YouSaid · the spoken record

Aaron Krause

lines on the record: 121
first: 2026-03-16
most recent: 2026-03-16
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I'm very close with Damon John, and he's always making fun of the fact that he didn't get the deal. He was on the Drew Barrymore show. And she's like, have you ever missed, you know, ever regret something? He's like, that stupid sponge. And I know he's kidding because he uses Scrub Daddy and he loves my barbecue brush and we talk all the time. And all the sharks on my 50th did a video.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What Kevin O'Leary said on Shark Tank. He said, You're kidding me, a sponge with a smiley face cut out. That costs two cents to make in China. And I was like, you're missing the whole thing. Every single person in the world uses some kind of sponge or cleaning tool. And so the market share is so big that even if I didn't get the whole market. This was still a monstrous opportunity. Like I knew this was going to be something huge. And I would have put all my effort into it, which I did.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But is that luck? Well, no, I created a cleaning product and I put a lot of time, money, and effort into making this brand. And because of that, I was in the position that one day there happened to be a pandemic and cleaning became essential.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, I think it's a definition of luck, right? And I think luck would be someone just coming to my door and dropping off a boatload of cash. Like that's luck. So, I mean, I attribute more than 90% is hard work. And then there's just like great fortunes. Like, you know, like you're just fortunate because you work that hard to put yourself into a position where you might get lucky. In 2020 I saw the writing on the wall and I got scared and sent everyone home and said, well, I'm working from home. We'll shut the factory down for however long. And then I got letters from Walmart and Target and Lowe's that said you're considered an essential product in the home cleaning business and you're not to shut down. In fact, we're increasing our orders 30%. Like we were the unintended beneficiary of like a pandemic where cleaning becomes paramount.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sport forever. And so I've already started what will be my next business should I ever exit Scrub Day. But until this becomes like too stressful and until my wife tells me that she's tired of sitting home by herself a lot of nights, I can keep doing this.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, as long as I find it still fun and entertaining and interesting, which I am still developing new products all the time, getting new patents, we just got our eighth patent on a toilet scrubbing system that's coming out this year. So as long as I can keep doing that and I'm enjoying it, I can keep doing it until the right suitor comes along. And if it's not that, I would consider going public. And at that point, I would step down. I'm not. I don't want to run a public company. It's far too much red tape for me. And as far as starting other businesses, I've already done it. I'm in the middle of a brand new startup making this real unique hockey stick called Tovey T-O-V-I. It's a revolutionary hockey stick that we have NHL approval for. And I love the sport of ice hockey. I've always loved it. I've always played it. And I love to change that.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Just like it. Dude, it was my name on the box. It said scrub daddy, scrub mommy, it had my address, had my patent numbers on it. They literally made a scrub daddy box, but they put cheap Chinese sponges inside of it. And they were passing it off all over Amazon as if it was ours. We hired a private investigator. We found the company in China. We sent a guy with a camera in on his lapel. He filmed the whole thing. We went to the Chinese government and said, this is fraud. Someone's copying our brand. And they agreed and we raided the facility and took all of their inventory. And so we think that sets a good precedent. Some people start to see that we protect our brand and we'll continue to do that anywhere that it's possible.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Ha that happens every single day. So the first thing is I told you our material is exclusive and really only one company in the world knows how to make it and can make it. So every day there's a Chinese knockoff and it's a piece of junk. So a lot of people will try to copy us. You can't get the smiley face, right? Because I have the patent on it, but they'll make some other shape. And when you copy our trade dress, which is, you know, our packaging designs or our color schemes, I will actively pursue you and defend vigorously. And so one way we protect it is we maintain our exclusivity and we only sell the top products in the world. And we keep to the fact that Scrub Daddy, if you want a cheap $1 sponge, I'm not your company. Now, we also started seeing this is recent. Last year, we started seeing counterfeits. And I mean real actual counterfeits.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And hockey player. So, this isn't for them. So, what are we going to do with it? So, yeah, I'm always open to sell. It's just a matter of the price. And, you know, to date, we haven't gotten the right offer, although we know that we've been valued in multi-billion. And selling this to like XYZ private equity firm doesn't ticket for me. And I have no interest in that. This needs to go to the right home at some point. And that needs to be one of the largest companies in the world in the CPG space. That needs to be a procter and gamble, a Unilever, a Clorox, a Henkel, a 3M. It could be any of those, or I'm left with the last piece, which is we just go public.