There’s nothing new about making lemonade out of lemons. But giving true brand panache to mundane products like soaps and household cleaners? Now that’s an accomplishment. And Adam Lowry and his partner, Eric Ryan, have done it. Method Products, their household-cleaning products company, is generating sales at a $40-million annual run rate after less than five years in business.

Adam graduated in chemical engineering from Stanford, which is impressive enough. But after stints as 1) a researcher at a “green” plastics company in Michigan , 2) a climate-change researcher with a think tank, and 3) a member of the U.S. sailing training team for the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Adam was ready to tap his inner entrepreneur.

He and Eric had been high-school buddies in suburban Detroit and were roomies in San Francisco. And on a long drive one day they began talking about hum-drum product categories that could be transformed through fresh thinking about product design and formulation – presumably, theirs. “I knew as a chemical engineer that there was no reason we couldn’t design products that were non-toxic and used natural ingredients,” Adam says. “It would be more expensive to do it that way. But that was okay as long as we created a brand that had a ‘premiumness’ about it, where our margins would support our extra investments in product development and high quality ingredients.”

Adam and Eric came up with a complete line of cleaners and soaps, each one for a different room in the house. Now they have more than 100 products under the Method Home brand umbrella. “We’ve crafted a master brand in home care,” Adam says.

Video not available.

May 8, 2008.