Kate @ Dip: Anti-Amazon Entrepreneur on Growing Without Selling Out
When most founders talk about building a beauty brand today, the conversation usually sounds the same.
Launch a product.
Put it on Amazon.
Send it to influencers.
Push ads.
Scale as fast as possible.
Kate Assaraf took a completely different route.
The founder of Dip Sustainable Hair Care built a seven-figure company that now appears in hundreds of independent retailers across the United States—without relying on Amazon, influencer marketing, or traditional beauty distribution.
Instead, she focused on something that has quietly become rare in modern commerce: human trust.
In a conversation on The Way In podcast, Kate shared how Dip started, why sustainability messaging often misses the mark, and why protecting independent retailers is the real goal behind the brand.
From math and economics to haircare
Kate didn’t begin her career thinking she would launch a beauty company.
She studied economics and mathematics, disciplines that are often stereotyped as rigid or technical. But she sees them differently. Economics, she explains, is ultimately the study of choice—how people decide between options when resources are limited.
That perspective turns out to be incredibly useful in marketing and product development. When you understand how people make choices, you can build products that actually fit their lives instead of forcing them to adapt to something inconvenient or disappointing.
For Kate, the beauty industry offered a fascinating space to apply that thinking.
And eventually, a frustrating one.
The moment plastic became impossible to ignore
The seed for Dip was planted in 2014 when Kate was pregnant with her first son.
During that time, she learned more about plastic waste and its impact on both the environment and human health. Studies had already begun raising alarms about microplastics accumulating in ecosystems—and even interfering with endocrine systems.
The discovery pushed her to start reducing plastic in her life wherever possible.
Kitchen swaps were easy.
Household items were manageable.
But one category kept resisting change: haircare.
Every sustainable shampoo bar she tried felt like a compromise.
Some didn’t lather well.
Others left residue.
Conditioner bars in particular felt disappointing compared to salon-quality products.
Eventually Kate had a realization that many consumers secretly share. She cared about sustainability—but she cared about her hair too.
That frustration became the foundation for Dip.
Why most shampoo bars fail consumers
The problem with many early shampoo bars wasn’t the concept. It was the performance. For years, customers were asked to accept products that simply didn’t deliver the same experience as bottled shampoo and conditioner. The expectation was that consumers should tolerate weaker results in exchange for environmental benefits.
But that approach created a predictable outcome: people tried sustainable products once, felt disappointed, and went back to plastic bottles. Kate wanted the opposite reaction. Instead of asking people to sacrifice performance, Dip was designed so that customers would be pleasantly surprised the first time they used it.
To get there, she hired a chemist with decades of experience developing luxury haircare formulas and gave him a clear instruction: Make the best bars possible. Ignore cost limits.
It took roughly 40 formula iterations before the final version of Dip was ready. The goal was simple: when someone switched from bottles to bars, the experience should feel better—not worse.
Building a brand that doesn’t look “sustainable”
Many sustainable brands share a similar aesthetic.
Muted tones.
Minimal packaging.
Earth-inspired design cues.
Kate intentionally rejected that formula. Instead of beige minimalism, Dip packaging is colorful, playful, and nostalgic. The branding draws inspiration from unexpected places—including Sweet Valley High book covers from the 1990s.
The idea was to create the loudest product on the shelf, something that would catch the eye of people who normally feel alienated by traditional sustainability messaging.
Kate describes the brand philosophy internally as:
“Beachy, not preachy.”
No guilt.
No lectures.
Just a great product that happens to be plastic-free.
Why Dip launched with 32 SKUs
Launching a product line is intimidating for any founder, but Dip began with an unusually complex lineup. Eight scents. Shampoo and conditioner versions.Two bar sizes. That meant 32 SKUs at launch.
Even with small manufacturing runs negotiated through industry relationships, the initial production numbers felt huge at the time.
But Kate believed that variety mattered.
Customers interact with haircare differently than other products. Scent, hair type, and personal preference all play a role in the decision. Offering multiple options helped the brand appeal to a broader group of consumers right from the beginning.
And once people tried the bars, something interesting happened: They rarely went back.
The hardest customer to convert
Ironically, the most difficult customers to convince were often the ones who had already tried shampoo bars before. Bad experiences create lasting skepticism.
Kate compares it to mouthwash tablets—a product she personally dislikes so much that she refuses to try another version. Many consumers feel the same way about haircare bars.
But when they do try Dip, the reaction is often immediate.
Some store owners have even called Kate directly from the shower after testing the product for the first time, surprised by how the conditioner bar behaves compared to traditional formulas. Those reactions helped the brand grow organically through word-of-mouth.