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Everyone has to be that's one of your strategies, right? If you're not planning an exit strategy, I don't know what you're doing in business. There has to be some succession plan. I won't be here forever. I don't forget.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And unfortunately, one day the lead M&A person called me and said, we have to stop all of our discussions. The VP of the Home Products Division who loves you and loves your product and sees the vision, they got promoted to another part of 3M, which happens all the time. And they brought in someone new who has no experience in the home products care. And their first directive was shut down every acquisition until I understand the business. And they stopped talking to us and gave back all our diligence information. And that was it.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, in 2014, when I resigned, I said my goodbyes. And they said, Aaron, the home products division would like to talk to you. And I said, about what? And they said, oh, I'm sure you know about what. And I went and met with them. And they were all loving Scrubdy. And it looked like that was going to lead to another acquisition. And I was more than happy to entertain that. I felt like 3M was my friends, like family”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I also started to do a lot of podcasts, a lot of interviews, and I also got myself onto every major publication. Lori got me onto the view, you know, Fortune magazine did an article. The Wall Street Journal did an article and put our sponges on top of a whole bunch of scotch bright sponges and said 3M fights off Upstart. And so all of this free media, all of it and I consider social media, even though we paid some influencers, it's still very, very inexpensive and it gets you a broad broadcast to everybody.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so the influencer marketing, I'm going to credit my best friend who is my chief strategy officer here at Scrub Day. He found two or three of these influencers who have become mega, mega influencers in the cleaning space. And what happens in COVID? People start going crazy about cleaning. And they're watching these videos religiously and these influencers take us to the next level.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We're constantly out there, and then people start uploading clips of me from Shark Tank onto social media. And that gets a life of its own. And then we start going, hold on, this social media thing, we should be involved in that. And so by like 17, 18, we start posting on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and it explodes. I mean, we have almost 5 million followers on TikTok now, almost a million on Instagram, and some of our videos get 20 million views.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So Shark Tank is the gift that keeps on giving. They don't just err once, they have reruns. And then because of our success in 2013, like a few months later, they did our first follow-up episode where we got into Bed Bath and Beyond. And that gave us another boost. And then the next year, we had a huge bunch of sales. And they gave me another follow-up episode. I've been on Shark Tank almost 15 times, and almost every year they do some follow-up. And then CNBC picked up all the reruns and started airing them all the time. And so I end up, you know, in episodes all the time on that. And so throughout all that time,”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes. So Scrub Mommy is a double-sided foam. So instead of just being the hard scrubbing texture changing sponge, we put a really soft absorbing sponge on the other side that wasn't cellulose, that didn't smell, didn't stink. So it was still a unique material. And to this day, Scrub Mommy outsells Scrub Daddy by about 10% in every retailer.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so by 2014, I was out of horsepower. I couldn't run the 3M thing at the same time. I was running Scrub Dye and I had to make a choice. And Scrubdy was exploding and it was much more lucrative. And I couldn't control my own destiny. And that was really big for me. And I told 3M, I won't be renewing my contract and I'm moving on. And by that time, we really started to understand the retail landscape. And we understood you can't be a one-product company. You need to create a brand block. And so even on the show, if you watch the show, again, we were talking about Mark Cuban. Mark Cuban says to me, well, you're just a one-product company, right? I'm like, not for long. We got Scrub Mommy. We got Scrub Baby for doing baby bottles. I got a holder. So I was already thinking this way. And then we came out with Scrub Mommy.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Things just blew up and she turned into like monster celebrity and she invested in all these companies and she was like, Aaron, you good? You know what you're doing? I'm like, Lori, I got this. And now we're like more like good friends. Then she doesn't like get involved day to day with the business. She doesn't need to.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was the most transformative thing that could have ever happened to the company. And I already heard the stories, the scare stories that you air on Shark Tank and your website blows up. And so you better have inventory and you better have backup servers. And we had all of it. I had IT people sitting there watching. And when the traffic got too heavy on one side, they flipped it to the next one. And I had the inventory ready-made in our factory waiting for the show. And the bed bath and beyond person that wouldn't talk to us before called us, and Walmart called us. And Lori was really gracious. And she joined a bunch of the calls and brought Star Power.