Social Impact Heroes Helping Our Planet: Why and How Brad Locke Of Wondercide is Helping to Change Our World
An Interview with Martita Mestey
…If you are passionate about something, find a way to get involved, even if it’s a small step at first. For example, we started a Litterbug League at Wondercide and have organized or joined in on litter clean ups at area parks, rivers, and roadsides over the past two years. Just by a few of us on our team participating, we’ve already picked up more than 350 pounds of trash. So, any positive step is a step toward doing better…
We had the pleasure of interviewing Brad Locke. Brad is the CEO of Wondercide, an Austin, TX company on a mission to empower families to protect the ones they love from bugs like ticks, mosquitoes and fleas with safe, plant-powered solutions that are proven to work. Locke has a passion for scaling companies that offer innovative and sustainable solutions for consumers and the planet. At Wondercide, Locke leads the team that has helped almost 20 million pets and people avoid the risks from nuisance insects and conventional pesticides — and it’s just the beginning.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about how you grew up?
I grew up in a very close-knit family in northern Indiana. My dad was a firefighter, and my mom worked as a production planner in the steel mill. We also owned a small carpet and furniture cleaning business, and my brothers and I began working in that business at an early age. That experience taught us the value of hard work, taking pride in a job well done, that sweating the details really matters, and the importance of making sure our customers were happy as our family name was on the sign.
While we worked hard together as a family, we also took some time to enjoy each other and the outdoors. Camping was one of our favorite activities. I loved the peace and quiet of nature. Some of my best childhood memories were setting up the campsite, making campfires, cooking meals from scratch, and hiking through the woods not knowing what we might find or see. This fueled my appreciation for nature. Now that I have kids of my own, we continue the tradition and love spending time outdoors together and taking in the incredible state and national parks this country has to offer.
You are currently leading a social impact organization that is making a difference for our planet. Can you tell us a bit about what you and the organization are trying to change in our world today?
Wondercide’s mission is to empower people to protect their families and pets from various bugs, like fleas, ticks and mosquitoes, with plant-powered alternatives to conventional pest control options. Delivering on that mission means providing products that work and that people can rely on. That’s why we ensure Wondercide’s effectiveness is proven by independent third-party labs. So, we’re here to let people know they can have the best of both worlds. They can keep their loved ones protected with our products and give them an alternative to conventional ingredients they may be looking to move away from. Plus, we can preserve the delicate balance of nature, ensuring pollinators like bees and butterflies can flourish while nuisance insects are taken care of.
Can you tell us the backstory about what inspired passion about this cause?
Wondercide started with one woman’s fierce love for her dog Luna. Luna became ill from what her vet suspected was exposure to conventional flea and tick products and the pest control service being used at her home.
Wondercide’s founder, Stephanie Boone, was devastated that the products she was using to protect her family had possibly led to Luna’s suffering. Once she stopped using those products, Luna began to heal. Stephanie knew there had to be a better way and felt called to create a solution so no family would ever have to experience what she and Luna had gone through.
At Wondercide we operate with Fierce Love. We define fierce love as the instinctual emotion that puts you as the protector between danger and the one you love. That’s the kind of love Stephanie had for Luna and it’s how we see the role of Wondercide: helping families protect their pack from the risks of bugs like fleas, ticks and mosquitoes, while also providing that protection in a plant-powered alternative. That inspires me every morning to advocate for our mission and help our team deliver on it.
We’re helping evolve the pest control industry by offering products that are both effective and safe, providing peace of mind for families. We’re using the power of nature instead of conventional ingredients which many people are trying to avoid.
What makes you excited to continue to grow this brand?
We have only scratched the surface of delivering on our mission. While it’s true we’ve helped 19 million pets and people, that’s a small fraction of the roughly half a billion pets and people in the U.S that need to be protected. There are so many families out there to help who don’t know there’s an alternative way to protect their pack and keep them safe. That amount of opportunity fires me up.
Many people don’t know how to lead a company to its next level of growth. What are some important pointers?
First is to operate with a healthy dose of humility. When there is a track record of success you first need to learn the operating model and then honor and protect the critical parts. Be humble, ask questions, listen, ‘walk the floor,’ and keep an open-door policy. Have meaningful discussions with everyone on the team face to face whenever possible. You can’t determine where the biggest opportunities are until you have a firm understanding of the landscape internally and externally.
