The E-Comm Show
The E-Comm Show
Why Most Amazon Brands Scale Too Slowly…and Pay for It Later | EP. 228
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Why do so many Amazon brands grow slower than they should…even when demand is there?
In Episode #228 of The E-Comm Show, Andrew Maff talks with Andy Voggenthaler, Founder of Nonaste, about the real cost of underinvesting in growth. From Amazon strategy and subscription models to retail expansion and supply chain challenges, this episode breaks down what it actually takes to scale a consumable brand in today’s market.
What You’ll Learn:
- Why slow Amazon spend can cost you more long-term
- Subscription as the key to profitable growth
- Amazon vs. DTC: where each channel fits
- Buy With Prime and modern consumer behavior
- The operational challenges behind scaling a physical product brand
- Building a niche brand for active lifestyles (and pets)
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Connect with the Guest
🌐 Web: https://nonaste.com
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nonastelife
📸 Instagram (Pets): https://www.instagram.com/nonaste_pet
📱 Instagram (Andy): https://www.instagram.com/avoggenthaler
📻 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andy-voggenthaler-1645053/
📻 Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nonaste/?viewAsMember=true
Like, I would tell anybody that starting a business they want to get into Amazon, man, you just got to be ready to spend.
Narrator:Welcome to the E comm Show podcast. I am your host. Andrew Mapp, owner and founder of blue tusker, from groundbreaking industry updates to success stories and strategies. Get to know the ins and outs of the e Commerce Industry from top leaders in the space. Let's get into it.
Andrew Maff:Hello everyone welcome to another episode of the E comm Show. And as usual, I'm your host, Andrew Maff, and today I'm joined by the amazing Andrew Voggenthaler, who is the Founder CEO over at No Naste Andy, how you doing, buddy? Ready for good show? Glad to be here. Andrew, thanks for having me. Yeah. I'm super excited to have you on the show before we jump into anything. For those of you that are just listening, I highly recommend you check out the video on YouTube, because Andy, your background is awesome. So tell me. Where are you at right now? What were you saying?
Andy Voggenthaler:Well, I'm actually in Truckee right now, near Lake Tahoe. We've got a bunch of retail stores in the area, and so we're, we just launched that, you know, 52 stores up in this area, personally, and making sure, you know, everything's looking great for our products.
Andrew Maff:That's awesome. This background is fantastic. It's like, giving me, like, feels like you're in, like, a even got, like, a whiskey barrel, kind of wine barrel behind you. Like, this is great. I love this. This is fantastic. No notes. Let's start this off. I always kind of do it relatively stereotypically. I'm just gonna give you the floor. Tell us a little bit about your background, how you got started with no nasty where you're at, where you're going. We'll go
Andy Voggenthaler:Yeah, I'd love to do that. So you know, from there okay? longtime product development guy like and serial entrepreneur. So I worked with some amazing brands like General Motors, Nabisco, Mods, DuPont, Teflon. My job, which was such a cool thing to do, was leverage the trademarks to come up with new products. For example, Nabisco, you know, Oreos, cookies and cream back in the day. I mean, it seems like a natural thing. It is a natural thing. It was, you know, a $40 million deal like, that. So GM Nabisco hang 10, I was vice president worldwide licensing for hang 10, totally into product development, went into a colleague of mine and started an insurance business, which I didn't really want to do much with at first, but she convinced me, and then I ended up building that company up. We sold it to AIG and and on and on. I'm a longtime endurance athlete as well, like, you know, runner, marathons, Iron Man, all that stuff. And, you know, in the course of all of that, I created another company that's kind of cooking today. It's called Race guards, like lifeguards, and we do in race goal for triathlons, marathons and all that kind of stuff. So it's pretty cool where you bring in teams of endurance athletes that are also medical professionals, right? And they, you know, as I got older, as I was not competing like I was, but I still wanted to be involved. I saw a lot of things happen out on the on the course. I even saw some people die, you know, on a triathlon I was training for, for Iron Man, and it got me thinking about, here's a better way to, you know, have people out on the course, keeping an eye out for people that need things along the way. So we grew that still going on today. You know, covid kind of killed, you know, a lot of the momentum with that. But it was one of those things where, you know, it's going on 14 years now. We've, we've served