Googling to start her oral care business with Bite Co-Founder Lindsay McCormick

Joining me on the show today is Lindsay McCormick, Co-Founder of Bite.

Bite is on a mission to upend the personal and oral care industry with innovative products that are made with the planet in mind. Started by Lindsay McCormick in her living room and after launching their viral toothpaste tablets in 2018, they have since expanded to offer the first and only 100% plant based and plastic free oral care set - Bite is here to make your daily routine more sustainable with products that are plastic-free, cruelty-free, made with effective, clean ingredients, one smile at a time.

The most common review the brand receives is "It's weird at first but now I'm obsessed”.

In this episode we’re covering how Lindsay started her business in her living room, taking online chemistry classes and googling ‘how do people make drugs’, why she turned down offers on SharkTank from Mark Cuban and Kevin O’Leary, and the lessons she’s been learning along the way.

Please note, this transcript has been copy pasted without the lovely touch of a human editor. Please expect some typos!

Lindsay: Definitely so. My name is Lindsay McCormick and I'm the founder and CEO of Bite. We make plastic free personal care. We started with toothpaste tablets

And I started

It in my living room in twenty eighteen and

We now have

Grown. We're available online and in some

Retail stores as well.

Doone: Amazing. I always want to go back to life before you started the business to find out what you were up to and what even got you thinking about starting a business in the first place.

Yeah. So I did

Not really expect to start a

Business. I was traveling

All the time. I was a TV producer before I

Started by which meant

I was on a plane every other week and I was flying to all these different destinations for shoots and traveling on only because only there a few days. And I've always been super passionate about the environment.

I was before that

Even I was a snowboard director.

I was out on mountains

And in the ocean all the time, kind of seeing the plastic problem and what we need to do to really step up conservation. And so I was traveling and I had gotten my kit all down where I had my shampoo bottle that I could refill and my conditioner bottle that I could refill on my face wash. And I was throwing out these little toothpaste tubes every single shoot. And I was just like, this feels so wasteful.

And I feel like I've done so

Much with the rest of my stuff, like, why can't I figure out toothpaste?

And so I started looking

Into

Alternatives like

Tooth powder and other to use tablets that were on the market, but they were all in plastic. And so that was the beginning

Of this

Process for me. It was like, OK, I want this so I can take it on shoots for my job. I'm going to start making it.

And then from

That I was like, well, if I'm going to be making it for myself, it needs to be as

Effective and

Safe as possible. And that's when I started looking into the ingredients and most toothpaste. And I was just like, wow,

This is absurd.

I was like, I've spent more time looking at what's on the back of my

Shampoo bottle than I have ever even looked at the back of my toothpaste

Tube. And turns out there was a bunch of stuff in there that I was

Like, I don't like that

In my body every day, you know? And so

I started

Taking online chemistry classes

And talking with

Dentists and

Dental hygienist and

Starting making the first like iterations of what

Bite was

In my toaster oven at that

Time. So that's kind of how

It all started.

And I definitely did not set out

To make a business. But after I started investing in these, like machinery and time, I was like,

Well, I might as well sell

This on Etsy and Shopify and see if

Other people want. It would be great if I did, but I

Figured it would just be for like me and my friends. And then from

There, that's

How it all

Started and kind of just

Grew into what

We are today. That is

So cool. I love that you were taking online chemistry classes

To fully

Understand what you needed to put in it. Can we just talk about how you actually go about in those early iterations of what you were doing? How do you actually make. A toothpaste bite, and when you say machinery, what do you mean?

It's a really good question.

So it's changed. So at first it was I mean, this was literally

Like me in

My I say lab, but it was really our dining room that I turned to my

Lab and I would just

Sit there all night and I was

Researching, you know, different ingredients

And what I could use. And I would go down to Whole Foods and I would go by. They had

Different things. They're like Xyloto and Urethral,

Which I couldn't find a normal grocery

Store. I got a lot of

Stuff off

Of Amazon, like just went on there and got off

Amazon. Then there's a website called Chemistry Connection that has

Different like a little like

Surfactants and things like homing pigeons. So I was just buying these little samples of things that I could try and I'd put them in mason jars and I was mixing them together to figure

Out what felt

Good, what

Tasted good, what worked when I clean my teeth

With it. Good.

And the machinery at first

Because

I didn't want to

Buy a tablet machine.

