“We learned early on: marketing is essential, but a great product backed by science is unstoppable.”
In this episode of The Unofficial Shopify Podcast, Brynn Snyder, co-founder of Slate Flosser, shares how she and her dentist husband tackled one of the most overlooked aspects of health—flossing. Together, they reimagined oral care with a product that could prevent gum disease, heart issues, and more.
But flossing is just the beginning. This episode dives into their journey through a $194K Kickstarter campaign, battling knockoffs on Amazon, and scaling a Shopify store with sustainability and innovation at its core.
Brynn reveals the challenges and triumphs of creating a physical product, why subscription models are key to recurring revenue, and how staying passionate can make or break your business.
Flossing might not seem revolutionary—until you hear this story.
Kurt Elster
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Brynn Snyder
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here today. Um as a product designer, I'm excited to talk about more about how that is and what it's like. And Making a product that people want and then having my husband help us design this, I mean, he's the brains behind it all. He thought meticulously, how do I get people to floss?
Kurt Elster
And so your husband is a dentist and you are a designer. What what flavor of designer?
Brynn Snyder
Okay, so I went to uh school to be a product designer. Okay, perfect. So that's the designer idea.
Kurt Elster
And what it your product the sl in the business is the the slate flosser, tell me what it is. What how is this different than you know tr just taking a shoelace and ramming it between my teeth like I do now?
Brynn Snyder
Okay, well, so what we learned is that everyone typically leaves the dental office with some type of floss, but for some reason they're not using it. So we are asking ourselves why. So we wanted to make our product easy to use and more effective to use because a lot of people use floss picks, which are easy, but they're not effective. Some of our patients would come in and they're like, I floss every day. And we're like, with what? And they're like, with my floss picks. And we're like, well, you're not stimulating your gums. So I don't know if you knew this, but 50% of Americans have gum disease.
Kurt Elster
I d actually so I'm uh I uh I I have a little bit of dental anxiety. I'm really bad about x-rays. I it's so embarrassing I gag. And so because of that, my solution is I am on top of my dental hygiene and I love a good gum massage with my flosser. This sound I've not used this product, but this sounds like the kind of thing I would appreciate. Right. I'm just like I'm do I got the the electric toothbrush, I d the the water pick, the floss. I am hardcore about this. And R Man, my dad had gum disease. He's like, Oh, you don't want this.
Brynn Snyder
Yes, you do not want gum disease. Uh your teeth can become wiggly, you get bad breath.
Kurt Elster
Like Can it also lead to heart disease?
Brynn Snyder
Yes, so gum disease leads to heart disease, dementia, Alzheimer's, you can also like So the crazy thing about the bacteria in your gums, it can go parts of your body that no other gym germs can go. So it can go to your brain within like sixty seconds. the germs are there and in your heart. And so if you needed heart surgery, you have to go to your uh dentist and get a letter that says, I do not have active gum disease right now.
Kurt Elster
And I you know what? I don't have active gum disease right now, but I hope to not have to have heart surgery in the near future. So if my current option for massaging my gums and, you know, proper hygiene is is string floss or those floss picks, which I loathe because I find them all over parking lots. Just if you start looking at the ground, you'll see these things. People just like throw 'em out car windows. It's awful.
Brynn Snyder
Well that was actually like a major push for us. We uh we hate that. And we're from Spokane, Washington, so we really care about the earth and our floss heads, seven of them are equivalent to um one floss pick. And so 52 of our flossheads is equivalent to 736 floss pigs.
Kurt Elster
So I understand the problem and it what we need to solve for. We have to make flossing effective friendlier, faster maybe. What inspired the idea for the slate flosser?
Brynn Snyder
My husband he was giving his patients the re reach access flosser. and still people were having issues with it. And one day he was flossing and he put it put his electric toothbrush and his reach access fosser together And he was like, There has to an electric flosser has to exist. So he went and he looked. And there was one that came out in nineteen ninety-nine and one that came out before that. We said, well why did they fail? And they were just pretty much glorified floss floss picks And what we wanted to do was actually stimulate the gums so that you could remove the bacteria under the gum line. Because hygienists are asking you to do what we call the C shape. So you're going to like wrap the tooth go under the gums, clean out the biofilm that's underneath the gums. And so our product, we like We're like, okay, we don't want if other people failed, we have to make ours better. So we actually designed what we call gum sweeps. They're little triangles on the side of our floss So you roll it into your mouth and you go side to side and it stimulates your gums and the sonic vibrations, just like your electric toothbrush does a way better job. Now your electric flosser is stimulating your gums and you get a tactile response. So instead of like when you string floss, you almost get like a negative tactile response When you use ours, you get a positive like my mouth feels clean.
Kurt Elster
So the pieces on the the the floss is suspended between like looks like two pieces of black rubber. Those also are part of massaging uh my gut. Like this bait it looks like it would fit in the space between my teeth.
Brynn Snyder
For anyone who's watching this Um, I'll try to explain it so the listeners can hear it too. But what you do is you roll it in and you go side, those little triangles go right where the gums and teeth Meat.
Kurt Elster
Man, that looks satisfying.
Brynn Snyder
Oh, it it seriously feels so good. It feels like you go to the hygienist every day. And then something that we also know is that the back tooth is the first tooth extracted in a mouth usually. Because it's not getting clean. So no one ever flosses this back tooth. Now with this, you're able to go here, grab both sides of the tooth, and pull up. Every time I do it, I'm like, there's no way I just brushed my teeth. How is there that much stuff? But then what we knew after designing that is once you've disrupted all the bacteria in your teeth and your gums, where does it go? It goes onto your tongue. And your tongue is like a towel, it has all these little hairs. So we designed back here, there's three rows, two rows to lift and rake the hairs of the tongue, and one to squeegee it off.
Kurt Elster
So I could hear it. Oh. Yeah, that's satisfying too. Hmm. We're discovering things about me that I'm like just really into having a clean mouth. I'm so excited. I'm gonna I'll send you one after the show. Oh my gosh, thank you. I would uh a hundred percent I'll use it. Um so Designing something like this, it it's complicated. One, I'm putting a power tool in my mouth. And then two, it it's doing more than just flossing. Like there's several unique innovations here. Talk to me about that that process and those challenges.
Brynn Snyder
Yes, we had no clue. We thought it would be so easy. Like electric toothbrushes exist, but what we learned is is Originally we thought we'd just put a floss head on an electric toothbrush, but what we learned is if the vibrations are not high enough, they do not stimulate the gums enough. And so a lot of people have their motors and their electric toothbrush down here. So we had to find the location of the motor to make the uh sonic vibrations effective. So they actually go and translate through the floss and our bristles and ribs. So that was a really big learning curve. Also we have older patients and we had to make sure that dexterity was really good for them. Um and we wanted we have little kids. I wanted my three year old to be able to learn this habit so that he flossed for his whole life. So had to be small enough to fit in a three-year-old's hand, big enough to hold be in a 70-year-old man's hand. Um And the neck needed so this neck of our product mimics dental tools that uh my husband uses so that it's the you can turn it, no matter how you turn it, it's going to go in the correct way.
Kurt Elster
Yeah, see you handle it. It's very clear it has like an intentionally ergonomic shape and design to it. It's not a simple product. Once you start looking at those details, how long did this thing take to develop?
Brynn Snyder
My husband started talking about it in 2018, but didn't like do anything about it. And then in 2019, he was like, I wanna do this. And I had just had a baby, and I was like I think that like don't do that right now. Um and he was like, no, this is gonna change the world. This is gonna change people's oral health. People are going to have a completely different relationship with their dentists because they're going to be preventative focused.
Kurt Elster
had great advice. He said, you as the product owner, brand owner, entrepreneur, need to be more excited about the product than your customer ever could be. And that's that's how you sell. And that's what I just heard. I mean, you you were like, hey, don't do this. And he was like, no, we will change things and lives and health for the better. That's what it takes. Yeah, and he was so passionate about it.
Brynn Snyder
And I Was a little hesitant at first, but I said if you can get Dennis and hygienist to back you, I will a hundred percent be excited about this. I worked at the dental office, so I knew how much people needed this tool. We had very educated patients that weren't flossing and had gum disease and we're like 60. And they didn't want their teeth to be extracted, but they didn't want a string floss. So we were like, okay, well, if you don't do string floss, in five years your teeth are gonna be gone. So The cool thing is is we gave them these and they by their next appointment their gum disease was under management, which is so cool because we saw patients nothing changed for 10 years. All of a sudden they got our product and now their gums are healthy. So very excited about that.