millions of people and and all that. So, so with that, you know, been around all sorts of stink. And my kids play sports, and there was that aha moment for Nonaste where my co founder, Juergen, was up in that early morning yoga class. I'm kind of in the back, and this dude comes rolling in, he comes rolling in, flops his mat down, and the room starts heating up. And there was just the stench that just came out of this guy, right? And you just can't believe it. So Jurgen actually said something to him in the locker room. And then it just got me thinking my product development side of things initially was like, Hey, we could do, maybe we could do a laundry detergent that lifts and removes all the gross odors out of your active wear and and we had a sponsor, honestly, for our race guards uniforms that that had a formula that did just that. So I said, What about, you know, like a play on Namaste. You could do Nonaste for better namaste kind of thing, right? So, honestly, Andrew, we did focus groups. We actually had a website built for consumer focus groups that was really Yogi centric, right? It was like, all the bottles look like swell bottles and, you know, charcoal and lavender and sage and all that. And what we found was so interesting, Andrew was that, Hey, everybody, all the yogi said, Yeah, we want a laundry detergent, you know, that's going to remove all the gunk and take care of our Lulus and Vries and all that stuff, right? But they said, we do other stuff, and we got kids to play soccer and lacrosse, and they stink and all that. What about an odor spray? What about this? And then you got thinking about it. It's good. Hey, if you've got an active lifestyle, lots of things get nasty and gross, and so off we went, you know? And that's kind of how the whole thing kind of started to to grow, and then with our branding, the way we have it, the colors of our bottles, and really focused in on on developing eco friendly products that are actually really effective, because there's a lot of eco friendly products that just just don't work. So yeah, kind of a long way around the block about how we kind of started, Nonaste but I tell you, we're cooking now, and it's super, super exciting.
Andrew Maff:Nice. Those guys ask you, like, how do you kind of paint the picture that differentiation? Because, as you mentioned, like, there's eco friendly stuff out there. There's stuff out there that you know claims to just help reduce the smells, whether it's a laundry detergent or spray or anything like that. So how do you kind of position it to be that that differentiator? Is it for, like, the active group, or is it something else?
Andy Voggenthaler:Yeah. I mean, I would like, you know, to characterize no nasty as an active lifestyle brand that removes all the nasty stuff that comes along with it, odors, bacteria, gunk, all that stuff. So we look at it like, you know, active people and their pets. You know, if you're active and you're out there, you probably have a dog. You probably you're and you're active with them. So you want to have really, really good ingredients that actually are effective for your stuff. That keeps your expensive gear looking great, smelling great, and that goes, you know, with your pets, from sweat to pet kind of thing is like, say, with Nonaste so the ingredients are really, really important to us. One of the things about our laundry detergent in particular, that kind of our core product, is we have a specific enzyme in our in our formulation that's designed to eliminate bacteria caused by sweat. There's a lot of enzymes out there, right? But this one is designed specifically to target odors caused by sweat. That is kind of the thing that we used to kind of get things going. And it's been very, very good EWG certified as well, which is a green certification, which is a total pain in the ass to get. So we, we ended up getting that and, and that's that, you know, when you think about it, like our core products, most of them are liquid of some sort, you know, odor spray, pet shampoo, you know, odor stain and laundry detergent. But we have a Car Seat Protector that I use almost every day. You go for a run, you come back and you're all sweaty, gross. We've got a genius, yeah, it's, it's awesome. It's, it's like, neoprene. It flops over your headrest. You just get in. You don't have to worry about it. Get done, roll it back up, check it in the back when you're done and you know, off you go.
Andrew Maff:I'm going to have to check that one out. I my car. I go to the gym. Every morning when I come home, it's just like, Oh, my wife is, like, not going anywhere in my car unless I've cleaned it out. Yeah, that's genius. Makes a lot of sense. So you mentioned you're outside. You're in Tahoe right now, so obviously you're in an area where a lot of active people in that area. So it makes sense you're doing a lot of retail there. I know you have your own website. I know you're on Amazon. Where else are you selling right now?
