We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lauryn Menard. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lauryn below.

Lauryn, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you come up with the idea for your business?

I have been hunting down the newest, latest, most environmetally-responsible materials for most of my career. This obsession started in late college and became the one continuous thread of my career as I moved through working in fashion, furniture, cycling, and more. Although I was keeping up with this whole niche of the industry, it was becoming exceedingly difficult to implement them while holding jobs as an internal designer or contractor. My business partner, Baillie Mishler, and I decided to start an industrial design agency called PROWL back in 2022 out of frustration that our roles weren’t allowing us to push design from an environmental standpoint enough. Through this agency, we started to become known as the biomaterial go-to’s and have worked with many startups and fortune 500 businesses such as Steelcase, Target, BMW, and more.

While running this agency, while on a trip to NYC, I woke up early one morning to hit a spin class. The class was amazing and super cheesy (sweating to Vanessa Carlton blasting on the speakers while the teacher screamed at everyone to push harder) but it was SO loud. After the class I asked the instructor if something could be changed about that and they pointed to a bucket of neon orange foam earplugs they offer their class-goers. Even though I wear earplugs ALL of the time because I have a legally-deaf mom and live with a partner that is in a hardcore band (and who unfortunately also snores), the fact that these little things are polluting and bad hadn’t occurred to me until that moment. Being a biomaterial expert and seeing how simple the product was, I knew that we would be the people who would be able to solve this problem. So, that’s where it all began.

Lauryn, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Previous to starting GOB, as mentioned in the previous question, I was running a design agency called PROWL. We were focused on helping organizations develop mass manufactured goods that are made of healthier materials and that consider the entire life cycle of a product – all while working toward a regenerative future. It is important to note this part of my journey because GOB allows us to build the perfect case study of this thinking.

GOB is the world’s first plastic-free earplug. Crafted from lab-grown mycelium, GOB is engineered by nature to provide optimal sound dampening without relying on harmful chemicals. Our earplugs are also entirely compostable. When disposed of, they decompose and enrich the soil where they end up.

Earplugs might seem like a minor environmental concern at first glance, but the reality is staggering. The world produces approximately 40 billion earplugs annually. Currently, most single-use earplugs are made from petroleum-based materials, particularly PVC. These materials are not only harmful to the environment but are also linked to serious health risks, such as endocrine disruption and cancer. Recognizing this significant problem, we saw an opportunity to revolutionize the earplug industry by developing a product that is not only less harmful but actively regenerates the health of our planet with every use.

The core of our innovation lies in our material: mycelium, the root structure of mushrooms. This mycelium-based foam, which took about nine years to perfect, is truly groundbreaking. It is bioengineered to grow and expand in the air/space it occupies within just 7-9 days, resulting in an extraordinarily soft and bouncy foam similar to polyurethane. However, unlike traditional materials, our mycelium foam requires zero additives, zero chemicals, and zero harmful substances. This pure, natural material offers exceptional sound-dampening properties while being entirely eco-friendly.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Making the transition from an agency owner and operator to a product startup CEO and founder has been a huge change. Essentially, instead of selling my time and thought process as services, I am scaling the manufacturing and distribution of a brand. What has been so fulfilling of this transition is that it allows me to build a world that is uniquely very “me.” Even though we have to be relevant and market the product to make it desirable, there is freedom to create and elevate a new voice that feels authentic to us as co-founders and that doesn’t exist yet. I am still working out some of the kinks, but I really think that this world building is what I was meant to do, even though five years ago I thought I would be running a design agency for the rest of my career.

How’d you meet your business partner?

I have known and worked with one of my co-founders, Baillie Mishler, for over a decade. We started PROWL together and are creative partners for life. We met a long time ago working as designers at a Steelcase brand. I eventually left Steelcase, she stayed, but we remained friends following that and would meet up for wine and coffee and dream up what our future studio would look like until we finally did it. Her and I will probably be collaborating until we can’t anymore haha! At least I hope.

Michael Brand is our third co-founder that fills all of our gaps. Knowing that I had this great idea on our hands for a business, immediately following that trip that sparked the idea in New York, I called my good friend Kate who owns a VC firm in SF called Baukunst. I asked her for her advice. Having seen so many product companies from infancy into growth, I knew she would have ideas. I told her “I think I need someone who is an expert at scale and efficiency” – so she introduced us to Michael. At the time he was thinking up new business ideas following the acquisition of his previous business and was specifically looking for something more environmentally-friendly to build. We met, he was a perfect fit, and continues to keep things moving and scaling. We call him our Efficiency Guru.

My advice to anyone looking for a business partner, talk to everyone you know. Odds are that you either already have a friend with the skillset and motivation to fill your gaps, or they probably know someone who can.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://gob.earth/
• Instagram: (not public yet)
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauryn-menard/

Image Credits

First two images of Foam

Portrait – Nico Zurcher