The first thing they told me in business school is that I was there to learn how to create “shareholder value.” That this should be the guiding ideology behind every professional decision I make. When I heard that, I remember thinking it was a load of bullshit.
To be fair, that wasn’t the whole story. At UMass’s Isenberg School of Management we talked about ethics, leadership, organizational behavior, and social impact. We were told that businesses are made of people, not just balance sheets. But in practice, those ideas always felt secondary. The message that actually mattered, the one that showed up in every case study and every valuation, was simple: grow profits, grow fast, and make investors happy.
And I get it. Shareholders own businesses, so of course their money matters. But at what cost?
Companies end up charging as much as they possibly can before sales start to slip. That’s how shareholder value is maximized. Sitting in those lectures, I kept thinking about real people; people with sensitive skin, people stretching a paycheck, people just trying to get through their day; and realizing none of them existed in those spreadsheets.
What makes it worse is that most businesses don’t even start out cynical. They begin by trying to make something better, less expensive, or more useful. Then outside money enters the equation. Pressure creeps in. Growth becomes mandatory. Everyone starts watching the numbers. And when numbers become the focus, people slowly fade into the background. That’s how you end up with shrinkflation, worse ingredients, and products designed to addict instead of help – not because anyone is evil, but because they got busy, got squeezed, and got lost in the sauce.
Nate’s Natty was a response to that long before I knew how to describe it. I started the company in high school because high-quality natural soap was overpriced. I didn’t want to spend ten bucks on a bar, and I knew I could make something better and less expensive. I was literally making soap for myself because I wanted something clean, natural, and affordable.
Then business school got in my head.
I was told to focus on “perceived value,” on branding, on how to justify higher prices. And I followed that path for a while until I realized I hated my business. The company I had spent years building. I don’t hate profit. Who does? But not at the expense of real people I actually have the chance to help. I caught myself caring more about packaging than about the soap itself, and that’s when I knew something was off.
I don’t hate business. I love it. I love that a small group of people can build something useful and put it into the world. I love that a good product can support a livelihood and create freedom. What I reject is the idea that the only way to succeed is to extract as much as possible from the people who buy from you. The harder path (and the better one) is building something so good and so fair that people choose you again and again.
Nate’s Natty soap is really good. People love it, and demand has grown a lot over the past few years. To keep up, I had to start buying larger quantities of raw ingredients. That lowered my unit cost.
Every spreadsheet told me to keep that extra margin.
Instead, we lowered our prices by 17%.
If we can maintain similar profit and give people the same excellent soap for less money, why wouldn’t we? I know how it feels to want quality natural soap and not want to spend a fortune to get it. Why would I ignore other people having that same experience?
That decision says everything about what Nate’s Natty is.
Nate’s Natty is a different kind of company. One that prioritizes you. No shitty ingredients to save costs. No artificial markups. Just high-quality, healthy products for a fair price. Through a lot of trial and error, I’ve learned that the only way to run a business I’m proud of is to actually help people.
Some of my friends in business school are scared to enter the workforce because they don’t want to spend their lives maximizing shareholder value at the expense of everything else. To them, I’d say this: be the change you want to see. Business can be a tool for good, but only if you choose customers over extraction.
That’s what I’m trying to build with Nate’s Natty.
If you made it this far, thank you. If you want to support what I’m doing, try a bar of soap and use code HUMAN15 for 15% off.