David Spratte & Kasper Kubica from Carpe

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
iHeartMedia Rally presents CEOs You Should Knowwhere we shine a spotlight on decision makers
from all corners of the triangle,showcasing the leaders and companies that drive our
local economy. Welcome to the iHeartMediaCEOs You Should Know Podcast. Today we
are joined by David Spratt, CEOand co founder of Carpe and Casper Kubizza,

(00:22):
COO and co founder of Carpe.Real quick, I want to first
of all, I got the nameright. Yeah, I got the name
right. I got David Spratt's easy. Casper, you are a little tougher.
We got to Spratt isn't easy foreveryone. It's like spratty spray.
My last name is Berger, andI still get Berger. People assume it's
b U R G e R.It's as simple as it could be,

(00:43):
and you and people, oh it'sBerger. No, you don't have to
overcomplicate it. So I didn't makeit spratty or spray, and I got
Kubizza. So we're good, realquick. Before we get started with some
quick fire questions, you guys gotto tell me about Colt's got my armpits
dripping on top of this, Trevorreal quick, we may just see if
we can drop that in. Thiscold got my arm pits dripping. Oh,

(01:06):
this cold got my arm pits dripping. Here we go listen. Sweat
in the summer ain't nothing to fearit because you're capt warm and cozy by
the atmosphere. But when the weatherturns cold and the sweat don't stop,
your pits turned to bicycles, yourcoat to a swamp. I think,
as the kids would say, itgives a fresh prince of bel air.
Yeah, the kids aren't saying that, but yes, we can drop that

(01:30):
in. That's Casper's what fifth fifthrap about? More or less sixth or
so. Yeah, we've been doinga lot of car well we uh.
It started a year ago because Davidand his wife finally took me to see
Hamilton after like eight years of itbeing out, and I'm like, oh,
I get why people like this becauseit was the tunes are still catchy,

(01:53):
and I realized that really it wouldbe very simple to do something that's
kind of got the rhythm and structure. Aaron Burser as a I don't know,
like a kind of ad for Carpejust for fun one weekend and it
absolutely blew up. It's it wasour most popular post of last year,
and because it did so well,the team's been pushing me to keep putting

(02:14):
more out there, and I thinkthis recent one, yeah, it's it's
more more successful than I had imagined, which is good. So you're saying
Trevor needs to connect you with alabel signed as quick as we or the
hip hop career blows up, We'llbe happy to well good. Yeah.
No, So a couple of quickquestions. What is your comfort food?
I'm bad at question My mom's gumbo. She makes I see sausage on doing

(02:38):
gumbo. Honestly, I went,I drove food. I drove six hour,
six hours to Atlanta last weekend justto have some gumbo. I mean,
obviously to see my nieces and familyas well, but primarily for the
gumbo when we go to a restaurant. When when we go to a restaurant,
I asked David to order for meand he's like, I can't do
that. I'm I know you can, because you know food and I don't
know food. I like mcchickens withlet it without with lettuce. Yeah,

(03:00):
I mean the spicy mcchickens. Youdon't get them in North Carolina. I
don't know where geographically they're limited,but spicy mcchickens are are the ideal meal,
honestly, and if if it wasnutritionally complete and didn't probably long term
cause serious illness, that's the onlything I would eat breakfast, lunch,
and dinner. They are so efficient, so good and so gentle on the
stomach. And now you can getit's like two for one, two for

(03:24):
three dollars. I think is youknow there used to be a dollar each.
Yeah, I know, and Imean inflation has been wild. Inflation
has hit McDonald's harder than anywhere elsein this country. Safer perhaps housing,
I don't know, but it's it'sbeen. It's been tough, and still
it is the most affordable food.All right. When you guys were younger,
what did you want to be?Dave wants you to go first.

(03:44):
I'm by younger. I'm saying,like age eight, like the world is
your oyster, anything can happen.I wanted to be the same thing that
I wanted to be senior year ofcollege, which was a doctor, a
surgeon. Okay, and then obviouslyCarpei change all of that. At age
eight, you wanted to be adoctor and a surgeon. Yeah, not
a surgeon, because you know,I'm not sure I knew what a surgeon
was it. But I wanted tobe a doctor. Uh yeah, I

(04:05):
wanted to be a firefighter. Andmy mom told me that the best school
for firefighters is m T and shetricked me a long term path of knowledge
work, which is where we aretoday. All right, we'll do a
couple more and then we'll get intotalking all about your guys amazing company.
So do you remember your first concertyou attended? Yes, the first concert

