How DUDE Wipes Turned Toilet Paper Into the Villain and Won 4,400 Walmart Shelves

Toilet paper is the enemy.

That's not a joke. That's Dude Wipes' brand strategy.

We sat down with Joey Thomas, VP at DUDE Wipes, and he broke down how a butt wipe brand went from Shark Tank novelty to sitting on the shelf at 4,400 Walmart stores.

The shift started when they stopped trying to compete with other flushable wipes and made toilet paper the villain.

"Wet cleans better than dry. You wouldn't clean mud with dry paper."

When you put a roll of generic toilet paper on the holder, you don't know what brand it is. When you put Dude Wipes on the back of the tank, it says something about you. Identity-based brand building in a category everyone assumed was immune to it.

On community: Sean Riley, the CEO, is still personally trolling in the comments. They'll never hand that over to a bot. "Nine times out of ten, it's Sean responding."

It's how they find out when something's wrong with a product, what scent people want next (I requested rose macaron), and what the brand actually means to people.

On TikTok Shop there are 18,000 creators selling Dude Wipes right now. EIGHTEEN THOUSAND.

40% of Walmart shoppers who discovered Dude Wipes on TikTok ended up buying at Walmart. Another 17% went to Amazon.

The playbook for a new CPG brand today, according to Joey: launch TikTok Shop first to drive awareness, make sure Amazon listings are live for the click-through, use DTC to answer the questions creators and Amazon listings can't.

Don't go knocking on Walmart's door. Wait for them to knock on yours.

Thank you Joey for an incredible time ☎️ Full conversation on Thanks for Holding, link in comments.