Boise Entrepreneur Week Washie Looking at 2023 as Flush with Success
By Sharon Fisher
When 2020 started, Rob Poleki’s startup Washie, then based in Pocatello, was flying high. The company had won the 2019 Boise Entrepreneur Week Pitch Competition, and was preparing to ship its smart cleaning toilet seats to high-traffic public restroom customers
“After I won in 2019, we had so much momentum,” Poleki remembered. “We went to China and found a manufacturer, one of the top manufacturers in the world, who makes dispensers. Manufacturing started, prototyping, and we were getting interested accounts.”
Then COVID-19 hit.
“COVID hit us hard. Everything shut down overseas,” Poleki said. “I couldn’t ship any product or make any product. There was no one in the factories. I had to pivot and figure out what to do next.
Surviving COVID
For the time being, Poleki pivoted to making hand sanitizer. “That held us through the COVID period,” he said.
Then 2021 became another pivotal year. “In July 2021, I took a leap of faith to sell my home in Pocatello and move to Utah,” Poleki said. “I moved to Salt Lake to be closer to the airport and a few large accounts. The largest convention center in Utah was interested in our product – Vivint Arena (now Delta Arena), where the Utah Jazz play. Facilities were finally interested. People were coming back into public places.”
And by the end of 2021, Poleki’s manufacturer was able to start producing seats for Washie again.
Poised to launch
This year, the company is ramping up. “We’ve had tons of partnership discussions with Fortune 500 companies that are interested,” Poleki said, and Washie has partnered with Delta Sky Club. “We’re continuing to build the B2B.”
Thus far, Washie is still on its first 1,000-seat manufacturing order, with about 500 in the market. “We concentrate on airports, convenience stores, and entertainment such as theme parks,” Poleki said. While the company is primarily focused on the West Coast, it has sold some seats on the East Coast and in the Midwest. "We're across the U.S. now," he said.
Poleki typically markets Washie by attending conventions. “There’s three big ones we go to,” he said. “The first is the International Sanitary Supply Association, the biggest cleaning convention in the world. The second is airport conventions. And NACS, the National Association of Convenience Stores convention.”
In addition, Poleki uses the usual B2B sales cycle to reach out to decisionmakers. “We try to target businesses that find customer experience very important,” such as Target, Delta, and Starbucks, he said. “We’re a product that enhances the restroom experience. So we try to find those kinds of customers.
Family connection
Poleki likes to tell the story of how he got the idea for Washie in 2015 in a public bathroom in the Salt Lake City airport with his then four-year-old son (though the son, now 12, kinda wishes he’d quit telling it).
Now, Poleki’s four children all have a role in the business. “My youngest daughter was in some commercials,” he said. “I take them to the warehouse and have them help put boxes together. When we sent out gifts to people who took a survey, they packaged the gifts.”
It’s the same lessons that Poleki’s parents taught him, he said. “It’s important to show my kids,” he said. “You’ve got to get out there and work and make a living. You don’t always have to be a 9 to 5 person – you can do it yourself.”
At the end of 2022, the company had a huge personal victory for him: The Salt Lake City airport installed his product.
“It’s come full circle,” Poleki said. “The place I had the idea now has the product.”
Fan base
Washie also enjoys something not often found in toilet seat circles: a fan base.
“It’s been receiving rave reviews,” Poleki said, noting that the product received 800 5-star reviews in 30 days. “Every time someone runs into a Washie, they take a selfie and post it on social media. It’s unusual for people to take a photo of a toilet in a public place and post it.”
For that reason, Poleki is looking into pivoting the company in an additional direction.
“Convincing businesses to move forward and make a purchase is hard,” Poleki said. “B2B is a slow, long cycle. It’s a disconnect as a company – we’re a B2B company that sells a product that the end user doesn’t purchase. The facility has to purchase the toilet seat, and the end user is the customer.”
Consequently, Poleki is looking at B2C, or residential sales. “We’re pivoting and going directly to the customer who loves our product, and designing a seat with different features,” he said.
Instead of spraying a cleaning solution onto the seat, as the current product does, the consumer Washie seat would spray solution into the bowl to help clean and deodorize it before use, Poleki said. Other additional features would be a night light and a slow hinge. “It’s definitely serving customers who love our product,” he said.
Financing
While Poleki himself is now in Utah, and manufacturing is overseas, its warehouse is still in Pocatello, and Washie still has employees in Pocatello. “Orders and everything are handled in Idaho,” he said. The company has just four full-time employees. “Everything we do is contracted work,” he said. “It’s a big team, but everyone else is contracted.”
Poleki raised $750,000 in a preseed round in Idaho from local investors, and is currently in a seed round with the goal of raising $1 million. He’s approaching angel and accredited investors. “We’ve always been Utah and Idaho,” he said. “Now we’re in discussions with angel groups in Seattle, Los Angeles, and New York.”
The funding will be used to build the team. “We haven’t put too much money into marketing,” Poleki said. “That’s what we’re raising the money for. We’re at the stage where the product is here, operations are steady – so now go out and market and sell the product.”
In terms of an exit strategy, Poleki has also pivoted. “My exit strategy has changed over the year because of the momentum we’ve received,” he said. “There are hundreds of thousands of public restrooms in the United States, and getting some traction is what we’re trying to do, to get into licensing and acquisition discussions with restroom companies. They’re taking notice, and we’re talking to three of the largest restroom companies in the U.S. We actually met with one of the largest toilet seat makers in the world. Companies are definitely watching – we’re just trying to get some traction now.”
So now, Poleki is basically where he was in 2020. “We had to start again,” he said. “Two years of manufacturing and marketing and momentum out of our business.”
Sharon Fisher is a digital nomad who writes about entrepreneurship.