Kurt Elster
So was that did you do prototyping and user feedback in this journey? Like with Dental patients?
Brynn Snyder
We actually sent our product to five hundred hygienists before we did our Kickstarter. Oh wow. I said Like this is gonna suck five to ten years for sure of our life. If if we can't be backed by dental professionals, I don't want to do this. Um there's some other products that came out that have great marketing. Um that people in the dental industry just didn't back. And I didn't want to be one of those companies. So we sent it out, and I was like, if you can get 50% then we'll go to it. 95% of the hygienists said they'd recommend it to their patients, and 74% of them said it was better than any tool, better any tool on the market at flossing and stimulating the gums.
Kurt Elster
Did you get uh did you make design revisions based on their feedback? Did they provide you know early feedback as as dental professionals?
Brynn Snyder
Yeah, so my husband like I We love the hygienists that work at his office. They had to be very patient because they gave him feedback like every single day. So he To make our gum sweeps, he wanted to make sure that that everything was like perfect and it would go into everyone's embrasure areas perfectly, so he would actually shoot different types of um composite. into the tooth gap, like in here, and after he measured all the different peoples, he came up with the design. So um three hygienists were very inst instrumental in helping him with this. And then we got the feedback from the 500. You know, we've learned a lot and we've grown.
Kurt Elster
So for you have a background in product design. This is this process, yeah, I I think you went into it with with eyes open a little bit, and that's why you had You had some hurdles that you wanted to see this product get through before you continued with it. And I think that's smart. But for people who don't have that background, this is the product development portion for a physical product is really intimidating. It intimidates me. What advice would you have for entrepreneurs who are intimidated by the complexities of product development?
Brynn Snyder
So many things. So One is ask people who are not your friends and family because they're going to give you completely different feedback than someone that's a stranger. They don't want to hurt your feelings. You need to make sure it The product is something people want. So I would say like don't start something because it helps you. If you're a one-case person, it's not gonna be that helpful. Um We hired engineers to help us with the internal components because a product designer usually works on like the outside of things and not on the internal components.
Kurt Elster
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Brynn Snyder
Yeah, so that was a really good thing to ask. So we decided to do a Kickstarter. So we did the hygienist proof. We got that proof. Then we decided, okay, now we're going to do their Kickstarter. And we were able to raise $194,000, so almost $200,000 with our Kickstarter. And that showed me, okay, people are interested. In 30 days we were able to do $200,000.
Kurt Elster
When did you run the Kickstarter? 2021?
Brynn Snyder
Yeah, so October of 2021 we did the Kickstarter and I This is, you know, how naive I was. Um, I thought we'll have our product in March because we already have the molds made and we'll just go to the races. Everyone will get their product fast. This will be great.
Kurt Elster
But how long when they actually get it?
Brynn Snyder
They got it in November of twenty twenty-two.
Kurt Elster
Okay, so just under about a year, just under a year. Yeah. I don't think that's un I th that's a pretty common story for Kickstarters. I mean y you were successful, you got it funded, and you delivered the product. That is difficult.
Brynn Snyder
Well, I think it was so frustrating for me because I was I wanted to get it to people on time. I really uh if I set a goal or a budget or whatever, I really want to hit it. And so I felt a lot of internal turmoil not delivering it in March. Um but people were patient and kind mostly. Like there's ten people on Kickstarter who I'll never forget their names and they were very nice.
Kurt Elster
The Kickstarter campaign was a success. Your goal was ten thousand dollars and you hit almost two hundred thousand. with uh 2600 backers. I found found the listing. It's got a lovely video that goes with it, which is critical. What but you know running a Kickstarter is, we've learned, could be a full-time job. What was promo for that like?
Brynn Snyder
Well, we did spend a lot of money on ads. We spent I think forty-five thousand dollars on ads. So it was more than we had budgeted, but you know, we didn't expect it to grow so much. So there's lots of things. I I learned I needed to harness the ad people more. I learned I sh needed to have marked up the price. I I didn't have enough margin at that time, um, on my product. And so, you know, there's things you learn that you just don't realize like I had offered it to the whole world. I shouldn't have, I should have only offered it to the United States because shipping internationally, I had put like, you have to pay like I don't know, fifteen dollars for international shipping. Well, pretty much anyone I shipped to internationally I lost money on because the shipping was more than that.
