Kevin Corey spends his weekdays teaching high school students real-life examples of the ups and downs of running a business, including his own side hustle.
Corey, 41, teaches business courses at Uniondale High School in Uniondale, New York. He is also the co-founder and president of Stall Mates, a flushable bathroom wipes brand that brought in more than $3.8 million in revenue in 2025, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. And his students have a front row seat to watch Corey and his co-founder Greg Schipff run the business.
“All the highs and lows, including the current tariff situation, are certainly lessons that you can take back to your classroom and tell them about,” Corey says. “When they’re talking about things like, ‘Why are prices going up?'” It’s certainly a lot easier to explain because you can actually get the bill out. ”
Corey and Shipff launched Stall Mates near Islip, N.Y., in 2013, and Corey began teaching in Uniondale the following year. His students have tracked the successes and setbacks of growing a packaged goods brand that started with a $14,000 seed investment. The investment went toward initial production of individual wipes, which Corey kept in his home, and took nine months to sell, he said.
Don’t miss: Leadership skills that will help you stand out at work
Corley said Stall Mates currently sells about 250,000 units a year, including “on-the-go” packs and large boxes of wipes, mostly through Amazon and online retailers such as Walmart and Globe Collaborative. The company has been profitable since 2015, and the co-founders say they receive annual salaries of $100,000 from the business, excluding dividends and bonuses to shareholders. The majority of Stall Mates’ profits are reinvested into the business, he added.
Corey spends about 20 hours each week on nights and weekends, and about 40 hours teaching, he says. One aspect of Stall Mates that he avoids sharing publicly, even in the classroom, is the item cost per wipe. This is a practice that many companies use to protect their profit model.
Almost everything else is fair game, he says. “We actually have a class called ‘Business Mathematics,’ and that alone tells us that these companies can make a million dollars in sales. But that doesn’t necessarily mean, for example, that they live in a mansion (or) drive a nice car,” Corey says. “We have to keep moving forward and building.”
The “aha” moment that created Stall Mates
Before launching Stall Mates, Corey and Shipff worked together to clean pools around New York’s Long Island area. This job required frequent trips to public restrooms and often ran out of toilet paper. Corey says: “It was an ‘aha moment.’ The conversation started: ‘What if we could always have wipes available?'”
Of course, flushable bathroom wipes already exist, including those from gender-specific brands like Summer’s Eve for women and Dude Wipes for men. Mr. Corley and Mr. Skip joined the fray against gender-neutral competitors and pooled their collective savings to finance Stoll Mates’ initial product sales, trademarks for the brand name, legal fees to set up the business and labels created by a graphic designer, Mr. Corley said.
Greg Shipf (left) and Kevin Coley are longtime friends who co-founded Stall Mates in 2013.
Source: Kevin Corey
He says starting Stallmates required a serious learning curve and several stops and starts. After several setbacks, including a failed Indiegogo campaign and minimal sales from the website, the co-founders decided to list Wipe on Amazon in November 2014 to “see what would happen,” Corey said.
They knew that if Amazon failed, their options would be limited and they would run out of money as the deadline to unload inventory loomed. The wipes had a two-year shelf life, Corey said. Still, they tried to remain confident. “We knew we would figure out a way to make it work,” Corey says.
Mr. Stoll Mates joined Amazon “at the right time,” he said. The tech giant launched its Amazon Seller app earlier that year, and Corey and Skiff said their company was a relatively early adopter among retailers. Corey said Stall Mates brought in about $300,000 in sales in 2015, most of which came from Amazon.
“I’ve been teaching as early as second period.”
Corey earned a master’s degree in business teacher education from the now-defunct Dowling College and took his first full-time teaching job in Uniondale a year after founding Stallmates. Over the next 12 years, he says, Corey’s students have shown enthusiasm for his business growth and a penchant for cynicism about their teacher running a “butt-wipe company.”
Corey takes pride in teaching his students to view Stall Mates’ setbacks as learning opportunities rather than reasons to give up, he says. In 2020, he and Skip purchased trademarks such as “Body Mates” and “Paw Mates” and launched body wipes and pet wipes. Retailers expressed concerns that the move could confuse customers who were already familiar with the Stole Mates brand, and Corey said they were right.
The pair spent about $75,000 developing the product and launched Body Mates in 2021, before abandoning the idea in 2023 due to a lackluster response from customers. “How do I bring that into the classroom? I share it with the kids,” Corey says.
“I’m like, ‘Guys, how much does it cost to fail?'” he added. “But then you have to keep moving forward (and) you have to listen to your customers…I’m working on Stall Mates at night, and then I come in the morning and I mean, I’m teaching it from the second hour at the earliest.”
When they’re talking about things like, “Why are (prices) going up?” It’s certainly easier to explain since you can actually take out the bill.
Mr. Corey and Mr. Skip’s business continues to compete with brands such as Dude Wipes and Summer’s Eve, which was launched a year before Stall Mates and which the Wall Street Journal reported in February 2025 to have topped $200 million in 2024 revenue. The company also competes with big names like Cottonelle and Charmin in the global flushable wipes market, valued at $3.1 billion in 2024, according to a report by Global Market Insights.
Corey tells students that he is focused on growing Stall Mates smartly and sustainably, rather than trying to keep pace with competitors. But he notes that he hopes his students take away at least one lesson from the class and their entrepreneurial careers, regardless of the company’s future growth or woes.
“You don’t have to be afraid of failure, because even if you’re failing, you’re actually still taking steps and learning a lesson,” Corey says. “It can be applied to everything in life.”
Want to lead with confidence and bring out the best in your team? Take CNBC’s new online course, How to Become an Exceptional Leader. Expert instructors share practical strategies to help you build trust, communicate clearly, and motivate others to do their best work. Sign up now!
