This is the full transcript for Episode #234 of the Wild Business Growth Podcast featuring Eli Packouz – Floss Perfecter, Co-Founder of Instafloss. You can listen to the interview and learn more here. Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.
Eli Packouz 0:00
If you don’t write down the 99 crappy ones, you’re never gonna get to the good one.
Max Branstetter 0:18
Instahello! Welcome back to the Wild Business Growth Podcast. This is your place to hear from a new entrepreneur every single Wednesday morning, who’s turning Wild ideas into Wild growth. I’m your host, Max Branstetter, Founder and Podcast Producer at MaxPodcasting, bodcasting, and you can email me at to save time with your high-quality podcast. This is episode 12345678. And today’s guest is Eli Packouz. Eli is the Co-Founder and CEO of Instafloss, which is exactly what it sounds like. It allows you to floss your teeth in 10 seconds using really really cool water jets and in this episode, we talk the crazy story of coming up with Instafloss, figuring out all the kinks, solving all those pain points, turning into an actual product, the testing and experimenting part of it which does get a bit graphic in the middle of the episode but don’t worry, I will chime in and give you a heads up so you can skip ahead if you want to. And a little bit of the history of flossing, the dance and the the act of it. It is Eli P. Enjoyyyyyy the shooooooow!
Aaaaaalrightyyyyy we are here with Eli Packouz, the Co-Founder and CEO of Instafloss. Super duper cool company, Instaflossy company if I were to create an adjective that is coming out with a really, really cool launch that you know, it sounds cliche, but I think it could literally, you know, change the game change the way that you floss. Eli, thanks so much for joining, how’re you doing today?
Eli Packouz 2:07
I’m doing great.
Max Branstetter 2:08
Thank you for having me. Of course, of course. Before I started prepping for this interview, I was gonna make a joke about you being an Eli and my wife, Dana’s favorite football player of all time being Eli Manning. And I’m glad I checked the pronunciation of your name because I’m sure she likes Ellie Manning, but probably a little bit different. So thanks for confirming that. But we’re big fans of you nonetheless.
Eli Packouz 2:32
We’re the same on paper.
Max Branstetter 2:34
Exactly, exactly. We’re gonna dive into the Instafloss story. But before that, you have a pretty cool background in the music world or music entrepreneurship world. So your company before Insta floss was singular sound, so shout out alliteration there, superb. But it kind of started as a way to revolutionize the drum machine. You know, there’s some music, new sort of music gear there. Where did this interest in starting, or inventing stuff in the music space first strike you.
Eli Packouz 3:07
So I co founded Singular Sound with my brother, my brother’s a musician. And he was having the issue of not being able to find any drummers to play with. Statistically, drummer drums are a lesser played instrument to note No parent wants their kid to play the drums and no neighbors want your kid to play the drums. So it’s very hard to find drummers. And if you find drummers, they have to lug around all their equipment. So even if you have friends who are drums, they can’t necessarily easily come to your band practice. So it is a known problem for instrumentalists of all sorts besides drummers. So he wanted to get a drum machine and none of them there were super complicated, first of all, and second of all, even if you figured out how to use them, you couldn’t improvise with them while playing guitar or whatever instrument you’re playing. So you’d have to go, you’d have to create a B, you’d have to it’s like, you could find a YouTube video and click play. And that’s it, then you’re stuck with it, he can’t make anything up. So he actually had the concept initially, I decided to join I was like, we need to go, we need to make this not just for you, we need to make this for everyone. Making products for as many people as possible. So what eventually led me out of the music tech business, and into something that is a little bit more universal, such as flossing, because you know, I really want to design products that are going to be used for as many people as possible. So eventually, eventually, I did get out of that business. Well, I’m not out of the business. I’m no longer operating day to day I’m still like on the board. But it’s been 10 years we came out with eight products at singular sound, all of which were blockbuster hits, and we started with the hands free improved revisable drum machine called the beat buddy. But then we moved on to a lot of other different products. Super cool gear, shout out to singular sound. Even though that’s not what this is about. But if you’re a musician, it’s Definitely some stuff that I think is super cool that I’m really proud of.
