Founder Friday is a content series from SuperAngel.Fund that highlights companies across our portfolio and the inspiring founders behind them.
Hotels throw out millions of half-used toilet paper rolls every year.
In our 57th edition, we are featuring Ludo Siouffi and Greg Hegger, co-founders of Fox Fold, a company building sustainable, refillable tissue solutions for hotels.
The idea for Fox Fold came from a simple observation: hotel bathrooms are incredibly wasteful, yet the products used in them havenât meaningfully evolved in decades. Early on, the founders partnered with Box Clever, the industrial design firm behind category-defining brands like Caraway and Away, to reimagine the experience from the ground up.
Hotels discard millions of partially used rolls and tissue boxes each year, creating enormous waste and unnecessary costs.
Fox Fold is changing that.
The company has built the worldâs first refillable tissue system for hotel guest rooms, allowing hotels to refill instead of throw products away. The result is a better guest experience, improved operations, and meaningful cost savings.
Hotels can save 30% to 50% on costs while upgrading both design and sustainability.
Within its first two years, Fox Fold has deployed more than 40,000 dispensers and is on pace to double that footprint by year-end. The company is already working with many of the hospitality industryâs leading brands, including Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, Fairmont, Ritz-Carlton, Sheraton, and Accor.
Last year, Fox Fold was featured in Forbes, highlighting how its bamboo-based refillable system is helping operators reduce waste, lower costs, and modernize the hotel guest experience.
Last October, the company announced an oversubscribed $5M Series A led by Alex Cabañas of Astound Ventures, known for his leadership roles with Benchmark and Pyramid Global Hospitality, which operates more than 230 hotels worldwide.
As the team puts it, they are building the âSaaS of toilet paper.â
See what Ludo and Greg have to say in this weekâs Founder Friday Q&A đ
Founder Q&A
Describe your company in 5 words or less.
Ludo: Sustainable tissue solutions for hotels.
Greg: Patented tissue solution for hotels.
What was your primary motivation for starting your business?
Ludo: Tourism is fun and amazing, but also incredibly wasteful as an industry. No fault of their own, innovation in the space is slow. We look to change that starting with facial tissues and toilet paper, reinventing what has been for 100+ years with a new sustainable, refillable option. Better for the the environment and your bottom line, while adding to the guest experience.
Greg: Well no one grows up dreaming of being a tissue salesman! Throughout my career, I always wanted to be an entrepreneur with a focus on real tangible things. On improving the real-life things we interact with every day. We happened to noticed a problem with a super simple solution: Hotels buy far more tissue than they need. Thatâs because toilet paper rolls and facial tissue boxes are tossed before theyâre finished. We developed a refillable system that solves this - helping hotels save money and waste. Seems crazy, but Iâve thoroughly enjoyed bringing the âdisruptorâ mentality to something as boring and unsexy as tissue paper. And frankly I think there are many other startup ideas that can drive change and create profit in boring categories.
What new product/feature are you most excited about and why?
Ludo: We launched with a refillable toilet paper and facial tissue dispenser, saving hotels 20-40% versus traditional rolls and cardboard boxes. What if we took it further and now made those solutions profit centers? #mindblowing
In short, weâre trialing the concept of a small sticker on our facial tissue dispensers what would allow guests to buy our dispensers at a discount with a hotel promo code. Every purchase would be revenue shared to the hotels.
With 200+ people going through a hotel room each year, all we need is 1% of them to make a purchase online for that hotel to then pay off the tissues in that dispenser every year.
Greg: Two things: 1) we continue to improve our packaging to make it as efficient as possible to transport and store our product. When you think of how much space tissue takes in a hotelâs small storage place - these improvements are a material benefit. 2) Weâre building a front loading toilet paper dispenser to compliment our existing unit. This will allow hotels with smaller toilet spaces to benefit from our refillable solution.
What piece of advice would you give an entrepreneur starting a business today?
Ludo: Just start. Donât sit there in analysis paralysis mode trying to make it perfect.
Greg: You donât need to be a tech wizard. You donât need to create the next Uber, Airbnb or AI solution. You can launch and grow a business by improving an everyday product or function in boring categories. The key is making sure youâre adding true value to a person or company.
What do you love to do in your free time?
Ludo: Spend time with my wife and 2 little ones.
Greg: My kids. We launched Fox Fold 3 years ago when my kids were 1 and 2 - not ideal TBH. But it completely reshaped my priorities. I dedicate the overwhelming majority of my time to family and work right now. Because I work from home and set my own schedule, I actually spend more time with my kids than one would think, and Iâm grateful for that.
What is the most interesting place youâve visited recently and why?
Ludo: This new career in hospitality has taken me to some incredible places... with that being said, the most recent interesting place for me was the back of house of the Fairmont Scottsdale Princess - the immensity and perfect coordination of everyone involved in the background is unbelievable.
Greg: Casa Di Campo Dominican Republic. It may not be the most interesting place ever, but it was the first real vacation my wife, kids and I took in the past 5 years. The location, the house, the beach, the food - it was exactly what we needed.
What is your favorite app or tool in your work life and in your personal life?
Ludo: I use a lot of Fathom.ai for all my meetings and email responses. Itâs saved me countless hours!
Greg: LinkedIn. I canât express how much of our success has been a result of âbuilding out loudâ on LinkedIn. We share our struggles, our wins, our new customers... this seems to resonate with people and connects us with prospects.
What do you want to be when you grow up (besides a successful founder)? đ
Ludo: I love building and have 100x more ideas - especially within bathrooms. Would love to have a platform and partners to make those ideas into a reality.
Greg: I want to encourage youth to think differently about their careers, beyond your standard corporate path. I donât think we do enough as a society to build the skillset required to be an entrepreneur. That I and Iâm obsessed with music trivia, not sure how to make money there though. Perhaps a professor of music history in a big cardigan at a stuffy university?
What do you believe is the most important skill or attribute of a successful founder?
Ludo: The ability to keep pushing forward.
Greg: The ability to think clearly under mounting pressure and obstacles. The ability to stay positive and solution oriented in the many storms that arise.
Know a founder building something exceptional?
Reply to this email â Iâm always looking to meet great entrepreneurs.
SuperAngel.Fund is an early-stage venture capital fund led by Ben Zises that invests in Consumer, PropTech, & Future of Work đ.
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