Key Takeaways<\/h2>\n\n- Dancy officially launched Azuna in 2019 and saw sales accelerate during the pandemic. <\/li>\n
- For the first couple of years, Dancy handled everything himself \u2014 all the way to $3 million in sales. <\/li>\n
- Now, Azuna has a team of 50, nearly $100 million in annual sales, and is eyeing an eventual sale.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n
Serial entrepreneur Scott Dancy has only had an employer for about three months in his entire life \u2014 and that\u2019s fine by him.\u00a0<\/p>\nImage Credit: Azuna. Scott Dancy. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\nIn 1995, a new college graduate of University of Rochester in upstate New York, Dancy moved to Atlanta for a job as a recruiter. Around 90 days into that role, he thought, I could do this myself<\/em>. So he and a colleague did just that. They started their own staffing business, which made millions within four years.\u00a0<\/p>\nOther ventures followed, including an information security software company, which sold, and a second staffing business. After that, Dancy got involved in the oil and gas industry, managing limited partnerships and ultimately raising more than $500 million to be the largest driller in the Illinois basin. Then he invested in a sand and gravel pit \u2014 which \u201cwas a complete disaster.\u201d\u00a0\u201cWe lost everything,\u201d Dancy says. <\/p>\n
Dancy\u2019s smelly apartment leads to a business idea<\/h2>\n
By 2017, Dancy, a father of two, was going through a divorce and living on his own in Buffalo, New York. His washing machine broke one day, and the smell from the standing water was \u201chorrible.\u201d His friend gave him an odor-elimination solution: tea tree oil, which has natural antibacterial and antimicrobial properties.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt got rid of the smells,\u201d Dancy recalls. \u201cI was like, This is amazing \u2014 how do we market this?<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\nA couple of years later, Dancy set out to turn the vision into a reality, motivated by the idea of developing a line of odor-eliminating tea tree oil products in a category of their own. <\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aOther products just mask what the smell with fragrance,\u201d Dancy explains. \u201cWhile we do have fragrance, the tea tree oil, basically in layman\u2019s terms, is effective against mold, mildew and bacteria \u2014 and that\u2019s the source of all your smells.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.entrepreneur.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/04\/2-2.jpg?w=1024\")
Image Credit: Azuna<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nStarting a business selling tea tree oil: Azuna<\/h2>\n
Dancy officially launched Azuna<\/a> in 2019. The friend who had introduced him to tea tree oil worked in contract packaging, so they forged a partnership on that front.<\/p>\nAnother friend of Dancy\u2019s worked in the domain industry. Dancy asked him for a name, and he came back with \u201cAzoona.\u201d Dancy liked the sound of it, and when his designer swapped the double \u201co\u201d out for a \u201cu,\u201d spelling it \u201cAzuna,\u201d the name stuck.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Next, Dancy put the product online and took a hands-on approach to building his business.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aNo idea what I\u2019m doing, literally writing the ad copy myself,\u201d Dancy says. \u201cFor three years, I set an alarm every day for two hours to wake up to see if there were things I needed to respond to, whether it was customer service questions or Facebook comments.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dancy tracked the number of orders received, then picked up the product from the warehouse and went to the post office to ship it off. The product cost about $10 and sold for $20, so between that and the labor required to fulfill the orders, it was a rough profit margin, Dancy admits.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.entrepreneur.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/04\/4-2.jpg?w=1024\")
Image Credit: Azuna<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThe business goes from $12k to $105k in the span of 1 month<\/h2>\n
But he wasn\u2019t deterred. The business saw $12,000 in monthly sales by April 2020. With the pandemic underway and millions of people staying in homes they wanted to smell better, sales only accelerated. In May 2020, Azuna pulled in $105,000 in sales.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At that point, Azuna secured its own third-party logistics (3PL) as business operations shifted to keep pace with demand. But it was still two years before Dancy hired anyone to join the team. \u201cI got us up to about $3 million in sales for the most part on my own,\u201d Dancy says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Over the last several years, Azuna\u2019s sales have continued to skyrocket. The business hit $53 million in sales last year and is on track to see more than $100 million in sales this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What\u2019s more, the initially bootstrapped business has taken on little investment along the way compared to competitors, Dancy says, noting that to reach Azuna\u2019s level, most companies would have taken about $50 million in equity. Azuna has raised less than $10 million to date.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Navigating operations amid the business\u2019s rapid growth<\/h2>\n