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely, and you're 100% right. The deals, just like every deal, like you negotiate for a house and then you make a deal, and then you go do an inspection, and the deals change. So I think, you know, Shark Tank is very real like that. When 3M came to buy my business and they made an offer, that whole deal changed by the time we got through due diligence. So it's totally accurate.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“With Lori, it became really obvious that we were like kindred spirits. Not only is she on QVC, but she's a product presenter like me, and she has a hundred patents. And it instantly made sense for me, but she actually called me out and said she thought that my pitch was a fraud. She said, I just watched your pitch different than everyone else did, and you used two different sponges and two different weights to show the texture change. I think one of the sponges is hard and one of them is soft, or one of the weights is heavy and the other one's light. And I was like, no, it's 100% real. And she said, fine, let me come down off the set. And she came down standing right next to me and she starts dipping it into the hot and cold water and all the sharks are screaming, Lori, does it work? Is it work? And she's like face to face with me. And she goes, oh my God, it's magic. And I'm looking at her. I'm like, oh my God, you might be my shark. And I can't wait for that to air on the episode.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't need her for that. I went in and I did what I thought was a flawless pitch. And Hershevik starts out and tells me he doesn't see the retail value. And he's out. And I was like, are you kidding me? This is going to be a huge retail product. Like I'm like, you know what? He's in tech. He doesn't understand. But then Mark, you know, started telling me that, you know, I was just a one product company. I'm like, you don't understand. I'm an inventor. I actually said to Mark Cuban, you don't understand who you're dealing with. And he said, look, you may be the scrub daddy, but I'm not a scrub pimp. So I'm out. The only comeback I could think of to that was that hurts, Mark. I really wanted to work with you really bad.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was a very shocking experience. I mean, I went in extremely confident into Shark Tank, except for I didn't know Lori was going to be in the show. And the producer told me that an hour before the show, that they had sub-Barber out for someone new. And this person gets products on the QVC, and I'm already on QVC.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I thought we had a lot of synergies. We're both entrepreneurs, and he's like the billionaire of the show. And when I looked at the show, it was, you know, Barbara Real Estate and Damon is fashion and Kevin was, you know, nasty and Hershevik was technology. And Mark is like sports and entrepreneur. And everybody knows him. He's a celebrity. I'm like, I'm going for Cuban.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it was the QVC that did it. I started having television experience and being really comfortable on live TV. I would have never thought to apply for a show on television before. But now I'm not watching Shark Tank like a regular viewer. I'm watching it like, oh my God, look at that camera angle. Can you imagine I could do a demo in front of 7 to 10 million people? Like, it's going to be the best show ever. I'm bragging to my wife that I should have been a TV star and I turned to my wife. I said, I could go on this show and kill the sharks. And I took my phone out and started searching, how do you go on shark tank? And I found a website and I just filled out an application. And the best thing was I told them, here is a link to my QVC, my last QVC show. You can go watch how I do on TV.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It would have been a spike and then a saturation point. And then the minute that you had a bad show, you would have been kicked off.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, at that point, none of the retailers still would call me back, and the only place we were selling was at QVC. And in five shop rights.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so I got a chance to sell the other 60. And every time I went on, they would reorder like 30 to 40% more and give me another show by the fourth show. I loved it and I was addicted to it. I mean, you're. There's a high because they're talking in your ear, and the producer can tell you, oh my God, great demo, Aaron. A huge spike in the phone sales. You just got a thousand people on the phone. It builds you up and you finish the show and you sell out of all your inventory, and you're on cloud nine. the sales are incredible and then QVC reorders and by the fourth show I'm directing the show. I'm like telling the I'm telling like the cameraman which angle to come in and how to show the product right.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, to be honest, on the first show I failed, I was like a deer in the headlights, and so I didn't know what to do. The cameras are all turning on and off, and the host can see I'm nervous, or she took the sponge out of my hand and tried to start doing demos herself, which she couldn't do. I got through no demos. And I think they had brought in 20,000 sponges maybe. And we only sold 40%, which is a fail. And when you fail on QVC, you don't get a second chance. Like it's airtime they gave you and they just kick you off. And my broker was livid and was like, you didn't sell enough. They're kicking you off air. And I was devastated. I thought that was the end. And I got really lucky. The broker called me up after I failed and said, I've never seen this in all my years at QVC. He said, I just got a call from the buyer and the producer.