The Bacteria Solution

Most startups have a fridge full of beer. At AOBiome in Cambridge, Mass., there’s no room for booze. The shelves are loaded with bottles of the biotech company’s signature product, a live-bacteria solution to spritz on the face and body. The spray is intended to help reduce a user’s dependence on soap, deodorant, and moisturizer. “It’s a challenging concept,” says Jasmina Aganovic, AOBiome’s general manager for consumer products. “We live in a world with Purell on every corner.”

To make spray-on bacteria more appealing, AOBiome is reintroducing its line this summer under a new name, Mother Dirt, a reference to the soil from which the key ingredient is derived. The company also created playful packaging and is releasing bacteria-friendly shampoo and cleanser. “We’ve been glued to our computer screens watching the response online,” Aganovic says on relaunch day in early July. She’s standing in AOBiome’s office, a windowless room with red walls near the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “This is our best day ever,” she adds. Hundreds of orders have come in, sometimes as many as 10 per minute. Almost half are from new customers.