St. George’s Squatty Potty on ‘Good Company’ reality series

ST. GEORGE – The St. George family, Bill and Judy Edwards and son Bobby Edwards, who innovated Squatty Potty from their garage in 2010 and found themselves on the “Dr. Oz Show” in 2012, has caught media attention yet again, being chosen to be featured on a new documentary series, “Good Company,” being developed and produced by MultiView, to explore businesses of some of America’s most unique entrepreneurs.

Good Company documentary series in the making

Good Company aims to take an insightful, in-depth look into some of the most innovative niche businesses across America by examining the qualities that drive these unconventional geniuses of capitalism and exploring the communities from which they spring.

Good Company Road Tour, undated | Photo courtesy of MultiView, St. George News
Good Company Road Tour, undated | Photo courtesy of MultiView, St. George News

“Our whole end goal is to highlight the American dream and highlight the fact that whenever you put your mind to something, you can make it happen,” MultiView Communications Manager Callie Cady said. These are the kind of people that, when confronted with naysayers saying “you can’t do this,” or “that won’t work,” nevertheless brought their ingenuity to a reality.

“We promote good American business” and “these people are perfect examples of it.”

While it is initially forecast to broadcast on the Web – most likely first on the Good Company website, Cady said they don’t really yet see where “Good Company” might go. It could become like a Discovery channel show, she said.

Squatty Potty of St. George

The Squatty Potty footstool that helps assume the squatting position by improving toilet posture was conceived of by the Edwards family of St. George to help people properly align their colons for more effective and natural elimination.

Bobby Edwards assembles a Squatty Potty in his garage, St. George, Utah, 2011-12 | Photo by Melynda Thorpe Burt, St. George News
Bobby Edwards assembles a Squatty Potty in his garage, St. George, Utah, 2011-12 | Photo by Melynda Thorpe Burt, St. George News

Since St. George News reported on the start-up company in May 2012, the company has continued to steadily grow. By the end of August, Bill Edwards said they will have produced 100,000 stools. The company saw just under $1 million in sales in 2012 and has already reached $1 million in sales by mid-July this year.

“We have a product that works and we’re doing it and we’re growing,” Bobby Edwards said. “People thought I was crazy for creating this little poop stool – so me and my mom – she had been using a regular stool, and there were a lot of things that weren’t right about it – and i said let’s make one that has this function and that function and works perfectly to do what it’s designed to do and that’s to help you go.”

The Squatty Potty is now on every continent, Bobby Edwards said. In the past year it has added distributorships in the United Kingdom, Australia, the Middle East, Brazil and Singapore, as well as markets in many countries.

“Brazil has a red hot economy down there, they’re pretty modern,” Bill Edwards said. And the Asian market is growing too.  He said that Japan’s No. One toilet manufacturer  just discontinued their squat toilets as almost all of the Asians are putting in western toilets. “They’ll probably live to regret it,” Bill Edwards said.

Squatty Potty
Squatty Potty manufactured in Leeds, Utah, undated | Photo courtesy of Squatty Potty, St. George News

And the company has outgrown the Edwards’ garage.

“We’ve moved into a little warehouse here in town in that old industrial park west of Sunset Corner with about 3-4000 sq. feet,” Bill Edwards said. The product manufacturing is largely done at a plastic mold injection company in Leeds. Although the first stools were made of medium-density fiberboard, or MDF, there are only about 100 of those left, Bobby Edwards said, as most of the stools are now made of plastic with about 10 percent made of bamboo in China.  

MultiView does “reality type shows, produces the show and then they sell it to a network or a series of stations,” Bobby Edwards said. “One of the reasons they liked Squatty Potty is where we are at, they were intrigued by Zion.”

He said they were going to take the crew canyoneering in a slot canyon on Sunday and expected to be filming on Monday.

Unique businesses are the focal point of the Good Business documentary series

“We look forward to giving the world a glimpse of some of the more unique businesses America has to offer,”  MultiView President, Dan Maitland said. “This is a way for everyone to celebrate the spirit that inspires entrepreneurs to bring an idea not just to life but to market.”

Tuscon, Arizona based 911 Sculpture to be featured on Good Company documentary series, produced by MultiView, undated | Photo courtesy of MultiView, St. George News
Tuscon, Arizona based 911 Sculpture to be featured on Good Company documentary series, produced by MultiView, undated | Photo courtesy of MultiView, St. George News

Good Company is going the distance to produce its documentary vision.

In Amarillo, the crew visited 2 Bar Angus, a family company seeking to produce the best beef cow.

In Tuscon a retired firefighter has made a living of creating beautiful bronze sculptures of fallen firefighters.  “You can see that he’s lived there, he puts his emotion into every single sculpture,” Cady said.

Avian Fashions, bird diapers, MultiView featured Good Company, undated | Photo courtesy of MultiView, St. George News
Avian Fashions, bird diapers, MultiView featured Good Company, undated | Photo courtesy of MultiView, St. George News

From St. George, the crew will move on to film a brewery in San Francisco, and to a company in Indiana that adapts outdoor sports equipment for those with a physical handicap, and even a business in Virginia called Avian Fashions that was innovated by a retired veteran designing diapers for birds.

The companies chosen are clients or partners of MultiView, drawn from a database of 64,000 existing client companies, and members of trade associations MultiView serves with digital media, connecting businesses to businesses. The full slate of companies to be featured in the Good Company series is listed on their website.

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Twitter: @JoyceKuzmanic

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2013, all rights reserved.

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