Max Branstetter 5:03
And that struck a chord with the drums being a tough instrument. So I’m someone who played drums growing up, and I have some seriousness Soulja towards it and like I, I would love to have a drum set, like right now, but an apartment building is just not feasible. I got lucky because my parents were super supportive with it, and like they, you know, encouraged me is like drama as much as I want. But I know in most cases, I would say the average person can get annoyed pretty quickly. If like someone nearby you or like your neighbor, or somebody is drumming like crazy, because they’re not the quietest instrument in the world. So I see, I see where the inspiration came from, what would you say is the biggest lesson just in terms of entrepreneurship that you learned from your, your Singular Sound journey?
Eli Packouz 5:49
One thing that’s super important is there’s a lot of things you don’t know. And you have to supplement yourself with people who know what you don’t know, taking from the singular sound journey, that’s when I went into into floss. You know, I had a lot of experience, designing products and working with engineers and getting them to be manufactured, etc. But you know, I didn’t have experience in dental science, I didn’t have experience as a dentist, and so on. And I didn’t have experience in fluid mechanics engineering, which is what was required for the institute laws. So that’s why from the beginning, I partnered with Dr. Ralf Raud for the fluid mechanics, engineering and Dr. Ana Mascarenhas from the ADA Council of science on the scientific testing, because these were domains I really needed to supplement. It’s not just about partnering with people, right? I mean, the biggest mistake I see people make in general, is assuming that you know, something, and that’s the greatest way to have a downfall. So, for example, when I was hiring marketing people for seeing the look sound, you know, asking them questions, and everyone give confident answers, the person who I ended up hiring and who performed way better than anyone I’ve ever hired before. Since I asked him a question. I was like, oh, you know, what would be the answer here? And he said, You know, I don’t know. I really don’t know. But this is how I would design an experiment to try to find out. And I was like, This guy’s actually thinking about it. Because none of us have answers about anything inherently, you know, we could just have, we have questions, and we have ways to try to seek the answers. There’s this great quote, I forget who said it, but doubt the people who say they found the truth, but believe people who say they’re seeking the truth,
Max Branstetter 7:29
I think we’re gonna credit that to le paqos. Because you said it now. So it’s gonna, it’s confirmed.
Eli Packouz 7:38
Now the ability to quote was a civil substitute for wit, which is another quote from someone I can’t remember.
Max Branstetter 7:45
Well, as a wise man once said, No, I’m just kidding. I’m actually terrible at memorizing quotes. So I can I can relate to the not remembering the person, but I can’t even spit the actual quote out. So, so good for you. So let’s install floss our way to Insta floss, if that, you know, can invent a new form of segue there. But let’s get to the Instafloss story. And when I came across your product, you know, my mind was blown pretty instantly, just because flossing is one of those things that has been around forever. There’s pain points that everybody can relate to, but it’s just
Eli Packouz 8:18
1.8 million years. I just want to throw out sorry to interject. But I just want to throw that out that like 1.8 million years is the oldest evidence we have a flossing could be older. But the oldest evidence we have is 1.8. We’ve we’ve discovered a teeth with particular grooves on them that experts on the topic assessed would only come from philosophy.
Max Branstetter 8:39
What sort of material do the experts think that they’re using back then?
Eli Packouz 8:44
So there’s a so you can use a leaves, you could use a very thin twine. So if you really peel apart twigs, you can essentially create a rope or very little rope a string. What is a rope but a bunch of string. And so essentially string floss not nylon, but like a natural hemp rope.
Max Branstetter 9:07
There you go. So I knew flossing has been around for a while I was probably 1.7 million years off. But nevertheless, it’s been something that’s been around for a while. And I would say flossing, besides that, you know, like viral floss dance that was popular a few years ago, has very little to do with the music industry. So what is it that grabbed your attention to this flossing space or flossing problem and made you start a business there?
