By Casey Britten
When writers want to create a moment of pause in a sentence, they insert a comma.
That feeling of rest inspired the name of an air freshener business created by North Fond du Lac High School students Ayden Fowler and Lily Goeckerman. “The traditional comma is a pause,” explains Fowler. “And when you smell something nice, you’re like ‘ahhhh!’ So Commah (same pronunciation as comma) is taking a moment to breathe.”
Commah is a line of plant-based air fresheners, essential oils and diffusers. Now seniors, Fowler and Goeckerman came up with the idea as sophomores in a business class called INCubatorEdu. The assignment was to create a product that would solve a common problem. Goeckerman suffers from severe allergies and is unable to use traditional chemical-based air fresheners. When they researched natural alternatives, they didn’t find much available, so they set out to create a natural product.
“We started with a base formula we found online,” Fowler explains. “Then through testing we’ve totally changed our formula to something completely original.”
Distribution has grown from just a handful of local salons and stores to the natural and organic shelves at Festival Foods. Products are also available via the Commah website, and the company is in the process of becoming a certified Amazon seller.
Goeckerman leads customer service and finance while Fowler handles product development and manufacturing. As they head off to college in the fall, they plan to continue the business, transitioning to more administrative roles and adding employees to help with production.
Fowler and Goeckerman have encountered their fair share of doubt as young entrepreneurs. “We weren’t always taken seriously until we were able to discuss our numbers and show that we have a product,” Fowler says. “If you’re serious about an idea, you just have to prove people wrong.”
