Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / Who should be your first hire? What’s your funding plan? Dr Lisa Creaven shares her top advice from building Spotlight Oral

Transcript

Who should be your first hire? What’s your funding plan? Dr Lisa Creaven shares her top advice from building Spotlight Oral · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Lisa Craven for Female Startup Club.
• 0:13
  Hello and welcome back to the show. It's Dune here, your host and hype girl. Today we're learning from Lisa Craven, one of the co-founders of Spotlight, which is built alongside her sister Vanessa. Spotlight, if you don't know, is a dentist-created oral care brand made with the highest efficacy ingredients to put a smile on people's faces for joy, confidence and positivity. Hello.
• 0:38
  Now, something I didn't know is that the mouth is actually 50 times more absorbent than the skin. So what you put in your mouth is extremely important. Spotlight puts a huge focus in educating people around this message and has been disrupting the industry ever since they launched.
• 0:56
  This episode was super insightful. I learned a thing or two that I didn't know before. And we chat about her funding plan in the beginning and the approach she took with macro influencers as well as her retail strategy. And another piece of gold you'll hear in the episode is around their first hire and important advice for other entrepreneurs tuning in.
• 1:18
  If you haven't signed up for our newsletter yet, make sure you check it out. I'm telling you, it is so good. Obviously, I'm biased, but truly, it's great. People tell me. So if you're interested in entrepreneurship and women in business, just in general, it is for you. You don't have to be an entrepreneur, just interested. You can sign up at femalestartupclub.com and pop your email in there. It is totally free and goes out every Monday. Happy listening. This is Lisa for Female Startup Club.
• 1:48
  Lisa, hello. Welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here. I'm so excited to be here too. Super excited to learn from you. Where are you, by the way? Are you in Ireland? I'm actually in Ireland. Yeah. So I think after COVID and everything, we've settled in Ireland, but we have to do so much traveling. So it has been lovely to just be a little bit quieter in terms of traveling. So yes, we're in Ireland for now.
• 2:18
  Have you been based there for most of the business or were you living somewhere else and you've moved back? So we have actually been based here in Ireland, but it's funny, just before COVID hit, my sister, another co-founder, she was actually moving to New York. But then COVID hit and she decided to stay in Ireland throughout that. So we'll definitely keep an eye on things in terms of where it's best to be located. But for now, we are in Ireland.
• 2:46
  Yeah, I think that's so interesting because, and I guess this would be the same for you, I'm looking to build this brand. You know, I'm based in the UK, but we're looking to build more of a US focused brand. And I always wonder what that looks like, you know, when you're actually not on the ground and whether you have to be there a lot for it to work or whether you can just truly be remote and it's not a big deal or, you know, what the vibe is.
• 3:11
  And I think the landscape has totally changed in that regard over the last 18 months. I think while I am really looking forward to being back in the US, I think it also depends totally where your focus is. If it's D to C, I feel like that can be, it's a little bit more possible remote. I think if you have a retail focus, I think you need to be on the ground more and picking up.
• 3:35
  what's happening in the retail space a little bit more. So it's totally dependent on your business, totally dependent on your distribution or what channels you're focusing on and also where your team is based. And I feel like obviously over the past two years, how we are building our teams has fundamentally changed also. Where is your team?
• 3:56
  So our team is actually based across Ireland, the UK, somewhere in mainland Europe and somewhere in the US. So it's very global. It has been a really good experience. And again, while I feel like you need that kind of certain skill set in like a US retail base and team are in the US, obviously. And some of our DTC and our key DTC players are in Europe. So yeah.
• 4:23
  Yeah, it's been interesting trying to navigate that building a team, building a best in class team while also being a global company. Yeah. And I mean, you guys are absolutely killing it. So it's amazing to see just how possible it is to be so global and all over the place instead of the traditional everyone under one roof and within the same kind of driving distance to each other.
• 4:49
  Totally. I think it's been really interesting. And I think, you know, even we had one of our first team meetups last week in Ireland. And a lot of people travel obviously from the US and from, you know, Germany and different places in Europe.
• 5:05
  I think it's really important for team members to still meet each other and to connect. But I think there's a lot more opportunity for growing a remote team. And I think we're still really figuring it out. But it's actually been really positive so far. That's super cool. Before we get into it, I just wanted to ask you a personal question. As I know you're a dentist, what is your opinion on folks going to Turkey to change their teeth?