Andy Voggenthaler:Yeah, so that army exchanges is another big one for us. So all over the world, on Army Air Force exchanges is huge, and we're really going to ramp up our E commerce. That's one thing we I don't know if you've heard of the Raindrop agency. Are you familiar with them Andrew?
Andrew Maff:Yep, yeah.
Andy Voggenthaler:So raindrop, you know they, they, they launched. Dr Squatch, manscape, all that stuff, so that we've engaged with them. They're amazing. We've got such really fun concepts that are in the works right now. So we're hoping to spin e commerce up second half of the year. We're really excited about that. I mean, it's one of those things where, you know, retail has its own challenges, right? It's, it's not easy. There's, there's, there's so many things about it, Andrew, that I never really would have thought about it, you know, thinking about my background, right? Like I was on the other side of it. I was licensing. I didn't have to worry about manufacturing. Now, on this side of it, there's so much to it, and there's so much you have to be aware of. And if we could sell more through our website all the time, all day long, that would be fantastic. But, you know, importantly, for Nonaste, you know, I want to get it in the hands of everybody that's active out there, because they'll appreciate it, right?
Andrew Maff:Oh, yeah, are you thinking of pushing the subscription side? Yes. I think with your product line, that would probably be the case?
Andy Voggenthaler:Yes. And, you know, it's interesting, like with our Amazon, our Amazon has grown. We've kind of hit our we've been above plan the last three months. Knock on wood, right? It's going into the next quarter, but, but, but the subscription rates going up exponentially. Like, it's great. Like we see this. So you know that people are using it and they're buying it again, and they want to just keep the, you know, get some discounts by by having that subscription, and they hang in there like that. You know, it's like, 90 some percent over 90 days. Like it's crazy.
Andrew Maff:Yeah, it's fantastic. It makes, I mean, it makes a lot of sense. I love that you went with raindrop. I mean, that's a, that's a, that's a big commitment. I'm pretty familiar with some of their stuff, so I know that that's a big jump. But, you know, I think that one thing a lot of brand owners don't think about, especially when they're going retail, is how important having stuff like that is to keep that sell through in retail. Otherwise the retailers don't buy from you again, so there's still that digital presence. You got to have to improve the retail side. What's the thought with that content, social ads, I imagine?
Andy Voggenthaler:Yeah, definitely. Yep.
Andrew Maff:Yeah. Are you doing any, like, traditional TV, streaming, anything along those lines?
Andy Voggenthaler:You know, we talked about it, you know, like, maybe, like, I mean, we're open to it. I think it would, I think it would lend itself really, really well to it the way the concepts are kind of set up right now. I think, I think first things first, right? You know, you kind of get things kind of going and, you know, gives you an opportunity to test on the digital because if something doesn't fall right, I mean, that is a big commitment that we have, right? So if you want, if you need to shift gears a little bit, I think it gives us that opportunity until, until you hit it, I think it's going to be really fun.
Andrew Maff:Are you? I imagine you're trying to push more people to the website, right? More so than Amazon. Yeah, that makes sense. I saw it so you've got, you have buy with prime on your site. How's that going for you?
Andy Voggenthaler:It's good, you know, it's interesting, right? Like you think it works fine, like it works fine. I mean, we get a, you know, I would probably say 50%, 40% maybe the people that come to our website end up going that way.
Andrew Maff:That doesn't surprise me.
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Andrew Maff:People just like to get stuff faster. And the other thing too, one of my favorite things to do is ask my wife why she's doing what she does when she shops, because she has no idea what I do, and so I like, get, like, free market research. And so she was actually using a website the other day, and she was like, exploring, like, whether she's using buy the prime, whether she's using this or whatever. And she's like, I usually will lean towards going on Amazon, even if the price is effectively the same, or even if it's a little bit more, because not only can I get it next day or two days, but I know it's going to come because other shipping, it's like, you know, it's going to be four or five days, and then it could be like, it says Tuesday, and then it doesn't come till Saturday. But one of the things I was thinking because I saw that, I think what would be really interesting is, since you've got that content that kind of like their type of stuff, Raindrop does awesome stuff that works really well on TV also. You can now, since you've got by with prime I would use that Amazon DSP, they let you run ads back to your website now, so you could do, like, streaming ads for people that visited your Amazon listing and just send them back to your website. Like, that's the, that's the you've got the assets for the omni channel stuff. Now, I think that's the way to go. Yeah, not a lot of brands will invest in stuff like, what raindrops doing them and like, who the other ones, Harmon brothers are? The other guys that did, they were the ones back they were the ones that did, oh, I can't remember. I think raindrop did purple and they did squatty potty, right? Raindrop, or was that might have been the two of them are kind of hoopery.