Kurt Elster
Yeah, the margins weren't there. Well, cause the early bird special for on the Kickstarter, it was fifty-nine dollars with free shipping. Yeah. Versus today, what does this product cost?
Brynn Snyder
So our battery-powered one was $79. 99. So after doing Kickstarter, we learned it had to be $79. 99 in order to make a profit. And then we learned Our now our product is 119 in unless you subscribe. And if you subscribe to our flossheads, then it's only ninety-nine.
Kurt Elster
And that is the other nice part about this business is it has uh you have the upfront cost of the device, but then this is a subscription component too, right? Printers you want to sell the ink, razors we want to sell the blades. here we want to sell um the the floss cartridge that goes into it. Talk to me about that.
Brynn Snyder
Yeah. So I think the secret sauce, the magic of our product is actually our floss heads. If you were to say like, what's the difference between you and the other knockoffs that are on Amazon? They don't have our floss head. Um it's actually funny, at a dental trade show, someone came up to me and I was like, hey, do you know about our slake floss? Or you know, pitching them and they're like, actually I tried to knock off your product and it was really hard and I couldn't do the head. And I was like, well, at least you're honest. Um, so the floss heads are great because twenty of them last you four months. So as a consumer, the cost really isn't that high. It's only four dollars a month to use our product. Which if you were using string floss regularly, it's the same cost. So really the only the initial investment is in the flosser, and then our floss heads are comparable to the cost of floss. So Each person needs between two to four packages a year, depending on how tight their teeth are. If you have really tight teeth, then you're gonna break the floss more quickly than others. But because of that, I've learned on slow months, it's very, very nice to have a subscription because I know I can always be Guaranteed a certain amount of money based off subscriptions.
Kurt Elster
Uh, that monthly recurring revenue, nothing sweeter
Brynn Snyder
Yeah, I can see why, you know, uh tech companies really like that, but for us as a consumer product, it's it's very nice to have the subscription.
Kurt Elster
So After the Kickstarter, you know, you have the Kickstarter, but you discover quickly, like, hey, this isn't necessarily profitable the way we priced it, and you can't continue sales through a Kickstarter once it's over. Where do you go from there?
Brynn Snyder
Yeah, so we jumped onto Shopify and I love Shopify. I've learned so many things about Shopify, but and if you're an e-commerce company selling a can consumer product, you should be using Shopify.
Kurt Elster
I'm happy to hear it, but I'm a little biased. Yes. So you're on Shopify. You're also on Amazon as well, right?
Brynn Snyder
Yes. We didn't do Amazon right away. We were very nervous about knockoffs. And now I've learned that is a real thing. So we got on Amazon on sep September of twenty twenty-three. And by January I think we had knockoffs.
Kurt Elster
Oh jeez.
Brynn Snyder
So um But the great thing is, is I know if someone bought theirs and ours, they would be able to see the difference and quality of our product. And no company has our gum sweeps, which is the secret sauce of our product.
Kurt Elster
So you're if you did it again, would you list on Amazon? A hundred percent. Hmm. Even with the knockoffs.
Brynn Snyder
Yes. The one thing that was really hard one year later, the next September, so just a few months ago, somehow we got shut down on Amazon for five days and it made us go from number one to number two. And uh we're spending our time right now hoping that we'll get back to being number one.
Kurt Elster
But in your category.
Brynn Snyder
Yeah, in our category. It's just so f frustrating that someone can report you for something that you aren't. They they reported us as a personal vibration device.
Kurt Elster
I mean it's very clearly not a sexual wellness device. It is very obviously for dental hygiene. But the pro it you that story's not unique. I've heard so many people tell me like, oh yeah, you get fraudulent claims made against your listing. And it gets taken down. And they're like, oh, you gotta convince them otherwise.
Brynn Snyder
So I feel like to bet on yourself, Shopify is a way better way to go. But people are looking for my product on Amazon. So I do feel like we we need to exist in both. Um, there are things that I really don't like about Amazon.