Eli Packouz 9:36
I mean, I’ve been designing a lot of products and even in the music industry. There were hardware products. There were software products there were hybrids of the two you know, hardware that interacts with software. Just because everything was in the the music, tech industry doesn’t mean that they were all the same, the same kind of product. So I really started viewing myself as a product designer and creator. And I have a journal where every time I think of a problem and a potential device that can solve it, I read it down. And I take notes on how hard I think it would be to create as well as what the how many people would actually want the product. So the demand, you can say, and when I had the idea for instant loss, or at least the first conceptions, I knew that this was something that not only was possible to create, but that would be orders of magnitude bigger than anything in the music tech industry. You know, like 10% of people in the United States play an instrument 10% of those people actually regularly play their instrument and 10% of those buying gear for their instrument, we’re talking about a fraction of a fraction. Whereas everybody, and when I say everybody, I mean it at a scientific term, which is a 95% confidence, just cut off the tail end of the bell curve. I know some parents out there gonna be like, well, not everybody. Okay? Other than the tail end of the bell curve, everybody has t. And everybody ought to floss. But nobody wants to 70% of Americans regularly skip flossing. And the reason they give is because it takes too long. So I knew if you can design something that could floss your teeth for you and do it really, really quick. 10 seconds, I would end up quick ended up being everybody would floss. And it’s important that we get them to floss. So I knew that there was this huge potential. And I was like, I have no choice but to go for it.
Max Branstetter 11:40
So you’ve identified pain points and pain points and an enormous market. Lots of teef out there lots of gums out there. I think I just said teef, but I’m going to keep it. In terms of R&D and like product development, there’s a whole process there with any product, but for you was how much disruption there is with your product? Can you take us through some of the highlights of this? What I know is a multi-year R&D process.
Eli Packouz 12:07
It five years of R&D, by the way, way longer than I ever thought it was going to take had I known it was going to take that long. I don’t know how I would have ever begun that journey.
Max Branstetter 12:17
You could say 1.8 million and 5 years, if you want to, you know, add on the history to
Eli Packouz 12:22
Well, I mean, you know, it’d be pretty difficult to create the device without certain elements that you know, came from certain like supernovas. So I mean, it’s a long time coming, you know, it’s a long time coming. But in particular, where we go from what was available to everybody as a five years ago, and the Instafloss today. The first conception was, well, how are you going to floss everybody’s teeth, obviously, the first thing I thought of was string. But I started doing research into it. And I discovered and I’ve read, every single study that has published in the last 50 years on this water is actually well, highly pulsating high pressure water is actually more effective at removing plaque, reducing gingivitis, reducing bleeding, reducing periodontal pockets, etc, then strings. And the reason for that is that water molecules are smaller than string molecules. So if you get deeper underneath the gums, and only gonna get deeper underneath the gums, but it can actually clean underneath the gums 360 degrees around each tooth. So string you can get in between teeth, but you can’t really get the underneath the gums up front and back, it’s really difficult. So with water, flossing, you can clean 360 deeper, better. The issue with current water flossing devices, and they’ve been on the market since the 60s is that they take even longer than string to do correctly. So you take the number one complaint about flossing, and you make it even worse. And that’s the water flossing market. And they still sell $1.2 billion worth of these devices every year. Because while they make the number one complaint worse, they make the number two and number three complaint better than number two complaint is that flossing hurts. water flossing is adjustable so you can solve the pain issue. And flossing is hard to do correctly. What flossing is easier to do correctly, it’s not easy to do correctly, because you have to have it at 90 degrees to the gum line to get the best results. So you see some people that don’t necessarily get the results that you get in a laboratory as you do in in real life. That’s efficacy versus effectiveness. If efficacy is what you see under perfect conditions, effectiveness is what you see in real life. So for example, flossing is super efficacious. But if you do it zero times because you’re lazy or because it hurts, it’s 0% effective. So something 100% efficacious, done zero times 0% effective. And that’s part of the problem that we’re solving. So I knew that water was the way to go, but that’s the first thing you have to have what’s the medium right so so the first aha It is like, Okay, we have to use water because we can simultaneous, we solve all three of the top complaints about flossing takes too long that it hurts. And that is difficult to do correctly. So the first conception I had was a mouth guard. And I realized that there was eventually after trying to prototype this, I realized that there were issues with a mouth guard, not only will you have to create custom mouth guards for people, which makes it expensive, and then you’re solving it for fewer people, but you’d only be able to get in between the teeth. And one of the advantages of water flossing is that cleans the full 360 degrees around each tooth. So you’d make it more expensive for a worse floss. And that’s not really what we’re trying to accomplish here, we’re trying to get the best floss as quickly as possible for the mass market. So eventually, I realized that what you want is just a cross section of the tooth. So the idea was an eight shake device, a top view and a bottom up around a rotating inlet. And it has six jets per tooth that rotates from one side of your mouth to the other. And this way, we can mass manufacture it with a very small device, and it can clean at the correct 90 degree angle 360 degrees around every tooth within 10 seconds.