• 5:34
  Oh, we're going down a rabbit hole. I'm like super interested to know the professional opinion. Oh, totally. I am a dentist and I have done so much cosmetic work over the years. And I think really what it's about is I think the day where everybody had to get, you know, the,
• 5:54
  all veneers on their top teeth and all veneers on their lower teeth. I think that's really becoming a thing of the past. I know now we use a lot more orthodontic options like Invisalign, and then we might do some bonding or more conservative cosmetic treatment options. And while veneers are an amazing option,
• 6:14
  What I would say is oftentimes I could have a patient who comes into me and says, look, I want to have my front 16th veneers. I say, OK, perfect. This is what it would look like. This is, you know, what I would think. And I would say either you need or I agree you need six. Actually, no, you need four. Actually, you need 12. But I almost always see when someone travels abroad that the person who needed four veneers or six veneers literally gets 20 veneers.
• 6:40
  So for me, it's about over treatment. You know, you're getting veneers on back teeth and all this kind of crazy treatment that was never necessary. I think there are fantastic clinics abroad. But I also think there's a lot of over treatment. And I think that there is a lot of work that comes back to haunt you. So the thing with dentistry is you can put veneers on a patient and almost everything will work for two years, no matter if you did it with your eyes closed.
• 7:08
  But will your veneers last for 15 years? And when you go to replace, you know, are you have you set that patient up for success for their lifetime? Because obviously a person is not wanting to get veneers for 10 years and then lose their teeth, you know, which you often see. And I've literally taken off people's veneers that I've had them done abroad.
• 7:28
  So a lot of overtreatment, a lot of treatment that isn't thinking about the long term outcome of that patient's teeth. And that's the most important thing. And I think we have fantastic treatment options now for more conservative ways rather than typically that crown or veneer from ear to ear approach.
• 7:48
  Yeah, I mean, TikTok just blows my mind. I see these kind of things that I just didn't know about before and I just didn't know that that was a thing. I always just thought like some people had really perfect teeth and that I wasn't one of them. And I don't know, I'm just like...
• 8:04
  holy shit, like you changed all of your teeth. And, you know, when you see the before and after, sometimes I'm like, but your teeth were really good before. I don't understand. But yeah, then I also understand that like self-esteem and you want perfect teeth. And of course, we live in this age of social media where, you know, I would say my teeth are pretty good, but of course I would love to have shiny, white, pearly teeth.
• 8:26
  But yeah, it's it like kind of blows my mind. A real issue I have with that cosmetic aspect of dentistry is that almost everyone does not feel represented when they look at a perfect smile. You know, that people feel like, oh, that's not me. And I think that there there needs to be a move towards individuality in oral care and oral beauty, because it's.
• 8:51
  you know, recommending everybody to get 12 veneers is not a good idea. And I agree with you. Often you see people who are pretty perfect teeth get pretty extensive, you know, dental treatment. And which could be totally right for that individual. And that's what they want. And I get it. But I think that level of aspiration in terms of what your teeth should look like, it just doesn't, it doesn't suit almost like a lot of people, you know,
• 9:21
  Yeah, totally. I like what you're saying about that representation thing. I had like this, who was it? It was a dentist and he dropped into my DMs to be like, oh, you never smile with your teeth. Like, do you want to come in for a consultation? Because I can see that you're not smiling. And I was like, yeah, I never smile with my teeth because I don't know, they just aren't like super white and all that kind of stuff.
• 9:43
  So I forced myself to start smiling with teeth and to be more like, okay, well, I've just got to like put myself out there and like smile with teeth. So now I try my best to do a bit of a mix of both.
• 9:54
  Yeah. And I think that's that message of what is that perfect smile. And I really have a bugbear. It's a bugbear of mine that, you know, normal smiles because, you know, your family or your friends will look at you and love your smile. And because your smile is actually beautiful. And just because you feel like your smile isn't the smile that is on.
• 10:15
  a big ad or, you know, it doesn't mean that it's not beautiful, you know, and it doesn't mean that it's not unique. And also there's so much that makes a smile beautiful. It's not just that uniformity and like that one size fits all. It's individual. It's also genetic. And it's also, you know,
• 10:32
  your face, your growth, you know, it's a huge amount of how your whole like skull basically is formed. So it's not just that kind of blanket approach. And I think that there needs to be more movement towards individuality in oral beauty, because like every other aspect of oral beauty, it's individual and should be.
• 10:54
  celebrated in that way. Yes, gosh, totally. Oh my goodness. Let's dive into the actual business side of things. How do you like to introduce your business? What is your elevator pitch? My name is Lisa Craven. I am one of the co-founders and I'm the CMO in Spotlight Oral Care. And Spotlight Oral Care is really the product of Vanessa and I. We are sisters in dentists. We worked together in practice and really it is in response to
• 11:23
  a disconnection that we felt was apparent between what we knew to be true as dentists and what products were available for our customers and our patients to buy in pharmacy and beauty stores. And I think, you know, as dentists, everything we do is based on science, on data, on research. And we're really trying to create clinical outcomes, whether that be health or beauty. The great thing about having a beautiful smile is that you cannot have a beautiful smile unless it is healthy.
