Check out this feature of Global Protection Corp. Founder and CEO Davin Wedel, originally posted on CanvasRebel.
We recently connected with Davin Wedel and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Davin thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. If you had a defining moment that you feel really changed the trajectory of your career, we’d love to hear the story and details.
Conversations about sex and sexuality are much more open these days than when I was first starting my career journey. Many younger people today don’t realize just how taboo it was in the 80s to talk about condoms. Condoms were thought of us as dirty and had a reputation as something people only use in gas station bathrooms or if someone was having an affair.
In the late 80s I was a student at Tufts University in Boston, and the country was at the height of the AIDS crisis. When Surgeon General C. Everett Koop publicly endorsed condom use as a method to stop the spread of HIV, I was inspired to give condoms the makeover they desperately needed.
At that time I was passionate about entrepreneurship, selling cheeky t-shirts and boxers on the Tufts campus with a friend. Students on campus seemed uninformed about the HIV epidemic, and many thought they were not at risk for HIV. We decided to treat the condom like we did our funny T-shirts. We created a condom matchbook featuring the school mascot Jumbo the elephant with the slogan, “A Safe Jumbo is a Happy Jumbo.” By doing that, we instantly changed the identity of the condom. We turned the condom from something “dirty” that people couldn’t talk about to something that people just had to have. I couldn’t make the condom matchbooks fast enough!
It was a magic thing that we discovered a bit by accident: when you put something relatable or interesting around the condom, it reduces taboos around condoms and people feel more comfortable talking about safer sex. That same principle of using art and creativity to reinvent the condom is still part of our company’s magic today. That’s why our ONE® trademark round condom wrappers, for example, feature artwork created by artists from around the world.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
After seeing the success of the Happy Jumbo condom matchbook, I started Global Protection Corp. The early days were all about creating Custom Condoms® – customized condom products with organization and company logos. We made it possible for any organization – from colleges and movie premiers to musicians and lawyers’ offices – to promote safer sex. I was constantly calling the press and because condoms were still taboo across the country, we were always in the news. This was all part of my plan to get condoms talked about in popular culture and on a national scale – and it worked!
Then in the 90s, gift shops became the perfect space to reach everyday people because they were on every corner. I spent my days creating funny and unique packaging to spark conversations about condoms. This included fun items like Condom Lollypops, Condom Keychains, the Peter Meter, the Smarter Garter – and later packaging for musicians like Prince, KISS, 2 Live Crew, and U2.
Having condoms in gift shops broke the rules about where condoms could be sold and distributed. That effort took condoms out from behind the counter and right where people were shopping – continuing to reduce the taboo around condoms. In 1991, we opened Condomania – the first stores in the world to sell nothing but condoms. This became an instant hit, expanding nationally. We created new products just so that there was always another reason to have a conversation about condoms in the national discourse.
Today, we continue to bring new products to market to continue to push the condom industry forward.
Some of our early inventions include the world’s first glow-in-the-dark condom and the Pleasure Plus® condom. In 2004, we launched the ONE® Condoms brand featuring our trademark circular wrappers and consumer engagement programs. My goal was to create a rebel brand that was completely different from anything else on the market. In 2017 we launched an extension of the ONE® brand called MyONE® Custom Fit™ with 52 condom sizes, revolutionizing how people experience condoms that fit properly. MyONE features sizes snugger and larger than any other brand, solving common condom fit challenges like slippage, squeezing, and erection loss when condoms are too tight. In 2022 ONE® became the first brand FDA-cleared for anal use.
After almost ten years of research and development, last fall we launched ONE® Flex®, the world’s first condom enhanced with the wonder material graphene. Graphene is the strongest, thinnest, and most conductive material on earth. In other words, it’s like a magic ingredient for condoms. It provides incredible thinness, strength, flexibility, and heat transfer – all the things you want in a condom. Our hybrid graphene-latex condom addresses some of the most common condom complaints head on, including pleasure, sensation, and comfort.
It’s all about catching the eye of the consumer, while also manufacturing new technologies to make the experience feel as natural and pleasurable as possible.
Today, Global Protection Corp. is one of the largest, fastest-growing manufacturers and distributors of sexual health products, including condoms, lubricants, oral dams, and safer sex educational materials. We continue to create Custom Condoms®, have a robust private label arm, and are the biggest distributor of sexual health products to the U.S. public sector. Our ONE® brand of condoms and lubricant is sold online and at retail in stores across the U.S. – and is rapidly growing in Asia and Europe. We’re continuing to bring new product innovations to market each year.
It’s been quite a journey since the flight of the original Jumbo – and I’m ecstatic to see what’s yet to come!
