Everybody Has Teeth: Why We've Sold One Thing For 60 Years (with Justin Woycke from Wipeco) | Ep. 51

Everybody has teeth, so everybody needs a dentist. That's how Justin Woycke explains the wiping rag business: there's always going to be oil, grease, water, and spills, so the product is never going away. Kyler Nixon opens by making the case that niche distributors focused on a single product category are the ones winning in 2026 and beyond, and Justin's company is the proof of concept.

ㅤ

Wipers are 80% of Wipeco's business and have been for over 60 years. Justin walks through what that focus buys them on the phone, why the company runs a textile recycling collection operation that moves in the opposite direction from rag sales, and how his grandfather's failing cloth diaper service turned into a wiping products company in 1960.

ㅤ

The back half gets into e-commerce. Justin explains why a heavy, low-cost product makes shipping the central problem, and why he's a "no price guy" while every site pulling more traffic than his has pricing posted.

ㅤ

👤 Guest Bio

Justin Woycke is Vice President at Wipeco, a wiping products distributor outside Chicago, and the third generation of his family in the business. His grandfather founded it in 1960 as a cloth diaper service and moved into wiping rags when disposable diapers arrived. Justin also leads Chicago Textile Recycling, the company's collection division, and serves on the board of SMART, the Secondary Materials and Recycled Textiles Association.

ㅤ

📌 What We Cover

Why wipers stay at 80% of the business, and what happens with the jansan add-ons they don't refuse but never advertiseThe Queen Bee Role: how picking, packing, shipping, and customer service each protect one outcomeThe 1960 origin story, from cloth diapers to recycled T-shirt ragsWhy textile recycling volume goes up when rag sales go down, and Justin's honesty about not being able to explain itThe environmental argument against rental shop towels, and why Justin puts "green" in quotes for both sidesCutting moved overseas 20 or 30 years ago as labor got expensive, with material coming back in 43,000 pound container loadsThe educational series on their site and what it's meant to doPosted pricing versus quote forms when the same box costs 20 dollars to ship to Milwaukee and 50 to Seattle

ㅤ

🔗 Resources Mentioned

WipecoChicago Textile RecyclingClockwork by Mike Michalowicz, the source of the Queen Bee Role concept Justin credits but couldn't name on the recordingChatGPT and Claude, referenced on AI-driven traffic to niche contentGoogle AnalyticsKyler Nixon on LinkedIn