Exploring Life & Business with David Spratte of Carpe

Today we’d like to introduce you to David Spratte.

Hi David, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself. 
Prior to starting Carpe, I was following the typical high school valedictorian path of going to medical school after college. However, sweaty hands and an enlightening backpacking trip through Central America got in the way. I have had sweaty hands my entire life, and there was nothing out there to help. I met Kasper in college pitched him on the idea of making a solution to sweaty hands, and that’s exactly what we did. We went through over 60 dorm room prototypes, getting kilos of raw ingredients, chemicals, etc., from ingredient suppliers, and learning formulation chemistry from expired patents. After a year, we had made an antiperspirant lotion that stopped our sweat, and it was awesome! We started selling it online – on our website and Amazon – and quickly realized the opportunity that we had when we started getting tear-filled voicemails from customers, dermatologists, and friends talking about how much Carpe has changed their lives. 

From that initial idea to make a product that helped with my sweaty hands, Kasper and I have built a brand committed to making sweat irrelevant and keeping people dry all over the body – no matter whether someone sweats profusely on their hands, under their breasts, on their face, or in their armpits! Carpe offers effective sweat care for everywhere, and we’re building an entirely new category in the deodorant aisle. 

We have an amazing team of ~20 people in our downtown Durham office, and we are excited and driven to build Carpe into THE Sweat brand. 

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Haha nothing is ever smooth. Kasper and I get a lot of energy from working hard on solving problems which come up every day, but that’s true of all entrepreneurs; otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to start a company. The single biggest struggle, especially early on since we zero experience, was hiring. 

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Carpe is the #1 dermatologist-recommended brand for sweat all over the body. 

If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
I was always trying to sell something, which is funny because, for almost a decade, I thought I was going to be a surgeon. I completed the pre-med track at UNC-CH, and I almost took the MCAT, but I finally realized that the medical profession is not for me, so I married a doctor instead, haha. My best friend, Matthew, and I would sell blueberries from his blueberry bushes, snow cones (ice is free), pet-watching services, etc. I was a happy, outgoing kid that loved to smile and laugh (and still am). 

Contact Info:

• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-spratte-a151a578/