Floofah Founder Turns Loofah Gourds Into Less Plastic (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: I'm talking to solopreneur Phoebe Yu. You finished your MBA at University of Berkeley, and you decided to start not a loofah but a floofah company.

[00:00:08] Speaker 2: That's right. That's right.

[00:00:09] Speaker 1: Talk to me about that decision.

[00:00:11] Speaker 2: Yeah. So I actually started floofah before I finished business school. It was actually a journey that was years in the making. I've always worked full time, and my last job was actually in the recycling industry, so climate tech. I got to witness firsthand what it really was, how much materials and plastics were truly not recycled, despite what they tell you. So I wanted to get away from plastic materials in general, and I landed on loofahs, floofahs, right? The floofah, the company, and I carried it throughout business school. And once I completed business school, I thought, why not take a leap and try something?

[00:00:47] Speaker 1: I'm fascinated by recycling because I so diligently do it. Sometimes I'm like rinsing out cups and then recycling them, and then I did a story as a journalist on recycling and found out that so little of what we recycle gets recycled. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't recycle. If you're out there listening, please recycle.

[00:01:01] Speaker 2: Yes. Yes, absolutely. The infrastructure is really what's lacking. We want to feel good about stuff, and there's a term, which I'm sure you know, a lot of the listeners probably know too, called wish cycling. You wish something can be recycled, so you put it in the blue bin, and you hope somebody would take care of it, but really nobody is there to take care of it, and it ends up clogging the system.

[00:01:20] Speaker 1: I was shocked to learn that there is plastic in a loofah.

[00:01:23] Speaker 2: Yes. Yes. There's definitely plastic.

[00:01:25] Speaker 1: Or like this is, well, this one feels a little bit more plasticky. This one is plastic.

[00:01:29] Speaker 2: This is completely plastic. That's 100% plastic. It's a shower loofah. Hundreds of millions of these are ended up in the landfill every single year. Plastic is now being made to look like not plastic, even your kitchen sponges that say plant-based, they may contain plastic. This is something I've actually encountered with my products too. When I was designing it, the packaging, did it have plastic as a film? No. This is all paper, right? What is the material of this tag? It's 100% cotton. What is the thread that is used to stitch this together? How is it held together? Is it glue, right? Is it plastic? What does it contain? Is it chemicals? There's just so many details to how a product could take shape. What is a floofah? A floofah is a 100% plant-based shower loofah. It's nature's favorite sponge, but made for 2026, for the 21st century, basically. I work with generational farmers down in South China where these materials are native to. They process them, they cut it into shape, they flatten it with heat, and once it touches water, it actually turns into this floofy sponge.

[00:02:39] Speaker 1: Yeah. I have one here. Look at the floofy. Yeah. And it's a little softer when it does that too. So the floofah, and then this is the one we use, but this is plant-based, so what vegetable is this? Like zucchini, eggplant?

[00:02:51] Speaker 2: It's called a loofah gourd, actually called a loofah, and it looks like a giant cucumber. In the melon family, when it grows on the vine, it looks like a giant cucumber. It could be... I planted them here in California, they're about this big when I grow them, but the industrial ones that's been farmed for generations, they're like this big, and they're massive. You put them on the vine, you harvest them when you need to, and the layer of the skin gets peeled, and the fibers form, basically, just like that. This nature sponge really is.

[00:03:21] Speaker 1: What are the craziest things that contain plastics in a bathroom right now?

[00:03:25] Speaker 2: Dental floss. The majority of dental floss you use are made of plastic, and they go into your gums, right? Guess what you're forcing down there? Microplastics. Toothbrush, every time you brush, microplastics all over.

[00:03:36] Speaker 1: Whether it's a floofah or a loofah, I'm always worried that it could also be a biohazard, because how long is the right amount of time to use any kind of sponge or loofah in your life?

[00:03:47] Speaker 2: Dermatologists have talked about this over and over. You should not keep a plastic loofah for over six weeks. Do you know why?

[00:03:56] Speaker 1: No, because... Moisture.

[00:03:58] Speaker 2: Your bathroom is basically a little biohazard zone, because most people don't let it air out the right way, especially plastic loofahs. They're tight in the center. If you look at your loofah, it's completely tight. There's no airflow that comes through. Bacteria gets trapped. Bacteria grows prolifically, so it gets really disgusting. For normal people, you might have said... I would have said, hey, I use mine for, I don't know, a year, and nothing's happened to me. Yeah, sure. Under those conditions, it's fine, but you should be swapping them out.