One of the biggest challenges Azuna has faced over its growth trajectory is the sheer speed of its scale.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aI\u2019m not an operations person,\u201d Dancy admits. \u201cI\u2019m an entrepreneur. They just put up a job description for an executive assistant for me, and someone wrote in there, \u2018Cleaning up after the Tasmanian devil.\u2019 So that puts it in perspective. That\u2019s me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
When a business goes from making $500,000 a month to $3 million a month within four months, it requires a significant operational shift, Dancy says. It\u2019s crucial to go beyond thinking about having enough inventory on hand for sales the following week \u2014 and instead look to six or nine months down the line.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Additionally, although some Azuna product components are purchased overseas, everything is produced in and ships out of the U.S., Dancy notes.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.entrepreneur.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/04\/23.jpg?w=1024\")
Image Credit: Azuna<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n$100k a month and beyond: Azuna racks up sales milestones<\/h2>\n
Dancy began hiring more people to help Azuna navigate its new normal. Azuna currently has about 50 employees across its marketing and manufacturing teams. For a time, Dancy would host a celebratory dinner every time Azuna ticked off another milestone: a $100,000 month, a $500,000 month, a $1 million month (the business had about eight employees when it achieved the latter).\u00a0<\/p>\n
But very soon the team had ballooned beyond the size of a standard dinner reservation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t even do it anymore because there are so many people,\u201d Dancy says. \u201cI can\u2019t find a restaurant we could fit that many people in. And we\u2019d be celebrating every month, which is awesome, but also kind of takes away from the fun entrepreneurial side. When you\u2019re growing so fast, you can\u2019t even take the time to pat yourself on the back.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dancy plans to sell the business when the time is right<\/h2>\n
Still an entrepreneur at heart, Dancy intends to sell Azuna as soon as the time is right. The business will do more than $100 million in direct-to-consumer sales this year between its website and Amazon. It also just started distribution in the Midwest-based grocery chain Fresh Thyme and is actively exploring partnerships with other major retailers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Serial entrepreneur Scott Dancy has only had an employer for about three months in his entire life \u2014 and that\u2019s fine by him.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 1995, a new college graduate of University of Rochester in upstate New York, Dancy moved to Atlanta for a job as a recruiter. Around 90 days into that role, he thought, I could do this myself<\/em>. So he and a colleague did just that. They started their own staffing business, which made millions within four years.\u00a0<\/p>\n Other ventures followed, including an information security software company, which sold, and a second staffing business. After that, Dancy got involved in the oil and gas industry, managing limited partnerships and ultimately raising more than $500 million to be the largest driller in the Illinois basin. Then he invested in a sand and gravel pit \u2014 which \u201cwas a complete disaster.\u201d\u00a0\u201cWe lost everything,\u201d Dancy says. <\/p>\n By 2017, Dancy, a father of two, was going through a divorce and living on his own in Buffalo, New York. His washing machine broke one day, and the smell from the standing water was \u201chorrible.\u201d His friend gave him an odor-elimination solution: tea tree oil, which has natural antibacterial and antimicrobial properties.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt got rid of the smells,\u201d Dancy recalls. \u201cI was like, This is amazing \u2014 how do we market this?<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n A couple of years later, Dancy set out to turn the vision into a reality, motivated by the idea of developing a line of odor-eliminating tea tree oil products in a category of their own. <\/p>\n \u201c\u200aOther products just mask what the smell with fragrance,\u201d Dancy explains. \u201cWhile we do have fragrance, the tea tree oil, basically in layman\u2019s terms, is effective against mold, mildew and bacteria \u2014 and that\u2019s the source of all your smells.