(04:27):
was Read Hot Chili Peppers and theopener was not sorry, not read I
always mix up Read Hot Chili Pepperswith this other band. No, anyways,
Taylor Swift was the opener, orit was. It was more of
a country band that is like similarage to Red Hot Chili Peppers, but

(04:48):
I can never remember the name.Anyways, they opened. She was the
opener for this band, and mydad and I went to see it because
my sister got tickets and she couldn'tgo, So like we went and we
were like, Wow, this TaylorSwift person's really good for and then yeah,
look at her now. Yeah Idon't really think I was going to

(05:10):
concerts until college. So in termsof like earliest probably technically it was the
Utah Symphony A little different than quiteGood, Little quite Good. I recommend
very Town. I believe it,all right. So last question, windows
down. It's been a great day. You're driving home from the carpet offices.

(05:30):
What are you cranking up on theway home? What's that song?
Armin van Buren? Okay, yes, a state of Trance? Okaying,
anything from that, that's it?All right? What do you got anything?
Siya? Okay, that is good. I love Candy Cae Lane.
That is my running song. Sowhen you're running and like you know,
at the very end, you needsomething that's absolutely going to get you for
that final sprint. Handy Cane Laneis my sprint song at the end of

(05:53):
a long run. Now, howlong is a normal long run? It
depends, I mean not really long, so like four and a half miles,
but it's good for the final push. Yeah, I said, I
need something like that because I rancross country in high school and we got
running sixty seventy miles and we cannow do anything but running run yeah.
Shape Now, so I need asong to get me bump up. I'm
gonna check it out, all right, So let me let me let me

(06:14):
pivot a little bit. So,David, I kind of gave you a
great intro you and c According tosocial media, you're a mean air guitarist
to journey songs with your wife sittingon the loan. You really was.
I was digging obviously. You hada medical career trajectory, Casper Duke physics,
computer skydiving license, commercial pilot.I mean you've done your reason impressive,

(06:39):
a fair enough picture, but thecool, smart one and I'm here
along for the ride, all right. So we've never met each other.
We bump in each other at aconference. What drink is in your hand?
And how do you tell me whatyou guys do and what your company
is? Yeah, so drinking handwould be an old fashion. And the

(07:00):
way I described company is we makesweat products for all over the body.
We were really sweaty and there areno products out there to help, so
we decided to do something about itand make products for ourselves and hopefully make
products that helped a lot of otherpeople. For me, it's the third
pumpkin spice cold brew of the day, trent to thirty ounces, right,
So I'm at ninety ounces by thetime you meet me in the evening,

(07:21):
and yeah, I'd probably start withsweaty hands. I mean really. David
was the one with the idea,the one working on it for the first
year when it was just a conceptfor him, and came to me summer
after freshman year and said, look, I've been thinking about making something for
sweaty hands, because why are thereunder our anti persperants so there's nothing to
stop sweaty hands. And I saidthat's a terrible idea. He's like,

(07:42):
what are you talking about. Youhave the sweatiest hands. I said,
well, no, I think ifthis was a big opportunity, we'd see
other products out there. And sureenough, actually, when we went online
and started looking, we found acrazy amount of hand anti persprints. They
were all over the place, butthey were very poorly rated, and when
we started buying them and trying them, we realized that they were just way
too greasy. So we thought thatthis was a really good opportunity, that

(08:03):
this was something where we could createa much better formula. I was studying
physics, David had a chemistry backgroundtoo, so we kind of were scientifically
literate enough to figure out formulation,chemistry and just start engaging with what's happening
in that space and realized, Okay, this isn't a super hard problem because
we just have the antipersperon active,but we need to create a formula that

(08:26):
isn't greasy, that isn't like alotion with an antipersperon ingredient in it,
but rather something that holistically is adrying experience on your hands, not over
drying, right, but something thatdoesn't make your hands actually feel sweatier.
So it took us a year.It took us sixty prototypes of developing that
first formula, But that's really whereit started is us recognizing that this is
a need. It's a need forus, it's a need for a lot
of people to stop sweaty hands,and nothing out there was addressing that need,

(08:48):
and that with some work we couldmake something that was a good product.
And it was really just going tobe a side project for a very
long time. I mean we weredoing it sixty hours a week in college,
but then Lisa left that uh right, yeah, so we had I
think it was a lot of Itwas a massively positive reception on Amazon when
we launched, just a lot offive star reviews people loving the products of

