Staff - How to Turn a Plunger Into a Social Media Star

The Story of a Brand

Ramon Vela

Business, Entrepreneurship

5 • 145 Ratings

🗓️ 9 April 2025

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode, I chat with Charlie Weisman, the creative force behind Staff, a brand that’s reimagining the most overlooked items in your home such as plungers, lint rollers, and oven mitts with joy, color, and a whole lot of personality.

What started as a quirky side project during the COVID lockdown turned into a design-forward brand now making waves with retailers, collaborators, and even celebrities like Drew Barrymore.

Charlie opens up about building Staff from scratch, why he didn’t tell anyone what he was working on, and how trusting his instincts (plus a little naivete in the beginning) helped him take a bold, playful idea and turn it into something unforgettable. From early retail wins to lessons in manufacturing and shipping, this one’s packed with insights and good vibes.

💡 Key Moments in This Episode:

How a cheerful plunger sparked a movement of “happy household helpers”
Why Charlie believes in showing, not telling, when launching new ideas
The product design process—from colored pencils to customer love
How organic social media buzz and retail demand grew the brand fast
Staff's approach to unexpected collabs with brands like Clorox and Instacart

Join me, Ramon Vela, in listening to this episode, filled with creativity, optimism, and a whole new way of looking at the most ordinary objects in your home.

For more on Staff, visit: https://meetyourstaff.co/

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave The Story of a Brand Show a rating and review.

Plus, don’t forget to follow us on Apple and Spotify.

Your support helps us bring you more content like this!

Today’s Sponsors:

Compass Rose Ventures - Advisor for CPG Brands: https://compassroseventures.com/contact/

Compass Rose Ventures can help your CPG brand increase customer lifetime value, expand into the US market, create an omnipresent omnichannel footprint, optimize customer journeys, build brand communities, and more. Visit the link above to learn more.

Augmentum Media - Influencer Marketing for Consumer Brands:

https://www.augmentum-media.com/story

What secret do fast-growing Health and Wellness brands like Xtendlife, Nourished, and Hunter & Gather share? They all outsource their influencer marketing to the experts at Augmentum. Augmentum is offering "The Story of a Brand Show" listeners a 30-minute consulting session AND a personalized influencer strategy plan built by their experts for you to implement either with them or in-house. Visit the link above to learn more.

Today’s Highlighted Brand:

Goode Health: https://www.goodehealth.com/

If you have a family history of heart disease, listen up.

Now, you can reduce your risk of heart attack or stroke by simply eating more polyphenols, the powerful plant nutrients found in fruits and veggies.

Goode Health designed and put them all in a tasty superfood shake and conducted a clinical study! Users of Goode Health had a significant improvement in heart health in just 2 weeks!

Visit goodehealth.com today and use promo code STORY30 for 30% off now!

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I was losing my mind.
0:01.3	I said, I need to find a way to live in this space.
0:05.2	And I also lined up with career stuff.
0:07.9	I'm saying I'm open and looking for something to do.
0:10.2	But I said, I got to find something to liven up this space.
0:13.5	And I just had that lens and was living my life and looking around the apartment.
0:17.0	And the moment of inspiration really was with the plunger.
0:20.5	Not that I had a big moment where I needed one, but I locked eyes with my plunger.
0:24.8	And I said, here's something that everybody has, especially in New York, there's not a lot of storage space.
0:29.1	So people just have it sitting next to their toilet.
0:31.5	And I thought, everything is designed to blend into the background before us.
0:37.0	So what if we went the complete opposite direction?
0:39.3	What if we made something that really stood out and it was display worthy?
0:43.7	And if you do need to grab a plunger, it's probably not the best part of your day.
0:48.3	So if we can just bring a little levity to that moment, that's kind of what we're all about.
1:09.9	Hey, everyone, this is Ramon Vela, and this is another episode of the story of a brand.
1:11.8	Like always, we have an amazing guest and brand that we're going to feature on today's show. But before we do, hi, I speak to hundreds of
1:16.9	founders and CEOs of CPG brands each year. And they are facing unprecedented challenges from changing
1:24.5	consumer behavior, inflation, election year anxiety,, the cost of capital, and more.
1:30.6	However, finding an experienced knowledgeable advisor shouldn't be challenging.
1:36.1	And that's why I'm personally recommending that you reach out to Compass Rose Ventures,
1:41.8	whether you're looking for help positioning your brand and messaging,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Ramon Vela, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Ramon Vela and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.