You left a career in mainstream business to become an entrepreneur. How did that happen?
The itch to launch a second career started for me years before actually taking the leap to start the company. Now, when I look back at my pre-Skura career, I have come to realize that I was probably always an entrepreneur at heart.
I had a very successful career in magazine publishing, and most of the time, I loved my work. But there was always an undercurrent of a desire to do more, learn more, create more and to have more control of outcome. I know that I am at my happiest when I am immensely challenged and learning something new every single day. And I love a good puzzle & figuring out solutions to complex problems, which is an important trait to succeed in an entrepreneurial venture of this nature.
Towards the latter part of my career in publishing, I had started a bit of a jagged path to re-imagining. The magazine industry was contracting, which forced me to dabble in a couple of different roles and consulting projects that were all a bit adjacent to publishing. My last corporate position after publishing was at a media agency running the business development and account strategy team. This was a fun full-circle story because it was with the same agency holding company where I had my first post-college graduation job. Landing new roles and gigs outside of publishing was great as it allowed me to get out of the bubble of the publishing world to flex new muscles. At the same time, I had become a student of disruptor brands in the CPG world – I was fascinated by these companies that were taking on category leaders and monopolies, with better products, more innovation and sheer determination. And sponges were the ultimate sleepy, neglected category ripe for disruption.
I have often been asked how I had the guts to do this- – I think it would have been so much scarier not to do it.
You jumped into a new category that was ready to be disrupted…. Sponges! What is Skura Style?
Skura Style is a lifestyle brand dedicated to kitchen well-being with a suite of products focused on enhancing the experience around the kitchen sink. Skura Style’s line of kitchen cleaning tools offer innovative and superior performance benefits to solve real consumer pain points and are beautifully designed. Skura products have earned numerous awards and accolades such as Good Housekeeping‘s Best Cleaning Products Awards, Bon Appétit Best Cleaning Products for you Kitchen Awards and Better Homes & Gardens Clean House Awards.
Skura Style was an idea in the making for many years, and the company officially launched in late 2017. I was 56 years old at the time. The company was co-founded by Linda Sawyer, a fellow re-imaginer! Linda and I have been best friends since second grade and have led parallel lives both personally and professionally. My pre-Skura career was spent primarily in the magazine publishing industry, leading consumer magazines at Conde Nast, Meredith, and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. Linda’s career was in advertising — prior to Skura, she was the long time N.A. Chairman and CEO of Deutsch. We often talked about business and about the next chapter — what we were going to do in our lives and the possibilities. And we talked about what we might do together. There were tons of ideas that we floated around and one day we started talking about sponges… How ugly, disgusting and smelly they were (I wouldn’t even own one or touch one!).
Sponges had not kept pace with the design innovation we were seeing in all other areas of the home. In fact, there wasn’t any real innovation since the 1950’s. Yet, we saw everyday kitchen objects like garbage cans, paper towel holders, dish drying racks experience dramatic design and performance innovation. We wondered why we were accepting that ugly, smelly green/yellow or industrial blue sponge as the only option. And that was our aha moment – we decided to take on “big sponge” and went on a mission to create a sponge that you could actually love. We didn’t know a thing about the sponge business or manufacturing. We did know that we had a killer idea and were intent on figuring out how to bring it to market. We used our outsider advantage to defy convention and figure it out. And we tapped our extensive professional network to find resources, advice and early-stage investors. Our prior career experience also had a role in shaping our brand. One of Linda’s longtime clients at Deutsch was IKEA. This experience and extensive global contacts impacted our brand in many ways. For example, we were connected with a former IKEA industrial designer that has done all our product and packaging design. And Skura is a Swedish word that translates to “scour or scrub”. During my career in publishing, I spent a significant amount of time working with clients in fashion and beauty. That experience of working with premium lifestyle brands informed so many decisions about our brand from the packaging and overall esthetics and fueled our mission to elevate the entire Skura brand experience to attainable luxury. We asked ourselves why can’t a cleaning brand be not only efficacious but also beautiful?
How has the Skura Style business expanded and what’s next?
The business was originally launched as direct-to-consumer, starting with our hero product –the Skura Style Skrubby Sponge. In our second year of business, we expanded distribution to Amazon and launched 3 additional products – Very Skrubby Scouring Pad, Wipe Envy Microfiber Wipes and Towel Ta-Da! dish towels. During the pandemic, Eva Mendes discovered Skura Style and became obsessed with the products and our back story. In 2021, Eva went from obsessed customer to a co-owner in the company. And she serves as Skura’s brand ambassador. Eva is an incredible, hands-on and passionate business partner. In 2024 we launched in Target stores with a new collection designed by Eva. And later this year, we will be announcing 2 other very major retail partnerships. We have also expanded the business globally, with distribution via Amazon in the UK, Japan, Italy, Germany, France and Spain. And we even have distribution partnerships in South Korea and Slovenia. Disdain for ugly, smelly sponges is a universal consumer pain point across the globe.