(09:09):
two thousand and fIF fifteen. Okay, yeah, and then David, I
mean, yeah, you mentioned thevoicemail. Well, I mean we were
still planning on doing other things withour lives. I was almost done with
all the pre med recks. Casperwas going to get a PhD in computer
science, and everything changed when wegot this voicemail from this grandmother named Lisa,
who left it on my cell becausewe were customer service at the time,

(09:31):
and she was just bawling, likeshe was bawling crime, talking about
how much this product, the antiperch purint for sweaty hands, had completely
changed her grandadter's life. And forus, that and really the words she
used were changed the trajectory of herlife. And that was something that just
was mind blowing to us because wedidn't expect this product to have that kind

(09:54):
of impact on people's lives. Andthat's what we then just kept hearing over
and over and over again, notonly from customers but also from dermatologists.
And so we were hearing from allof these dermatologists who were like, I
don't have anything for my patients thatare you know, really excessively sweaty but
this works incredibly well, and they'recoming back and telling that. They're saying

(10:15):
that they're telling all of their friendsand family about it because they finally have
something that works. So that's whenthe light bulb clicked and we're like,
Wow, there's really an opportunity here. And then those same people were saying,
Hey, do you have something formy sweaty feet? Do you have
something for my chest sweat and mygroin sweat and my under arms, because
I've tried everything out there and nothing'sworked for me. And that's when we
really saw the opportunity to build abrand focused on sweat care for everywhere.

(10:37):
And that's what we've done. That'sand I'll tell you, I've taken the
quiz online. It told me Ineed everything. So the OLDU was you
need three of everything. And it'sfunny, like you know my entire life.
When you walk up and I getready to shake somebody's hand, you
do the old swipe on the jeans, swipe on the jeans before you do

(10:58):
it. So of course like,well, I gotta take my quiz.
Let's see what I found out.So I have a couple of products already
at the house, so I'll makesure we give you guys positive reviews assuming
it works. It has so far, but no, it was. It's
certainly something that a lot of peoplestruggle with. And I even know people
in my family who are like,well, I can only get fist pounds,
I can't give handshakes because it's gonnabe awkward when they're like, why

(11:18):
are your hands so clammy? Andso that's cool that you guys actually have
the chance to do something powerful.I think the good thing for you guys
is that one of the things that'sdifferent is a lot of times when people
have a scholarly background like you guysdo, their product comes off as very
scholarly or very educated, where yourproduct comes off as fun and helpful,
which is a fun bounce. Probablyyour guys' personality leads to that. So

(11:39):
not really a question as much asjust something I've noticed in having conversations with
you guys. It comes across as, yes, it's a very reputable product,
but it's not something that's stuffy,and it just has a very clinical
background to it. So yeah,all right, So in the beginning,
you guys were an old mechanic shop, right that was man it's been a
litany of offices between Durham and inChapel Hill. So the one that you're

(12:01):
thinking of, Yes, we hadthese incredible guys in Durham, these three
Duke alumni, local entrepreneurs UH namedBootstrap Advisors Benja and Chris, and they
took us in as almost an incubator, so they were sort of our first
investors and they helped us launch thecompany from twenty fifteen through twenty seventeen.
They're still actively involved as advisors,but in those couple of years we were

(12:22):
working out of their offices and outof their warehouse. And when we sort
of graduated, Carpe became big enoughthat we wanted our own space. The
first place that we found that wethought the least was reasonable on was a
former auto mechanics shop, So inthe car bay is where we had our
warehouse. And then in that kindof dinky office filled with ron recluse spiders
where you know the mechanics usually havetheir their bookkeeping and everything, that's where

(12:43):
we actually were sitting with our computersand working all day. But I've actually
heard that those spiders were the leastsweaty spiders, the least absolute being researched
to this day, honestly, andthat was the place where you guys had
the palette show up and you weren'tready to get the palettes off. Oh
my god, how did you knowall these stories? Where is no that's
incredible? Well, so, basicallyDavid's right, we did not have a

(13:07):
place with a truck dock. Itwas everything was ground level, and as
carpet was growing quickly, we startedto get more and more, not just
LTL shipments, but actual full truckloadsof pallets, and we were realizing we
need to move to a bigger warehouse. But in the interim, we did
have this one semi and we knewit was coming without a lift gate.
And for people who you know,don't work with semi's, basically they are

(13:28):
i don't know, about four feetoff the ground the back of the trailer.
And so usually you have a truckdock, which if you're driving around
on the freeway you'll see in warehousesthese truck docks, these little doors where
all the semis are pulling up andthose are all four feet off the ground.
We didn't have something like that,and there wasn't a lift gate on
the back of the semi. Nothingthat would basically an elevator that would lower
the pallets to the ground. Sowe're out there thinking, knowing the semi's

