Eli Packouz Podcast Transcript
Eli Packouz joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, home of The Digital Executive Podcast.
Brian Thomas: Welcome to The Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Eli Packouz. Eli Packouz is a serial innovator and two-time founder. He started his first company, Singular Sound, with his brother in 2013. They have since launched eight blockbuster products.
In 2017, he partnered with Dr. Ralph Rod and Dr. Anna Mascarenhas to create the first device that automatically flosses all your teeth in only 10 seconds – Instafloss after 5 years of research and development, Instafloss is ready to change the world one tooth at a time.
Well, good afternoon, Eli. Welcome to the show!
Eli Packouz: Thank you. for having me.
Brian Thomas: Absolutely. Love jumping into a podcast again here today. And Ellie just, just going to start out by jumping into your first question here your entrepreneurial journey, right? You embarked on that with Singular Sound in 2013 alongside your brother. After that, your successful launch and exit, can you share what inspired you to start InstaFloss and the challenges you faced in the early days?
Eli Packouz: Well, what inspired me is the exact same problems that the product that the product is trying to solve, which is that the majority of people regularly skip flossing because it takes too long. You know, you get to bedtime. You want to go to sleep. You don’t want to spend an extra few minutes flossing. And the 2nd problem that people face is that even when they do floss, they tend to not to get the results that they ought to get from flossing.
If you look at studies and you. Divide people to groups or dentist floss them, or they floss themselves. People really underperform at flossing. So, it’s a very disheartening. You get in this loop where you don’t want to do it. And then when you do it, you don’t get these results. And for me, it was more focused on the time.
You know, I was late to stuff and I was like, there just has to be a way, because, you know, after coming up with 8 products, everything that you think of, you kind of think of through the lens of how can a product solve this? You know, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And so, I’m late for, for something and I’m trying to floss and like, there has to be a better way.
So. I could not sleep for about a month just thinking of this problem because, like, I just knew there had to be a way to do it. And so, I started buying periodontal textbooks. I started reading every paper I could download off of PubMed to really understand what is flossing. Why do we floss? What’s the problem?
And I thought there were a lot of challenges in the very early days. The 1st was understanding the problem, getting into, like, a whole other field for that. I co-founded with Dr Ralph route and took on Dr as an advisor. She’s the chair of the American Dental Association Council of scientific affairs, which luckily, I was able to get on her radar and without that sort of complimentary expertise.
I don’t think this would have gone anywhere. So, definitely a lot of the challenges in the early days was I’m coming at this from a product perspective, but I need people with me to come at it from a scientific perspective and therefore the value that. The other people have been on board with this can really not be overstated
Brian Thomas: Love the story, Eli really, really do. And I love the fact that as many entrepreneurs, the tenacity and you just, you know, the persistency here of trying to find a better solution, which is awesome. Obviously, you had some partners along the way that. Give you that extra boost, but I love the story really, really do.
And Ellie next question for you is instant floss promises to revolutionize dental care by flossing all teeth in only 10 seconds. Crazy, right? But what impact do you see Instafloss having on everyday dental hygiene practices, you know, individually in the broader healthcare industry?
Eli Packouz: Well, what I would hope is the two things that I mentioned is I would hope that 1 people do floss because in America, 70 percent of people regularly skip and 2 that when they floss, hopefully be done correctly.
So, what sort of downstream effects do we see? Well, there’s a lot of downstream effects. The lack of flossing is correlated with. Enumerable maladies that I’ll just go over you know, some of them arthritis Alzheimer’s, erectile dysfunction, anything in your pulmonary system that can be exacerbated by inflammation.
Not flossing is correlated with that. Now, I’m not saying that it’s the only thing causing these. There’s a lot of things that cause this, but anything you can do to remove any of the variables that are affecting you. The better off you’re going to be and. We see pretty clearly that those who floss keep their teeth for longer and that’s a very expensive thing.
When you start losing your teeth, you know, Americans spend on average, 50, 000 dollars over their lifetime with taking care of dental problems. And it becomes a lot more than that. Because remember, this is just the average if you actually develop problems. So, I would hope that people get to keep their teeth.
They get to keep them for longer. They get to keep them more beautiful and that their health is just overall a bit better than it would have been if they weren’t doing this.
Brian Thomas: Absolutely love how you unpack that for all of us. You know, a lot of us that don’t have a dental background, right? Don’t understand the, the challenges that we run into if we don’t take good care of our teeth.
But I really, really love that. And 50,000? Yeah, I’d like to keep that. So, I’m going to continue my flossing. Thank you. And Eli, having founded two companies and launched several successful products. What are some of the most valuable lessons you’ve learned about entrepreneurship and product development?
Eli Packouz: Well, I think the most valuable lessons, you really don’t know what you don’t know. And going after something with the assumption that, you know, it’s perhaps the most dangerous way you can approach it. That is the most surefire way to make mistakes. Definitely in meetings. I like. Removing any sort of language that is this will happen, or this is the case.
It’s I think this is the case currently with information that I have. So, definitely approaching things more humbly is. And is a gateway to being a lot more creative and a lot more open to novel solutions.
Brian Thomas: Thank you appreciate you sharing your unique perspective on this. We have a lot of entrepreneurs on the podcast, but I’m not quite heard that.
But obviously, humility is a great asset. When you’re leading a company or trying to develop something, so thank you and Ellie last question of the day, looking ahead, are there any new ventures or product innovations? You’re currently exploring and what can we expect next from you?
Eli Packouz: Well, I would love to tell you, but unfortunately, I’m contractually obligated not to reveal any of the things that we took investor money for until they’re actually ready.
But I can tell you that when we come out with new things in the instant floss product line. They will be shown on Instafloss.com. So if you sign up to the mailing list, you’ll be the 1st to know. I’ll promise you that.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. And I know a lot of times you can’t share that information. I’ve been on many of these podcasts with that outcome, but I do appreciate it.
But the good news for our audience is that we’re going to be looking for some additional products coming out here in the near future, which really excites us all. So, I appreciate that. And Eli, it was such a pleasure having you on today. And I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
Eli Packouz: Thank you. I look forward to it.
Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Eli Packouz Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s podcast page.