[00:04:27] Speaker 1: Stevie, you were using the same loofah for a year? Oh, wow. No wonder you started... Not anymore. You're forgiving yourself for your sins. And these, how long can you use these?

[00:04:39] Speaker 2: I recommend anywhere from four to six weeks, up to eight weeks, if you let them dry properly between uses. They actually... If you look at them, you can see air through them. You can see the light through them. They dry very quickly.

[00:04:51] Speaker 1: You make loofahs for the bathroom, and you make loofahs for the kitchen.

[00:04:55] Speaker 2: That's right.

[00:04:55] Speaker 1: Sponges, basically. Yes. For the kitchen. Yes. Is it the same thing? It's the same material? It's the same...

[00:05:01] Speaker 2: It's the same sponge? It's nature's favorite sponge. It floofs up, and it suds up really beautifully. It exfoliates your skin, and it also has scrubbing power. So it actually is very safe for all materials, all surfaces, including non-stick, which you shouldn't use because there's also plastic in there. Cast iron, I use it for my vintage Pyrex, and it doesn't damage anything. It's just... It's the same material. It's one material, two uses, zero waste.

[00:05:27] Speaker 1: Four to six weeks, maybe eight, if you do the thing. How many floofas do you need to sell to become a floofaner?

[00:05:34] Speaker 2: I think a lot. I think I have to do a lot, but I think my joy from the business, yes, making a living and being able to pay rent and eat is part of the process, but I do think, at least for my generation of entrepreneurs, I think we chase more after the sense of purpose and fulfillment. I think when it comes to creating a business, I want it to build social impact within the business.

[00:05:58] Speaker 1: This is something that you, as a solopreneur, started doing this. You didn't go take a job at a company. You graduated from a high-falutin' MBA. You could have gone and taken a job, but you've decided to do this because?

[00:06:08] Speaker 2: There's two reasons. One is I wanted to take a shot, give myself a chance to try something that I truly believe in to really prove to the world that businesses like this can truly exist. The second is I believe in the business. I think this industry, we're too plastic-oriented. There is a true need of a product like this out there.

[00:06:30] Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, it's very clear for me just looking at you, hearing you. This business feels very you. Oh, it's me. Oh, it's definitely me. This is you showing up in bathrooms and, apparently, kitchens all across America.

[00:06:41] Speaker 2: People think about me when they're showering all the time. I don't know why.

[00:06:44] Speaker 1: Yeah. You don't know why? I mean, this is why you created this whole company. It's like a Trojan horse to getting into all the showers across America. How do you use technology to scale your business?

[00:06:54] Speaker 2: As a solopreneur, I think without real technology, without Zoom, having calls with people that I know, people that I trust and that I listen to for advice and also for supplier relationship management, getting to know people, I don't have to travel all the way to a certain place to meet somebody. I can do it very quickly through technology. Growing through social media, I think you just can't not mention that in today's day and age. I think it's truly what enabled me to do what I do. Without technology, I would be a sitting duck in my house, in my garage, selling flufas one by one.

[00:07:32] Speaker 1: Now, thanks to technology, people think about you when they shower.

[00:07:35] Speaker 2: Exactly. Exactly. What a way to go.

[00:07:37] Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Phoebe, for spending some time with me.

[00:07:40] Speaker 2: Thank you.

[00:07:41] Speaker 1: Also, Phoebe, while I'm here, I have to say, when I meet people on Zoom, I'm like, I never know how tall they are and I always like to guess. Do you want to go first? Go ahead.

[00:07:49] Speaker 2: For you? I would say like 5'6".

[00:07:53] Speaker 1: Okay. That's good. That's a good guess. I would say you 5'4". 5'8"? 5'4".

[00:08:00] Speaker 2: Oh, my gosh.

[00:08:00] Speaker 1: 5'4". Oh, we got it right. Oh, my God. Good job. We're meant to be.

[00:08:04] Speaker 2: Oh, my gosh.

[00:08:05] Speaker 1: I will continue to think about this conversation with the flufa.

[00:08:08] Speaker 2: Zoom height is a real thing. Zoom height is literally a real thing. Yeah.

[00:08:11] Speaker 1: I know. All right. Well, thank you. Congrats on flufa. Congrats on Haas. It was really nice to meet you, Phoebe.

[00:08:17] Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Aiba.