• 11:53
  You know, you have to have healthy gums, healthy teeth for it to be beautiful. And so really, when we looked at the oral care market, you see two main options. You've got your mass market products, those huge brands. But to me, as a dentist, they sell this message of one size fits all. So it's like bright white smile, minty fresh. And they haven't innovated in any meaningful way over the past 20 years. Like you're still buying the same toothpaste your parents bought.
• 12:22
  And there's been very, very little innovation, you know, and actually you don't buy the same shampoo that your parents bought 30 years ago. You don't need the same food. You don't use the same, you know, cosmetics or makeup. You don't use the same skincare or you don't have the same approach. And then you use the same toothpaste. And then also, why is it that we're told to use the same toothpaste from two all the way through your life? You know, oral health, like any other aspect of health, is dynamic. Yeah.
• 12:51
  It's individual. It changes throughout your life. And you should be using products that target your needs. So those huge players, a lot of those companies still test on animals unnecessarily. They still contain animal byproducts. They are almost entirely unrecyclable. So they're made from the cheapest type of plastic.
• 13:09
  So if you imagine how common a billion toothpaste tubes end up in landfill alone in the US every year. So any toothpaste tube that has been made in the last 50 years is still in our planet somewhere.
• 13:24
  And so, you know, we in Spotlight, we have recyclable toothpaste tubes. We do not test on animals. We're animal cruelty free, vegan friendly. And we create products that target your individual needs. So whether you have bad breath or you have chipping teeth or they're wearing or you want to whiten your teeth. So there are really results focused products that are really cleanly formulated and that are ethically and sustainably made.
• 13:50
  Wow. You just told me so many things that I didn't know besides the recycling aspect. I knew that one. But that's crazy. I didn't know that toothpaste brands tested on animals. Mm hmm.
• 14:05
  Gross. I know. It's totally unnecessary. Like, honestly, up until not that long ago in Europe, there used to be little tiny bits of plastic in your toothpaste. The microplastics, I remember. Yeah. And why? Because they were a bulking agent. Because it was cheap.
• 14:23
  And so actually, when you look at toothpaste, it's one of the lowest quality products that you use typically, in my opinion. And when you think about it, the lining of your mouth is 50 times more absorbent than your skin.
• 14:39
  So if you're careful about what you eat and what products you use on your body and your children, you should be thinking about what your toothpaste, because it's literally a product you use twice a day for your whole life. You know, there's things like that are in your antifreeze in your car is still in toothpaste. You know, it's really, really lacks any innovation. And so we were looking at the products and Vanessa and I, we're trained actually to quite a high level in terms of product formulation as dentists, because we use a lot of materials quite frequently.
• 15:08
  first in material science, you know, we really looked at what ingredients were there. And actually, we couldn't believe it. Like as dentists, we did not know that the brands that we had been recommending for 10 years contained all this rubbish ingredients and ingredients that are totally unnecessary. And so we wanted to clean it up and create like clean oral care. But then I have it also have an issue with natural products. So your alternative to these huge brands are natural products that don't contain any active ingredients.
• 15:36
  As dentists, we don't recommend natural products. We see a practical rise in oral disease if you start using fluoride-free products or natural products. They simply don't work. Is that like charcoal-based products? Is that an example? Exactly. Or anything that says natural, it basically means there's no fluoride or active ingredients. And fluoride is one of the only ingredients that has been proven to reduce decay, to reverse decay, and to prevent future cavities and decay.
• 16:05
  Charcoal is actually so typical because charcoal is a real example of how oral care to date is really trend led. So charcoal is an abrasive element that has been added to some toothpaste with, you know, supposedly whitening benefits. There's no clinical research to show that charcoal whitens teeth. In fact, charcoal is an abrasive. It wears your enamel away, ironically, making your teeth darker over time.
• 16:33
  So it's not only does it doesn't work, it's actually bad for your teeth. Your teeth will be whiter if you don't use it. No dentist recommends charcoal. And if I had one billboard, you know, that's what I would say. Do not use charcoal to face. It's so bad for you. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, you need to put that on a billboard. That sounds pretty important.
• 16:50
  Wow. Holy moly. Okay. So you're a dentist, your sister's a dentist. It makes total sense that you would bring these kinds of products to the market. How did you actually get started? I think I read you launched around 2016. What was that time like? Can you paint a picture of the kind of key steps you needed to bring the brand to life, needed to do?
• 17:13
  And really what we focused on at the very beginning was what our patients were looking for the most. So obviously whitening and whitening products are really, really popular. But would you believe when we looked at the market in Europe, there were no whitening products on the market that actually contained any active ingredient that could possibly whiten your teeth?
• 17:33
  I feel like when you're starting a company, you've got major advantages and major disadvantages. And our advantage was we knew exactly what we wanted in the product, what we didn't want in the product. We knew exactly how the delivery system should be and how to get clinical results. As dentists, this is what we're trained to know. So that aspect of the business is what we really focused on creating. It took us about, honestly, about 18 months to create our first product product.
• 18:01
  And we launched with one product for our own patients in our practice. We trialed lots of different formulations, lots of different mode of deliveries, and we settled on our whitening strips that have an active ingredient that is peroxide based that achieves whitening results. And it's specifically designed for sensitive teeth.
• 18:21
  So again, for us, it was like looking at our customer base and finding out, like looking and finding out, OK, what is the barrier? What is the pain point in dentistry? What is the most requested treatment and why do people have issues with it? So whitening is one of the most requested treatments in dentistry. What are the major barriers? It costs a lot of money to have your teeth whitened at the dentist.
• 18:44
  Also, any whitening you do wears off. So when you start drinking tea and coffee and you eat curries and drink red wine, all whitening treatments wear off. It's not permanent. And so you have to repeat it. And there's a huge movement away from using really high concentration whitening products to using lower concentration products more often. And so we could see that clinically. That's where the move was happening. And so we wanted to bring this.
• 19:10
  in a product for our customers and our patients to use in the comfort of their own home that was specifically designed for sensitive teeth. So if you have sensitivity and you bite your teeth before, you know the pain that comes with that. And also at an affordable price because you're going to have to repeat it. So we wanted it to be accessible and affordable for our customers. So there were things that we really focused on that were, you know,
• 19:35
  we had to achieve. It had to be an affordable price. It had to be suitable for sensitive teeth. And it had to be easy to use. And those are the three things that we looked at. Obviously, it had to work. But the three kind of surrounding aspects of the product were really important to us. And we really focused on that for two years and created a product that worked. And I think that that's really important and sometimes is not focused on enough, but creating a product that actually creates results is super important.
• 20:06
  When you say there was nothing in the market in Europe before these, is that because it was like a legalities issue or like what was the reason there was nothing on the market? Because when I think of these kind of products, I think of in America like Crest. I think it's called Crest whitening strips. But in the UK, they, as far as I was aware, like years ago, they didn't have anything similar. And I'm wondering why.
• 20:31
  So in the US, there are products like Crest, but they have varying levels of active ingredient. I'll kind of explain it to you this way. So as a dentist, you are allowed to prescribe a certain percentage in your practice that you can kind of stand over and make sure that everything is safe. A lot of times in Crest, those products, they contain double the concentration, if not triple the concentration that I'm legally allowed to provide as a dentist.
• 21:00
  And so that's where the issue comes in sensitivity and discomfort. So a lot of times there's a lot more that goes into bringing a product to market that has an active ingredient. Ironically, it's easier to bring a product to market that has nothing in it because regulatory bodies are not looking at it so closely. It's probably easier to bring a charcoal product to market than it is a peroxide based product.
• 21:25
  But, you know, as dentists, we were really determined that, you know, we have science and research on our behalf. And we went through all the legal requirements that we had to to show that it was safe and show that it was at the appropriate level, that it wasn't going to damage anybody's teeth. And that was really important to us because we didn't want to add additional nonsense conversation into a topic that we already felt was.
• 21:51
  pretty lacking any true evidence and data. So we wanted to create best in class products. And that for us has to be peroxide based when it comes to whitening your teeth. So interesting. I'm wondering about, you said a moment ago, you spent about 18 months or two years in development working through, you know, iterations of your product until you could get to your final formula. When I hear that, it makes me feel like, okay, that sounds expensive.
• 22:17
  expensive. You know, I'm going through R&D at the moment for our non-alcoholic wine company, and it's obviously a lot of ongoing costs. And now when we look at our minimum order to bring one SKU into the world, it's like 45,000 for that one SKU. And so it's shifted our thinking in terms of like, okay, we were going to bootstrap originally, but now we're like, okay, maybe we need to rethink the financial side of things. Right.
• 22:42
  For you in the beginning, how were you thinking about the financial side of the business and how were you going to fund it?
• 22:49
  So I think it's like it's a really difficult part at the beginning. For us, we each put a small-ish amount of money in. So there's three founders. We each put about €30,000 in, which is a lot of money. But at the same time, it actually allowed us to bootstrap the company for the first three years. I think at the beginning, you can do a lot that doesn't cost a lot.
• 23:13
  I mean, we brought one product to market at the start. There's a lot of back and forth in terms of making sure that product is perfect, but it wasn't necessarily a really expensive process to make sure that the product is perfect. I mean, I think what's really important is making sure that your manufacturers and your partners are really aligned in terms of what you're trying to achieve.
• 23:42
  to bend the rules a little bit. Maybe it's, you know, slightly reduced initial order. Maybe it's more favorable payment terms. You're not going to win every battle, but I think that they need to be on your side. And I think that they need to know who you are and to talk to you. And I honestly,
• 24:00
  You know, huge companies, huge manufacturing companies, they they want to help smaller brands because actually smaller brands do all the heavy lifting in terms of changing an industry. Actually, it's in their benefit to work with smaller brands because they will see, OK, this is actually something new. I can I can see where the market is going and it actually informs their own NPT.
• 24:22
  So I think being really transparent, being really open. And, you know, I think that there's so much to figure out at the start. If you can bootstrap it like I personally think that's a fantastic way, because I do think and we have been through and raised finance. And to be honest, we've had a fantastic experience. And I know a lot of people don't necessarily have good experience, but, you know, there's different elements that that will influence then how the how the company grows.
• 24:49
  And so I think at the beginning, you have to really stay true to who your customer is and what you're trying to provide that customer in terms of product or service. And there's a lot to figure out. And I think you need time and space to.
• 25:05
  to do that correctly. And I think if you have an investor, it depends on the investor. Like they really need to allow you that time and space to grow. And having said that, I would say do not spend a lot of money at the start until you've figured out the correct offering. I mean, we've changed our packaging two or three times and we're only five years old.
• 25:26
  And so that's an expensive process. But, you know, you have to iterate. You know, you're never going to get everything right. So there's a balance of just get out there and get started. But try and do it as quickly as you can, because you'll probably do like a lot of stuff wrong and that you have to figure it out. And you don't want to have invested a huge amount of money in something that you're going to change already.
• 25:45
  Yes, so true. So true. Wow. I can't believe you bootstrapped for three years on that. And I think I read you did something like 20 million in the last financial year. That's just such a great achievement. And I know you said you've raised and I've read about it online, but still, wow, that's incredible.
• 26:03
  Could we talk about that, you know, first 12 months, maybe the second 12 months, what you were specifically doing to find and acquire your first kind of loyal customers, maybe your first thousand, for example?
• 26:17
  I think what we really focused on was who was our customer and where is our customer? And a lot of times people will say to us, oh, you know, your competition is Crest or Moon by Kendall Jenner.
• 26:34
  And typically our customers actually, our customer is not in the market to either buy this toothpaste or this toothpaste or this whitening system or this whitening system. Our customer is normally in the market for our product or the latest mascara.
• 26:50
  So from very early on, we tried to establish ourselves in terms of our marketing and messaging. Yes, to stay very true to who we are in terms of we're created by dentists. You know, we're creating products that work that are going to create clinical results, but are very beauty focused. Yeah.
• 27:10
  And so we approached any marketing that we did like a beauty brand because we know we have the oral care aspect sorted. We are dentists. I know my product is the best, but I know who my customer. I had a good feeling and my sister, we both had a good feeling about who our customer was and what they were likely to be buying if they weren't buying our product.
• 27:39
  conveyed who we actually were as a brand, if that makes sense. So I think that your customer isn't necessarily making the most linear decisions. And you have to be aware that it's a huge world and people are being exposed to so many marketing messages. And oral care is actually beauty industry. And
• 28:00
  You know, even selecting the retailers you're going to like we our first retail partnership in the US was Ulta. It wasn't a pharmacy, it was Ulta. And that was really important to us because we believe that we are a beauty brand, an oral beauty brand and not overly clinical. So we didn't go initially down the pharmacy route. So it was really looking at your customer experience.
• 28:24
  from quite a high level and seeing what they're buying and where they're spending their time and their focus also. Were you focusing more on the retail side of the business in the very beginning, or were you focused more on direct-to-consumer through your own channels? So for the first year, we really focused on retail. We launched in Ireland and the UK through different pharmacy channels.
• 28:48
  So like Boots and different pharmacy channels in Ireland also. We've always had a relatively strong enough direct-to-consumer business. So initially it was about 70% retail and 30% direct-to-consumer.
• 29:04
  And now we're 60% direct to consumer, 40% retail. And we focused on retail partnerships that really made sense. So pharmacy, where the retailer could do that education piece also. And we supported them a lot with educational material. So why are we different now?
• 29:23
  And in pharmacy, in that channel, you have a great opportunity to educate and to drive awareness of oral health, not just our products, but oral health. And as dentists, that's kind of low hanging fruit for us because pharmacists and chemists understand formulation and they immediately understand why we're better when they speak to us. So we go with what's easier at the beginning. Where do you feel like your brand is actually going to get success?
• 29:49
  And then we also did a lot of we worked with a lot of influencers at the start also just to drive that brand awareness and that kind of DTC sales. So that's what we did in the initial year. So really focusing on influencer marketing just to get the name out there and then also establishing those retail connections because they can take some time to take off also. So, you know, that takes time to get into retailers and time.
• 30:15
  for you to organise your logistics and those aspects to support retail.
• 30:20
  That's so interesting. I have two follow-up questions around budgets for what you've just said, both on the retail side and your D2C side. When it comes to you being a new brand in the market and, you know, you're bootstrapping, you obviously don't have the same kind of budgets as someone like Colgate if they're to release a new product and, you know, go crazy. When you work with a company like Boots, which is nationwide in the UK, I'm sure it's, you
• 30:48
  What is the kind of working capital you need to be able to support that partnership through marketing? And are you able to kind of share a little bit about how that kind of relationship works for smaller brands? I think that it can be very overwhelming, but I think that the reason that Boots is so successful is because it works to support brands also. So there are opportunities to support your brand within retailers.
• 31:16
  I think you should be picking a retailer that your customer is going into. So you should be picking a retailer that you know your customer is going to discover. And I think Boots is a very good example of that. Customers go to Boots to discover beauty and new products. And it's not about replenishment so much as discovery. So that's really important when you're looking at retailer partnerships,
• 31:37
  why is your customer going there? Are they going to spend an extra few minutes discovering a new product or a brand? And do they have the support in, you know, in store to help a new brand? I think booths are very sensible in their approach. Also, they tend to roll out new products by store count. And I think that
• 31:59
  You, again, be transparent with your buyer. Maybe you want to start with a lower number of stores and you want to figure out, okay, what seems to move the dial? And then how can you work with booths
• 32:11
  to show success. And I think you can start small. Maybe it's more promotional activity that you can absorb through your margins and get product into customers' hands, you know, and trial and pick and choose your activations. And again, the great thing at the start is when you don't have a huge amount of brand awareness,
• 32:31
  and you do an activation and you monitor it and you see, okay, that actually worked. Or we saw in that area rise in sales. You can start to figure out, okay, what works, what doesn't work. I think, you know, always be aware of how much money you're spending and just don't overspend. Test it. It's a long-term partnership.
• 32:52
  And I think if you do good work in terms of education and awareness, and if you've been lucky enough to have a retailer that supports that education and knowledge, that goes a long way to establish early success. And I think it's important that you look at it like that. It's a long term relationship. You do have to invest and little small things we would have done are discounts in store.
• 33:15
  asking your buyer, okay, what activations can we avail of? Like what has proven to be successful, you know, in your store? Also, it's very simple things like where are you on shelf? Is it really clear? Is your branding super, super clear? And one thing maybe we definitely could have done better at the start is when you have a product, bring it into a store and put it on the shelf and then walk away and then walk back. You know, you could be that crazy person in the store
• 33:45
  Does it look right? Does it stand out? What is the message that you need to put there to make it stand out against other products? That's a very basic thing you can do. That's about, you know, looking at your branding in a really objective way.
• 34:01
  Yes, that is so important. And I think making sure that you're a, you know, different to what's around you and be easily able to kind of like hook someone in, especially from afar that they'll be like, Oh, what's that? That looks really interesting.
• 34:16
  My second follow-up question from before was around your influencer marketing strategy in the beginning. Obviously, again, new brand, you probably don't have huge budgets for marketing. How many influencers were you gifting for that successful kind of brand awareness piece and what you considered successful?
• 34:37
  Yeah. And I think, you know, we've we've tried a lot of different methods and approaches when it comes to influencer marketing. I think at the beginning when we launched, we went with more like bigger influencers, more macro. So maybe like half a million followers to two million followers.
• 34:56
  And I think, honestly, even over five years, the influencer, that aspect of the market has changed hugely. I think it was actually quite successful in terms of building brand awareness. And I think that how you approach influencer marketing, you learn so much and you can you can lose a lot of money and it can be expensive. Yeah.
• 35:17
  I think now, if I was starting again, I would definitely look more at micro influencers and smaller influencers and obviously looking for engagement. I still think that larger influencers are impactful. They just drive that brand awareness. But I.
• 35:35
  I know with obviously recent updates, you can't track everything, but I still think that if you pull back too much, you need to have some driver to your website. You need to have some brand awareness piece out there that is driving traffic, driving awareness. And really, when you look across the different options, I still think macro influencers are a reasonable choice, you know,
• 36:02
  Mm hmm. Yeah, still beneficial in the kind of influencer piece, for sure, especially when it comes to things like TikTok. I feel like TikTok is just driving so much, you know, viral moments and brand awareness and things like that for all sorts of brands at the moment.
• 36:19
  TikTok is honestly is incredible. And I think that it's something that, you know, new brands in particular should lean into because I think we're the number one oral care brand on TikTok. And we've gone viral a number of times. And honestly, it's the most simple thing sometimes to go viral. Like I think the first video that went viral was a girl commenting on the color of her teeth.
