1.What was Lowry and Ryans strategy for finding oppertunity?

2.What critical skills did the founders have or acquire during the startup of their business?

3.Why do you think the decided to reincorporate as a B Corporation?

Read the following mini-case, then answer the questions that follow. Sometimes you start out wanting to launch a simple business and end up creating an entire industry. At least, that's what happened to lifelong friends, Adam Lowry and Eric Ryan, who combined contemporary design and eco-friendly ingredients to produce a line of liquid soaps and cleaners, called Method Home, that is now worth over $100 million. Lowry is a chemical engineer with a focus on the environment, while Ryan is a marketing guru with experience at Gap and Saturn, among other companies. It was the late 1990s in San Francisco when the two Michigan-born-and-bred friends began brainstorming potential products to reinvent. They used a technique that entrepreneurs often use when they want to see something from a different point of view: They took the most mundane household cleaners and said, "What if we..." That process led to the idea that, unlike the dominant products from Procter & Gamble and Clorox that contained harsh, toxic chemicals, their cleaners would be eco-friendly and have beautiful, contemporary designs-in other words, both style and substance. In Lowry and Ryan's view, going green did not mean that the consumer had to suffer. Green could be stylish and practical. Their first product came out in the midst of the recession of 2001, funded with seed capital of $90,000 that they had raised from friends and family. In true entrepreneurial fashion, they had mixed the products up in a bathtub and delivered them in an old pickup truck. However, in the process, they had used up all their capital. They even remember a dinner with their first investors where they couldn't find a credit card that wasn't maxed out-they had to use their persuasive skills to convince the restaurant owner that they were good for it. Within a year, they had battled their way into distribution in 800 stores with products that used natural ingredients-palm oil, coconut oil, and corn oil-bottled in attractive, recyclable containers. Lowry and Ryan knew that their core strategy had to be around brand building and that they were going head-to-head with the dominant players in the market. To succeed, they needed to attract one of their favorite designers, Karim Rashid, who turned out to be intrigued by their bold mission and agreed to come on board as the chief creative officer Design was one component of their brand-building strategy, speed and innovation were the other critical elements. To achieve all three, they developed a system of so subcontractors so they could introduce new products quickly and pull failed products off the shelves just as quickly. Today, they sell more than 130 products in over 8,000 stores. In 2012, Method Home merged with Ecover to create the world's largest green cleaning company. Taking green to the max, in 2014 the company broke ground on its first LEED-certified U.S. manufacturing plant on Chicago's south side. About the same time, the company reincorporated as a benefit corporation or B Corp to practice positive social and environmental change. By 2017, Method Home was named one of the best B Corps in the world