An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Don’t be afraid to evolve. Shed your skin often, and you’ll always be fresh. It doesn’t mean that you change the core of your brand but revive it often. Let your consumer know that as they evolve, you will too.

As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Scott Dancy, Founder & CEO, Azuna Fresh.

A Jersey-born, take-no-prisoners entrepreneur by nature, Scott Dancy has spent his life building big ideas into big businesses. His multiple successes have spanned the corners of industry, from oil and gas to staffing, and these days he’s defying expectations in a new arena — natural household cleaning solutions. With the launch of Azuna Fresh a few years ago, Dancy aimed to reinvent how we clean and deodorize our home, using tea tree oil as a basis to create a kid and pet friendly tea tree-based gel that quite literally cleans the surrounding area of bacteria and odors. A dedicated father, he’s rarely satisfied with the status quo, juggling both parenting and product development. In the last year alone, Dancy has now expanded Azuna into multiple products, partnering with retailers and selling direct to consumer, once again building a dream out of a single idea.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

I was born and raised in New Jersey, and my father was always an entrepreneur. Early on in my life he owned liquor stores, but then we owned a funeral home, and we lived above that most of my childhood. I was a very good athlete, but made sure I was at least an average student, and that combination allowed me to play football at a very academic selective school — the University of Rochester. I think early on I knew that I needed a variety of skills in my life, and I didn’t want to fall back on any single talent or dream.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Perception is reality.

I was told this by my first business partner, and it instantly made complete sense and therefore left a lifelong impression upon me. What anyone perceives about you, your brand or your product — that is their reality. It’s critical to pay attention to how your message is being received. This really made me focus on my communication skills, and I think long and hard about how the person I am trying to reach interprets my words and actions. If I am trying to motivate someone, then I have to make sure they accurately understand what we are trying to achieve together and feel good about the reasoning. This is true in both personal and professional relationships, and in how an audience sees your brand.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

A Man in Full, by Tom Wolfe. I read it while in my early 20’s, living in Atlanta. The book was based on a businessman in Atlanta who lived with extreme wealth and luxury. At first, I was mesmerized by how the character — Charles Croker — lived. The extravagance and power, whether real or perceived, how those two things intertwined fascinated me. But by the end of the story, by the time the truth of that whirlwind life was revealed, it was a tale about how our value is in doing the right thing. Money didn’t buy happiness or fulfillment. It can make survival and life easier, but true, authentic happiness doesn’t have a price tag. That has been a baseline for me through the best and worst times of my life.

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. There is no shortage of good ideas out there. Many people have good ideas all the time. But people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. Can you share a few ideas from your experience about how to overcome this challenge?

I think the greatest obstacle often is fear. I’ve had failures, sometimes back-to-back. I remember people saying things like “just keep going buddy, you’ll get there someday” and “are you seriously going to try this again?” I’ve been a founding partner in the fastest growing staffing business in the northeast. I’ve been a co-founder of a very successful oil and gas company — but when you branch out into new spaces, if you meet with early failures, the doubts and the doubters can get to you. With my current company, Azuna, I knew I had a great brand because the product is amazing, and it works and it is affordable. Yet I had many, many people ask me what the heck I was doing, because I had no experience with a direct-to-consumer product. Maybe I was crazy, because I really didn’t know anything about how to market direct to a consumer, but I did my research, I followed brands I admired, I found people I wanted to work with — and three years later, after a lot of perseverance, we are expanding far faster than I ever expected. Fear is always the devil, and I’m glad I didn’t let it drive me off course.

Often when people think of a new idea, they dismiss it saying someone else must have thought of it before. How would you recommend that someone go about researching whether or not their idea has already been created?

I think these days that is easier than ever. The most obvious start is to try finding your product online. Try every search term that could be associated with it. Search chat rooms for the problem you are trying to solve with your product and see if solutions like yours exist. If there are similarities between what you’re trying to create and something that exists, don’t give up. It doesn’t mean it isn’t a good idea, use that to push yourself to go a step further, be even more innovative. It’s critical to check on patents so you don’t infringe on anything, but don’t be afraid to compete with a product or to improve on something.

For the benefit of our readers, can you outline the steps one has to go through, from when they think of the idea, until it finally lands in a customer’s hands? In particular, we’d love to hear about how to file a patent, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer to distribute it.

Before you do anything, you have to do your research about possible competition or similar ideas. If your idea stands up and can exceed the competition on quality and price and originality, work with a patent attorney to make sure you can hold your own in the category. The right patent attorney is critical — so call around, ask friends for those that are highly recommended and those that know your space. Then you want to find the right manufacturer — and that can be tough as well as most don’t have their own web presence. And most of all — do some focus groups, even with family or friends. Does your product have a use case? Would they buy it? What would they change? Don’t be distracted by negative feedback, use that to improve on your idea. Then create your own web presence and see if you can get some online sales traction, because no retailer is giving shelf space or time to a cold brand.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why?