• 36:40
  and she didn't feel like her teeth were white enough. And I stitched to it and I said, look, the color of people's teeth is totally different. It differs between people and it's individual. Brushing your teeth will not change the color. You need to actually change the shade of your tooth. And the only way you do that is peroxide products. But it was more focused on a real personal moment for that girl where she was not feeling represented in terms of what her teeth looked like
• 37:09
  in color wise and people have different color teeth. It's just nature. We have different color skin, different color hair, different color teeth. That's not normal. And you never hear people talk about that. But a lot of people very pertinent to your initial conversation or part of our conversation are,
• 37:24
  People don't feel represented by that. And so that went viral because it was a moment and it was a real, real moment for that person. And I think if you are a brand with something to say, I think TikTok is amazing because there's a lot of brands. A lot of the older, bigger brands have no place on TikTok because...
• 37:44
  they're not necessarily doing everything the right way. And, and they're not necessarily providing the most value. I would say that TikTok is literally, I think it's so focused on fun, but also education and information. And, you know, I,
• 38:00
  I've commented and done loads of videos on trends in oral care that are really popular. So I think TikTok is an amazing platform. And I think working with influencers on TikTok is a really good option for smaller brands also, because it has that. They're micro influencers. They're on the platform. And it's a really good way of engaging with micro influencers.
• 38:20
  in a very meaningful way. So I think if you know, that could be a really good option for smaller brands starting out also. So yeah, I love TikTok. I mean, I love TikTok too. It's so great. Besides TikTok, what are the kind of channels that are really performing for you at the moment and kind of, you know, fueling your growth?
• 38:39
  I think that again, if you are brand something to say and an education piece, I think like your email, like so your CRM, your email SMS is very important. And so we put a lot of effort and we put a lot of focus in terms of driving more leads and creating a more meaningful and larger database of customers. I mean, for us, there's an education piece that has to be done.
• 39:06
  Most people don't know that, you know, products are still tested on animals. Most people don't know that you shouldn't be using charcoal or if you want to. This is why you should use a sonic toothbrush. This is actually the clinical benefits. This is actually the science behind it. Most people don't know that. So we really use our email channel to drive awareness and education and to create loyalty and.
• 39:28
  I think that's really, really important. I think it's going to become even more important over the next year. I think it's that real value that you're offering your your customers. I think that's really, really important. So I think our email and our SMS is very important for us as a channel.
• 39:45
  I'm hearing SMS marketing coming up a lot now in these conversations and that it's really kind of the thing of the now to be making sure you're active on and kind of utilizing that.
• 39:59
  Who was your first hire and was it a good choice? Oh, she was a fantastic choice because she's still with us to this day. She's an amazing girl called Aisling. And actually, that's a really good point because we started obviously with Vanessa and I, we made our product and then we were working and started.
• 40:17
  Sending our products at lunchtime and in the evening. So when it came time to hire our first team member, you know, we definitely took on Ashton who had a creative background, but more generalist. So you need someone who can get stuff done. You know, like she was so amazing as, you know, bringing a little bit more structure to what we were doing, you know, sharing.
• 40:42
  getting the logistics sorted out, making sure that, you know, any issues were being dealt with. I mean, now we have 50 team members, so it's a different kind of situation. But Aisling has now moved through the company and is now very much an important part of our NPD process. So I think taking on somebody who's really organized, who is very accountable, very responsible, who gets stuff done, who figures it out, doesn't necessarily need to have...
• 41:11
  although she had an amazing creative background, doesn't necessarily need to have like a specific skill set. I always think accounts is very helpful. But yeah, like an all rounder to start, I think is really important. And then as you grow, you just need more specific skills
• 41:28
  um, hires and more specific team members to take more things in house and to focus on more channels and more, uh, more aspects of the business as you grow. Yeah. I love that. A generalist. Very cool. What is your best piece of advice for entrepreneurs who are earlier on in the journey coming into 2022?
• 41:52
  I think that e-commerce and business in general is changing so much all the time. It's changing for everyone. And, you know, whether you're I mean, we're still very much in startup mode. You know, you really have to be agile and adapt to,
• 42:09
  you know, starting out, you are the most agile when you're starting out. So you can be the first person to jump on TikTok and own that space, you know. I think just keep moving, keep staying in the game and be practical and,
• 42:24
  You know, and you don't need to know the most about everything. You need to make informed decisions, but you need to just keep moving forward. You know, like you don't have to be the smartest person in the room. People are more than capable of doing it, but it's just a thousand little challenges all the time. And so while people interact with the brand and might feel like it's seamless, there's so much going on in the background that is not seamless. Yeah.
• 42:51
  And that, you know, is going wrong. And you've got freight and logistics and iOS updates and growing a team and it's not office based. And, you know, you're growing or growing across three different regions with different suppliers, distribution and regulation. And every business has that amount of complexity when you get into it and you grow. So you just keep moving forward, just keep going forward.
