Craig Dubitsky addressed the audience in the School of Business.
Photo Credit: Daniella Heminghaus
Montclair State’s Feliciano School of Business hosted an event with Craig Dubitsky, founder and CEO of hello products on Tuesday, Jan. 26. Dubinsky talked to those in attendance about his experience as a successful business owner and gave marketing tips he has learned throughout his years as an entrepreneur.
Dubitsky’s company, hello products, sells oral care alongside big names in oral hygiene, including Crest and Colgate. They brand themselves on having friendly oral care that allows consumers to greet freely. According to Dubitsky, “When I started hello, my goal was not only to reinvent oral care, but to try to make the world a friendlier place and why not start with some fresh breath?”
Hello does not test on animals, nor do they use any artificial sweeteners, dyes or triclosans. Dubitsky didn’t like how aggressive oral care tends to be, how it focuses on fighting diseases and killing bacteria and he wanted to do it differently. Instead of focusing on this aggressive marketing, Dubitsky’s company is based on the idea of being friendly and trying to make the world a little bit better.
The event was co-sponsored by the Feliciano Center for Entrepreneurship and Residence Life and had different instructive and engaging activities.
The evening started with pizza and networking, followed by Dubitsky’s presentation. Afterward, student teams were given the opportunity to pitch their entrepreneurial ideas and recieve feedback from Dubitsky before a 45-minute question-and-answer session to end the event.
After talking to groups of students, mingling and eating pizza at the start of the event, it was clear that the fact that the event was required as part of one of the curricula in the School of Business had a big impact on the number of students in attendance.
However, while some students came with the sole purpose of fulfilling this requirement, for many students, it was a positive experience.
Photo Credit: Daniella Heminghaus
According to Basdidi Kakar, a Business Economics major, “It’s important for business majors to understand the experiences of people who are very successful in business and I think that hearing what a seasoned entrepreneur has to say will have a positive effects on me and the students who are here and that’s why I came.”
Business student Aaron Dudek was sitting with Katelyn Milanes and Lynn Millinger, who are both out of school and currently in the workforce.
Milanes said, “I came because I have been working with entrepreneurs for two and a half years before starting my current job at a venture capital firm and it’s always interesting to go to events like this where real life, successful entrepreneurs can share their stories and help inspire creativity in others.”
Millinger said, “I am in marketing and commercial products. I work with entrepreneurs and established companies to help them come up with a physical product that best represents their brand. As a salesperson, I’m always looking for networking opportunities and to learn as much as I can from other people in business.”
Dudek, who declined to be quoted for this article, agreed with Milanes and Millinger and was having a good time networking and learning from Dubitsky’s experiences.
Not only is Dubitsky the founder and CEO of hello products, but he also co-founded eos products, which is known for its spherical lip balm, and a founding board member of Method Products, which is a green-cleaning company whose products are sold at Target.
In 2014, Dubitsky was named one of the 50 most creative people of 2015 by Advertising Age, a marketing website, while Inc. Magazine added hello products to its most audacious companies as one of the 25 companies that are changing the world. The company was also named by Eat Big Fish, a brand consultant company, as one of the challenger brands to watch for two years in a row.
