The GOATs of Ennovate: How Hamber’s Award-Winning Goat Soap Came to Life
Goat Soap
Over the past few months, GOAT Soap has become a brand that many Hamberites have come to know and love. By selling a variety of organic goat-milk-based soaps over the holidays, the company has become incredibly successful within and outside our school community, selling 176 bars of soap over two months. Additionally, the Grade 11 and 12 students behind the initiative recently won first place in the UBC Ennovate business competition. But although the brand has become wildly popular, not much is known about its journey to success. How did GOAT soap come to life, exactly?
Every year, an organization called Enactus UBC hosts a business competition for BC high school students. The first six weeks of the program allows participants to attend workshops about advertising, marketing, presentation, and financing. It then allows participants to create a product to sell that relates to a yearly theme. This year, the theme was sustainability.
Selling soap wasn’t the team’s first idea. “We initially wanted to sell candles, but because of the pandemic, [we decided to sell soap to promote hand hygiene,” says team member Justin Siu (11). In regards to their choice of using goat milk, Ryan Hsu (11) explains that it was “mainly about differentiating ourselves from other companies … we thought it would be a cool way to make our brand different from the others.”
Once an idea was established and a brand was created, the team was given a three-month selling period to put their product into action. While the full recipe for the soap is a secret, it was based on a pre-existing soap recipe which the team “heavily modified to fit our mission of being organic and sustainable,” according to Hsu.
The selling process was not an easy one. “In the beginning, there was an influx of sales, and we found it difficult to manage our efforts efficiently with high labour and a low number of workers,” Jenny Lan (12) explains.
Despite the challenges they had to face, the GOAT Soap team prevailed. “We were able to establish a make-to-stock production method instead of a make-to-order method, which streamlined our process,” Lan says.
At the end of the selling period, the team made a pitch to Ennovate’s panel of judges in a conference held online. Out of 14 teams, four advanced to the finals. After pitching once more in the final round, the GOAT Soap team placed first in the competition.
“We went in with the mindset that we’d at least represent our school in a positive way, but when we actually won, I didn’t think it was real. It was a great experience hearing the words that we had actually won,” Hsu says.
While winning was certainly exciting for the students, helping the community was even more impactful for them. “Our brand is really focused on building a bond with each customer, and [it was great to] see that Hamber students are supporting our product, and to see that connection and the positive reviews,” Andrew Chung (12) explains. This emphasis on community support extended beyond the school community as well, with 100 per cent of the company’s profits going to the BC SPCA.
With the Ennovate competition now over, GOAT Soap Hamber has reached the end of its journey. However, for the students behind the company, this may only be the beginning of their entrepreneurship journey. According to Hsu, much of the team will likely use the experience they had to participate in future competitions, or even start their own companies someday.
For Lan, moving forward from the experience is difficult. Working on such a project with like-minded individuals is certainly one to be remembered. With that said, the thing she will remember most is that “as much as the result was rewarding, the lessons they learned were equally as rewarding.”