Second, ensure your strategic choices are fully aligned with your mission. I’ll give you an example. For Wondercide, we knew expansion into brick-and-mortar stores was an essential next step to reach more families, but there are many different types of retail channels so finding the right one was critical. We understood that product education is a critical part of helping families learn about how our products work, how they are different from conventional options and why they are a good value. Pet specialty retailers, like PetSmart, Petco, and others are a logical fit given they are staffed with knowledgeable, passionate store associates. When a shopper enters their store with questions about their pet or different ingredients, their associates help them navigate the options and find the best solution. As Wondercide’s launch is well underway with these retailers, that dynamic is playing out. Many new families are trying the brand and consequently the category is growing for the retailer.
Lastly, you need to bring everyone along on the journey. When you steer the business into new channels or new ways of working, it is important the full team understands why we are doing it, how we will do it, the potential challenges we might encounter and the role they will individually play to support it. This may seem like a no brainer, but many times when moving with urgency these steps can be missed which typically lead to stumbling later. Take the time, address questions, get feedback and the chances of success go up significantly.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company or organization?
Seeing what needs to change for the better in this world and doing something about it has always been part of the Wondercide culture. So, as we approached Wondercide’s 15th Anniversary, we decided to celebrate through investing our team’s time and skills in 15 community outreach programs across the U.S. In 2024, Wondercide teammates devoted almost 400 hours to volunteer time off in support of various local volunteer organizations, a practice we encourage ongoing through paid volunteer time off. It was exciting to see how focusing on 15 ways to give helped the team expand our community efforts and make a larger impact.
None of us can be successful without some help along the way. Did you have mentors or cheerleaders who helped you to succeed? Can you tell us a story about their influence?
As it relates to instilling core values, there is no doubt that my parents had the greatest impact. They were great role models for integrity, hard work, treating others with respect and importantly fostering a mindset that you can accomplish anything you want in this life. You just need a plan and the discipline to stick with it over time and through the tough patches when you are tired or have setbacks. Growing up I had various ideas for small businesses, from selling sodas at the annual parade as a kid to doing lawn and landscaping work as a teenager. No matter what the idea was they always were encouraging, posing questions to consider and they were available to help when I asked. There’s something very powerful about the fierce love our family gives us unconditionally.
Are there three things the community, society, or politicians can do to help you address the root of the problem you are trying to solve?
- For all of us, it’s smart to read product labels and consider the ingredients in the products we’re putting on and around the ones we love. If you have questions or are concerned about what you see on the label, invest the time to do some research. Understand what the ingredients are for, how they work, and what alternatives may exist so you can choose products that not only do what they promise but are also safe when used as directed.
- Support companies that are doing good in the world, beyond just offering a great product. For example, at Wondercide, we donate 1% to non-profits at no additional cost to our customers and invite everyone to join in our community outreach efforts. Our fans can also become brand ambassadors and help us get the word out.
- Spread the word with friends and family when you find alternatives you think others would benefit from. Most small brands and businesses have little or no awareness. They may have a fantastic product or service offering and even do some good in the world, but if people do not become aware and have a chance to try their future will be uncertain.
How would you articulate how a business can become more profitable by being more sustainable and more environmentally conscious? Can you share a story or example?
The first is to start from a belief that if you create value in areas that are important to your customer then they will reward you by trying your product and staying loyal to it over time. That in turn will generate increased profits.
The answer for ‘how’ is going to depend on your company’s mission and the product or service you offer. Within the context of your product or service, you need to critically evaluate it from end to end and determine where opportunities might exist to make a more positive impact. For example, in packaged goods you can start with the suppliers of all your ingredients, packaging components, production methods, shipping methods, and so forth, and then determine where a change can be made for the better. It’s hard to make a change in isolation — the biggest changes will require collaboration with all your external partners to enable you to bring a product to market.
Outside of the product itself we also support other organizations that are doing right by the environment. Through our partnership with Beam, our customers can choose to donate 1% of their purchase, funded by Wondercide, to amazing organizations like Women’s Voices for Earth. The organization envisions a world free from the impacts of toxic chemicals, one where our planet and communities are thriving.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why? Please share a story or example for each.