So our

Bits are toothpaste, tablets are dry, dry,

Little toothpaste

Tablets, and they're made by being pressed in a tablet machine. And those machines are I mean, it is an entire career to know how to work those machines like it's a whole

New thing

And they're very expensive. And so I was like, I have a machine I want to. So I bought a pastry

Kit and I was

Trying to take the powders I was making and mixing it with a little bit of coconut oil or these different things and pipe it out of a pastry

Bag like

These little balls, kind

Of like the candidates. It was like a dot

On paper, like I was trying to like I was like, maybe I could do

This and I can bake it.

And I set my toaster oven on fire and I was like, I can't bake it. And so then I was like, OK, fine, I have to I have to invest this machine. And so it was a thousand dollars, which

Now

Looking back, that was nothing to start a business. But at the time this was a hobby and just trying to solve this problem for myself. So I was kind

Of like, am I getting

Obsessed with this? Like, what am I doing everything so much time and why am I going to be buying this equipment? So I bought I finally did. I bought the equipment and I

Actually bought it originally.

It was a TDP zero and

As a machine.

And to even find out what kind of tabloidy machine I had to spend time on Reddit and I was actually looking up how to

Make drugs because I

Was like, oh my God. Yeah, because I need to figure out how to your landlord must have been like, what is going on in the kitchen.

There is for sure, like

An FBI

Watch list of my search history because I was like, how do you make tablets? And everything I was finding was just like these huge like hundred thousand

Dollar machinery

Things. And I was like, I need to know how to make it in my living room. And I was like, who makes tablets in their living room?

And I was like, people who make their living.

So I was like, I was on Reddit

In like the deep, deep holes

Of Reddit. And I was like, OK, I need to be five. I need a binding agent, I need stuff. And so I started. That's literally how it started.

And so I got a machine

From a company in Texas.

And the guy,

He was just starting out with his business as well. So he was super helpful, would get on the phone with me. And that's how I learned

How to tablet and

My tablet.

Holy moly, that is such a cool beginning's story. Wow. And so at that point, I guess buying the machine really made you be like, okay, well, it can't just be for me. I'm going to try and as you said, put it on Etsy. What were your friends and family saying at this point? Would they like into the idea? Were you validating it through them or what

Was the vibe? Yeah, so

I really leaned on friends and family at first.

So I again, to my background

As a TV producer. But then before that I was a surf instructor and instructor. So like active lifestyle, people who really care about the planet and want our kind of more into things, that could be more weird, I guess, because they're

Just like a different type of it's not like the typical

Nine to five or so. I was like, hey, what do you guys think? So I was sending out and I actually still have I printed up surveys where it was like, what do you think of the taste one through five? What do you think of the texture? One through five. And I would press I would hand

Out these bits and I would send

Them

To family, friends.

I would take them to work at my TV producing job. And I would hand it out and be like, what do you guys think, Ed?

I got a lot of really important feedback.

I mean, at first it didn't taste as good and I was

Able to give a lot more

Affordance to

That because I was making it.

So it's like my baby was like, it's fine, just fine. But then someone else

Gets in there like, no, this is not

This is not good. And so I'm not going to eat this. This is not going to make me switch. I don't care how much plastic I'm saving. And so it was one of those things where it was definitely,

You know,

I surveyed friends and family,

But that's it. You know, like there

Were no major focus groups. I think I sent it

Out to, like, ten of my friends

Who were all here in L.A. and started going

Off of that. And then.

Yeah, so that's kind of how that started.

And then when you started putting things up on Etsy, was it those friends buying or did just random people on the Internet start finding you on

Etsy as well?

Yeah, so I put it up and then I actually took it down from ETSI because then it started there and then I put it on Shopify because Shapefile was able to

Make a site. And like

For me, I don't have a

Tech background. My boyfriend,

Who now is my co-founder, does which I'll get into that.

But at first my first Shopify

Site was literally

Like photos from my iPhone of my

Product,

Like on a template. It was not

Cool.

It did not look great.

Like it was

Just like this is what we got. And most

Of the people who bought from me at first were I recognized

Every single name and

I had put it up on Facebook. I had put it up on like I was talking to people.

And I'm not

Necessarily a shy person, but I'm not like a

Very big like this is me

And what I'm doing person. So there was a lot of I had to get

Over that and the way

That I would think about it, like I didn't want to

Post on my Facebook,

I didn't want to do this. It felt very

Weird. But I saw it as like, this is something that's so important to me.

Like the background of it is just like

Learning about the

Ingredients and the billion toothpaste tubes that end up in our landfills every year. And just being so motivated

That I was like, this is my job and

I need to get over my shyness and just post. So I was posting and it