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yep, I filled out the form. I was rejected within hours. It said this doesn't meet any of our marketing criteria and wouldn't sell on TV. Best of luck to you. So I called the guy back and I said, well, I can't get in. You know, why do you think you can get me in? And he said, because they say no to everything because everyone wants to sell in QVC. So they rely on a network of brokers and we waste our time and our reputation to bring a product to a buyer that we know could sell on TV. And I think this could sell on TV. So I said, okay, we'll give it a shot.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Guy calls and says, Hey, I saw the article and I love this idea. Have you ever thought of selling this on QVC? And I said like home shopping network? Like no one's going to buy sponges on that. He said, oh no, you'd be surprised. You could sell millions of sponges on that. And I was like, so do you work for QVC? He said, no, I'm a broker. I said, well, how's that work? He said, I can get you into QVC. And then I get a cut of everyone you sell. And I said, well, isn't QVC down the street from me? And he's like, yeah. I said, well, why wouldn't I just go there and try to get in myself? And he said, sure, go ahead and do that. Here's my number. And when you can't get in, give me a call. So I went to QVC. I got booted out the door in 10 seconds. They told me go online and fill out a form.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And they wrote an article on the front page of the business section on the Sunday inquire that hits a one point five million people. And it's my big smiley face holding the sponges. And it says he's the daddy of the scrub daddy. The phone started ringing off the hook, and I said, Here we go. It's about to start.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And they're writing these articles about how bad the economy is and how many people are losing their jobs and that China is taking all our jobs. And we might go into a depression. And I instantly am like they need to write a positive story. So I call up and I got through to an editor and I said, hey, I'm a business in the Philadelphia area. I'm an entrepreneur and inventor. I'm creating more jobs in the Philadelphia area and I have this new product called Scrubdaddy that's going to be the greatest kitchen sponge. And they said, oh, that sounds interesting. They came down. It was supposed to be an hour interview. And I wouldn't let them go. So they spent the entire day with me.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then one day, and you remember this is 2011, I'm in the middle of another recession. If you remember 11, we're teetering on what they think might be depression. And there's all these stories that are coming out in the newspaper. And the local paper is called The Philadelphia Inquiry here. They have like a million and a half followers.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's not scalable, right? No. Not scalable. And then I did the math and I couldn't even pay someone $10 an hour because I'm not making the $4, you know, $3.99 price. I'm selling it him for like a dollar or something, you know. They're making all the profit. And I was like, oh, this is crazy. I can't even pay someone to do this. What am I going to do? And it was frustrating. But I was really busy. You know, I was making buffing pads for 3M every day. I was running a factory that runs 24 hours a day. So, I mean, I was occupied, but I was really sad because I felt this had a lot of potential.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And tell me I have never had a sponge that I love so much in my life. And my friend came to me and said, Aaron, I'm used to selling like two, three sponges a day. You're selling 100. You need to go to every one of my stores, all five of them, and sell sponges. But I couldn't do that because I was running another business. Right. And you couldn't.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Everyone would walk down the aisle, it wouldn't even turn, their hand would go out and grab the old Scotch bright spuns at their grandma's been using and just keep going. And I went to my friend. I said, wow, you're right. I mean, no one's even looking at it. He said, look, no one's coming to the store to look for the latest in sponge technology. They're coming here for their eggs, their milk, their cheese, and maybe a sponge, and they're getting out of here. He's like, the only way you're going to get interest is if you set up a little display and do like live demos in the store. And I'll give you some space. You want to try that? I said, yeah. So I built this little booth with hot and cold water and a couple pans and a mug. And I wouldn't let you walk by me. I mean, if you were walking, I mean, ma'am, ma'am, I got to show you this. You're not going to believe this. And I would do a demo. And every person that saw the demo bought one or two. And then after a couple weeks, people would come back.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, after I contacted everyone from Walmart to Target to Lowe's and Home Depot and Kroger and couldn't get past the receptionist, I went to a friend of mine whose family owns five shop rights. It's a local, it's a small chain, maybe 250 grocery stores in the Philadelphia region. And I went to him We'll see. So, you know, give me the price. And I told him it would be $3.99. And he asked me what he can buy it for. And I had to give it to him for less than half. And so, you know, he could make money. And we put on the shelf. And I walked that aisle for 10 hours a day waiting for a customer to buy it. You know how many people bought it? Nobody”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sure, we made a website, but there was no virality at that point yet. There was not TikTok or Instagram, and maybe Facebook was just getting going. We made a website. I would tell my friends, you know, go and buy a scrub day. But nothing was happening.