How to Turn Boring Products Into Big Businesses

TL;DR

Reimagine an ordinary utility product by improving its design, sensory appeal, branding, distribution, and storytelling until it creates a distinct category. Touchland applied this approach to hand sanitizer, while Dyson and Ember did it with vacuums and mugs, showing that entrepreneurs can expand demand instead of merely competing for a fixed share of an existing market.

Transcript

This is serious podcasting over here. Sean, the last time I did this, actually, I literally pulled up the date of it. It was in 2020. I think you were in like a wife beater and then you went to the bathroom and I heard you flush the toilet. I'm serious, dude. That's how far we've come here. Hey, we haven't come that far. Still these things that tha... Read More

Key Insights

• Touchland is an example of converting a clinical commodity into a premium consumer product. The company made hand sanitizer smell better, look attractive, feel giftable, and support collaborations with brands such as Hello Kitty and Disney, distinguishing it from the hospital-like associations of conventional sanitizer.
• Touchland’s reported trajectory is evidence that category redesign can create substantial value. The founder raised about $67,000 on Kickstarter, reportedly generated roughly $1 million in first-year sales, and later built a business expected to produce $130 million in revenue and $55 million in EBITDA during 2025.
• The opportunity in boring products is often hidden in qualities that consumers have learned to tolerate. Clunky form factors, unattractive packaging, poor smells, inconvenient distribution, and weak presentation can become openings for a founder who treats the entire customer experience as a design problem.
• Dyson’s product strategy is based on taking ordinary appliances unusually seriously. Its PencilVac demonstration attracted millions of views on YouTube, illustrating how a technically improved vacuum can become compelling media when the founder clearly presents its design, engineering, and practical advantages.
• Modern media is a distribution advantage for product innovators. A concise YouTube demonstration can communicate why an apparently ordinary product is different, reach potential customers directly, and persuade some viewers to purchase from a brand they had not previously considered.
• A 10x product concept is a useful lens for exploring neglected categories. Fire logs, karaoke machines, household tools, heated mugs, and hand dryers are cited as products that may offer room for improvements in appearance, portability, convenience, performance, branding, or retail availability.
• Total addressable market is not necessarily a static number. Entrepreneurs can enlarge a market by creating new use cases, reaching different buyers, opening additional sales channels, and making a product attractive to people who would not have purchased the conventional version.
• Distribution can change the potential of an established product category. The Flint prototype prompted a question about why fire logs are mainly purchased from home-improvement stores instead of convenience stores, where customers might add them to weekend purchases such as beer.

Questions & Answers

Q: How can entrepreneurs turn boring products into big businesses?

Entrepreneurs can start with a familiar utility product and identify the compromises customers have accepted, such as unattractive design, unpleasant smells, clunky construction, inconvenient purchasing, or weak branding. They can then improve several of those qualities together and explain the difference through modern media. Touchland, Dyson, and Ember illustrate how a conventional category can become more desirable through design, performance, presentation, and storytelling.

Q: Why did Touchland stand out in the hand sanitizer market?

Touchland treated hand sanitizer as a sensory, design, and gifting product rather than only a clinical utility. It made the sanitizer smell good, used an attractive clear form factor, and pursued collaborations with Hello Kitty and Disney. These choices separated it from products associated with hospitals, teachers, alcohol smells, and purely functional packaging, creating a product that people could display or give to someone else.

Q: How did Touchland grow from Kickstarter to a major acquisition?

Touchland began with a Kickstarter campaign that raised about $67,000 for an initial production run. The company reportedly generated around $1 million in sales during its first year, then experienced sharply increased interest in hand sanitizer when COVID occurred. By 2025, it had been acquired for $880 million and was expected to generate $130 million in revenue and $55 million in EBITDA that year.

Q: What product categories may be ready for reinvention?

The discussion identifies fire logs, karaoke machines, household tools, vacuum cleaners, hand dryers, heated mugs, and hand sanitizer as examples. These categories contain products that may be clunky, unattractive, narrowly distributed, or treated as pure utilities. A founder can examine each customer interaction, from product design and portability to packaging and retail placement, then develop a version that feels substantially more thoughtful and desirable.

Q: How can YouTube help sell an ordinary physical product?

YouTube can show the product’s improvements in a direct and understandable format. Dyson’s founder presented the PencilVac in a demonstration that received millions of views, even though the underlying category was vacuum cleaners. A strong demonstration turns engineering, design, and founder conviction into a story, helping viewers understand why the product is different and potentially encouraging first-time customers to buy from the brand.

Q: Why is total addressable market not always fixed?

A conventional total addressable market estimate often assumes a fixed pool of existing customers and asks how much of that pool a company can capture. The discussion argues that strong entrepreneurs can grow the pool itself. They may attract people who previously ignored the category, add use cases, improve distribution, or make the product more desirable, producing positive-sum growth rather than merely taking sales from competitors.

Q: How can new distribution channels expand a product market?

New distribution channels can place a product where customers naturally encounter the need for it. The Flint fire-log prototype raises the possibility of selling fire logs in convenience stores instead of relying mainly on Home Depot, Lowe’s, or similar stores. A shopper buying weekend beer at a bodega or 7-Eleven could also pick up a fire log, increasing convenience and creating an additional purchase occasion.

Q: What should founders research before redesigning a commodity product?

Founders should examine leading products, category sales, customer frustrations, current retail channels, packaging, form factor, sensory qualities, and the reasons people do or do not recommend or gift the item. They should also reverse engineer successful companies and search for market gaps. The goal is to understand both the existing category and the broader potential created by better design, stronger storytelling, and more convenient distribution.

Summary & Key Takeaways

• Ordinary products can support valuable businesses when founders rethink qualities that established competitors ignore. Touchland transformed hand sanitizer from a clinical utility into an attractive, fragrant, giftable product. Its design, collaborations, and positioning allowed the company to sell a familiar item as a distinctive experience rather than another commodity.

• The same opportunity appears across vacuums, mugs, fire logs, karaoke machines, and household tools. Founders can investigate categories consumers take for granted, identify recurring frustrations, and build substantially better alternatives. Modern media then helps them demonstrate improvements, tell the founder’s story, and reach buyers directly through online commerce.

• Market size should not be treated as a fixed pie divided among existing competitors. Better products, new customers, additional retail channels, and stronger positioning can expand a category’s total demand. Shopify and AG1 are presented as examples of businesses whose growth exceeded what a conventional static market estimate might have predicted.