The Story of SunState Laboratories

Frustrated by the plastic waste generated by my industry, in 2012, I had a dream to disrupt the household cleaner industry. I set out to create an alternative to traditional, ready-to-use spray cleaners.  I wanted to create a product that would allow consumers to easily make their own cleaners at home using plain water and the same bottle over-and-over again. In researching this opportunity, I also noticed a very interesting dilemma; the same plastic bottles causing the trash issue, were also keeping sales of household cleaners relegated to brick-and-mortar retail.  Their heavy weight and issues with leaking made direct-to-consumer sales challenging.

This new innovation can solve two problems

1. Limited Sales Channels.   The household cleaner industry has lagged behind other industries in it's online / direct-to-consumer growth. With nothing to leak and being small and light weight, DAZZ will open up this market segment.

  2. Plastic Waste. DAZZ ends the use-and-discard cycle that has defined the household cleaner industry since 1947.

First, I had to perfect the formula.

Working on the weekends and evenings from the laundry room in our house, I spent almost 9 months formulating, testing, and perfecting our three core product.  Using mineral and plant based ingredients, my goal was to create cleaners that were not only safe, but also cleaned well. My final products were independently tested at the TURI Lab at the University of Mass and found to outperform the leading brands in each of our categories.

Next, I had to figure out how to manufacture it.

After failed attempts at finding a suitable contract manufacturer, I decided to do it on my own. First, I went back to school... tableting school (yes, that's a thing). I enrolled in the Tablet Pro certification course at Techceuticals. Next, I leased a small, ugly yellow building where I built my dry room and begun the process of figuring out how to get my formulas into tablet form. 

And finally, after months of trial and error, DAZZ was born! 

The trick was to get my formulas into a powdered form, that could be pressed into tablets, that would disintegrate fully and quickly in water to form a solution that performed well and smelled terrific. This all had to be done in a carefully controlled dry room at 6% humidity or less, in the middle of hot, humid Florida. Unable to afford the proper dry room equipment, I had to engineer and build my own air processing systems.

Now to perfect the Brand and Packaging

With the help of award winning graphic designer Curtis Elliott, the DAZZ logo and brand came to life.  With our bright, fresh design, we were awarded an ADDY (American Advertising Federation) for creative excellence in brand/packaging design.

Now we're ready for some customers.

After months of persistent persuasion (I bugged them to death), the Home Shopping Network (HSN) agreed to give us a shot. On our debut show, we sold 12,000 units in under eleven minutes. Setting an HSN record for new products on their American Dreams show. Proof of concept... in the bag! 

Educating consumers

One of the more challenging parts of bringing this new, disruptive product to market is educating consumers on this new way to clean.  Our White Board animation video has helped spread this message. 

Move to CO and grow, grow, grow!

On January 1st, 2020, we moved into our new office, production, and warehouse facility in beautiful Broomfield CO.  

Our modest digital campaign launched in May 2019 has added hundreds of new customers.

Time to raise money and build a global brand

With a strong team of seasoned professionals focused on the future, SunState Labs is poised to make DAZZ a household name in 2020 and an international brand over the next 3-5 years.  Here are our plans for investing these funds: