Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / This Aussie founder and her mum reached $1M in sales in 18 months, here’s how with tbh Skincare’s Rachael Tyers

Transcript

This Aussie founder and her mum reached $1M in sales in 18 months, here’s how with tbh Skincare’s Rachael Tyers · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Rachel Tyers for Female Startup Club. Hey everyone, it's Dune here, your host and hype girl. Today we're learning from Rachel Tyers, one of the women behind Aussie skincare brand TBH.
• 0:24
  TBH is an Australian skincare range built specifically for the acne-prone customer. The brand launched in March 2020 by Rachel and her mom with a novel treatment for acne developed with a patented formula that targets biofilm in the skin.
• 0:40
  It's pretty remarkable stuff that's gaining crazy momentum right now because of how effective it is. And the proof is in the pudding. In the first 18 months of operating, they've hit more than a million dollars in sales and created a brand that's impacting thousands of folks struggling with acne issues.
• 0:57
  In this episode, we're talking about all the good stuff, like how much she's invested to get to these kind of numbers, how much she pays per influencer collab, what happened to their marketing plan when the iOS changes came into place, and how they currently acquire customers.
• 1:13
  It's a really insightful chat and it opened my eyes to licensing formulas from other companies and the success you can have when you pour crazy fuel on the fire to accelerate growth. I hope you learned something from this episode. And if you do, please shout about it and let me know. I would love to hear from you on Instagram at June Roisin, D-O-O-N-E-R-O-I-S-I-N. Let's get into this episode. This is Rachel for Female Startup Club.
• 1:43
  Rachel, hi, hello, welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast. Hi, thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be talking to you today. Funnily, it's been a back-to-back to two podcast episodes with Australian women, which we have kind of dotted in here and there, but typically I'm not speaking to Aussies, so I love this for me. Oh, there you go.
• 2:06
  I always love to start by getting you to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what your brand is, what your business is. Yes. Well, I'm Rachel, as you've already mentioned, and
• 2:19
  I have a brand called TBH Skincare. So TBH Skincare is a direct-to-consumer e-commerce skincare brand that has products specifically for the acne-prone customer. So our core product is actually a patented treatment for acne, and we've launched a range around it that essentially is perfectly crafted for that acne-prone customer.
• 2:45
  And really like the whole brand from beginning to end is created to suit that customer and their needs and their wants. So, yeah, that's TBH.
• 2:58
  I love it. I want to go back to the early days when you started this. I mean, I think you started this like 18 months ago from what I read, but when you were kind of getting interested in starting this business with your mom, by the way, which I think is so cool that you decided to launch this together. Let's rewind and go back to the sort of startup story. Yeah, absolutely.
• 3:20
  I was not that person that was like always planning on sort of launching my own brand. It actually came as more of a serendipitous thing that occurred. So I was working actually initially. So my background's marketing, digital marketing, and I was working in my pretty much my first full-time role in medical devices, which is not at all the industry that I thought I would end up in. It was marketing.
• 3:44
  sort of not sexy. It was that B2B, like very clinical almost, but I was on the marketing side of things. It taught me a lot commercially, but I was in this role for probably about two years. And in the medical devices space, there are so many products in the company that I was working for. It had such a range of products and such a range of suppliers. And they have this amazing technology, one of the suppliers,
• 4:11
  that could break down what's called biofilm in your body. So it's all quite medical, but they had these products that went into hospital and healthcare, into surgeries, into infection prevention of all kind. And the technology that this company has has a huge amount of applications and it has an application in skin care.
• 4:31
  And this is a research and development company. They work off a distribution model when it comes to, you know, getting their products out into the world. And so, you know, they're used to dealing in that hospital environment. And I was actually just introduced to the technology via, you know, actually a family connection and then just started asking questions about the technology because they told me that it had an application in skincare for acne and I was suffering with acne at the time.
• 5:00
  So it came up in sort of a conversation whereabouts I actually just wanted this product for my own use, like selfishly. And I started asking questions about I actually read the entire patent on the product. And I did all my research because I have a long sort of history with acne. And I've been burnt by so many products in the past that I wanted to...
• 5:19
  do my proper research and then give this product a go. And after I read up on it, I was like, wow, okay, this is legit. The science is there. It's a completely new approach to treating acne. Maybe this is what I've been looking for. So I asked for a sample out of the lab, which I was lucky enough to get, and I actually started trialing it on my own skin.
• 5:37
  And I had really good results. And then being a sort of very creative person and a digital marketer and a beauty consumer and the sort of consumer for this specific product as well, I was like, okay, what's happening with this product? Like this product's amazing. This is a huge opportunity.
• 5:56
  You know, where's it going? And essentially for a company that was, you know, used to dealing in the medical space, you know, they're not so familiar with beauty and e-com. And I just saw such an opportunity. I was like, I could do this.
• 6:10
  you know, like this is a product that I would know what to do with and how to market. And, you know, there are a lot of things that I was naive. I was young. Like there's a lot of things that I didn't know, but I had the passion and sort of like the creative vision for it. And I just like went for it. So I ended up pitching for this product.
• 6:28
  And I actually went into business with my mom. As you mentioned, she's on the financial side. So she's got a whole accounting background and she's amazing with numbers. So we complement each other quite well. And we decided we could probably manage it together. And yeah, we went and pitched for the product and won it. So it was actually not really the plan. Every time I launched a skincare company, it just so happened that it, you know, stumbled upon me as an opportunity and I had such a gut feel about it. And yeah, I just went for it. So yeah.
• 6:56
  That was basically the very beginning of it. And it only took us six months actually to launch that product in market.
• 7:04
  Wow. This is so interesting. I've never really had someone on the show talking about starting a business from this direction and kind of taking someone else's kind of patented formula. Can you just break down a little bit more about what that means? Like you pitch them for the fact to be able to license their stuff or you bought it from them or like, how does that work? Yeah. So it's basically licensing. So it's not something like,
• 7:31
  You know, so it's an exclusive licensing agreement. So you essentially win the rights to sell that product in a certain area or, you know, like there's, but you essentially just pitching, yeah, for the licensing rights and exclusive licensing rights. We got, yeah, direct to consumer. So we were, we were amazed. Yeah, we were so excited.
• 7:50
  And do you like pay a royalty on every product that you sell? Or is it like you pay an upfront fee or do you pay an ongoing retainer? What's the, what's the pricing model of doing something like that? And is this like normal? Is it just me that doesn't know about this? I don't know. I think like if it's,
• 8:05
  It's very funny because in like e-commerce D2C businesses, like there are the majority of brands would probably do all the product development themselves and sort of like do all of that research piece themselves as a startup that's really, really expensive, as you would know. But there's a few different ways that sort of like these
• 8:25
  I guess, contracts can be put together. So it could be, you know, like a royalty. It can be basically you just buy the product off them, like wholesale almost and then like resell. But it's different because, you know, you create the brand, the packaging and everything. You're literally just licensing the formula. Like you're not buying it straight off the, do you know what I mean? Like there's that level of like, well, we own that. It's not just off the shelf in a way. It's like we own that formula and we do what,
• 8:53
  we want with it in terms of branding and everything else. And so what would happen in this? I'm asking you so many questions before we actually jump into the next phase of the episode. But what would happen like if you were to sell the business? Do you then just sell that license on to someone else or would you like how does it work?
• 9:12
  Well, the company owns that sort of agreement, that licensing agreement. So that licensing agreement can span 10 years, 30 years. There's a whole different array of ways that you could set that up for an exit. But you also, you know, we were aware actually going into it that, you know, this was an amazing product and it was what was going to set us apart just from a product standpoint in market. There's nothing like it.
• 9:38
  you know, currently available anywhere. And we knew we needed that obviously to start a successful business. Um, but we've built so much more as well as we've gone and we've done that intentionally. Yeah. Like with new products, you mean you, I saw that you launched a range of different, you know, sunscreens and facial care products.
• 9:57
  Yeah, so we have then, you know, gotten it kickstarted, brought in other products and also built a brand, a community. We have other elements, you know, of the company that we're building to add it to its value, if that makes sense.
• 10:11
  Yes, absolutely. Okay. So before we jump into the marketing piece and the lead up to the launch and what you were doing in those kind of six months before you brought it to market, I always love to understand the money piece of the puzzle and like how you were thinking about funding when it comes to like, how much money did you need to invest personally to get the brand to launch? And what were you thinking about when you thought longer term about the funding path?
• 10:34
  Yeah, so it's always a funny thing to like sort of look back on in hindsight. So we did like a full analysis on what we thought it would cost us to get it up and running and then also to sort of run it operationally and marketing wise for the first six months.
• 10:51
  And when we sort of pulled that together, like this is the first time I've ever set up a business, like an e-com business or anything and same for my mom. So, you know, like you're shooting blind a little bit. And I don't think I asked probably. You're making assumptions. Yeah, you do. You make a lot of assumptions, but you know what, if you're not naive, you won't do it is what I always say. Like you have to be naive to do these things because otherwise you'd just be too jaded and you wouldn't even try. So we actually in the beginning estimated that it would
• 11:21
  I think it was like, I think we raised about 250K, so 250,000 Australian dollars. And that was amongst ourselves, so we put in, and then it was also family and friends that put in. Not, like it wasn't a huge amount of shareholders, but yeah, that was basically the setup. And then we were like, okay, this is the money that we think we need to spend. Obviously that was like a huge chunk of that was like actual stock, as everyone would know.
• 11:50
  And then we did really invest in marketing as well from the get-go and that was a really important part of getting us off the ground.
• 11:59
  Yeah, absolutely. I'm excited to start talking about the marketing piece and, you know, you coming from a digital marketing background and I've read some crazy headlines. You did a million worth of sales in your first year. Like you've come out of the park and totally smashed it. So let's talk about the lead up to launch, what you're actually doing to sort of start building community, start getting the word out there and like how it went and go from there. Yeah. Um.
• 12:27
  Really, in the beginning, it was really quite organic. Like we were building a lot behind the scenes, but I think I just started, you know, personally sharing what I was doing, what I was up to and sort of I covered a lot of the behind the scenes of the business, like whether we were looking at packaging, branding, branding,
• 12:46
  The photo shoot, you know, even like the first run on the like manufacturing product line, because that was fascinating to me. But, you know, I filmed everything and was sort of sharing on social media. And it wasn't a lot of like paid content or paid ads. Like we did a tiny bit, but it was just mainly me jumping on
• 13:06
  telling people what was happening. And I think people just took like a natural interest in, in something like that and watching it all kind of come to life. But in saying that, like it was super small scale, um, in the lead up to launch. And it was hard because I had like a really cute group of people to launch too. That was, it was good. Like it was, um, a good launch, but it wasn't like, you know, we went live on day one and we were through the roof. Like I didn't have
• 13:31
  you know, media lined up. I didn't have influencers lined up because it was all so new. And I was sort of just navigating how to set up the brand, like, you know, do all these other things I wasn't really thinking about. And we didn't have product by that point either to really like, you know, be sending out to media, be sending out to influencers. So it was hard to do like a massive pre-hype campaign besides just being super organic. And then it was sort of when we launched, we did well.
• 13:57
  Like, I think we had forecasts, like we go really like conservative in the forecast. We were like, we're getting no sales in the first month or something. Cause you know, we just want to build it out realistically. So yeah, we've got a few sales in the first month, which was great. I think it was like 40 orders on the first day, which I was like stoked with. I was really happy about that.
• 14:18
  And then we knew that the other thing that we actually did in LeadUp is that we got samples to send out to people. So I had people trialing and sending me before and afters. That was probably one of the best things we did because we had legit results by the time we launched.
• 14:34
  And we could share that. But to be like, you know, we've run a trial group and these are the results. And we knew that we were going to get those results with this product. So I think it was really lucky. But we launched with that. It did really well organically. We ran a few ads here and there. But really, until we were able to get it in the hands of media and influencers, that's what really sort of like turned the brand and charged it right up.
• 14:57
  And when is that kind of in the journey? Is that like a few months in or is that six months in? And can you go a little bit deeper into, you know, how many packages were you sending out to media? And like what were you specifically doing that started to get that traction and that movement where you could see, you know, wow, we're onto something? Yeah.
• 15:16
  Yeah, I wasn't like a, I didn't send out like a massive amount of packages purely because like I didn't even have the addresses. Like I wasn't, I wasn't well connected in this space. I'd worked in marketing, but I'd worked in B2B marketing. I didn't have connections in media. I didn't have connections in influencer marketing, nothing. So I was starting from like.
• 15:37
  absolute scratch. Like I had no idea, but I just started reaching out to people. So, you know, I'd DM people on Instagram or email their management. You know, at the end of the day, when you're small, though, I think the thing that I heard from a lot of people who were also starting businesses was like, you know, they're like, how much does an influencer post cost?
• 15:57
  And when I tell them they were never happy to pay that. And I think we took the opposite approach where, you know, when we talk to management, we were happy to pay the rates sort of that they were giving back to us. So we gave ourselves a proper shot in terms of working with these people and establishing relationships with them. So it's about to like the minute we got product, I was trying to reach out to people.
• 16:18
  you know, talk to management, get addresses. And the number one thing that I always said to people was, this is the brand, this is the science, this is how it's different. And we were picking influences that were relevant to the product and the brand. So like the key one and people who are overseas probably won't know this person, but Aussie people will. So Abby Chatfield was an ex-Bachelor contestant and she was suffering with her skin.
• 16:45
  And she was super transparent about it on her social media. Like she would always show that she was breaking out. And it's very rare for influencers to do that. And for us, it was really hard to find relevant influencers because they're, you know, all
• 16:57
  Glossy. Gorgeous skin, you know, they don't have those problems or they don't share them. Yeah. So I emailed her management. I was like, look, this product's perfect. Like it's perfect for her. This is the science, this is who I am. Gave them the spiel and was like, we want to work with her. Can I, but I said, she has to have results before she promotes the product. And that was my line with everyone. It was like, they actually have to do a minimum like two to three week trial with the products before they even tell us yes or no.
• 17:27
  So it wasn't just like, hey, what are your rates? Here's the product. It was like, hey, try the product, then we can chat. And I don't know. It was just like that approach seemed to work. So we managed to send it out, yeah, to a few people who, yeah, who were well suited and they genuinely liked the product. And then I think maybe we got them in emotionally with the product or I don't know, but these people were happy to work with us, which was amazing.
• 17:53
  an absolute blessing. And I think, you know, doing the brand right, doing the boxing right, the whole brand experience, you know, it definitely contributed to the fact that they were then happy, I think, to work with us because they liked the product and the brand. So Abby was a huge one that we got in May and we launched in March. So that was probably like, yeah, like a three month sort of work in the background to sort of get her to post for the first time.
• 18:18
  I don't know if you're able to share and obviously no problems if you're not, but are you able to share kind of what's the investment to work with someone like that at that kind of level of, you know, a well-known person in the Australian landscape? And also what's the impact of that? Like, were you able to see, you know, direct sales or was there a clear ROI that you're able to measure? Yeah.
• 18:41
  Yeah, it's interesting. Influencers are not an exact science. Like so much other marketing these days with digital marketing, you've got so many data points, it is almost like a science and influence marketing is not that. And I think you need to be the consumer and you need to have your finger on the pulse with who's relevant and who's going to fit your brand. And I had a big gut feeling about Abby, you know, and...
• 19:01
  For a lot of people, like I have older people in the business, like, you know, being mom and everyone else. And I think she's a little bit more on like the controversial side for like an older generation. Obviously, for me, I was like, I adore her and I'm, you know, but it took a little bit of convincing that like this was the right move brand wise. You're like, I just know.
• 19:23
  I can't tell you why, but I just know. Yeah. And I'm like, I have this gut feel like you have to trust me. Like I'm the consumer. Like I know I'm consuming this every day. Like I consume influencer content all the time. Anyway, so I look in terms of rates. I mean, it varies for everyone. And back then she had a lot lower following, like probably less than half of what she does now. But she had a very, very engaged audience.
• 19:49
  I think she has like 360,000 followers now, but she had probably about 120,000 back then. And for me, it was always about like, it's not how big their following is, it's how engaged their audience are. Because someone can have literally 50,000 followers, but the most engaged audience and they're going to sell.
• 20:08
  And so in terms of rates, it's like it can go so like I think the most we paid for an influencer in those early days was six and a half thousand Australian dollars for a grid post and a story. That was sort of like the max we would pay for one person.
• 20:25
  Um, and Abby back then was, um, not that like she was, yeah, I think like now she's gotten a massive following. I don't even, I'm not even sure what her current rates are, but yeah, it was less back then. So I think it was also just a very lucky time to, to sort of.
• 20:41
  get her interested in the product, get it in her hands and then, you know, have her on board. So there was a direct ROI with Abby straight off the bat. She posted and it was like, ding, ding, ding, ding. Like the Shopify sales were just going off. Love that sound. Yeah, I know. It's so good. So, um, you know, and I had like this gut
• 21:05
  feeling and I was like, I knew it. Like I just knew it. And then the minute that happened. So whenever that happens for us, like if someone's got really engaged following or that their post performs really well, we sort of want to extend that
• 21:21
  contract that partnership into like something bigger or longer term or into an ambassador role or so we actually ended up entering into like a three-month partnership with Abby and we went like hard on the deliverables like there was a lot included in the content that we were going to get over those three months and it really solidified her partnership with the brand and a lot of people actually still to this day
• 21:45
  say like c tbh and they're like oh that's the skincare brand abby chatfield used to like you know fix her breakouts and the thing was her skin fixed on the products so she had the results as well which i think is why it converted so well
• 22:01
  Wow. And so is that, do you think it was that specific relationship that kind of like really boosted your growth in that period? Or was it really that and a combination of all the other influencer marketing that you did? Just to try and understand, like getting to a million in your first year is obviously like just so incredible. And people listening are thinking to themselves, but how, like, how do you get there kind of thing? So I just want to really understand
• 22:31
  Yeah, I think it's definitely a combination of things. So yes, it was definitely the fact that we're working with other influencers with audience crossover with Abby. So it was almost like this double effect where people had seen her use it, but they also see other people use it. And again, that was intentional.
• 22:46
  A huge one was the media sort of coverage as well. So, you know, we were featured in a few really great Australian media publications and that really helped us in terms of credibility and sort of like solidified. You know, we'd been seen with this really like sort of engaged influencer that's, you know, really well known in Australia than we're seeing in these magazines already.
• 23:10
  or publications, digital publications that are massive. And then what we were also doing is retargeting all these people. So the minute, you know, anyone jumped on our Instagram, they're being retargeted with ads or the minute they come into our emails, they're getting flows like we didn't let those people go like just because they didn't convert off the first hit to the website or social media page. We kept them sort of in our funnel and we're like, I was actually running all the Facebook ads.
• 23:37
  And even all the video content like creative in-house, just myself. And we were making sure that we were spending on ads to bring them back and keep them buying. So we saw a direct correlation in how everything performed when we had everything going at once.
• 23:54
  That's amazing. I think I also read that you and your mom potentially even still are the only employees in the business. So you were doing this essentially all yourself and building this, you know, super successful small business straight off the bat.
• 24:11
  Were you working with contractors? Was there anyone else that you were kind of partnering with or truly it was just you guys hustling it out? It's you every day pitching press and journalists and pitching influencers and just, you know, getting that elbow grease in there. Yes. So a lot of it was that. One of the first things I outsourced because I didn't have any previous experience in it was PRs.
• 24:34
  So marketing is very different to PR and I didn't have any of the PR relationships that I needed and everything else. And I ended up finding the sweetest girl who was actually just starting up her own agency and she's phenomenal. I would recommend her to anyone. Her name is Georgie Quigley and she has a PR company called GQPR.
• 24:55
  And yeah, she's awesome. And essentially it was like, we met for a coffee. I just really liked her and, uh, I trusted her. Like I just had another gut feel about her and I was like, she's really good. And, um, again, she was, you know, didn't cost an arm and a leg for, for a small startup business. And so we essentially engaged her and she did really well on the media piece for us. So I'm not going to take any of the credit for that. Cause I did
• 25:25
  But on the Facebook, like advertising, the influencer marketing, all of that, yeah, it was all in-house. So I was managing all the organic content, all the paid content and doing all the influencer management myself plus, you know, website and everything. Like we didn't have anyone else in the business. Now we do, like we've, we've only got one other employee and she's part-time. She's an intern. And then the rest are contracted. They're freelancers or agencies.
• 25:54
  Um, and I think we've got that across like content creation. So all that video editing, the Facebook ad buying, Google ad buying. Um, and we've just got like a SEO consultant now. And I've also got someone on influencer marketing now, which is great. So there's a lot that have come in since then, but back then it was just me just trying to find my way through, like just literally winging it. Yeah.
• 26:19
  I'm just so impressed. That's amazing. I think that is so cool. And I remember, I don't know how I came across you, but you must have posted something on LinkedIn about, you know, hitting a million in sales or something like that within your first 12 months. And I was like, whoa, need to speak to her. That's so cool. And then reading that you'd done it with your mom. I was just like, this is amazing.
• 26:41
  How did your marketing evolve, you know, over the next, like what, what period are we talking about? That was, did you say May last year is when you started working with Abby to now? Yeah. How's it kind of evolved and what's, what's like driving the growth or where are you finding like interesting customer acquisition? What can you tell us?
• 27:03
  Yeah, so influencer marketing was great to sort of get us going, but it's a very hard channel to measure return on investment from. And I think, you know, as we sort of, we spent, as I was alluding to earlier, what we raised was nowhere near enough to sort of continue like this huge growth for the company. So we became a bit more savvy sort of saying like, you know, what's really generating a return on investment and ads, like Facebook ads were sort of where we focused on.
• 27:31
  moving forward in terms of trying to acquire via that ad channel, because it's so much easier to measure like where you're acquiring those customers from, and it's a cheaper way to do so. So we really shifted to focusing on ads, thinking about, yeah, like that then brought in like the videographer, editor sort of guy, because I couldn't keep doing all of that on my own and creative so important. So yeah, it really shifted to like, okay, how can we scale that account?
• 27:58
  rather than like sort of scaling that influencer piece, like that influencer piece got us going. And then I almost feel like that influencer landscape changed so much, even from when we launched that we, yeah, we took more of a focus to ads and then more of a focus to like building customer retention as well, because we acquired a mass of customers. And what we actually saw when we had like, you know, more than eight months data was that these customers were so valuable.
• 28:28
  you know within the first three months of having purchased so we had this like huge repeat business and it was like okay we need to also focus on that and so did you have to then raise more money or you just got sharper with the way that you were spending and didn't look to raise more
• 28:49
  No, so the cost of acquiring customers is still super high and it's just the nature of being in skincare. It's a very competitive market and cost per acquisition is so high. So, no, we needed to raise more money and I don't think anyone ever raises money
• 29:06
  enough money unless they've done it before and they know better. But, you know, it's super hard in the beginning to even know like how much you need and how much things are going to cost and what the cost per acquisition will be. So we raised more money literally three months ago. We did an equity crowdfund in Australia and we raised $460,000 just over. So that was great. And
• 29:34
  It was a super intense process to go through, super tiring, but it was 100% worth it. And it's definitely, you know, helped us now see the next stage of growth for TBH rather than trying to, you know, if you get too focused on pulling all the cash out of the business, like you end up sort of killing like your acquisition strategy completely.
• 29:59
  Yeah, you're not able to put fuel on the fire when things are working and just kind of go all out. Yeah, I totally get that. You really need that working capital to be able to like go large.
• 30:10
  I also wanted to ask you, you said, obviously, you've really kind of switched into Facebook ads and that's kind of where you're acquiring customers. But what did you experience with the iOS updates and how has that affected you now? Are you still like using Facebook as your main acquisition channel or have you had to kind of diversify and again, shift and pivot away into something else? Yeah, iOS was pretty horrid for us.
• 30:37
  And it was really, it was really difficult actually, because it was at a point in time where I was trying to outsource things from the business and ad buying being one of them and also the creative. And so it came at the same time as iOS and we outsourced to an agency and it was very hard to tell like whether it was iOS impacting performance or the change of sort of management impacting performance and everything.
• 31:02
  really like things slowed down like massively with Facebook acquisition. We were really like left sort of scrambling. So I think, yeah, iOS impacted us massively. And I think that we've had to have a much like sharper focus on creative since iOS sort of, you know, happened.
• 31:25
  in that what we're seeing is it's really important to get your creative right because the targeting is like nowhere near as accurate. You know, your type of funnel audiences are shrinking. And so we were like, okay, what we saw was that we were doing like broader targeting, but when we had the creative that was on point, the ads would still perform really, really well. But it was finding that creative and then keeping it alive for long enough. Like it's about...
• 31:53
  How long do they have before they essentially fall off a cliff and, you know, everyone's fatigued by that ad and that ad's done. So it's like a constant cycle now of let's get killer creative and you have to keep on top of what's working and then just produce content at a rate of knots and test like so many different ads. So that's our strategy at the moment. And we had...
• 32:17
  Like we had an amazing piece of creative in October actually that killed it for us on ads. So I think we're learning now with iOS and we're recovering now
• 32:28
  It was actually, so we have, you know, masks are like causing people to break out and everyone in Australia is obviously used to wearing them. And the hospital workers are like the biggest sufferers because they're in these like N95 masks all day. And what we were getting is feedback from customers that they were actually using it.
• 32:49
  to combat like their mask breakouts and people were actually putting it on like before they'd go to work they were putting it on under their mask and they're wearing the mask and going to work and it was like stopping their breakouts were happening so we got this feedback and we were talking about concepts for ads and it's really um effective when you can find a niche like everyone sees skincare ads a hundred times a day if you can have a point of difference that doesn't make it look like another skincare ad then it's probably gonna you know stop people
• 33:19
  a huge, um, increase in sort of our ability to stop people from scrolling on that video. Um, and basically, yeah, so we got a healthcare worker to do like a testimonial for it. Um, she like, yeah, shared how, just how she used the product and what it did to her skin. And because it was like, yeah, it was very raw footage, like, you know, healthcare worker, you know, on camera is, it was like, you know, it was just very raw, very organic. Um,
• 33:47
  And yeah, it went bananas. There was like a lot of people that engaged with it on social, I think, because it didn't seem like an ad. Yeah, I don't know.
• 33:58
  Yeah. Yeah. It's much more native to the platform and someone just sharing their experience in that UGC kind of way. How do you actually manage your like content side of things? You mentioned a moment ago, you were discussing concepts. Are you working like with a content agency, for example, and you're just constantly throwing around ideas or do they come to you kind of acting more like a creative director and give you different kind of scenarios or how does it actually work?
• 34:27
  It's actually a very collaborative approach and I think I'm lucky to be working almost like with a small team. So the people that I've got on ad buying and the creative are like, you know, they're small, they're boutique, they're, you know, pretty much freelancers and we all work very well together. So we're actually not, none of us are in the same state in Australia, but we're always on Zoom calls and I think we would,
• 34:51
  I speak to the ad guy every day, like every day. I'm like, what are you spending? And then we're breaking down, like, you know, at a P&L level, what revenue is coming through from new customers versus returning out of the top of funnel performing, blah, blah, blah. And so we're all feeding back to each other all the time. But the creative guy and the ad buyer and us, we all talk like together. So there'd be briefs coming out every two weeks.
• 35:15
  where it's like, okay, you know, we all brainstorm together what UGC we think are going to work. It's up to us. So myself and like my marketing intern to go away and find that content and get it. And then we essentially ship it back to the editing guy who puts it all together in like a hundred different ways, you know, so you can test different hooks and different openings and different closes and different offerings. And then
• 35:36
  The ad guy goes and tests basically all of them and then reports back. And it's like this never ending loop of optimization because, you know, when something is performing, then he'll want to capitalize on it. We want to do something similar. So we try and almost reproduce until that's not working. Then we, you know, sort of rejig and it's literally a never ending cycle. It's almost like it's the biggest like sort of time sort of spending we do in the business is like on on that content creation piece.
• 36:06
  Wow. But yeah, I mean, I guess if that's what's working, then of course you have to lean into that a thousand percent to just keep that going. Have you been experiencing much success with TikTok ads and what's your kind of experience of that landscape now?
• 36:20
  Yeah, so we did start dabbling in TikTok ads. And I think, as you sort of said before, the more native it seems to the platform, the better. So the more organic it looks, you know, we weren't going to put like a slick polished ad up on TikTok. It had to be relevant to the platform. So it was literally me jumping on.
• 36:38
  You know, like doing like a founder story, pulling like all the old footage that I had, like from the production line and, you know, all the different things that we'd done, me packing and like the, you know, in the early days and stuff. And I pulled it all together and was basically like, hey, I'm the founder of TBH and it was the first sort of piece on TikTok that I did to like create as an ad.
• 36:57
  And it went really well. So the minute it was like organic, it did very, very well. So then there was, and I think we had an end of financial year sale and I was like, okay, how do I do like another organic sort of TikTok ad? And what I did was I basically said, you know, that voice to Siri thing, like on TikTok, I did basically like a screen recording of the site on my phone and we had like a spin wheel prize thing up.
• 37:23
  And basically said, oh, like for TBH skincare, like end of financial year sale, I spun this like spin wheel. I got like this free or whatever. And then these are my products arriving and like this is me using them. So it was like very organic. But I posted it and the click-through rate was over 5%, which on TikTok is like really high. And even one of the account managers at TikTok actually reached out and he was like, I've never seen an ad.
• 37:51
  like perform that well. And I was like, I'm just trying to like create, yeah, like random content, which in the middle of the day in my house in lockdown, random content that I think will stick like on TikTok. So we have dabbled a little bit, but my experience is that
• 38:07
  the people like at the moment in where TikTok is, like it's evolving very quickly, but they don't have the same sort of like conversion data that Facebook does. So I think as well, even some of the demo on TikTok, like then they don't have the same wallet share that people on Facebook and Instagram are all the same intent to buy like on the platform. So I think it'll get there, but it's like early days. So it's really great for driving traffic. And if you can
• 38:31
  you know, get people in sort of like that marketing sphere where you bring them in from like paid media to owned media, then it's great. Like you can get people in the door and build traffic to your site, but it's not like a, it's more of a brand awareness thing that we do. It's not like, you know, direct results. And I've had a few people very randomly be like, I saw, I've discovered your brand on TikTok. I've heard that a few times and it really surprised me because I was like, you know, it's just a few videos that we sponsored and they happened to, yeah, go quite well.
• 39:01
  Yeah, that's so interesting. Do you survey your customers to be like, how did you find us? And like, how did you learn about us? Because you say that, like you heard, you know, a few customers told you that. And I had the same with the podcast where people would say to me, oh, I heard about you actually just by searching you on Google. And I was like, I should actually find out more about this. So I did a survey and I found out so many more people found out about us through Google.
• 39:24
  So I was like, oh, God, well, I need to lean into like my SEO and things like that, which I have. And then I've seen growth from that. So I'm wondering if you had done that. And if not, you should do that.
• 39:34
  Yeah, you know what? Have not done that. So I will write that down and I'm going to do that. Yeah, you should host a survey because you'll be surprised the things that you learn from other people that you've probably just never considered. And then, you know, you get that like little tiny hint that you should follow the breadcrumb in that other direction or lean into that a little deeper. And then seeing the results from that is certainly super exciting. And I'm sure if people are saying that to you just off the bat kind of thing, it'll be interesting to see.
• 40:03
  What else people say at like a larger scale? Oh, totally. No, I'm definitely going to do that. I think I'd be fascinated to find out. You will. You will. It's so amazing. What's next? What's happening that you can shout about and, you know, get us excited about?
• 40:19
  Well, we just moved out of the house, actually. So we've been fulfilling this whole time out of our home. Oh, congrats. Oh, my God. Yeah. Well, out of mum's place. No, I was about to say, do you have a 3PL? No, no, we don't have a 3PL. We don't have 3PL, which is good. You know, I'm actually happy that we haven't gone 3PL at this stage, but
• 40:40
  We were literally fulfilling out of, yeah, mum's house and luckily she had like enough space. We had like a full room dedicated to it, but the boxes of stock, well, we had storage as well. So we had a storage unit, but all the product has to be stored, you know, in certain conditions. So we had all the product in her home. So the house was full of it and we were doing that, yeah, for basically a whole year. So yeah.
• 41:05
  We've just moved out and gone to like a shared e-commerce hub. So there's like 200 other e-commerce brands in this building and everyone has like a different sort of showroom, which is basically just a room, like a square meter room. And then I think ours is like 48 square meters. So it's not that big, but we literally have all the stock, like lined up on the walls, like on shelves and stuff. And we pick and pack out of there now. And we also work from there. So it's a super creative space. There's like,
• 41:34
  um, photo studios you can hire out like free meeting rooms. It's just like, and there's so many fun people in the building. So, um, it's great. That's like being one of the most exciting changes is like finally being out of the home. And it's just great. Like from a work point of view, just having the space to be creative and, and work. Um,
• 41:57
  And so that's been great. And for us, it's now we've got a few major product launches coming up. And, yeah, I think it's going to be about launching those and sort of just increasing the marketing spend and increasing our market share in Australia and then, yeah,
• 42:15
  hopefully prepping to enter into overseas markets as well. So that's the plan. Exciting. My gosh, it's all happening. I'm so pumped for you. That's so exciting. What is your most important piece of advice for entrepreneurs coming into 2022? Yeah.
• 42:36
  It's so, I feel like this is such a, like a hard one, but I think like my number one piece of advice would be like, be aware of how much things can cost. So I feel like
• 42:50
  You know, everyone needs to be realistic about how much money they need to sink into a business for it to grow and thrive and achieve all the things that they want it to achieve. And I think sometimes, you know, people say big revenue figures, but they don't understand how much a business can cost to run, especially when it's product based as well, not service or tech based. But from my experience, I think I should have maybe known or it would have been good to know like more about how much things cost.
• 43:19
  And then I think it's always about like focusing on the product or the service that you're offering. I think you make life so much easier when you know that you have something that's different or unique to the market or at least better than what's currently available. And I always think like it's good to make sure you sort of are really intentional with like the product and the service and like the service and who you're targeting with it. So for us, like we went into, yes, a very saturated market, but we went into it.
• 43:48
  a very niche part of that marketing targeting acne prone customers specifically, giving them a brand experience and, you know, a brand tone of voice that wasn't anywhere available on the market to them. And also a product that was nowhere, like this product is completely different and it has the results and the clinical backing. So I think they're really important things is like,
• 44:11
  I think people can be swept up in sort of like a vision and, you know, their creativity. And that's amazing that you want to make sure you have the product to do that justice and to give you sort of longevity rather than, you know, just sort of bringing something that's the same to market. Yeah.
• 44:31
  Yeah, you need to have like inherently, you know, word of mouth built into the brand. It needs to be something that people are going to shout about, tell their best friends about, send a WhatsApp and be like, oh my God, this is happening for me right now. And ultimately buy it a second time, a third time ongoing. Otherwise, I think it's quite hard to sustain a business if you're only able to sell that one time and you're having to pay to acquire a customer every single time.
• 44:57
  Yeah, yeah, exactly. My other ones would be watch out for shipping. So like the little things I, you know, would now think about is like, how big is your item? How much does it weigh? They're really important things to know how much it's going to cost to get things to you and also to customers. Like,
• 45:18
  The lighter your product, the better, and the smaller it is, the better. Like the easier it is to ship and send and do that cheaply or affordably, I should say. But then the other thing as well is also, you alluded to it, but is it like a repetitive product that someone can buy again? Like is it something they're going to buy one time? Are you going to have a high churn rate with customers? Or is it something that they can come back and consume again and again and again? Because you can build...
• 45:45
  I think a much more sort of long-term brand with like profitability, like really easily if you can build, you know, that repeat cycle into it.