Why Dip avoids Amazon
One of the most unusual aspects of Dip’s strategy is its distribution model. The brand does not rely on Amazon or big-box retailers.
Instead, Dip is sold primarily through:
-
independent refill stores
-
specialty beauty retailers
-
salons
-
surf shops
-
the company’s own website
This approach protects local retailers.
When products are widely available on Amazon, small stores often struggle to compete with pricing and convenience. But when brands intentionally limit distribution, retailers become motivated partners who actively recommend the product to customers.
Stylists, for example, often introduce Dip to clients who want high-performance haircare without plastic waste. And because the product lasts so long—sometimes up to a year for conditioner bars—it often saves customers significant money compared to salon bottles.
The real influencers behind Dip
Instead of social media influencers, Kate invests her marketing resources in something much simpler: store owners. These retailers are deeply connected to their communities and speak directly with customers every day. To strengthen those relationships, Dip hosts retreats and gatherings for retail partners around the world.
Store owners have traveled together to places like:
-
Morocco
-
Nashville
-
the Dominican Republic
-
the Catskills
These events aren’t heavily publicized. They’re simply opportunities to build relationships, share ideas, and learn what customers are asking for in different parts of the country. From a marketing perspective, it’s incredibly effective. Instead of relying on algorithms, Dip receives real-world insights from hundreds of local communities.
The surf community connection
Another unexpected driver of growth has been the surfing community. Kate and her family spend time in the ocean, and surfers quickly realized that Dip’s conditioner bar solved a specific problem: detangling salt-damaged hair after surfing.
Often one person would bring a bar to the beach, and an entire group of surfers would try it. Those experiences created small waves of adoption in coastal towns like Santa Cruz and Costa Mesa.
In many cases, one user turned into ten new customers almost instantly.
And because the product is plastic-free, the environmental message resonates naturally with people who spend time in the ocean.
Why launching new products in plastic feels outdated
After two decades in the beauty industry, Kate has become increasingly blunt about one trend she finds frustrating. New brands launching products in plastic packaging.
Given everything we now know about plastic pollution, she considers it the easiest—and laziest—path for new companies. Liquid formulas in plastic bottles require almost no innovation. Creating plastic-free alternatives, on the other hand, demands more creativity and problem-solving.
That challenge is exactly what makes the work interesting.
The hidden challenge of modern entrepreneurship
While building Dip has been rewarding, the digital landscape has also introduced new complications. Online misinformation, AI-generated content, and aggressive competitor tactics can create unexpected headaches. Competitors may attempt to manipulate search results, flood review sections, or create misleading information online.
For founders, that means protecting the integrity of their brand has become as important as building the product itself. Kate’s advice for entrepreneurs today is simple:
Make your brand “internet-proof.” Develop a voice, story, and community that cannot easily be copied or scraped by competitors.
Running a company while raising two kids
Outside the business, Kate’s life looks very different from the stereotypical startup founder story. She wakes up around 4:30 a.m. to handle emails and deep work before her two sons wake up for school.
After the morning routine, she shifts into full work mode until the afternoon—when family life takes priority again. That rhythm allows her to build a successful company without sacrificing the parts of life that matter most. It’s a balance she credits partly to a book that shaped her thinking about entrepreneurship.
A different vision of success
One of the most influential books Kate recommends is “Company of One” by Paul Jarvis. The book challenges the idea that every business must grow as large and fast as possible. Instead, it encourages founders to design companies that support the life they want to live.
That philosophy aligns closely with Dip’s long-term vision.
The brand doesn’t need to dominate every retail shelf in the world. What matters more is supporting the ecosystem of independent stores that make communities feel vibrant and personal.
The legacy Dip hopes to leave
When asked what she hopes people remember about Dip years from now, Kate’s answer isn’t about shampoo. It’s about retail.
Her goal is for Dip to be known as the brand that helped keep independent stores alive in towns across the country. Right now, the company works with roughly 400–500 retailers nationwide, and that number continues to grow and shift as stores open and close.
It’s not the scale of a multinational corporation. But it’s enough to create meaningful impact. And sometimes, that’s exactly the point.
Where to find Dip
Dip’s plastic-free shampoo and conditioner bars are available through hundreds of independent retailers across the United States.
You can use the store locator at dipalready.com to find a refill store, salon, or specialty shop near you.
Or explore the products directly on the website to see why so many customers say switching to bars was easier than they expected.
Final takeaway
Dip’s story stands out in a beauty industry obsessed with speed, scale, and viral marketing. Instead of chasing every possible growth channel, Kate Assaraf built the company around something simpler:
-
high-performance products
-
real retail relationships
-
and human trust
In a world where marketing can feel increasingly synthetic, that approach might be the most sustainable strategy of all.