No matter how much we’ve grown, I continue the mentality of a startup. We’re proud to be a very entrepreneurial company, always focused on solutions within the company and for our customers. In the early days, I realized how much I loved solving challenges. As a company Global Protection was founded on solving the challenge of: how do we make people comfortable talking about and using condoms?
I built my company by filling in the gaps where the larger established companies weren’t willing to play. It’s always going to be easier to say no to customers if something is difficult to do, or it’s something that you don’t currently offer as a product or service. I’m proud that we continue to listen to customers, and focus on being solutions-oriented.
I also believe business is a win-win game. I don’t see it where somebody has to lose in order for someone else to win. My customers of course have to win – whether it’s a nonprofit doing condom outreach, or an online sex shop selling condoms. They have to get incredible products that people want to use – at an affordable price – in order to meet their goals. It’s not about squeezing every last dollar out of a customer or vendor, but establishing long-term relationships. Ultimately the more sexual health products that are distributed, the better it is for public health.
At Global Protection, we’re passionate about condom technology and investing in R&D to move the industry forward with new materials and features. The more we continue to innovate when it comes to the actual condom, the better we can make condoms feel so that people are more likely to use them. Because we have our own manufacturing equipment and engineering teams, we’re able to innovate constantly. I’m proud that we have the ability to understand how the product is manufactured from the equipment side, which really allows us to make more varied products to meet consumer needs. Continuing to focus on automations at the factory level is also a goal for us.
While the world does continue toward more automation – I’m proud to say we’ll never automate our systems to a point where we’re not talking to humans. At our company we make sure that people are always able to talk to somebody on the phone. This is very important to me.
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start?
At the start I was able to secure an initial $10,000 bank loan based on the concept of the business, rather than having to put up collateral. I also won an Entrepreneurial award at Tufts University that came with a $7500 grant.
When we were getting into the gift shop industry in the 90s, a key partnership that allowed us to grow was with a display box vendor. Because they believed in the concept of expanding condom access, they gave us extended terms. They would produce the gift boxes for us, and we could pay the vendor when we were able to. This taught me that when you have a concept that people believe in, people are willing to support your business.
Our first big launch that put us on the map was the launch of the first-ever glow-in-the-dark condom – then called the “Knight Light.” Because of all the media attention we received, we had about $400,000 in pre-orders. I was still in college, so finding the funding to prepay for the large run of glowing condoms was impossible from traditional sources. I turned to a private investor, but rather than offering stock in the business I opted for a high interest rate with the stock as collateral if I couldn’t pay the loan back. Since I had the pre-orders, I figured this was a no-brainer. Unfortunately, we hit a major manufacturing challenge. I had to take time off from school to travel to Thailand to work directly with the manufacturer to get the product made. These challenges ended up delaying the launch by over a year; by the time we were finally able to ship the product, interest in the loan had compounded so much that I couldn’t catch up on payments through cash flow. I ended up getting small loan amounts from friends and family to pay the loan down in order not to lose the business and luckily we were successful. This did teach me a valuable lesson of never extending beyond my means. From that point, I’ve always run and expanded the business only from profit – not taking any more loans. As the business grew and I had more employees, it wasn’t only the business that was at stake – but also the livelihood of my employees. I took that very seriously, and I became a lot more careful. When I took risks, I always made sure not to put the business at risk.
Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?
The condom industry is very interesting, and most of us know each other around the world. With any crowded market, it’s about finding the challenges people are experiencing – and then offering solutions. That’s why we have products like the MyONE® Custom Fit™ line of 52 condom sizes, or new materials like the ONE® Flex® condoms enhanced with graphene.
When it comes to business in general, a key lesson I learned is the importance of systems. Entrepreneurial ambition and experiential learning have been a large part of Global Protection’s ethos and continued success. There have been times, however, that I’ve been overzealous, determined to find a way to do more than we should for our company’s size. Constantly seeing opportunities and running after them has paid off tremendously but has also made an environment of many fire drills. I wish earlier someone had encouraged my eagerness while also advising the importance of systems, resources, and people to match the project at hand.
In the past we have needed to switch between product development and marketing. Usually, it was a pendulum swing of 6 months or a year between the two. This is a challenge that comes with being at the forefront of innovation. Our goal is to be great at sales, product launches, and ongoing marketing at the same time. This has already begun, bringing on some extremely valuable and skilled leaders who are helping us manage our brands and oversee advertising efforts effectively, while we still maintain our product development and marketing at the same time.
The other advice I’d say is be flexible, and keep it simple. I think it’s really important to try and keep things as focused and simple as possible. When you’re trying to create solutions, it’s very, very tempting to overcomplicate things. Creating complex ways to solve problems can be fun, but I always remind people to try and keep it simple.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.globalprotection.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/global-protection-corp./