Inventor leaving his mark
Procter alum’s new product grew from grass-roots efforts
Cincinnati Business Courier, January 12, 2007
By Lisa Biank Fasig, Staff Reporter
Jeff Goldstein, president of Ingenuity Products, started by identifying a problem: Many hair color users end up with stained skin.
One hairline at a time, Jeff Goldstein hopes to launch a venture to solve a problem he has never had to deal with.
In this case, getting his new product to the shelf took a frustrated wife, some church parishioners and an all-star team of local consumer products experts.
Goldstein, a former Procter & Gamble brand manager, has created a wand that protects the skin from hair dyes. Never mind that Goldstein has never colored his own hair; he's been building brands long enough to know how to get a product onto the shelf.
The resulting item - called Repelle Skin Shield Wand - will be at Walgreens stores across the country in February and also be used in salons.
It might seem that Goldstein, president of Ingenuity Products in Blue Ash, took an unusual path to retail, but in many ways he did exactly what Procter does every day. He invented a product to scratch a nagging itch. About 54 percent of women color their hair, and half do it at home, according to Clairol, which is owned by Procter. Meanwhile, 42 percent of hair color users experience stains and irritation from dye, Goldstein said, citing his own research.
In time, Goldstein envisions a line of Repelle products built on the stain-resisting technology. It’s a big dream. Such innovations are highly prized by retailers, since they do not compete with existing products and therefore add dollars to the cash register.
“It’s the time-tested P&G approach of digging deep to find unmet consumer needs and thinking creatively about products that could meet those needs,” Goldstein said.
But if Goldstein relied on his lessons from Procter, he did so on a scaled-down model. His market research was decidedly more shoe-leather, and he had to outsource some surveys. But the risks are the same. Goldstein spent the better part of a year developing Repelle, sacrificing time he'd have spent at his 4-year-old branding consulting firm, Ingenuity Advisors. He founded Ingenuity Products to sell Repelle.
But he is sharing the risk. Partners include Dave Tubesing, a retired product development executive from Kao Brands and Andrew Jergens Co.; Chuck Lieppe, former vice president of P&G Health Care; and Shelly Zimbler, former vice president of sales, P&G Health & Beauty Aids.
This level of skill, experts said, goes a long way toward bridging the gap from concept to consummation.
"I think 80 percent of all business deals are about relationships and who you know," said Karen Post, a branding expert and author of the book "Brain Tattoos, Creating Unique Brands that Stick in Your Customers' Minds." Post said Goldsmith would not likely have gotten Walgreen Co.'s ear "If he was just Joe Schmoe off the street."
+Repelle, after all, is not a sexy product: a ChapStick-like wand that is applied to the hairline and neck to protect the skin from dye.
But a lot of successful creations owe their glory to function. In +Repelle's case it was the stains that collected along the hairline of Goldstein's wife. He already was aware of chemical-strength barrier lotions used in Europe to prevent skin ailments such as dermatitis. What if the same technology was applied to the beauty segment?
The next steps were fairly pedestrian, literally. Goldstein walked into about a dozen salons, quizzing the color experts. He then approached a church in Dayton and asked patrons to persuade their stylists to participate in a survey, in exchange for a donation to the church. A few dozen did.
Encouraged with the results, he paid an online research firm to send self-styled questionnaires to roughly 2,000 consumers over six months, to gauge the need for the product.
All these steps, he said, are similar to what Procter would do.
"When you're a small company, it doesn't mean you can't do the research, it means you have to find more economical ways to do it," he said. The online market studies, for instance, would run $1,000 to $2,000 each.
More research followed. Tubesing, who is Ingenuity's vice president of innovation and operations, developed the product technology. Shoppers were asked to respond to name and logo. Goldstein attended a retail trade show in Florida to quiz retailers about the product and its packaging.
Eventually, Walgreen Co. agreed to carry +Repelle. They set a price at $4.99.
"We look for a product that would appeal to a large portion of our customer base," said Tiffani Bruce, a spokeswoman for the drug store chain. "We also look for companies that will be able to supply a product to 5,580 stores."
+Repelle also is being used at True Colors salon in Anderson Township and A Touch of Eden in blue Ash. The distribution company Triplefin, also based in Blue Ash, is delivering the product to stores as well as handling customer calls and accounts receivables.
"It looks pretty promising, by indication of orders we have seen to date," said Tom Mehnert, client services account manager at Triplefin.
Goldstein expects to roll +Repelle into more salons. He also expects his team of innovators to develop other products soon, though he is not going to tilt his hand and elaborate.
Meanwhile, he is debating whether he should be a +Repelle user himself. These days, a person in the beauty industry is expected to maintain a certain image.
"In the consulting business the gray hair has helped," he said. "But I need to dye my hair or have it dyed in the new business."