Max Branstetter 16:12
I am so glad that you didn’t go the mouthguard route. Because I have just like PTSD from like anybody who played sports in high school who got like a custom mouthguard crafted or like, anybody that’s had, you know, like a mold for retainers or anything like that, like just hearing the turnout card like obviously, concussion standpoint, like health standpoint is extremely important. But the actual act of molding it is like pretty painful. So very glad you went with a different route. It seems like pretty early on, you discovered that, yeah, people aren’t gonna like this. In terms of the actual design of it, how would you say like, once you kind of figured out that H shape and like the ability to, you know, 360 Cover everything with the water pulsating water? How long did it take to like refine the Insta floss product to what it is today?
Eli Packouz 17:04
So yeah, so that sort of tinkering around was probably about a year’s worth, you know, because I really thought the mouthguard was going to be the solution, but ended up being more expensive for a worse mouthguards are terrible. And it gives some people PTSD. So just some people, some people, this is important, the very first thing that I did, once I had the ancient conception was talk to my patent attorney, and do a patent search, make sure that it was patentable and file immediately. You don’t want to do what is essentially free work for big corporations. You know, like if it’s not patentable, and you’ve put in all this time and effort, you’re essentially just the R&D team for like, some company I don’t I guess I probably shouldn’t mention names, just come in later, and use the piggyback.
Max Branstetter 17:55
Hey, just a quick TRIGGER WARNING here. This is what I alluded to in the intro. These next 4, 4.5 minutes go into some pretty graphic detail about pigs. So if you’re a huge fan of pigs or animals or get easily grossed out, might want to skip ahead about 4.5, maybe even 5 minutes. But if not, if you’re willing to tough it out, just be prepared. All right, back to the show.
