Let’s start with a deodorant that costs twice as much as the others. A few hundred bucks to start. Two years later, annual sales of $25–30 million. Native didn’t invent a new product category; it cracked a trust gap inside a market ruled by giants. You may always hear people say, “It’s all about product.” So let’s look at this case that proves it.
Finding a Gap in a Highly Controlled Market
The story starts with a checkout line at a grocery store. Moiz Ali picked up a stick of deodorant and turned it around. 30% ingredients on the label and he couldn’t pronounce half of them. He wasn’t a chemist, just a guy who had built an e-commerce startup before. But that moment hit him: this industry was stuck. No one had updated the formula in decades.
Why isn’t there a simpler, safer version? That question became the seed of Native. At the time, more than 55% of the U.S deodorant market belonged to P&G and Unilever. Each cost $3 to $6, promised to “stop sweat,” and relied on aluminum compounds to do it. For most Americans, deodorant was just another thing you grabbed off the shelf. But for a small (and growing) group of ingredient-conscious consumers, it was starting to feel wrong.
The “natural” options weren’t much better: Tom’s of Maine was often described as too dry, too chalky, or smelling like a pharmacy. A few handmade brands on Etsy had rustic packaging and unstable performance. People seemed to have plenty of options, but almost none that were actually good. Moiz spotted up that gap immediately. Deodorant is a daily habit. Once people find one that works, they stick with it for years. That means a huge market and repeat purchases.
Testing It Before Making It
Moiz didn’t just dive in; he wanted proof that this idea could make money. Do people really care about safer ingredients? Would they pay more for something “natural”? And, crucially, would they buy deodorant online?
So he placed a tiny order with a local workshop, mocked up a few product images, and put them on website for over ten bucks each. Then he started running Facebook ads. The first batch hadn’t even arrived before 50 orders waiting. By the time the shipment landed, there were over 250 orders waiting. Low acquisition cost, solid margin—and the most important signal of all: people were willing to pay a premium for a cleaner formula.
Push Repurchase Rate from 20% to 50%
At first, Native wasn’t selling well. The product just wasn’t good enough for people to buy again. The repurchase rate hovered around 20–22%, and the average rating was only 3.8 stars. So Moiz went straight to the source—his customers. For the first two years, he personally replied to every email. “Love it? Leave a review. Hate it? Tell us why. So we can fix it” The feedback was brutally specific: too dry, too many powders, not enough oils. Every complaint became a to-do list.
During the first year, Moiz and the manufacturer kept tweaking, dozens of small trials to find a formula that stayed smooth, didn’t melt in heat, and could run reliably on an automated filling line. Together they tested temperature, viscosity, cooling speed, and stability, trying to find a version that stayed smooth, didn’t melt, and could run reliably on the filling line. After dozens of small test runs, the new formula finally launched the following summer. Repurchase rates jumped from 20% to 50%. Each stick sold at $12 a stick, almost two to three times pricier than mainstream brands and still sold out.
Find the Real Audience by Listening Customers
Email feedback didn’t just fix the product — it also revealed who actually cared. At first, Moiz thought natural deodorant was a men’s category: no aluminum, no heavy scent, functional. But the most passionate customers turned out to be women.
Some men complained about drag and pull on body hair because the early formula was too stiff. Women, on the other hand, often shaved or waxed, so they are more acceptable. They loved the smoother texture and said it smelled amazing. They told their mothers, sisters, roommates.Word spread faster than any ad campaign. Native had stumbled into its real power user: women who wanted a deodorant that felt premium, clean, and honest. Word spreads faster than any ad campaign.
Once the product found its fans, Native could start having fun. They began experimenting with limited editions — like the Rosé Deodorant that dropped on the summer solstice and went viral. Media coverage brought in around $25,000 in sales, while Facebook ads reportedly brought in about $50,000 the same week.
Growing With the Manufacturer
For the first two years, Native was basically run by a team of eight — with only four full-timers, including founder Moiz. They focused on brand, marketing, and customers, while everything on the supply side was outsourced to U.S. contract manufacturers.
Early on, Native worked with a small, flexible factory that was willing to experiment and make changes. As sales exploded, they moved to a larger contract manufacturer, and production scaled from about 1,000 sticks a week to nearly 20,000 a day. The partner factory grew right alongside them, expanding from an 800-square-foot workshop into a 40,000-square-foot facility. The partnership kept getting deeper: they worked together on formula adjustments, packaging-mold optimization, and stability testing.
It was a genuine partnership in growth. Native’s asset-light model was typical for D2C startups, but what set them apart was the trust and stability they built with their suppliers. The factory was willing to stock materials early, upgrade equipment, and improve efficiency. As a result, unit cost dropped from $5.50 to $3.20, and eventually to under $2, while margins stayed strong at 60–70%.
Honestly, finding a supplier who can scale production, keep quality steady, and still keep improving the formula is not easy. We’ve worked with plenty of clients facing the same challenge. Getting one sample right is one thing; getting a factory-ready, repeatable formula that performs the same across every batch is a whole other challenge. It takes a reliable partner who’s willing to go through every tweak with you, someone who shares the same long-term goal instead of just rushing for the next order. That’s what Native got right from day one.
Scaling Beyond DTC: Time to Hand It Off
By the second year, Native was pulling in over $1 million in monthly net profit, all from online sales—exactly as Moiz had planned. But he also knew what came next: shelf space. Target. Walmart. Drugstores. That’s a completely different game. Rather than rebuild a distribution system from scratch, he decided to hand the brand to someone born for retail scale.
And with most of his personal wealth tied up in Native, and growth moving faster than the team could comfortably manage, selling made sense. So he sold it to Procter & Gamble.
After the acquisition, P&G sent in three PhD formulators to “optimize” the product. They spent months crafting what they believed was a perfect new version. Moiz suggested a simple A/B test: send the original (Version A) and the lab-engineered formula (Version B) to 5,000 new customers and track the data. Thousands of reviews and repurchase stats all pointed to the same result: customers still preferred the original Native.
Big companies can build flawless systems, but small teams often win because they’re closer to the noise: Reddit threads, customer emails, small complaints that point to big truths. Native’s real strength wasn’t just the formula; it was the feedback loop. They built a product that could keep evolving with their customers, and that’s what made it hard to copy.
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