to help scale this, beyond what I could imagine," Levin said.
