How Tru Earth Got Started
When Ryan and his wife Kathleen were expecting their third child, Ryan would wake up, pour his 4 year old son,and 3 year old daughter a glass of milk, and watch YouTube kids videos with them.
As most kids do, they LOVED watching shows about toys.
Ryan loved his morning routine with the kids, but he got upset by the crazy amounts of plastic waste in the shows they watched.
In one popular toy show, it almost seemed the family was promoting this waste. A kid would open a treasure chest made of plastic, wrapped in plastic, with an egg carton of plastic sitting on top. Underneath the toy was more plastic, with 20 little parts wrapped in plastic.
“This is insane!” Ryan thought.
Ryan wasn’t a hardcore environmentalist by any stretch, but he cared about the world and his kids’ futures.
He thought “there’s got to be something we can do! This plastic is just about convenience, but what if there’s a way to make sustainable packaging convenient?”
Ryan called up his good friend Brad, a serial entrepreneur. Recently Brad told him about an extended-family member with a patent on laundry detergent that was supposed to be eco-friendly, but Brad didn’t really “get it.”
“If it’s so eco-friendly, how the heck does it get my clothes clean?”
Brad had grown up in an eco-conscious household, but couldn’t understand how an entire jug of laundry detergent fit in packaging the size of an iPhone.
But when Ryan called him up he decided to actually TRY the product for himself instead of dismissing it. Brad, Ryan, and Ryan’s childhood friend Kevin each tried the laundry strips.
All three of them concluded the same thing. This stuff actually works!
That’s when we decided to become a team, but first we wanted to test our idea to see if anyone else loved the laundry strips as much as we did.
Kevin set up a small webpage, Ryan wrote about his experience with the product on that page, and we put it out to market.
We determined that 150 subscription orders in the first 30 days would be enough to take this seriously and invest our resources into growing a company.
At the end of 30 days we had 1,500 new subscribers.
It became clear that just like each of us, many people want to make better consumer choices to help the environment, but simply don’t know how to.
Many also feel skeptical about environmental products, but would buy them if they actually work.
Because of these two desires from the people, our company was born. Within 12 months we serve 60,000 people in 40 countries... and the planet!
Our Values
Simplicity. We believe little hinges swing big doors and small actions add up to big changes. We’re not perfect and we’re not asking anyone else to be.
Empowered: We all have the power to choose. We create products that empower people to choose sustainability, without compromising convenience.
Integrity: As our company grows we will keep the close sense of family that we started with.
We will never compromise our values or cut corners to reduce costs. We will not shortchange the environment to make a profit. We will be transparent about production and ingredients.
We will never shame anyone or make people feel bad about their choices, we will simply work to provide eco-friendly products that work.
Meet Our 3 Co-Founders
Ryan McKenzie, Co-founder
I live in British Columbia with my beautiful wife and our three kids. My love for our kids and worry about their future woke up my eco conscious side. Before I co-founded Tru Earth, I had a subscription box company. I run an adventure club with Brad and Kevin that helps families around North America get off their screens and spend more time together outdoors. I believe the small decisions we make today can make a big difference for the future generations.
Brad Liski, Co-founder
I live in British Columbia with my two awesome kids and my loving, and ever supportive, wife. This is my 26th company and it’s the first and only one that wakes up in the morning excited to make a difference. I am leading a team of people that I can look them in the eye and say “Hey, we’re changing something, we’re not just offering people something to buy, we’re actually making a difference.” In the past decade I’ve become more awake to our current reality, and this is the only thing that has resonated with all the lessons I’ve learned as a business owner. I have one clear vision now.
Kevin Hinton, Co-founder
My amazing wife and I make our home in beautiful British Columbia. We love to take our two boys up to our off-the-grid family cabin throughout the summer and appreciate nature at its finest. The need to keep our planet blue, green and full of life for future generations is never more apparent than when we are there.
I’m that guy who loves all things tech and would love to help colonize Mars. In my spare time I’m working on a machine that can pull CO2 out of the air and convert it into something usable. I am obsessed with innovation that will improve our quality of life on this beautiful planet. Ryan is one of my best childhood friends.
What Dave Asprey, CEO of Bulletproof Says About Tru Earth Eco-strips
“Tru Earth makes a laundry detergent that’s good for your skin and good for the environment.
This is right in line with the Bulletproof philosophy. If you have to do your laundry you might as well do it in a way that saves you time and space. There are 30 billion loads of laundry done each year.
If everyone switched to Eco-Strips we could eliminate 1 billion plastic jugs, and save truck fuel and CO2 equivalent to taking 27 million cars off the road a day... or planting 9 million new trees.
Taking care of the environment by making small decisions that work just as well as or better than what you did before, that is how we get there. You don’t have to sacrifice for that. You’re actually going to find that you like this stuff. It’s a neat little hack. It saves time, it saves space, it’s all good!” - Dave Asprey, Bulletproof CEO
And a Former Skeptic, Sam Wigness Says...
“To be honest, I doubted a 2” x 4” strip that weighs under 3 grams would get the job done. But a half hour later I was pleasantly surprised to find a fresh smelling, clean load of laundry in my washer.
Better still, my khakis were mud-free and ready to fight another day. The “Fresh Linen scent even passed my wife’s smell test. Who knew laundry could be exciting?” - Sam Wigness, Author at Emeraldology: Your Guide to Earth-Friendly Living