Entrepreneur has high hopes for soy-based cleaner
Tom Wolski wants to see Sofia in Walmart.
More specifically, he wants the soy-based household cleaner he developed, Sofia’s Soy Cleaner, on the shelves of the nation’s largest bricksand-mortar retailer.
Wolski, a 60-year-old Fairlawn resident, appears to be well on his way to fulfilling that dream, with selling to the 80-million-strong millennial generation as his primary goal.
He is newly returned from Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s oncea-year, invitation-only Open Call program, where hundreds of entrepreneurs pitch to place their made-in-theU.S.A. products on Walmart shelves across the nation.
While Wolski still has work to do, including refining Sofia’s labeling, to make the cleaner Walmart-shelfready, the retailer likes the product — it’s already given the OK to sell it on its Walmart.com website.
“Walmart is a process,” Wolski said. “The key for us is to just to keep on it.”
Sofia’s has been a process as well — one that started less than two years ago.
Wolski is in the epoxy business — insulation and flooring — and opened an Akron-area retail store, the Epoxy Shoppe, in January. He has a degree in chemical engineering and his background includes working at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. and Signet Jewelers.
It was epoxy flooring that started Wolski on his way to creating a household cleaner as well.
“Our (floor) customers asked, how do we clean this floor?” Wolski said. “I had sort of a rote speech: They could use anything, really. Whatever they had, as long as it wasn’t too acidic or too caustic.”
Then he realized his customers’ questions presented an opportunity. So, about 1 ½ years ago, Sofia’s Soy Cleaner was born.
The formula, developed in consultation with a chemist using a soy extract, can be used for general cleaning, not just epoxy flooring, Wolski said.
It’s gotten thumbs-up from people who have tried it, including Marissa Henninge, manager of the Epoxy Shoppe, who at age 22 also fits the target demographic.
“We use it on everything in the store. We clean the floors, the counter, the water fountain,” Henninge said. “I like the fact it’s neutral, it doesn’t have a chemical smell.”
Wolski, who has millennialage children, also thought it made strong business sense to make that demographic his primary target.
Wolski’s research showed that most well-established household cleaners were developed in the heyday of baby boomers and their parents.
“You have to market to this (millennial) group differently than you do baby boomers or Gen-Xers, even,” Wolski said.
As he worked through his business plan, Wolski talked with his son, Matt, who has a marketing company, Found Media Group, in Austin, Texas. Found Media did a lot of work to get Sofia’s ready for market, including coming up with the name.
“Sofia happens to be one of the top 20 names millennials are naming their children,” Wolski said. “So, how did we pick Sofia’s? That’s it. ... We started with an S because we created a soy-based cleaner.”
This past spring, Wolski’s wife saw a newspaper advertisement for Walmart’s Open Call program looking for American-made products, Wolski said.
Wolski’s application told Walmart he was targeting millennials, that his business was a startup, and that the cleaner was wholly manufactured in northeastern Ohio.
He had little expectations that he would be asked to take part in Open Call, but a few weeks later Walmart emailed him with an invitation to come down to corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Ark.
Wolski was among more than 500 people from 47 states and Puerto Rico invited out of thousands of submissions this year, said Walmart spokesman Scott Markley.
“You have to have more than an idea” in order to be invited to Open Call, Markley said.