Kurt Elster
But it becomes, you know, at some point it it starts to feel like, well, this is a necessary evil.
Brynn Snyder
Right. I do feel like it is a necessary evil. Um before we had any competitors, it was super fun to be on Amazon. And now we have competitors. But I stand behind, I believe our product is the best product on the market. And Consumers will figure that out.
Kurt Elster
So Do you have issues with um returns fraud? Um I don't know what that means, so I'm guessing no. Okay, good. Good. For Shopify, for like your your post-Kickstarter life, what has been some reliable customer acquisition channels? So once you got the product going and you've got that initial audience, then the hard part is all right, how do we keep filling the top of the funnel?
Brynn Snyder
Yeah, so we uh do meta and Google ads and we also do email SMS and then we go to dental trade shows so dentists know so they can recommend it to their patients. And so That's kind of how our traffic is. And then we have a PR team that we try to reach out. So last year we were we were able to be on how I built this, which was so exciting and so fun. And then we also were in some magazines like men's health, we won the grooming awards and Allure, Well and Good. Uh Goop reached out to us and we got picked to be in their men's um GIF guide. So that was really cool.
Kurt Elster
But you had a a PR firm.
Brynn Snyder
Yes. So we did have a PR firm, but I would say 75% of the organic traffic was actually just like uh outreach from those companies. So like Goop reached out to us. We didn't reach out to them. How I built this, we we did, we applied ourselves, but our PR firm didn't apply. Like we had it. So in the last few months we we decided not to have a PR firm and to do all of our PR in-house. We'll let you know in a few months if that was a good decision or not.
Kurt Elster
Yeah, I think with any agency, you know, PR teams are are agencies, it it's about finding the right fit. You know, I I've heard had clients who are like, oh yeah, PR, you know, I just flushed 10 grand a month down the toilet. And others who are like, PR is so successful, we have hired another one, now we have two PR firms. And so I think, you know, it depends on um, you know, just just who you get teamed up with. I've I've heard in I bring it up because PR is like a strategy seems to be polarizing, and I don't think it should be, but I'm guessing it's just from some folks who had some bad experiences. The but it's also, you know, a thing you absolutely could do internally. And you know, a lot of it it's just relationship building. There's not it's a soft skill, it's not like learning to code. Uh is it you've had that experience. You went from hiring to doing it internally. Um has that been what's your experience been?
Brynn Snyder
Well, I've learned that no one is as passionate about this product as I am or Dr. Schneider is. And so it's hard it was hard for me to feel like the PR firm was as passionate as I am. Um and my team is very passionate about it too. And so I can see the benefits of a PR firm I wanna know. It's hard to see ROI, whereas like Meta and Google, you know exactly how much money you made by putting that in. So yeah, you're right.
Kurt Elster
There's no it it's a lot tougher to track return on investment with PR, um other than like guesses as to earned media. So You are excited about that product, about this product, but initially you were skeptical, right? You didn't necessarily want the extra workload in your life. What's the moment when you said, man, this is gonna succe this will succeed?
Brynn Snyder
Uh as soon as the hygienist backed it, I knew that it was going to be successful because it was so much easier for me to floss. I have five children, they were all flossing. I was like, okay. Five kids are flossing, I'm flossing, hygienists love it. This is just gonna work. But I I knew I had to have marketing behind it. I was like, you can have a great product. Bad and no marketing and it's not gonna do well. Or you can have great marketing and the product will do good for a while, but then it might not succeed. Good marketing is hard
Kurt Elster
With that marketing, the your Shopify store, slateflosser. com, it leans educational. It does a really good job of trying to explain the product, like the benefit. how it works, social proof, the hope because you is it you sell one product plus the a subscription. So the homepage really is like a long form landing page. It's a a sales page. It's really good. Tell me about it. What went into it?
Brynn Snyder
Yeah, so we actually like go back and forth because it's very educational and we're wondering if it's like too scientific. But that was just, you know, like last week as we were brainstorming, we're like, do people care that our company has done us backed? Do people care about the science? So we're still um I believe at this point, yes. That's why we've done it like this for a whole two years. But what we've seen is As we educate people, it gives them the ability to take charge of their oral health. And that's what we want as a company. our mission is to educate so people know like why they need to floss. We all know we need to floss, but why are we doing this task? Well, it's gonna help you not have dementia. It's gonna help you not have heart disease. It's gonna help you if you're diabetic, it's gonna help you with your lungs, COPD, your eyes, inflammation, like gut health. It's it's so intertwined with your whole body.