Andy Voggenthaler:They did Dr Squatch. They did dude wipes, they did Manscape, they did native, which was huge.
Andrew Maff:Oh yeah, which Great, awesome. What's so, what's the plan? What's the, what's the growth strategy? You're as of this recording, we're pretty much at the end of Q1 now, what are you thinking for the rest of the 2026?
Andy Voggenthaler:Yeah, well, I mean, it's, it's, it's going to get even more exciting for us, you know, with all the the ramp up that we're planning, right? So it's, it's going to get expensive and it's going to get hopefully, exciting, right? So I think for us, at, you know, a nice, really, big growth year so far, so good. You know, knock on wood. Like I said, it's, it's, it's never easy. You never know what's coming at you. You know, the things Andrew like, like, the things you don't think about, like, our production things, right, or, or shelving issues, or or slotting fees, and, and, you know, you need to get a you need to get a new trigger sprayer, and you can't get it in the US, so you have to get in China. Then you've got the delays, and you got tariffs, and you got all these things that you have to really, really think about, like for us, like we're, we're so lucky from the standpoint of manufacturing. Our bottle manufacturers here in California, our formulator is right in California, and our warehouse, our 3PL is all within like 10 miles of each other. So so it's really nice having that, but there's things like trigger sprayer. And there's things like caps, and there's things like, we have a custom dosing cap that we built had, you know, developed, and that was from China. And, of course, the tariffs, the only thing it's just so interesting, how many things you have to be aware of, and the timing of things with production, and as you ramp up and trying to make it all line up, it's not easy.
Andrew Maff:Yeah, operations is, I don't envy anyone that's deep in operations. There's a reason that I typically don't get involved in that, because it's especially like, to your point when you've got parts coming from all over the place, and then they got to get assembled, and then are you doing 3PL, or are you going to FBA? Do you have your own warehouse? Like they're the amount of that stuff is just, it's so convoluted. It is, and everybody wants to has their hand out, right? Oh, of course, yes, that's the other thing. Always, a lot of bills, not a lot of invoices. So what's, what's been the approach so far? Like, is it from a marketing perspective, you lean in more influencer, I would think with this, or you, I know, you guys are pretty heavy on the social side. So has that mainly been the approach is kind of that educational piece?
Andy Voggenthaler:Yeah. You know, the interesting thing, Andrew, is that we didn't really spend a lot on marketing, other than getting the Amazon wheel going, right? Yeah, you know, we, you know, we were startups, so we didn't have tons of cash. We don't have tons of cash. So it's like one of those things where you got to show traction, you got to start getting things going. But, but, but with anybody, like, I would tell anybody that starting a business they want to get into Amazon, man, you just got to be ready to spend and it's going to be, it's like, what we should have, like, here's the one thing that I learned, like we learned as a group and and that is that that we went about it, the pain threshold. We didn't spend a lot on marketing for Amazon, and it was so we're losing money every month, right? We're losing money. We're gaining traction, but we're losing money, and you have to excel. The learning is we should have accelerated the business faster. We should have figured out a way to spend, instead of five grand a month, 10,15, 20 grand a month, to accelerate the business, to get you out of this, you know, you know, you know, paper cut, kind of, you know, process that through it was so brutal. And so now we're starting to see the momentum going. And it's, it's super exciting to see that, but, man, we lost a lot of cash that way. It was tough.
Andrew Maff:Yeah, yeah. I love, I love that you brought that up. That's such a common it's such a common problem, and it's so hard from us you know, with us being an agency space, sometimes it's tough to, like, convey that to brands, because it's like, you're kind of as especially as a marketing agency, you're you're biased, because, of course, you're going to say, like, I want to spend more and blah blah, but a lot of times, the reality is, if you're spending too little, you have so little data coming in at such a slow clip that you end up spending more money and just driving yourself crazy with, like, management fees and trying to fix this and fix that, because you think that those little incremental improvements are going to do it. But at the end of the day, if you actually, like, doubled or tripled or quadrupled your spend and really ramp stuff up, and your overall your overhead kind of maintains, that's where you then start to see, like, Okay, this is where that growth happens.