(13:50):
coming, with all the pallettes willbe four feet off the ground, how
do we get them to the ground. We looked how much it would cost
to rent a forklift, and itwas prohibitive. But a Penske truck,
which is the same high but hasa liftgate, is only about two hundred
dollars a day. So we justdocked the back of the Penske to the
back of the semi, moved allthe palettes over to the pen Ski,
and then lowered them to the groundwith the liftgate on the Penski. Okay,

(14:11):
that's just bringing solutions. It's reallybringing Since then though, we've heard
that, like we've heard that storyfrom other people. This is this is
a common innovation in the space,and I think everybody who comes up with
it is like, ah, that'sso clever. But I think it's just
a rite of passage to have touse a Penska to your get your product
off a truck. All right,So kin I talking about the company.
Now, where you guys have beenand where you've gone over the past really

(14:35):
three years. Growth has been prettyexplosive for you guys. You know article
I read twenty two million in revenuein twenty twenty two. You don't have
to give me specific numbers, butwhat's twenty twenty three and where does twenty
twenty four lead you guys, It'sbeen an incredible few years because of a
couple of trends. I think priorto COVID, we were really we were
making sweat products for all over thebody. But what Carpe was known as

(14:56):
was the hand anti perspering, youknow, the solution to sweaty hands.
How the company was start and thenyou mentioned fist bumps. Those became very
popular during COVID, and I'm veryhappy for all the people who suffer from
sweaty hands that it wasn't as muchof a problem. But that also meant
that there wasn't as much demand forthat product, and all of these other
products that Carpe had started getting alot more significance both among customers, but
also we realized that hey, it'snot just the hand anti perspriant and some

(15:20):
other products, it's even our underour anti persperens, which the way that
started is honestly, grmatologists told usthat they were recommending our hand anti prosperint
for patients to use on their underarms, and we said, okay,
we didn't. I mean, there'sa lot of under our anti firstperence.
We didn't realize we've made such agood formula for that specifically, but it's
very difficult to stop sweaty hands.If you make something that stops sweaty hands,
it's going to be incredible on theunder arms. So we've adapted that

(15:41):
formula over the years, and that'sreally become the flagship for so many people
who you know, are fed upwith solutions that don't work. Over the
past decade, the natural deodorance,which you know we can we can get
into that, I don't know thatthey're necessarily that much more natural, have
become very popular and people are realizingthat they're not stopping this at all.
They want a solution for their sweatand people who've even been using antiperspons,

(16:03):
they can't find anything that works forthem until they try Carpae. And I
think that's really what's driven the growthover the past few years, is particularly
all over the body, but reallyjust the under arms, where people are
realizing that Carpe is the first thingthat's worked for them there. And now
when you say that's the flagship,is that sixty percent? Is that seventy
percent of products? It varies howyou cut it. I think for what's

(16:23):
interesting is that most people that cometo Carpe are using products for multiple areas
of the body. So while underarms is by far the most prominent,
and that's something that I think almostanybody can relate to. And when I
say anybody, I mean there arepeople for whom sweat isn't an issue,
and that's excellent, right, Butif sweat bother somebody excessively, I think
for most people it's going to bethe under arms. For a lot of

(16:45):
people, it's going to be otherareas of the body as well. And
I think, kind of speaking tothat quiz that really we set that up
to highlight that you know, fora lot of people, it's not just
the under arms that are a problem, although that is probably culturally the most
recognized area of sweat, it's it'svarious areas for different people. So I
think we don't really even have anarchetypal customer. It's very personalized, you

(17:07):
know, totally different people coming infor totally different reasons. And that's really
what we just exist to provide issweat solutions for wherever you sweat, whyever
you sweat. Now mentioning that andhow it's evolved, how did you guys
craft the story of Carpe the brandas it is, whether it's a color
scheme or whether it's the fun thatyou guys bring from your personality, tell

(17:27):
me how that developed. We chosethe We chose the name because this idea
of like Carpe dm CZ the day, have the sweat free confidence to you
know, go live your life confidently. And we chose the color because we
went in a CVS when we wereliving in New Orleans and we looked at
the shelf and there are no orangeanti perch fronts like orange orange. It's
a great color, yes, andit's a confident color that's cheap market research