Kurt Elster
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Brynn Snyder
Yes, we are working on doing different A B testing. Um we've also learned like What I I am not my customer. I learned.
Kurt Elster
We yeah, we all make that mistake. We learn the hard way. Yeah.
Brynn Snyder
So I we're excited. We're doing a lot more A B testing. I felt like last year we were growing really fast. And because of it, it almost felt like we were drowning. Like every day we're just trying to make sure that we could do the next thing. And this year we're trying to make more strategic choices. Do more A-B testing and slow down a little bit to hopefully help us grow more.
Kurt Elster
It sounds like there were points where it was the success was overwhelming, you know, but good problem to have, but stressful. Tell me about that. How so? What what were the what were the issues?
Brynn Snyder
So cash flow and supply chain. You don't really think about those when you're when you aren't in this. It's like our product, we have a MLQ of Fifteen, so that's five hundred thousand dollars. So I have to have five hundred thousand dollars every time I put an MLQ in. And if I don't have the five hundred thousand, you know, like How am I it's just like cash it's it's cash flow because we grew so much last year I was having to air freight product, which is costs more money than putting it on a boat, but I significantly I didn't want to be out of stock. And so I made the decision to to spend more on shipping. So I think that the and until February I was a one-person team with contractors. I didn't have any help. And then I was able to get an awesome teammate Caroline Scheibel and she helped us. And then in September we were both like, if we don't get more help, we're gonna die. So she hired one person to help her. I heard hired one person to help me. And And and it's just been a really good learning curve. I also read the book Um Who Not How And that really changed like who I'm hiring really does matter. Because sometimes I'm annoyed that I'm hiring agencies. But they know how to do stuff.
Kurt Elster
And what are the tell me about who not how.
Brynn Snyder
What was the what was your takeaway? If m I want my company to grow Who I hire is more important than the process. If I hire the right people, they're going to be able to execute the right things. And so when I read this book, I just was like, okay, are the teammates I have the right people? Are they going to help us get us where we need to go? Or Like, okay, Caroline and I don't know a lot about marketing. We know a lot about flossing. We we know a lot about like Maybe a million dollar company, but we want to be a $50 million company. So how do we market like that? And so then we're like, okay, do we need to hire a CMO? it just it just changed my perspective a lot. Um and made me be like, okay, I need the agencies are worth it because they know their craft so well.
Kurt Elster
Certainly starting and scaling it is full of ups and downs and you've not been without your challenges. How have you stayed motivated through this process when things get tough?
Brynn Snyder
Well, I love I love running a business. It's super fun to me. So Really for me when I get overwhelmed, it's because I'm doing too many things and I don't have enough time. So what I've learned is I need to hire more people. As long as I can hire more people and not feel like a failure as a mom, because having five kids is a lot of time too. Um But it's hard to hire people. I hire and unfortunately fire a lot because 50% of hires, I heard a stat that 50% of hires are are bad. So I think for me I wish I thought I had good people detection skills, but um So I think it as a as a startup person, I would tell you like if you hire someone and they're not working out, it's okay to let them go.
Kurt Elster
That well, I think that's good advice. What's one other piece of advice you would give entrepreneurs starting out or facing their own challenges?
Brynn Snyder
So for me, I care a ton about finance. I'm not willing to do this for free, and I want it to be profitable. So for me, get your numbers right.
Kurt Elster
What do we what's the you know like do we know margin contribution when we say our numbers right? Where are people getting it wrong? I mean for you it sounds like you you need to be able to do inventory forecasting and really know your cash flow.
Brynn Snyder
Yeah, so we have a 16-week projection like really ironed in and then we have a year projection and three-year projection and a five-year projection just so that we can guess like but what I've learned is all projections are just ideas. But having the ideas at least give us the ability to create a plan. I I feel like when my numbers are right, I feel much more confident in my decisions. So we have budgets for all the different things that we're doing, and we try to make sure we're always in those budgets.
