Back in 2009, Domino’s Pizza gambled on an entire ad campaign admitting their pizza wasn’t very good (it was officially titled “We’re Sorry for Sucking”) with the promise of a new, improved recipe. This bold move paid off with an immediate 16.5% sales increase and a decade of growth.

Now Taco Bell is taking a page from the Domino’s playbook. “We honestly over-innovated in breakfast,” chief brand officer Sean Tresvant told CNN. 

They’ve discontinued items such as the Naked Egg Taco and the Waffle Taco, and hired comedian Pete Davidson to apologize on the brand’s behalf in TV spots. It’s not as revolutionary as Domino’s knocking their core product, but — as Dude Wipes’ CEO demonstrates in today’s issue — honesty is the best policy … and the best publicity.

Eggs in too many baskets: Can your business over-innovate?

Dude Wipes: How the company grew by shrinking its product line.

“Yo Quiero Dinero”: You’ll want to give this podcast a listen.

Grove Collaborative: Household essentials minus the plastic.

(Source: Shutterstock)

When Steve Jobs returned as Apple’s CEO in 1997, the company had been nearly run into the ground. “It was producing a random array of computers and peripherals, including a dozen different versions of the Macintosh,” writes biographer Walter Isaacson.

One of the first things that Jobs did, which resulted in world-changing success, was to simplify Apple’s product line into a four-part grid: Consumer and Pro, Desktop and Portable. And then he junked everything else.

“Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do,” Jobs told Isaacson.

Even though innovation and growth are essential, it’s better to do one thing perfectly than a bunch of things poorly. Wat happens if your business has already succumbed to the temptation of quantity over quality?

We asked one CEO who found himself in exactly this predicament — and then “wiped” it away …

6%

CEOs happy with their current innovation level

[Source: McKinsey]

(Source: Dude Products)

Some ideas need to be flushed down the drain. That’s what Dude Products CEO Sean Riley concluded after expanding the bro-themed flushable-wipe brand to include men’s deodorant and bath soaps, ignoring the advice of investor Mark Cuban. (Cuban owns 25% of the company.)

The new items weren’t disasters — Dude Products expects to make $90 million this year, up from $15.5 million in 2019 — but they’re now discontinued. In a recent LinkedIn post with 1,600 likes, Riley admitted to getting carried away with “shiny object syndrome.” He spoke with b. about why it’s important to stay laser-focused on your core product.

b.: When you started Dude Wipes, you were all about wipes for dudes. How did “shiny object syndrome" begin?

Riley: We thought we needed to do more to grow. So it [seemed] natural to extend into men’s grooming like Axe [did]. The truth is we needed to do less. Focus more. Our customers didn’t hate the [new] products. We hated the fact we lost focus … so we cut them.

At a certain level of market saturation, how is it possible to grow without adding new products?

Riley: The man who chases two rabbits catches neither. All the best brands do one thing well and they innovate the hell out of their current category: Tide, Charmin, Gillette, Bounty, Hefty. If you want to enter another category, create another brand. It’s that simple.

What brands or sectors get especially swept away with novelty?

Riley: The beverage industry is full of examples. [Many flavored water and energy drink companies] now offer alcoholic drinks. These are brands that mean health and hydration — now [they] mean partying and dehydration … to join an overcrowded space in hard seltzer?

It’s shortsighted and stupid. Most will kill their line extensions. Coors Light Hard Seltzer didn’t even last one year before being discontinued. 

How did scaling back to basics help Dude Wipes grow again?

Riley: Because we whole-ass something and half-ass nothing. Concentrated energy equals concentrated results. … [We] laser-focus on growing market share. It’s still day one for Dude Wipes.

These days, plenty of businesses are born through the art of the side hustle — and that’s exactly what “Yo Quiero Dinero” host Jannese Torres-Rodriguez specializes in. At 25 years old she lost her job, only to grind her way into 10 online income streams that have generated more than $400,000 per year.

To impart that hustle mindset, Torres-Rodiguez covers the ins and outs of creating quality content, pitching brands, and building authentic audience connections. It’s a boots-on-the-ground affair with diverse guests and a mission to “destigmatize money as a taboo topic … and make personal finance fun, relevant and relatable.” Check it out on Audible, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

(Source: Shutterstock)

Launched in 2016, Grove Collaborative creates and curates over 150 all-natural home essential products at an accessible price for more than 2 million customers. But just as impressive, it saves over a million pounds of plastic annually and expects to become 100% plastic-free within the next few years.

To get there, Grove is rethinking how products are packaged and even designed. Instead of bottling shampoo and laundry detergent, Grove turned them into a solid bar and thin sheets, respectively. They use recyclable glass and bamboo containers, and their R&D department is even working on “new materials, technologies and logistics systems.”

Plus, Grove recently went public with the help of Virgin Group’s Richard Branson, who knows a few things about investing in the future.

(Source: Twitter)

“The most dangerous kind of waste is the waste we do not recognize.”

— Shigeo Shingo, industrial engineer (1909-1990)

Written by Marty Beckerman, Dan Ketchum, and Lauren Treadwell.

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