Eli Packouz 18:23
So speaking of piggybacking, the next step once I had the eight shape conception was to make sure that this was actually going to work in real life. So you know, theoretically on paper, I’m like, Well, we have 50 years worth of data of if you have jets this size at this pulsing rate, at this pressure at a 90 degree angle, it should, in theory, completely give you a perfect water floss. However, there’s often a big difference between on paper and real life or as they say, in theory, there’s no difference between theory and practice. But in practice, there’s a difference between theory and practice. So we had to move. We had to move from the paper to real life. And before we could actually start doing experiments on humans, to see if this was working, and this is where your partnerships come into play. You know, I was not a dental scientist, but I partnered with one. And so Dr. Ana Mascarenhas is like this is what you do, because you have to make sure that the Jets are the correct distance apart from each other, they have the right number of jets at that the right distance from the tooth, etc, that they’re actually recovering 100% of the gum line. What we did was we got pig heads from pig carcasses. And I know this is a little gross, but this
Max Branstetter 19:41
is one naturally I mean, I’ve done that in my business and now I’m just gonna
Eli Packouz 19:48
Yeah, no, you know, we call the butcher and I’m like, we need pig heads. And honestly, the guy’s like, why? And I’m like for science. And he’s like that, that checks out. So apparently, he actually does get calls from medical universities quite frequently for the pig head. So that’s what they used to head for, you know, the rest of it is being sold in supermarkets. But there’s lots of heads and their demands by universities and research laboratories. And well, I guess we became one of them, what we would do is we would get the pig head and we would actually cut it vertically, so like from the forehead to the chin, so that way, we have two halves, and that way we could see on both sides of the tooth, and we would floss half of the teeth, and then we would cut away the gums. And look underneath and see how much plaque was being removed. You know how deep we were getting underneath the gums, lines, etc. And this way, we were able to see if we needed to make the Jets closer further, if we needed more jets if we were pulsing at the correct so at least in animals, right? But that that enables you to do quick iterations on your engineering. So we could say like, Oh, these jets are not far away enough. Or these jets are too close together, we need to change the spacing, then we would change the spacing and do more experiments, etc. This actually caused some strife in the office because at the time, I was still the Co-Founder of Singular Sound in the Singular Sound office. But you know, I was working on this project of events, the floss and I would use the Singular Sound kitchen and you know, you get all these musician guys. And they’re like, can you do science in a science sink? Not science in a food sink. Because when you cut the pig head vertically, like the brain falls out. And it’s a very small brain like a golf ball. But it feels like Jell-O. It’s really weird. Anyway, my apologies for getting too Wild on this Wild Business Growth Podcast.
Max Branstetter 21:47
No such thing but yeah, well, I’ve never look at pigs the same way again. But no, I think you’re probably one of the only people in the world to ever floss a pig, I would imagine. Maybe pig farmers. But it’s fascinating that it’s, it’s a viable route. And I’m sure I know, you learned lots of insights from it. Yeah, how many times was it till they kicked you out of your own office? I’m just kidding.
Eli Packouz 22:11
I mean, it was it was it was getting getting pretty heated. And then because Singular Sound is a like a musician, company, you know, we would try to make sure that everyone would hire was musicians, we definitely had some people who were you know, kind of the rebellious type jazz musicians are wanting to do. And they were like, We got to take these pig heads and we got to drop them off at the police station that will make a statement. And
Max Branstetter 22:35
this is going to be an incredibly hard segue but so Kickstarter, so. So I’m sure Kickstarter, just you know, blackballed this podcast. But now, you have done an incredible job of, you know, raising millions in the crowdfunding space, you know, you’ve been ahead of your launch. And I think it’s something that many entrepreneurs are interested in. But a lot, you know, so many people don’t know, the right way to go about it, or where do you even get started? What are some of the things that worked, that have worked really, really well for Insta floss in terms of getting attention and raising funding in that route? Yeah, absolutely.