Andy Voggenthaler:Exactly right, 100% on that one. And I knew the other thing that was interesting that I didn't, you know, Amazon's its own thing, as we know, right? Like, so, when it comes to, like, doing ads or doing video, which video is super, super important on Amazon, right? That it doesn't have to be perfect. Like, try a bunch of stuff. Use, use that, you know, third party services that can, you can bang out, you know, a clip for 200 bucks or something, and, and, and do a few of those and see which one hits and if none of them hit, well, you keep going. But it's way better than spending like, Hey, okay, five grand whatever. We'll have somebody, you know, professional like, do this or whatever. It may not hit at all. So you just got to wing it. Go for it.
Andrew Maff:Plus, a lot of times you find the video that does the best is always like, the cheapest one that you do. It's just like, of course, this would, this would resonate, and nothing else would, yeah, the other thing too, like, especially with a brand like yours, like, you know, you've got that added benefit, like you mentioned, that's been growing so well, is like, the Subscribe and Save. Like, not every brand has that option. But when you've got a consumable, or you have anything where it's something that people come back and purchase at least several times a year, or something like that, way too many brands don't factor in their customer acquisition costs, especially when they're just on Amazon, because they don't have that data, because Amazon doesn't share it, and so you're just kind of flying blind. But when you have your own website, then it's all of a sudden, like, Okay, this, on average, I think you mentioned, like, they're 90% of them stay with you for 90 days. Like, okay, well, if they're purchasing every month, then that means I really could actually aim to have a ROAS of, like, a one, give up that first order and make money on the next two or three. So those things where Amazon actually slows your growth because you don't have eyes on that information. Yes. So that's why, that's why I totally agree with that approach. That's I love, that you guys are doing that.
Andy Voggenthaler:Yeah, yeah. That's exciting. It's in us. Hey, you know, I'm, you know, I'm getting up there now, and it's like, you know, you get tired after a bit. It's like, one of those things. It's like, Why do I keep doing this to myself? But I don't think I have any other way.
Andrew Maff:Yeah, tell me about it. Andy, this was great. I really appreciate you having the show. I would love to let me give you the floor tell everyone where they can find out more about you. And, of course, more about Nonaste.
Andy Voggenthaler:Yeah. Well, I mean, you can find me, you know, pretty much anywhere, LinkedIn, any of those places. You know, nonaste.com, of course, you know, go visit us. Check us out. We're going to be growing into a lot of retail stores. So keep an eye out for that. But, you know, one of the things we launched this recently, as I mentioned early on, was that the pet products, like, you know, pet products is an easy thing that, like for people that understand and they want to spend on their pet products, and it's been one of those really interesting things for us to you know, to to accelerate and extend into our product line, which normally you would say, hey, sell the stuff that you got. Don't extend too far. But for us, that is, that is it. So, you know, keep an eye out on, of course, Amazon, nonaste.com pet stores, probably all sorts of mom and pops across the country, all that stuff. So let me find me eager to talk anytime. So thanks for having me. I really appreciate it Andrew.
Andrew Maff:Yeah, appreciate it. Yeah. Everyone listening, go check it out. I'm sure with the pet stuff too, you'll be on chewy soon enough. Andy, thanks so much for being on the show. Everyone who tuned in, thank you as well. Please make sure you do the usual thing, rate, review, subscribe all that fun stuff, onwhichever podcast platform you prefer, or or head over to the ecommshow.com to check out all of our previous episodes. But as usual, thank you all for joining us. See you next time. Have a good one!
Narrator:Thank you for tuning in to the E comm show. Head over to E commshow.com to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform or on the BlueTuskr YouTube channel. The E comm Show is brought to you by blue tusker, a full service digital marketing company specifically for E commerce sellers looking to accelerate their growth. Go to bluetuskr.com now for more information, make sure to tune in next week for another amazing episode of the E comm show!