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Dancy officially launched Azuna<\/a> in 2019. The friend who had introduced him to tea tree oil worked in contract packaging, so they forged a partnership on that front.<\/p>\n Another friend of Dancy\u2019s worked in the domain industry. Dancy asked him for a name, and he came back with \u201cAzoona.\u201d Dancy liked the sound of it, and when his designer swapped the double \u201co\u201d out for a \u201cu,\u201d spelling it \u201cAzuna,\u201d the name stuck.\u00a0<\/p>\n Next, Dancy put the product online and took a hands-on approach to building his business.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aNo idea what I\u2019m doing, literally writing the ad copy myself,\u201d Dancy says. \u201cFor three years, I set an alarm every day for two hours to wake up to see if there were things I needed to respond to, whether it was customer service questions or Facebook comments.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Dancy tracked the number of orders received, then picked up the product from the warehouse and went to the post office to ship it off. The product cost about $10 and sold for $20, so between that and the labor required to fulfill the orders, it was a rough profit margin, Dancy admits.\u00a0<\/p>\n But he wasn\u2019t deterred. The business saw $12,000 in monthly sales by April 2020. With the pandemic underway and millions of people staying in homes they wanted to smell better, sales only accelerated. In May 2020, Azuna pulled in $105,000 in sales.\u00a0<\/p>\n At that point, Azuna secured its own third-party logistics (3PL) as business operations shifted to keep pace with demand. But it was still two years before Dancy hired anyone to join the team. \u201cI got us up to about $3 million in sales for the most part on my own,\u201d Dancy says.\u00a0<\/p>\n Over the last several years, Azuna\u2019s sales have continued to skyrocket. The business hit $53 million in sales last year and is on track to see more than $100 million in sales this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n What\u2019s more, the initially bootstrapped business has taken on little investment along the way compared to competitors, Dancy says, noting that to reach Azuna\u2019s level, most companies would have taken about $50 million in equity. Azuna has raised less than $10 million to date.\u00a0<\/p>\n One of the biggest challenges Azuna has faced over its growth trajectory is the sheer speed of its scale.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aI\u2019m not an operations person,\u201d Dancy admits. \u201cI\u2019m an entrepreneur. They just put up a job description for an executive assistant for me, and someone wrote in there, \u2018Cleaning up after the Tasmanian devil.\u2019 So that puts it in perspective. That\u2019s me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n When a business goes from making $500,000 a month to $3 million a month within four months, it requires a significant operational shift, Dancy says. It\u2019s crucial to go beyond thinking about having enough inventory on hand for sales the following week \u2014 and instead look to six or nine months down the line.\u00a0<\/p>\n Additionally, although some Azuna product components are purchased overseas, everything is produced in and ships out of the U.S., Dancy notes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Dancy began hiring more people to help Azuna navigate its new normal. Azuna currently has about 50 employees across its marketing and manufacturing teams. For a time, Dancy would host a celebratory dinner every time Azuna ticked off another milestone: a $100,000 month, a $500,000 month, a $1 million month (the business had about eight employees when it achieved the latter).\u00a0<\/p>\n But very soon the team had ballooned beyond the size of a standard dinner reservation.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t even do it anymore because there are so many people,\u201d Dancy says. \u201cI can\u2019t find a restaurant we could fit that many people in. And we\u2019d be celebrating every month, which is awesome, but also kind of takes away from the fun entrepreneurial side. When you\u2019re growing so fast, you can\u2019t even take the time to pat yourself on the back.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Still an entrepreneur at heart, Dancy intends to sell Azuna as soon as the time is right. The business will do more than $100 million in direct-to-consumer sales this year between its website and Amazon. It also just started distribution in the Midwest-based grocery chain Fresh Thyme and is actively exploring partnerships with other major retailers.\u00a0<\/p>\nDancy\u2019s smelly apartment leads to a business idea<\/h2>\n
Starting a business selling tea tree oil: Azuna<\/h2>\n
The business goes from $12k to $105k in the span of 1 month<\/h2>\n
Navigating operations amid the business\u2019s rapid growth<\/h2>\n
$100k a month and beyond: Azuna racks up sales milestones<\/h2>\n
Dancy plans to sell the business when the time is right<\/h2>\n
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