Eli Packouz 23:12
I guess the first thing I’ll say, though, that if you’re an entrepreneur, and you really don’t have a knack for marketing, the second best thing you can do, which is maybe the first best thing that you actually can do, is to hire an agency and have them do that for you, they certainly will be the second best option that is possible, but maybe the first best option for you, because the first best option is to actually know what you’re doing. And to do it well. And because you will get far better results than any agency, it just requires knowledge on your part hard work on your part, insight on your part, etc. And, you know, luckily I was had been working with marketers at singular sounds, I knew quite a bit, it was not my first Kickstarter, we actually started Singular Sound with a Kickstarter when we first launched the product. So when it came to into the floss, I was like, Okay, we’re going to do another Kickstarter and took all the lessons from there plus the 10 years of knowledge coming from marketing since then. So the most important thing I would say, for your Kickstarter is you have to have a giant launch on day one. Because success begets success, failure begets failure. If you’re not trending, you’re never going to be seen. And if you’re not seeing you’re not gonna get trending, so you have to be trending the moment you launch. Okay, great. How do I do that? So the way you do that, is you have to have a, as large as possible, or as enthusiastic as possible, hopefully, both because these things have an email list. So you know, if you have an email list of 1000 people, but very few are interested might be equivalent to a list of 100 people where everybody’s interested. So you have to work on these two things. You have to work on getting emails and you have to make sure they’re good emails, you have to make sure that they’re engaged. So what we did was we launched ads where the goal was to get people to sign up. We You would send them a personal email, this part was automated. But everything after this was not automated, or as plaintext saying like, Hi, Emily packhouse. Thank you for signing up. This is where we are in the r&d. Here’s some pictures of the prototypes. We’re still working on it. So what do you hate about flossing? And how can we make it better? And this would get a lot of responses. And people would be writing about all sorts of ideas, some good, most not. But the point is engagement, what I would do is I would respond to these people, and eventually I would have someone respond to them, because there’s just too much respond to the people. And the only rule is, you’re not the person to end the conversation. If they email you, you email them back, if they email you, you email them back. And then if they don’t email you back then fine. But then they’re gonna see a blog update, where we talked about a new stage in the r&d. And that can where we have some very leading questions. We’re like, hey, we were about to do this, but we’re not sure. Because we’ll make it more expensive. Do you think it’s worth it? And then people would write in. So this does two things. One, it keeps the audience engaged, they don’t forget about you, they become ambassadors for you, they tell their friends, they feel like they’re part of it, they’re like, I gave a suggestion, and they’re working on it, or I voted in a poll for what color it’s going to be in my color one, you know, sort of thing. So they they pull other people organically into your system. And the second thing it does is it gets you out of the Promotions tab, which is the death of any email marketing strategy, you know, if you email a million people, but it’s in the Promotions tab, I don’t think a single one’s gonna see it, at least in Gmail, the algorithm pulls you out of the Promotions if you’re having real conversations. So that’s what that’s what we did. And that way, we were able to get a lot of engaged emails from an active audience, we were able to have a blast on day one. And we didn’t even advertise after that, because there was like a problem with Kickstarters API that didn’t let us track anything. So we didn’t even advertise once we started. But we did, I think was $850K on Kickstarter. And then soon thereafter, we pre sold $2.5 million worth of Insta floss.
Max Branstetter 27:00
Wow. Well, congrats on that. That’s a lot of philosophy. A lot of quick, Instaflossing. But I really like your rule on never being the one to end the conversation. Because that’s like engagement one on one. Like that’s just a fantastic way to to keep things going and keep the chatter going. And in terms of the actual ads, what type of ads did you do? Or like, what approach was it with the ads that you think truly got people’s, you know, thumbs to stop and eyes to stop? And all those terms.
Eli Packouz 27:27
Great. You asked that because we actually have the data to say precisely what it was it got people to stop, you know, we would examine videos and see
Max Branstetter 27:33
you told me to ask that before. No, you didn’t. I’m just gonna
Eli Packouz 27:38
know what I mean. But it is a sensible question. You’re a sensible guy, I guess.
Max Branstetter 27:42
I’m gonna appreciate sometimes.
Eli Packouz 27:45
So we had tried some ads where we were like talking about it. We showed people we showed people using the product, right? But these ads didn’t really get a great response. Because I think what it was is you just see like a stick in someone’s mouth and you don’t know what’s going on. And it’s like flossing your teeth automatically in 10 seconds. But and this is just like a empathetic speculation on my part, obviously, I do not tear apart their brains that way we did with the bigs. My guess is that when people saw that, they were like, well, I don’t really know what it is or how it works, etc. So what we did was we got a 3d animators, we got 3d animators, and created an animation of inside the mouth and the it’s the floss inside the mouth and the jets coming out and dislodging plaque and yada yada. What you can see on instant last.com If you’re so interested, but the animations once we had that our ads went from crickets to like email signups on fire. The and my speculation here obviously I did not like mind your beginning but but the speculation is that once you got it, it’s so obviously useful. But if you don’t get it, like if I tell someone without showing them how it works, that Oh, I have a device that’s gonna floss all your teeth in 10 seconds, their reaction is going to be bullshit. Like there’s no way that that’s possible. We can’t get that done. Like you’re pulling one over me like I’m not gonna just skip over this this is gonna be like one of those, those commercials where you like see someone rubbing cream on their face, and they’re like, 50 years younger. Like just sounds ridiculous.
