1. Value Your Customer: David believes each customer should be cherished. Companies and brands are nothing without them.
2. A Business Should Have Purpose: David maintains that the consumer landscape is becoming more conscientious. To be successful, brands and companies must reflect the values and charitable interests of customers.
3. Use Peak Seasons to Spread Brand Messaging: David views peak seasons as valuable opportunities for mission driven brands to communicate their messages to larger and diverse audiences.
4. See It Through: Getting a business off the ground is anything but easy. David stresses that to be a successful entrepreneur, you must have grit, resilience, and determination.
5. Build A Humble (and Hungry) Team: David believes those who show humility tend to recognize their shortcomings more readily than others. For this reason, humble people make great team players and want what is better for the organization as a whole.
David Simnick founded Soapbox in 2010 in a dorm room with the idea of creating a hair and personal care brand that made high-quality products while addressing health and hygiene initiatives. You’ll be inspired by David’s story – now stocked on shelves in Walmart, Target, and CVS, Soapbox has donated 40 million bars of soap and counting to people around the world.
Meet David Simnick, Co-Founder of Soapbox!
Soapbox was founded in 2010 with a simple mission: to empower consumers to change the world through every day, quality purchases. For every product sold, the company gives back through bar soaps, health, and hygiene initiatives in communities both domestically and around the globe.
David’s journey began when he was working at the United States Agency for International Development focusing on water and sanitation. Hygiene was also an issue, and one that David became increasingly concerned with. Not long after, David found himself sitting in a college dorm with a group of friends (who are also Co-Founders), and came up with the business idea of Soapbox.
“Soapbox started for the mission, and that’s because each time someone buys a product from us, we donate a bar of soap. So far, we’ve donated 40 million bars to local homeless shelters and food pantries,” David says. While many charitable companies bulk ship goods straight to the recipient, Soapbox works with local makers and boots-on-the-ground 501C3 organizations, producing soap bars within the community they are going to be distributed. Serving 65 countries around the world, the model is sustainable, has a much lower carbon footprint, and empowers the people it serves through work and engagement.
“The only way that you can donate 40 million bars of soap is to have a product that people genuinely love,” David notes. Soapbox is one of the fastest growing hair and personal care companies in the United States.
Formerly an in-person company, Soapbox made the move to fully remote during COVID. “We wanted to choose the best people, wherever they are,” David says, explaining how a remote structure opened the talent pool to build a competent and dedicated team. Former employees at big CPG companies, many current members came to Soapbox in search of more meaningful work. Stats prove that the brand is changing lives and making a difference. “The mission is not just to our consumer; it is also to our team as well as our stakeholders and retail partners. And it’s such a joy to be able to tell that story,” David adds.
Asked to describe the CX philosophy, David clearly states, “The customer is cherished. Our consumer drives the whole mission. We are nothing without them.” Simply put, Soapboxes aim is to ‘overservice’ the customer. The CX team is headed by an American living abroad who ‘does a phenomenal job taking care of the numerous tickets that come in day in and day out.”
How Soapbox is Helping Customers Find Outer and Inner Beauty
Whenever David sees a person with great looking hair, he introduces himself and gives them Soapbox to try. On one such occasion and unbeknownst to David, he approached a Division Head at L’Oréal. They were impressed. “She messaged me the next day to say, ‘you have a phenomenal product.’ That holds a lot of weight coming from one of the world's top beauty and hair care companies,” he says.
There are many stories from customers about how Soapbox has impacted their lives. Using Soapbox shampoos and lotions, they have finally found relief for their skin during chemo or noticed healthier hair after COVID. “Not only do we give back, but the products have really made a difference for our customers, personally. Because when you feel good about your hair, your skin, and your personal beauty, your inner beauty shows,” David finishes.
Finding Success as An Authentic and Singular Brand
The haircare and personal beauty industries are dominated by corporate giants, leaving little room for independent brands to survive in the market. To be competitive, Soapbox focused on finding its niche, not mimicking others, and maintaining authenticity. In fact, consumer insight from BCG analysis revealed that the brand was being praised as ‘more authentically natural.” David credits this to several reasons and states “the mission has always been at our heart from day one” followed by “you have to create a product that people love.”
