Podcast
We’ve created something that seemed to have struck a chord: Craig Dubitsky, Hello Products
As the founder of Hello Products and the Chief Innovation Strategist at Colgate-Palmolive, Craig had a lot to share about his journey to becoming an entrepreneur, including a stint as a derivatives trader.
About the guest
Craig Dubitsky
Founder at Hello Products and Chief Innovation Strategist at Colgate-Palmolive
Craig Dubitsky is the founder of Hello Products, the natural oral care brand that disrupted the personal care aisle with friendlier formulations, playful design, and a direct-to-consumer approach before being acquired by Colgate-Palmolive. Prior to founding Hello, Craig traded derivatives on Wall Street. He joined the podcast from midtown Manhattan.
Episode overview
Craig Dubitsky calls in from midtown Manhattan for one of the most wide-ranging conversations in the Give It A Nudge archive. From derivatives trading on Wall Street to founding Hello Products, the oral care brand that disrupted a category dominated by legacy multinationals, Craig traces a career path that few founders could match for variety. He covers what Hello got right, what made the brand resonate, the acquisition by Colgate-Palmolive, and what he’s learned about creating products that people actually love.
From derivatives trader to consumer brand founder
Craig’s career pivot from financial derivatives to consumer products is the kind of story that makes most career trajectory conversations look mundane. His route into brand building was unconventional but produced a result that was definitively not: Hello Products became one of the most loved oral care brands in the US, built on the premise that a category full of antiseptic, clinical, fear-based marketing deserved something friendlier and more human.
“We created something that seemed to have struck a chord. The oral care category was so dominated by fear-based messaging. We came in saying: let’s make this something people actually enjoy.”
Craig Dubitsky 8:00
Building a category-disrupting brand
Hello’s core innovation was not the formulation alone. It was the combination of better ingredients, a visual identity that stood out on a shelf dominated by blue and white clinical packaging, a voice that treated adults like adults rather than patients, and a direct relationship with customers that preceded the DTC wave. Craig explains how those elements came together and why he believes the oral care category was particularly ripe for disruption.
“The category was ripe. The incumbents had been doing the same thing for decades. When you walk into a drugstore and everything looks the same and sounds the same, there’s a massive opportunity.”
Craig Dubitsky 16:00
The Colgate acquisition and what comes next
Hello Products was acquired by Colgate-Palmolive, and Craig now serves as Chief Innovation Strategist there. He’s candid about what working inside a large corporation after founding your own brand feels like, what gets easier, what gets harder, and how you apply startup-style thinking within a business of that scale. The conversation is a rare window into the post-acquisition founder experience.
“The acquisition meant Hello could scale to a level that would have taken us much longer independently. But you’re also navigating a much bigger machine, and that requires a different set of skills.”
Craig Dubitsky 24:00
Key takeaways
Chapters
0:00Introduction and Craig’s unusual career path 6:00From derivatives trading to consumer products 10:00What Hello Products is and why the category was ripe 14:00Building the brand: ingredients, design, voice 20:00The DTC model and building direct customer relationships 24:00The Colgate-Palmolive acquisition 28:00Innovating inside a large corporation
Mentioned in this episode
Frequently asked questions
What is Hello Products?
Hello Products is a natural oral care brand founded by Craig Dubitsky that disrupted the personal care category with friendlier formulations, playful and distinctive packaging, and a brand voice that treated consumers as adults rather than patients. The brand was acquired by Colgate-Palmolive.
Why was the oral care category ready for disruption?
The oral care category had been dominated by a small number of large multinationals for decades, all using similar fear-based messaging, clinical visual language, and the same basic product positioning. Craig saw that white space as an opportunity to build a brand that approached the category with warmth, transparency, and design quality.
What happened after Hello Products was acquired by Colgate-Palmolive?
Craig Dubitsky became Chief Innovation Strategist at Colgate-Palmolive following the acquisition, applying his consumer brand thinking to one of the world’s largest personal care companies. The acquisition gave Hello the distribution scale it would have taken much longer to build independently, while giving Colgate access to Hello’s brand equity and consumer relationship.
What was Hello Products’ DTC strategy?
Hello Products built a direct-to-consumer channel early, creating a direct relationship with customers that legacy oral care brands, who sold entirely through pharmacy and grocery retail, did not have. That direct relationship provided customer data, loyalty, and community that became a meaningful competitive asset.
Can startup-style innovation work inside a large corporation?
Craig’s role at Colgate-Palmolive after the acquisition is evidence that it can, with the right mandate and cultural conditions. The key is having executive-level sponsorship, operational independence from the core business, and a clear brief to apply entrepreneurial thinking rather than incrementally improving existing products.
Topics discussed
Full transcript
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Show full transcript (32 minutes, 4 sections)
0:00 Introduction
Craig Dubitsky joins Steve Grace from midtown Manhattan. Craig is the founder of Hello Products and Chief Innovation Strategist at Colgate-Palmolive. His path took him from derivatives trading on Wall Street to building one of the most loved oral care brands in the US before selling to one of the world’s largest personal care companies.
8:00 Hello Products and the category opportunity
We created something that seemed to have struck a chord. The oral care category was so dominated by fear-based messaging: cavity prevention, plaque attack, anti-bacterial. We came in saying: let’s make this something people actually enjoy. Better ingredients, distinctive packaging, a voice that treated people like adults rather than patients. The category was ripe. The incumbents had been doing the same thing for decades. When everything in the aisle looks and sounds the same, there’s a massive opportunity.
20:00 DTC and building customer relationships
Building a direct relationship with customers was central to Hello from the beginning. Legacy brands didn’t have that. They sold through retail and had no direct connection to the person buying their product. Our DTC channel gave us data, feedback, and loyalty that became enormously valuable both operationally and in the acquisition conversation with Colgate-Palmolive.
26:00 The Colgate acquisition and life inside a large corporation
The acquisition meant Hello could scale to a level that would have taken us much longer independently. But you’re also navigating a much bigger machine, and that requires a different set of skills. My role now is to bring entrepreneurial thinking into Colgate-Palmolive, which is both an opportunity and a challenge. The key is having the right mandate and the right cultural conditions to actually operate differently, not just talk about innovation.
About the host
Steve Grace is the founder and CEO of The Nudge Group, a technology-focused recruitment and advisory business. He has built and scaled companies across Australia and the US, and hosts Give It A Nudge to spotlight founders and operators building something meaningful.
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