• 45:57
  and also average like sort of basket size as well. Like you have to know in that industry, how much is it going to cost you to acquire a customer? If you've got a $40 product that someone purchases once, or let's say like a $20 product that someone purchases once, I think that that would be insanely difficult. Like I think that's like a mass market strategy, but I think, you know, those are the things that I think,
• 46:22
  In hindsight, I'm really glad that our price point sits where it does and the size of the product is helpful because I feel like that would be super, super challenging.
• 46:31
  Hmm. Yeah. It's so interesting because it's like, you know, all of this stuff just because you've gone into it naively, like you said in the beginning and you've just kind of figured it out. And then, you know, like you're doing that classic entrepreneur, like jankily trying to like figure things out and put it together. Whereas if you're coming into this like really, you know, well-researched and trying to come at it from that different approach, I'm like, how do you actually figure that out from that other approach of being like super creative?
• 46:58
  across everything. I don't know. Do you know? No, I just, no. Like how do people like actually truly understand before they get started? You need a consultant. That's what it is. Well, I think they, they need podcasts like this. Like I always say like, you know, if you can listen to these types of resources, like it's going to, like, it will help you so much, but it's also like
• 47:21
  It's hard because I'm sure anything's possible. Like if you have a good enough idea and like the passion behind it, like you'll make it work and there's always different strategies. So it might be in the exact same way that I've approached my business that wouldn't work for a $20 basket size and a product that you can only buy once. But that product might be amazing to sell into retail or a mass market or something like, you know, where the cost per acquisition is lower because you're going by a different channel. So there's always ways.
• 47:51
  you know, and it's like that product based in a, you know, sort of, yeah, I just think anything do to say e-commerce, like you have to have those sort of key metrics in place to make life easier for yourself. Yeah, absolutely. So at the end of every episode, we wrap up with a series of six quick questions, some of which we might've covered, some of which we might not have, but I ask them all the same. So question number one is what's your why? Why are you doing what you're doing?
• 48:22
  It's so hard to articulate, but I think personally, like I am having like personally, because there's a reason sort of why the business is doing what it's doing and why I'm doing what I'm doing. I think I'm doing what I'm doing because every day I have purpose and I'm excited by my job. And, um,
• 48:41
  I, you know, get out of bed full of ideas and vision. I still have that enthusiasm for the business and I haven't lost that and I love it. So I think, you know, that's really why I'm doing what I'm doing is because I genuinely just have such an enjoyment for it and energy for it. And I get energy out of it as well. So I think every day I'm just driven to, you know.
• 49:02
  be in the business and enjoy it really like for everything that it is and the stage that it's in right now um and so I think yeah the fact that I feel like I have purpose and I'm learning things and I'm you know seeing things come to life like I'm quite a creative person so when I'm able to create and then see everything come to life like I get so much out of it so I think um I've loved this small business you know
• 49:28
  experience has been really hard, but I mean, so rewarding. And I think the reason why TBH, like why, you know, am I investing all this time into this company is because,
• 49:39
  I've had such a personal experience with acne myself and I know the impact that it can have on someone and I know then the impact we can have on customers lives. So, you know, if you can get this product in the hands of someone that needs it and it's able to clear their skin, that does so much more than just clear their skin. Like the effects are like so much more than that. It's confidence. It's like even relationship building, it's social like connection, it's
• 50:06
  mental health like well-being it's so much like yeah the the impact is huge so that's definitely why tbh is in business it always will be why we do the business i love that that's amazing question number two is what's been the number one marketing moment that made the business pop
• 50:29
  I feel like we covered that in it being probably that moment where we were able to secure that partnership with Abby Chatfield and just like the influences in general and then get that media attention going at the same time. So definitely was the number one, I think, point in really breaking through and getting customers. And then once we had the customers, you know, we had before and afters, we had reviews, we had testimonials and it grew, you know, from there. But that first step is very hard.
• 50:57
  Yeah. Question number three is where do you hang out to get smarter? What are you reading or listening to that is worth noting for other founders? Oh, that's a good one. So where do I hang out? We'd say online all the time.
• 51:12
  you know, always like different podcasts to listen to. Yeah. I love the podcast, how I built this, like listening to all of the founders and their journeys and how they navigate through things and their experiences, because almost it, if anything, it just makes you feel less alone. So I think, you know, podcasts and everything like that, I would a hundred percent go to, to make myself smarter. But I think as well, um,
• 51:39
  Books wise, I feel like the one that I would recommend to anyone is Cult Status. I love the book Cult Status. It is phenomenal because it's very like modern and relevant in terms of like how you build a brand in today's landscape and how you can build it for longevity and, you know, trading off like profit and purpose. And I just feel like, yeah, I learned so much reading that book. So I would highly recommend it to anyone thinking of starting their own business.
• 52:07
  And yeah, apart from that, I think, you know, I've met so many great people just by being, you know, a small business myself and connecting with other small business owners. And I think can learn so much from so many people around you. And even, you know, being exposed to people outside of, you know, marketing for me, I've learned so much off my mum in terms of the financial element of it.
• 52:31
  of the business. You know, we've spoken to lawyers through, you know, general business, and I've learned so much off them, like just in all the things that they do and everything that I'm doing day to day in the business is literally an education for me because I've never done this before. So I think I've been lucky to just, you know, the MBA. Yeah, it literally is. So I've just been lucky to get to work, you know, with people as well and learn from their amazing brains.
• 52:59
  I love that. That's so cool. And for everyone listening,