If I asked you to name the company with the largest 2016
first quarter revenue increase compared to its 2015 first quarter figures, which
businesses pop into your head?
Berkshire Hathaway? JP Morgan? Apple?Nope.
What if I told you it’s a relatively new company, formed
within the last five years?
Uber? AirBNB? Snapchat?
Good guesses, but no.
The company is Col-Essence, and it’s all due to their one
and only product, Flatulends, the odorless gas pill. But it doesn’t work on
just any noxious gases, it only works on your noxious gases. Not that I have to
tell you that.
Odds are, if you haven’t bought the latest over-the-counter
medical breakthrough, you’ve seen it on your drug store shelves, or advertised
on TV, the internet, billboards or in magazines. It’s everywhere. The pill that
you thought was an SNL spoof gone too
far, has proven to be anything “butt.”
And to mark the company’s 18-month anniversary, it has
announced the release of not just one, but four flavored scents – orange,
vanilla, peppermint and evergreen. Looming over all of us, however, is a larger
social question than the typical, “Why didn’t they come out with the flavored
aromas from the beginning?” And that is this: Is Flatulends the next big thing
in class warfare?
Because while the odds are high that you’ve heard of it, the
odds are quite low that you have actually purchased it. Col-Essence confirmed
near the end of 2015 that nearly 90% of Flatulends’ sales in the U.S. come from
roughly 5% of the population – the 5% that can afford its outrageous price tag.
A 12 pack of the odor-ending pill retails for a
wallet-denting $225. And industry
insiders are confident the price of the flavored offerings will start out at
least 10% higher than the originals, despite the fact that flavored smells
negate Flatulends’ original purpose of letting the user leave a trail o’ toots
without anyone being the wiser.
But with revenues what they are, it seems Col-Essence could
cut the price by $200 and let the increased volume make up for the lower profit
margin per pack. The demand is certainly there, and the cost of large-scale
development is a virtual non-factor.
Furthermore, during an interview in December’s issue of Business Breakthroughs magazine, Col-essence
president Joel Crowning confirmed the company has the manufacturing and
distribution capabilities to keep up with much higher demand, but he doesn’t
want to disrupt Flatulends’ brand in the marketplace.
“Ferrari could sell a million cars a year if each one was
the price of a KIA, but they don’t need to do that,” Crowning said. “Our product
has proven its worth in the market, and de-valuing it at this point could
potentially damage the company’s future.”
However Crowning views his role – businessman, innovator,
mad scientist – his product begs the question, just like healthcare and
education before it, “What should be up for grabs to those who can pay for it,
and what should be available to everyone?” It’s a question that a few of the
2016 presidential candidates have started asking.
In an election cycle in which both sides have pointed the
“class warfare” finger at the other, viewers of the last two Republican and
Democratic debates have heard Flatulends mentioned more times than healthcare,
minimum wage, and the cost of higher education combined. Some have gone as far
to say the pills should be placed in bowls and set atop the check-in desks of
every doctor’s office in the country.
But it’s not an issue that will decide the election, nor
should it. After all, Col-Essence is a privately held corporation, so unless
the federal government buys the formula or reproduces its magic recipe,
Crowning is free to make and market his product how he sees fit. And since he
clings to the Flatulends formula more tightly than the makers of Coca-Cola®,
replicating its stink-ceasing effects is not likely anytime soon.
However, one can hope that Mr. Crowning is a sensible man
that can be reasoned with. After all, not only can everyone benefit from his
product, but society as a whole could benefit by everyone having it. Every
shared space in the country would have the potential to smell better – locker
rooms, movie theaters, the subway, and, most importantly, the bedroom. Let’s
not forget the amount of embarrassment we would all forgo in those shared
spaces as well.
Of the two identifiers that clearly indicate wind has been
broken (sound and smell), only one of them can never be controlled. Only one gives
it away every time. And now that piece of evidence can be eliminated entirely. With
the right amount of effort and control, sound isn’t even a factor, which means
Flatulends can free the gaseous portion of the population from the anxiety that
comes with going out in public. For some, it could practically double as an
anti-depressant.
Instead, given its current accessibility, the pill merely supports
an idealistic view that rich people already hold about themselves: that there’s
don’t stink.
But humanitarian appeals aside, money is the only thing
that’s going to make a difference in this debate. That much was clear in the
same Business Breakthroughs
interview, when Crowning crowed, “I’m not in this business to hand out
good-smelling farts to everyone. I’m in this business to hand out good-smelling
farts to everyone who wants to pay for them.”
Well Joel, everyone does
want to pay for them. They just can’t. Particularly given that each pill only
works for roughly 24 hours. And as much money as your company has raked in
already, the truth is it would make a… well… shitload of it by following the
KIA model. It’s true that people buy Ferraris despite the price, but they buy a
whole lot more KIAs because of it.
Don’t be blind to the fact that Flatulends can make billions
of people happy and line your pockets with even billions more in profit. You
may no longer have to waft in a fog of your own producing, but here’s hoping
that fog hasn’t seeped into your head and enveloped your brain.