Diagnose the situation thoroughly before creating a plan of action. It can be easy to jump in and feel the need to start making decisions or making changes but that should be avoided. Instead, I’d suggest leveraging books like The First 100 Days and The New Leader’s 100-Day Action Plan. These provide foundational starting points, offering frameworks to help diagnose the business context, the organization, and the existing culture. They always provide super relevant insights to help sharpen focus areas when starting a new job, role or new business.
Don’t let perfection become the enemy of progress. This is all about building forward momentum. When we strive for perfection on everything it can slow down progress significantly. Doing this can be hard as we all have high standards and want things to be just right before implementation. However, there are so many things that need to get done in parallel with a new business and some things can’t wait. Take comfort in knowing continuous improvement is something you can do over time. For example, we needed a certain piece of equipment and found one at a fair price. However, we are very scrappy with dollars and would have liked to spend more time shopping the market for an even better deal. We also had to balance getting the equipment in house and installed which provided other benefits. We may have found one cheaper but if that took two more weeks the opportunity cost of not having the equipment in action would have outweighed the savings on the purchase.
Stay externally focused on your customer. Don’t get hung up on internal transactions. When I worked in big companies, a large portion of my day was spent in meetings getting alignment to a plan or providing updates on a plan in progress. One of the great advantages of being small is you can make decisions quickly and move right to implementation. That means most of the day is spent on ‘doing’ things that are going to impact your customer. This means you get to see results faster and you can adjust as needed.
Stay humble. Ask the dumb questions. This can be a superpower. Many times people are doing things one way because that is how they were trained. When you ask them ‘why,’ many times they don’t fully understand, it is just the way things are done. Another way is to ask whether it is a fact or an opinion. Many times the answers you receive come across as facts, but when pressed, it turns out they are not so sure, so it is really an opinion. Once you understand it is an opinion, it gives the space to ask how else we might go about solving this problem.
Be comfortable letting some rooms in the house burn. You can’t put out all the fires at once. A startup has loads of fires to put out. There will be more problems happening at once than you and your team can solve. This is okay, just plan for it. This is about priority setting and getting comfortable that some things are not going to be addressed yet. Know that you will get to them down the road. What’s most important is prioritizing which problems (fires) you focus on first. For example, one morning a retailer’s order might come in with incorrect pricing. You may have planned to work on new product development that morning, which is important. But getting the retailer order fixed quickly takes priority so that it can be processed in an accurate, timely manner and avoid penalties.
If you could tell other young people one thing about why they should consider making a positive impact on our environment or society, like you, what would you tell them?
At Wondercide, Luna’s legacy is about seeing the change that needs to happen in the world and then doing something about it. And it starts with just one person stepping up and stepping forward like the founder did. That created the momentum that allowed us to serve millions of people and pets with a plant-powered solution. One person can make a difference and ultimately trigger millions of points of impact.
If you are passionate about something, find a way to get involved, even if it’s a small step at first. For example, we started a Litterbug League at Wondercide and have organized or joined in on litter clean ups at area parks, rivers, and roadsides over the past two years. Just by a few of us on our team participating, we’ve already picked up more than 350 pounds of trash. So, any positive step is a step toward doing better.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
A quote I always go back to is “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” It emphasizes the importance of teamwork and that we can achieve more together than we would on our own. Fast can feel good in the short term, but ultimately if you are leaving people behind and not leveraging the skills they have to offer, there will be a limit to how far you can go. I am a firm believer in thought partnership and the support we get from others being the fuel that sparks great ideas. We’re better together in life. I’ve seen it over and over professionally and personally.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
Arnold Schwarzenegger. I’ve always drawn inspiration and direction from his life story, his humble beginnings as an immigrant, and how he was systematic in his approach to setting outrageously ambitious goals and achieving them. People thought he was crazy, people made fun of his accent, people consistently underestimated him. Yet he was able to achieve greatness in the sport of bodybuilding, produce consistent blockbuster movies globally and become the governor of California, making significant contributions to both the state and the country. If he can accomplish those things that were part of his vision, any one of us can achieve our vision for our lives and the impact we aim to make on those around us.
How can our readers follow you online?
Connect with me on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/brad-locke-7551bb5 and with Wondercide at Wondercide.com, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and LinkedIn.
This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!
Social Impact Heroes Helping Our Planet: Why and How Brad Locke Of Wondercide is Helping to Change… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.