• 43:16
  If you have to change something, change it. You know, it's not failure. You just have to keep moving forward. Thank you so much. Great advice. We wrap up every episode with a series of six quick questions, some of which we might have covered, some of which we might not have, but I ask them all the same. Question number one is what's your why? Why are you doing what you're doing?
• 43:40
  Because I fundamentally think that the oral care industry needs to be innovated. It is a disgrace at the moment, and I feel honestly a responsibility to innovate, to change and to create more sustainable, more ethically minded products that are actually going to create value and clinical difference in our customer and our patients lives.
• 44:01
  A hundred percent. What a great mission. Question number two is what has been the number one marketing moment that made the business pop? Yeah.
• 44:11
  I think the number one marketing moment, honestly, is going viral on TikTok has really helped us in terms of to pick a moment. I think marketing can often feel like it needs to be a moment when very much is about strategy and layering those strategies, layering those channels and being more efficient and growing carefully. But our standout moment in terms of marketing was going viral on TikTok.
• 44:37
  I saw one of your recent viral moments that had something like 5 million views on it. So cool. Gosh, that must be so exciting. Yeah, it's amazing. It's amazing for the brand. And like, it's just, it's so much fun too. And like, that's, you have to have a little bit of fun when you're working because it's what keeps you going. For sure. For sure. I've got to enjoy the journey. Question number three is where do you hang out to get smarter? What are you reading or listening to that we should know about?
• 45:07
  I am listening to a lot of podcasts like this amazing podcast. I think I'm always learning and I think that you can take it for granted. There's a lot of really good newsletters that I subscribe to in the industry. LinkedIn.
• 45:22
  I like the D2C newsletter. It's very succinct. It's really on it. And it's quite critical as well, which I like. I look at these amazing brands and they're like, oh, but they could have done this or they could have done that. And I think like just...
• 45:37
  understanding that actually probably part of your role as a founder in particular is to learn because things are changing so much that you need to be learning for your company to adapt quickly and to see opportunities before the next brand does. I will link that newsletter in the show notes for anyone who wants to check it out. It's a really good one. I am also subscribed.
• 46:01
  Question number four is how do you win the day? What are your AM or PM rituals and habits that keep you feeling happy and motivated and successful? I have four children, so I have to get up really early to get some exercise done. So I find exercise really important for me because it really focuses my mind. It gives me clarity that I wouldn't have otherwise, and it gives me a little bit of time for myself. So I try to get up before my children to do it.
• 46:31
  a little bit of exercise. It's not anything crazy. But you know what? It gives me a sense of control of the day that I've decided to get up at this time and I'm not being woken or, you know, my day hasn't been set off by somebody else. This is my time. And then I can kind of hit the ground running. I like to go to bed early and I like to read. There are very simple things throughout my day, but at nighttime I read. I don't look at my phone. I just read. Love it. I'm trying to be better with that too.
• 47:00
  Question number five is if you were given $1,000 of no strings attached grant money, where would you spend that in the business? What is the most important spend of a dollar for you?
• 47:12
  I think especially at the beginning, I would get your product into as many hands as possible. So whether that's sampling, some guerrilla marketing, get out there, get your product into people's hands and ask their opinion. What did you find? What did you like? What didn't you like? And invite criticism, you know, welcome critique, because you're very likely going to have to iterate and change, whether it's your messaging, your packaging. So get it into people's hands and figure out what's working, what's not working.
• 47:41
  And question number six, last question is how do you deal with failure? What's your mindset when things don't go to plan? I think it's very easy to focus on failure and we very rarely focus on little successes and, you know, very similar to your question. There's tends to be very few standout moments of success. Um, but you, you recognize the failures. Oh, so quickly, you know, um,
• 48:06
  So I think keeping a little bit of fun and keeping things, you know, light and moving forward, keep going, just keep going, because it's not about getting everything right. You're never going to get everything right. And I heard this this advice before. Someone said, like, you're not going to make all the decisions right. It's just important to make the decisions and keep moving forward because you'll figure it out.
• 48:29
  And so have a bit of fun. You know, I have my sister as my co-founder. So we have fun. You know, we don't take everything so, so seriously. And I think that, you know, there is no one way. There's no one way that suits every brand. Every brand is different. Every customer is different. You know, so there's 10 ways to skin a cat. And you have to approach it like that because you will find a way that works for your business and your style and your customer.
• 48:58
  And so it's individual and you can only take so much from other people. Lisa, thank you so much for coming on the show today and sharing your insights with us and your story and all things to do with your brand. This was super, super cool. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. It was so much fun.
• 49:22
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 49:47
  And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
• 50:09
  As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that. Thank you.
• 50:26
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 50:51
  And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
• 51:13
  As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show, and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that.