(17:49):
and I love it. And that'swhat we did, and then we built
the brand. I mean, whatyou were describing is what we've been trying
to build, right, A brandthat's approachable, that's for everyone who who
is just sweaty, like more sweatythan they want to be wherever it is,
but is you know, clinically backed, is backed by science and a
lot of research that we've done,and I mean it's helped that germatologists are

(18:12):
such a big reason that Carpe iswhat it is today. Like that's like
David said, it was the voicemail, was the customer reviews, but really
it was germatologists in North Carolina.In the first few years we were going
to grmatology conferences with this first product, and they were coming back and telling
us We've used this with our patientsand they love it. And I think
that both gave us the impetus tokeep growing Karpe, but also those conversations

(18:33):
that involvement. Now we have,you know, multiple advisors who are grmatologists
on our board of Advisors, helpingus each week drive the direction of our
product development and make better products.I think that's been a core part of
what the brand is because I thinkwithout those experts, it would be just
David and my goofy personalities that you'dbe seeing. But thanks to all the
support we've gotten, frankly from thatcommunity, that's why Karpe has become such

(18:56):
a clinical brand. We've developed reallyreally deep relationships with dermatologists and to Caster's
point that's really driven a lot ofthe product innovation and product efficacy of just
how we make great products that workfor people. It's really by partnering deeply
with dermatologists and also just great formulationchemists. Yeah, all right, so

(19:17):
you guys took a jump. You'reobviously different trajectories. You're gonna do something
completely different. You're like, allright, let's jump in and let's make
this work. When most entrepreneurs orwant to be entrepreneurs are surveyed, fear
is the number one reason they don'tCan we make it? What am I
giving up? What's the downside?How do I support myself in the meantime?
What's your advice for entrepreneurs or peoplewho have an idea and are just

(19:38):
right there on the brink of makingthat jump. I think we were very
fortunate that we had this opportunity earlyin college where we already had that support
network and fallback plan. And Ithink for anybody who may be hearing this,
who is in a position like thatwhere they have they have another option

(19:59):
in their able to pursue something likethis while still having the safety of another
environment of being in school, beingin a job that you can keep and
be doing something like this on theside. At first, initially, I
think there's no downside to doing that. I think, you know, that's
a very lucky position to be,and so if you're in that position,
absolutely go for it. There's nodownside to starting a project and trying to
see if you can make something happen. But for other people who I think

(20:22):
are perhaps in the scarier position ofyou know, if I'm going to go
all in on this business, itneeds to work. I think I think
the first, you know, lifeshort. If you have something that's going
to help people, if you havesomething that's going to make the world a
better place and a way you canbring value, I think you kind of
have a duty to go for itand take that risk, because you know

(20:47):
that's why we're here. But beyondthat, I think the important thing to
focus on as quickly as possible iswhether you are able to create something that
delivers value, because I think thatif you have that, if you're in
a position where you're like, isthis an idea I should be pursuing,
is this something I should be workingon, I would put all the focus
on figuring out as quickly as possible. If this is something that people are

(21:08):
gonna love if you're creating something thatpeople will want to buy. Because if
you have that truth, then everythingelse you can figure out right. And
that's why the inflection point for uswas that initial Amazon launch, all those
five star reviews, the grandmother cryingand saying, this was life changing for
my granddaughter. Because since then wehave made a crazy amount of mistakes with
the business. I think we couldhave you know, the company's taken ten

(21:30):
years to get to a place wherewe could have gotten it in one if
we knew all the lessons that weknow right now, that maybe two maybe
two years. But through it all, we had stumbled into something that was
helping a lot of people and thatpeople really loved. And I think that
if you can test for that prettyquickly, then you are going to be
successful even as you continue figuring thesethings out. Okay, I got one
more question for you, guys,and then we're gonna let you get on

(21:52):
with your busy and successful days.When we are celebrating the ten year anniversary
of this meeting. Ten years fromnow, where are you guys going to
be? Carpe is going to bea household name brand, and it's going
to be the number one anti persperentbrand uh in the US. We strongly
believe that we can get there,and we're on a trajectory to do that.

(22:14):
And I think from the standpoint ofwhere Casper and I are in ten
years, UH, that's a goodquestion and I wish I had the answer,
but I think the moon won't youguys hang out with Yeah, I'll
help you get Guys listen. Iappreciate the time. David Spratt, Casper
Kubizza, CEO and COO of Karpe, thank you for joining us. We

(22:37):
really appreciate it. Thank you forhaving us CEOs. You should know is
a production of iHeartMedia, Raleigh.Thanks for listening.