1. Never dismiss any idea until you have tried it. If you have a good idea, give it the time and energy it deserves. Don’t let it fall by the wayside. Ideas have to be priorities in your business because that’s how you grow and expand.
2. Follow the competition and what they are doing. You can’t own the category if you don’t know what the competition is doing today, and what they have announced is to come. Pay attention to their evolutions. There’s a reason the “know thy enemy, and know yourself, in a hundred battles you will never be undefeated” quote stands the test of time. It’s a battle to the top.
3. Make sure that you are listening to your employees. They know the ins and outs of your product, your competition, and your market. That’s what you have hired them for — pay attention to what they have to say. Your great idea needs many minds to grow.
4. Always be on top of social and consumer trends. Do your research, and know what the consumer is seeking, how they are acting, what motivates them to spend. And know what content appeals to your direct consumer — every brand is a content creator these days, don’t ignore the fact that your audience wants you to make an effort to connect with them on a personal level.
5. Don’t be afraid to evolve. Shed your skin often, and you’ll always be fresh. It doesn’t mean that you change the core of your brand but revive it often. Let your consumer know that as they evolve, you will too.

Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

First try and build a prototype — that is key. You have to understand the full cost and demand for any product before it can be viable for any market. You might have the best way to catch a llama, but that doesn’t mean there is a high demand for llama catchers.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

I’m a big believer in trying it on your own to start. Take it as far as the point where you don’t have the answers anymore or can’t find them, then go ahead and hire a consultant experienced in your category to take you to the next step. By all means hire a consultant to do some competitive landscape analysis if you need to — make sure you know the ins and outs of your manufacturing process and the market demand before you go too far.

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

I’m a self-starter, but I’m also a big thinker. I like the freedom of bootstrapping in the beginning as you figure out your product and your market, and you get to a realistic projection of your potential. Get your product out there, find out what the demand and profit possibilities are, so you can value your company accordingly and back up those claims before you open yourself up to venture capital. If you want a business you can manage on your own, you may not need that big round of funding, but if your goal is to blow it out or to sell in a few years, then by all means go after the big funding. Ask yourself how autonomous you want to be, and decide if you’re looking for 30% of a million dollars with people to answer to, or 100% of $100,000 and no one to answer to? Social platforms have also changed how we sell direct to consumers — a single campaign can take a product viral very quickly, so you have to recognize that you might need the capital to scale quickly — is that something you can manage on your own or do you want outside funding to prepare for that?

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

I’ve started, but I’m not where I want to be yet. The pandemic opened my eyes in a lot of ways to the things that we can change about our lives and our lifestyles, and it made me even more aware of the world my kids will live in. My company now, Azuna, is utilizing natural solutions like tea tree gel to solve a bacterial, indoor air pollution problem, and we’ve heard from a lot of people that it’s helped them with their own indoor air challenges. We made sure to approach our product with sustainability in mind — so recycling and refills are important options for us, and now we are moving into long-term glass containers. But all of that is far from where I want to be. I want to create an impact both via our product but also via our ability to fund solutions and organizations that are advancing care for our planet. I can’t ask my kids to be compassionate, global citizens if I’m not striving to be that myself.

You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

I’d love to find a way to bring counseling services to underserved areas in a big way — meaning it would be easily accessible, paid for, encouraged and confidential. One day, when I sell and can allocate funding towards a need, it would be to create this pathway. I’ve witnessed firsthand many teenagers who live in violent neighborhoods, or who live with a lack of general resources, and I’ve seen them overcome because they have someone to talk to, and someone who is listening to them and giving them opportunities to break out of a negative cycle of thinking. Communication is so critical — it would give these kids a chance to express their stress and fears, and to get some guidance on how to become healthy-minded adults who can navigate a path to success.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

I’d have to say Shaquille O’Neal. He’s someone who has worked so hard to find his own path to success, and he is obviously a legend in terms of his reputation on the court. But off the court, he’s done even more for communities who need it. His foundation reaches so many kids in underserved communities, and he reaches them with communication and by creating joy in their lives. He’s found a way to bring happiness and hope to people, at a time in his life when he could easily rest on his laurels. I find that deeply inspirational — his energy and effort after the buzzer to teach those around him how to win, too. That’s something I hold up every day, and would love his insights as to how he tapped into that calling within him and manifested it into the real legacy he’s created.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

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Making Something From Nothing: Scott Dancy Of Azuna Fresh On How To Go From Idea To Launch was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.