Soap Star

"The secret to our success is to hire positive, untraditional thinkers," says Emily Voth, 39, who launched Indigo Wild eight years ago with the Zum Bar, a $5.25 handmade goat's milk soap. This year, sales from Indigo Wild's unisex line of pure, herb-infused soaps, spritzers and oils will near the $5 million mark.

Early on, Voth met a marketing challenge by enlisting an agency to introduce Indigo Wild into pop culture. But she says the company's cachet blossoms from an internal ingredient--the "good karma" employees generate at Indigo Wild's funky soap city, a converted Kansas City, Missouri, warehouse. There, in a free-flowing, throw-the-book-away atmosphere, Voth says she doesn't lead--she follows an energy stream as 35 employees pour creativity into products, sales and development. "We call it our 'mojo tree,'" she says, and when cultivated, "positive reactions branch out from a single seed."

This article was originally published in the June 2005 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Soap Star.