Kurt Elster
Yeah, currently it it's a single product business with a subscription. How do you look at Growth, you know, scaling and expansion. Is it considering new products or just figuring out, all right, how do we expand our our current market?
Brynn Snyder
Yeah, so we did a few things. Last year we did like different colors, so we have more colored floss heads now. We're also working on um other ways to innovate our floss head and then we are wanting to come out with a a travel case and different uh a kid or travel flosser. So We're we're going to expand. We're trying to maybe do like one to two new products a year over the next few years.
Kurt Elster
And yeah, I want to go back to the knockoff problem. Cause you started with you're really the only one who built a product like this. And then knockoffs that do not achieve the same thing, but that's not immediately obvious to someone shopping on Amazon. How do you I understand what sets you apart? How do you communicate that?
Brynn Snyder
We don't know the answer to that, but we're trying. So what we've learned is like on Amazon, it's like How is your product looking? Does it look like it was designed by Americans? So, like in our listing, we talk about recyclability. We show a picture of Dr. Schneider. We um Try to educate people through through our listing pictures.
Kurt Elster
You know, and I f I think that is one of the things that you know people experienced on Amazon figure out that it's people who are pure Shopify sellers don't necessarily notice. You can learn a lot from those Amazon listings and apply it to Shopify product pages, including the Amazon listings often pack a lot of info into the photos. that they put in their their product media. It's a you know, there's a s you could tell a story with product media. I think that is a a clever way to differentiate. Looking back, if you could start over, what's one thing you do differently on a a second time around?
Brynn Snyder
Uh I probably would have jumped on the bandwagon sooner with my husband because What kinda happened is like he ran it and then he was overwhelmed and so I took it over. It would have been nicer if I would have started sooner so I didn't have I it it was like a six month learning curve. Uh I think that would have helped the company a lot. I was like I I also probably would have hired Caroline sooner, but I didn't know she existed and I was stressed out, but I would have uh had more help sooner.
Kurt Elster
The for sure. I mean it's easy hindsight's 2020. And so it's easy to go like, man, I when you make good decisions, it's so easy to go like, well why didn't I do that sooner? It's like, well, cause There was you didn't know it was gonna be successful. There was risk there. But it oftentimes your instinct is is the right one and you just gotta trust it, I think is what I'm hearing. Um if you were have to have gone back and and jumped on six months sooner and and hired sooner, what advice would you give your past self?
Brynn Snyder
I think just believe in yourself. If you know your product is good, just be passionate and excited and and go for it. I put in a lot of work. You know how people usually ask like, is this luck or is it hard work? Is it definitely a lot of hard the harder you work, the luckier you get. Ah, yes, I love the the concept of a luck sale.
Kurt Elster
Luck is luck and opportunity is a thing you can create yourself, create for yourself. But you can't do nothing and expect things to happen for you. That's been been my my approach in, you know, life and and entrepreneurship. Um man, I I want one of these. Where can I go to get a slate flosser?
Brynn Snyder
Well, I love it when you get it from our website, so slateflosser. com. or Amazon. If you get it from Amazon, I'd love if you'd give us a review. That makes a huge difference for us. But those are the two places right now or tell your dentist about it because dentists around the country do sell it in their office.
Kurt Elster
You know, I actually did as we were doing this interview, I was like, I'm I'm a hundred percent asking my hygienist if they're familiar with the slate philosopher the next time I'm in there.
Brynn Snyder
Yeah, we have a dental professional program, so if any dentists or hygienists want to try it, they just need to contact us and we have a special discount for them.
Kurt Elster
Oh, very good. Yeah. You know what? I'm bringing it up. I'm gonna try it. I'm gonna use it. And when they cannot believe how How wonderfully clean my mouth is. Give all credit to this late philosopher.
Brynn Snyder
Yeah, it's been fun. We get we notice we get reviews usually six months after someone buys the product because they actually go to their dentist appointment and their hygienist says like What are you doing differently? Your mouth looks so good.
Kurt Elster
Always thrilling to impress the dentist or hygienist. So, but uh Britton Snyder, Slate Flosser, thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me.
Brynn Snyder
I really appreciate it. And I do love Shopify.
Kurt Elster
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