By Matt Green
Shawn Seipler always had an entrepreneurial bent. He sold lemonade, cookies and Disney trinkets as early as eight years old, and by high school he had expanded to running a lawn-mowing business with multiple crews.
“I was always trying to find the next opportunity,” Shawn notes, recalling how his business instincts led him to leave college to pursue technology sales, earning a six-figure income by the age of 21. Soon after, he landed a sales role with Channel Intelligence, an ecommerce company whose technology later became the backbone of Google Shopping, and by 2008 he was on the road constantly.
“A typical week for me could start in New York and then Minneapolis, then fly to Los Angeles and then come back home,” Shawn explains of his schedule at the time.
Spending so many nights in hotel rooms, he observed the fresh bar of soap and tiny bottle of shampoo that were placed in his bathroom every day. What happens to these used toiletries when guests check out? he sometimes thought to himself. One evening, in a hotel in Minneapolis, Shawn’s curiosity got the better of him, and he posed the question to the receptionist. He was told the soap and shampoo were thrown away.