David acknowledges getting Soapbox to where it is today was dotted with ‘Roomba moments’ – thinking the problem was solved, they would meet it head on again. “There were years of us trying to figure out how to do this better,” he says. “Thankfully, our efforts started to prove true.”
Soapbox is an omnichannel brand with major retail partners that include Walmart, Target, CVS, Kroger, and Wegmans. While most E-Commerce brands launch D2C (direct to consumer), Soapbox started in retail and then developed an online business. David was faced with the challenge of driving online sales when shipping costs are $8/lb. He says, “How does a website compete? Well, you have to bundle products together and look at lifetime value. You also have to look at how your website is helping to build the brand and support your other omnichannel efforts.”
Building A Business Through Customer Loyalty
Customer retention plays an integral role in Soapbox’s revenue model. BCG studies show that compared to major competition in its category, Soapbox rates nearly double digits higher in customer loyalty. David goes on to share, “Only about 10-15% of people buy us for the mission. People buy us because they want an amazing shampoo that is going to take care of their flaky scalp and get them fuller, thicker hair.” First time customers then learn the products not only work, but are sulfate-free, silicone-free, paraben-free, phthalate-free, EDTA-free, gluten-free, cruelty-free, and vegan. The mission is the “cherry on top.” David believes that by offering products that are efficacious, clean, and give-back, Soapbox created a winning formula.
Leveraging Peak Seasons (Even When You Don’t Have One)
Because Soapbox products are part of daily personal care year-round, David says they don’t have a peak season. Instead, the brand used high-buying periods like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Prime Days to initiate creating branding strategies and get Soapbox’s message out.
Soapbox has set business and charitable goals for 2025. Currently at $50 million in retail sales, their objective is to reach $100 million. “There is a clear trajectory. What we are really excited about in terms of what we can give back is hitting over 100 million in bars donated,” David reveals. He then points out that food stamps and pantries don’t cover hygiene items. “We want to lift up and empower those who need access to proper hygiene.”
“I’m a big believer that a great business should have purpose,” David states. Now more than ever, people are voting with their dollar, supporting brands that are making real change in the world. As the consumer landscape becomes more conscientious, people are going to choose Soapbox, David feels because “that purchase goes to help their neighbor down the street.”
David believes that grit, resilience, and determination are determining traits for being a successful entrepreneur. “Are you going to see it through?’ Because there are some dark, terrifying, lonely days of running something,” he warns while admitting “there is definitely a distortion that entrepreneurs sometimes need to have with reality to believe that they can be David versus Goliath.”
Can’t Live Without Tool? Coffee
Key Hiring Trait? We have 6 cultural traits at Soapbox. For hiring we start with humble, hungry and smart, in that order. What we find out about humility is if someone is good at recognizing their shortcomings, they usually make a better team player. And you can find A+ people who are also humble, but that is hard to find. That’s why our hiring process takes so long. Other cultural traits are open, honest, and professional. We’re very similar to Netflix in terms of being wildly transparent. One of my favorite quotes is “Great ideas can come from anywhere. And great ideas should be challenged by everyone.” That means if an intern has a better idea than the CEO, that idea should win. And if the intern wants to challenge a VP’s idea, they should.
Recent Book or Podcast? ‘Surgical Reading: How to Read 12 Books at Once.” The idea is that there is no golden sticker for finishing a book. There are so many good books out there – once you get the core, central idea, move on to the next book. Putting focus on non-fiction, Surgical Reading is intense in how you dissect a book - the notion is you go to the heart of each book you are reading, and you start there. How you find it is by going to the index and looking at all the sources and where the author is getting their information from. Then you look at which pages have the most sources – that’s where the nexus of the argument they are making is – and begin there.
We're elevating customer experiences at 500 top E-Commerce brands (and counting). Let's see what we can do for you!
Learn MoreBook a call with one of our specialists today to see how TalentPop can assist you with putting together a solution for your customer service needs.
Learn More
.png)