Max Branstetter 29:22
I was thinking No, when you were describing that, like flossing 10 seconds. It sounds like certain websites that just accept like, you know, any advertiser whatever. Like I don’t even know how the ads get there. But there was like spammy medical ads that look like lose 50 pounds in a day, you know, stuff like that, like it sounds like that. But when when you put the visual there totally legitimizes it. If it’s a compelling visual, obviously, so totally see where that’s coming from.
Eli Packouz 29:47
Right. I’d say it’s more than just a visual right because like you have those lose 50 pounds in like three minutes ads and you see like a person’s belly go down. And it’s like, Well, that’s
Max Branstetter 29:56
good. Oh, yeah. Or it’s like a it’s a belly button in a tape measure?
Eli Packouz 30:02
Exactly. So I think the key was when you show people how it works and like, Oh, that is physically possible, and it would work, and then they believe you. So it’s like, we have this weird problem where it’s like, it’s almost too good to be believed. So we have to prove it, which, you know, I’m not I’m not complaining about that, you know, I think once the word gets out, and once people understand it, I think that it’s super powerful. But for our initial ads, when people had never heard of this before, showing them how it works, made all the difference. So I’m not going to say like universally, I don’t know what your product is, I’m not going to say that this in particular is going to work for you that Oh, you have to show them how it works. It probably is a good idea. But maybe if we want to generalize this advice a bit more, find out why won’t someone believe your ad? Right? What someone click like, what what is the reason that they’re not buying it? For us? It was that they probably just didn’t believe that it would work for you. It might be something different. I don’t know what it is. But find out what that is. And then make that the focus of your head like the number one reason you’re going to say no, because a lot of times we focus on like what’s going to make them say yes, but what No, is more powerful than a million yeses. So you have to find out what’s going to make them say no, I’m not going to get your product and you have to address that before everything else.
Max Branstetter 31:21
I hope you say no to not signing up for the Podcasting to the Max newsletter. That was incredible. You can sign up at MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter. You get a new email every Thursday that has entrepreneurship tips, podcasting tips, and terrible, no good, very bad puns. You can sign up at MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter. It will be your favorite email of the week, I guarantee it. And if not, you’re gonna like the way you look. I guarantee it – or something like that. Now, let’s get back to the yes’s and no’s. So I’m hoping you say yes, because it’s 1 millionth as powerful as a no, but would you be interested in wrapping up with some Rapid-Fire Q&A?
Eli Packouz 32:05
Let’s go. All right, let’s
Max Branstetter 32:07
get Wild. Yes, what is a, I call them weird talents. But like a party trick or something around the house, something you’re really good at that doesn’t impact your business, you’re just like really good at
Eli Packouz 32:19
backcountry wilderness survival. As a person who spends all of my time on a computer, making technology, getting rid of all of it, navigating by the stars, filtering water, etc, is my jam. And actually, I have some of my best inventions in my head while I’m out there.
Max Branstetter 32:40
Well, that actually segues perfectly to the next question. So in terms of making note of those inventions, so you mentioned that you have a journal that you write down like product design ideas, problem ideas, what is a tip or I hate the word hack, because everybody uses it, what’s what’s a hack, in terms of a journal like that in terms of making sure that you truly are diligent about writing down these ideas and jotting down the key points that would actually be nice to live?