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Zero. Not only did I not have not of context, I had no experience in this market. I mean, I was in the OEM industrial professional world. And my thought was I called Walmart. How far do you think you get when you call the reception from Walmart?”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So it actually started in my own facility. Like, I cut foam for buffing pads. I had all the equipment. And so they would send us the material and we would cut out scrub dyes one at a time by hand. And we created, I spent $150,000 on packaging and logos, and I created this beautiful product in a bright orange box called Scrubdaddy. And I started calling all of the retailers.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. I negotiate with the company and get an exclusivity on the material they can't sell it to anyone else but me. And it turns out for some very specific reasons, no one else can make it. It's literally locked into this one particular facility in Germany. It's kind of like bread. You know, you ever eat bread at a specific bakery? Always different than the next bakery. And certain bakeries make a special bread, and it's like it comes down to their processes and their ovens and their temperatures, but it's very specifically at that facility makes that bread. And that's how I can liken it. This company had some technologies that this wasn't going to be easily copied. And now I own the exclusivity.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I respect that. And with that, we shook hands, we hugged, and he went on his way. And he never really looked back and we didn't really keep in touch much after that, to be honest.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I guess you could say it did. We had a really great talk. The day that I gave him the check and he departed the company, I did say to him and I have the exact words. I'll never forget it. We smoked these cigars that we had bought years ago in Hong Kong. We got these Cuban cigars and we thought one day we're going to smoke these. And so I said, well, I guess this is the time we're going to smoke the cigars. And I said, you know, I got to ask you, we did so much great stuff together and we grew this whole business and you know me like I'm never going to stop until this thing becomes something. And he says, yeah, I do. I know you. And for 18 years, you plowed every dime we ever made, you know, into the company. And we finally did it. And I have money and a nest egg. And I want to go and do things on my own. I want to invest in other businesses now. And I don't want to start a whole company over from scratch. And I said, okay.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I had the right to make the final decisions on everything as the CEO of the company. And I pulled out the shareholder agreement and I said, here's the deal. You're a 50% shareholder and I'm a 50% shareholder, but I have the right to make the decision on this, and I'm telling you what we're going to do. And he was very unhappy with that. And he opted to leave the company. So I had to buy him out of innovative accessory products. And I had to make a go of scrub daddy on”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We had 18 years we had never had a fight. We had always gotten to discussions and they could get, you know, hey, I want to do it this way, but ultimately it always resolved. We got into it. We got into a yelling match.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I say, well, look, we got to move forward with it. It's a great product, great idea. And I know it's going to be successful. And he was adamant that we're not going to do anything with it. And I kind of felt his pain because for 18 years, I had made him spend every dime that we ever made in profit plowing it back into something. And he could see the writing on the wall. Here we go again. Aaron's going to make us do this. And I was like, no, look, we'll each put in 75, 100 gram. And, you know, we're going to start this whole new thing again. We need advertising, marketing, branding, packaging, and we're going to blow this thing up. And he was adamant that he was not going to do it. And it's really sad story because we had our first real blowout fight ever.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Remember, I told you if you go back into history, I'm constantly inventing new crazy ideas and concepts. So people are always like, Aaron, are you kidding me? And this is crazy idea. You come up with another one. And then my poor partner, like I would, we'd finally make money. I'd be like, wait, I got a better idea. If we do it this way and then we got to reinvest all the money again and then there's no money. So yeah, I knew it was going to happen. And I went to my business partner and he said, I don't like it. I think we wasted a lot of time and money on it before and 3M didn't want it. And I'm not interested.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I cut a smile in it and I stick the spaghetti spoon in the mouth and I squeeze it and pull and both sides come clean at the same time. And when I tell you this, I honestly heard the angels start to sing. I like her I was like, oh my God, we missed it. This has nothing to do with you cleaning your dirty hands in a body shop. This is the greatest kitchen scrubbing tool in the world. I just need to market this differently. And that's when Scrub Dye 2.”
2026-03-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT