Blueland Proves That “Refill Is The New Recycle”

The company’s “forever” bottles, shakers, and tins are 100 percent plastic-free, compostable paper-based products. Its “clean” ingredients are safe around children and pets and powerfully effective (with 90K+ 5-star reviews). And all of it saves consumers money—because there’s no cost for plastics or water fillers.

In 2010, Sarah Paiji Yoo and John Mascari sat next to each other in a Harvard Business School graduate course. They learned, says Yoo, that “corporations exist to maximize shareholder value.” Such traditional business thinking had already surrounded Yoo, who’d started her career at a top global consulting firm in 2006: “The purpose of a corporation is to make money for shareholders,” Yoo recalls hearing time and again.

“But how exciting it’s been to see in such a short period of time,” says Yoo, a major shift afoot regarding that philosophy once considered rock solid. “Most Fortune 500 CEOs today would either agree or feel the pressure to agree with the statement that companies need to serve a much larger stakeholder base.” 

Yoo’s own thinking began to change organically with the advent of a new stakeholder in her life—her first son. Prior to that, she’d been a successful, self-described “purpose-driven serial entrepreneur” for more than a decade, across multiple businesses, mostly in beauty and fashion, mostly specializing in marketing. “I’d always been open to my relationship with work changing on the other side of parenthood.”

Till then, Yoo was co-founder and CEO of Snapette, the largest mobile platform for local fashion shopping, which was sold to leading e-commerce platform PriceGrabber in 2013. 

“But [after the birth of her son], I think my journey as an entrepreneur previously had been very 24/7, 365, and I questioned if that was still the relationship with work I wanted to have,” says Yoo.

After becoming a parent, she says, “The energy and excitement I got from the challenge of bringing new products to market all of a sudden just wasn't enough. I sought something that was more personally meaningful … more globally impactful.”

“Over the years, I had really questioned [myself]: There I was pedaling a new pair of shoes to a woman who had just bought a pair of shoes last week, and trying to sell toner and eye cream and all these things that I didn't actually believe she needed.”

So Yoo “hit the brakes, and decided to step away from work. I decided to just embrace this new identity I was coming into, and then really see how I felt about the world and work, and where I wanted to spend my time.” She says she was “actively trying to not work—andcertainly not to start a business.” 

Boss of a “Zero-Waste” Baby

Yoo channeled her “type A tendencies” into her new role as the best mom she could be. That included conducting extensive research into everything she put into her son’s body. Having previously breastfed him exclusively for nearly his whole first year, she found herself transitioning him to formula. When she started researching the water in formula, she got a shock. “This was almost eight years ago. No one was talking about microplastics yet,” Yoo says. “There was research on it, but [not like] today, [when], thankfully there's so much traditional and social media coverage on it.”

“Back then, I was horrified to learn there are thousands of tiny pieces of plastic in our tap water and bottled water. That’s when I started to connect all the dots between all this single-use plastic, how it’s ending up in our oceans and waterways, and how it’s in our blood [because] we’re eating it, we’re drinking it.

“I went through this entire personal journey of just knowing that I wanted to make a change in my life and my family’s life. We not only cut out single-use plastic to the best of our ability, but we went completely zero waste. We were zero waste for two years. And during that process, I understood how hard that was, and that even as well-intentioned as I was, literally everything comes packaged in single use.” 

“That’s when I started to get the nagging feeling that I have the experience and the confidence to bring a new solution to market. Because it was not lost on me that my family's tiny personal consumption was not going to be very impactful.” Whereas “it would be much more impactful for me to help give others more choice.” Enter the idea for BlueLand with the re-entry of co-founder, John Mascari (today, COO).

It was Never about Cleaning Products

“Originally we started with a mission to eliminate single-use plastic packaging,” says Yoo. “It’s the largest category of both new plastic production as well as plastic waste. We spent over a year exploring a range of different ways to attack that problem,” including considering inventing a plastic alternative.”

“Punchline being, there are a lot of smart people and a lot of money chasing that very difficult problem.”

So, how else could Blueland manifest its mission to make it “easy to be eco” with innovative – i.e., convenient, effective, and affordable – products that clean up the planet and our bodies, too? The simple answer came from a complex question: “What if you buy the bottle once—and refilled it, forever?”

Thus was born the now certified B-Corp.’s revolutionary, refillable home essentials business.

With a little help from a major celebrity investor. Yoo pitched the business on Shark Tank 2019 (Season 11, Episode 1), where she got a deal from Canadian businessman Kevin O’Leary. Though other Sharks bowed out brusquely, five years later, O’Leary would prove his moniker “Mr. Wonderful” right on the money: A million plus homes have switched to Blueland for their household cleaners and personal care products.

Yoo likens her support from Shark Tank with her pre-Blueland experience as a partner at accelerator LAUNCH, creating and operating new consumer businesses, including M.Gemi and Rockets of Awesome (both clothing), and Follain (health and beauty). Says Yoo, “I think what's special about founders in that entrepreneur journey and why we've seen such massive innovation come from these upstarts is because of the combination of focus and sheer willpower against one singular objective. Combined with the speed and flexibility that comes with being a small organization.”

“I think an incubator also, just by definition, adds another layer of decision-making. You have the entity and then you have the incubator on top of it.”

As for traditional VC, where investors spread their risk so that any individual failure won’t hurt their overall portfolio, Yoo says, “I think it's hard. To truly build something of value for the long run that will sustain success is a very difficult challenge. I think it's really hard to have a group of people that are not fully focused and aligned and incentivized against that singular challenge.”

In the end, after first questioning her own family’s impact potential, Yoo has concluded that she believes in the power of people to change the world, one decision at a time. “Individual actions matter. Unless people's behaviors and preferences change, the bigger levers of business or government are not going to change.” She concludes: “If people don't care, if culture and norms don't change, businesses and government are not going to follow.”

If you’d like to dive deeper with more purpose-led companies like Blueland check out the Lead with We podcast here, so that you too can build a company that transforms consumer behavior and our future.