Eli Packouz 33:07
Well, the best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas. So write down the crappy ones, you know, because it just keeps them coming. Only one out of 100 of your ideas are going to be great or good in any way. But if you don’t write down the 99 crappy ones, you’re never gonna get to the good one. And also, one thing I would say is that a lot of times I’ve seen people be like, Oh, I have this idea it’s going to be this product is going to be amazing, yada, yada, yada. And then they go on Amazon, it’s being sold already. And they get like really crestfallen. Because this was like their thing. I’m like, No, dude, you should be elated, because you had a good idea. It was so good that someone’s making money off it already. Now, obviously, it’s not for you right now. But it shows you that your brain is on the right track.
Max Branstetter 33:47
What is your take on the floss, the dance the floss?
Eli Packouz 33:54
But if it makes you happy, you know, like, honestly, I I’m glad that people are having fun. And I would not want to take that away from anyone. If you don’t want to see someone laugh. Don’t criticize their laugh. So if they’re having joy, go for it.
Max Branstetter 34:09
Perfect. That was I’ve heard rumors that it’s coming back. But that, you know, years ago that was like, you couldn’t take a step outside with somebody flossing. So
Eli Packouz 34:18
that’s my number one dance move, for obvious reasons. Like I have to be about it.
Max Branstetter 34:24
Perfect. You need to do the floss dance on Insta and then it’s an Instafloss. Bam. All right. What is an insight about flossing other than it being 1.8 million years old? That is very surprising. You think most people wouldn’t know about flossing?
Eli Packouz 34:39
I would say that probably the thing people don’t realize is that the mouth is the gateway to the rest of your body and inflammation in your mouth can travel along the cardiovascular pathways to every other thing in your body pretty much. So any system that is worsened by inflammation or issues with cardiovascular health will be worse. Despite not flossing, so there’s lots of data, lots of correlative data where poor oral health is correlated with poor cardiovascular health, which is correlated with even arthritis and Alzheimer’s and perhaps this one is the most surprising: Erectile Dysfunction.
Max Branstetter 35:14
Holy moly, My final question is about mangoes. But I should have made about bananas just to segue that or eggplant but last one. I know that the history the early days of Instafloss were pretty heavily influenced by an encounter you had with the mango, can you share that story?
Eli Packouz 35:34
That’s traumatic. So yeah, I was eating mangos with my brother. We had to get ready for a meeting and we’re like, Okay, we gotta floss all this stuff out and trying to get rid of all of that floss was we’re like there has to be something there has to be a way to do this automatically. And I would say most inventions are born from that you know you have a problem if only there was a device that can solve it. So if you want if you want to create inventions first find problems then think of devices that can solve them.
Max Branstetter 36:10
That’s perfect. And client knows I know that mangoes can be traumatic but I’m glad you were able to relive that with us. But Eli this has been fantastic. I knew we were going to cover flossing and Instaflossing and music. I did not know we were going to cover pig heads and erectile dysfunction and all sorts of mango banana eggplant world thing. So I don’t even know if that’s like a spin off of Disney World now, I guess. Anyway, thank you so much for coming on. I know that if you’re interested in Instafloss, you can learn more Instafloss.com Final thoughtsm stage is yours it could be a quote a line, just kind of like words to live by Music Lyrics if you want, whatever you want, send us home here.
Eli Packouz 36:50
This this actually comes from Calvin and Hobbes, the only philosophical book you will need probably growing up or throughout the rest of your life, which is that this is life’s blessing. And this is life’s curse. It’s never so bad that it can’t get worse.
Max Branstetter 37:08
Eli, you are the worst. Just kidding. Just kidding. Eli, thank you so much for coming on the Wild Business Growth Podcast, sharing your incredible Instafloss story and beyond. And thank you, Wild Listeners for tuning in to another episode. If you want to hear more Wild stories like this one, make sure to follow the Wild Business Growth Podcast on your favorite app and tell a friend about the podcast and try out Instafloss with them. You will get Instaflossed. You can also find us on Goodpods where there are good good podcasts podcasts and recommendations recommendations. And for any help with podcast production, you can learn more at MaxPodcasting.com and sign up for the Podcasting to the Max newsletter at MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter. Until next time, let your business Run Wild…Bring on the Bongos!!
