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Redefining Teen Beauty Standards with Aaron Chatterley of Indu Beauty · Skin Anarchy

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna feel anybody who's created here because I feel like I'm a little bit teams um right now that are looking for them and they're getting their hands into makeup and beauty products.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't feel like they have enough options that are truly geared towards them.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: So this is why I'm also very excited to host him and to host his brand.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: So without further ado, I want to introduce you guys the co-founder of Hindu Beauty, Erin Kellerly.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the show.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Erin, I'm so excited to host you.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, Nectar.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm equally excited to be here.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, looking at your past guests, I feel a high degree of imposter syndrome, so I'll try not to let you down.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm I'm really honored to host you actually because I know you have such a, you know, such a strong business side to everything, and and the background with business is what I'm so interested in because I like I said, you know, teenage geared beauty right now is like it's just buzzing, right?
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like so many people want to get into this, but it's so hard, I think, you know, from the brand angle, you know, of how to position brands so that they're actually resonating with this demographic, you know, of new beauty consumers that I feel is it's a new demographic, in my opinion.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to dive into that.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: But first, Erin, I would love if you could tell us more about yourself and what really led to the creation of Indo.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so you know, I'm a marketeer by background.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Way back in the early days of the internet, I had an internet marketing and web development business in the sort of late 90s.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so my my original experience was in building commercial websites for other people.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then in 2000, I sold that business.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: And in 2004, I was looking to do something new, but I wanted to do something product side rather than agency side.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was looking at opportunities in Europe because I live in the UK.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I was looking at kind of white spaces in e-commerce, and at the time, which was sort of 2004, there were, you know, Amazon were crushing it on books, and Netaporta were doing a great job on high-end fashion, and you know, certainly in Europe, ASOS were you know starting to own high street fashion.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so we I was looking at what verticals were still available out there and where was there an opportunity.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: And eventually we kind of hit upon beauty.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: And in the beginning of 2005, I found or co-founded a business called Feel Unique, which we launched in October 2005, and we self-funded it.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we never really raised any money.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we built the business up, and by 2021, we were turning over about 120 million pounds.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: We were shipping worldwide.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: Most of our business was in the UK at that point, it was about 70%.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: But we were stocking, you know, close to five, six hundred brands at that point, and we were uh you know a kind of multi-brand retailer, and we sold the business in September of 2021 to Sephora.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: At the time, Sephora viewed the United Kingdom as a kind of really strategic country that at that point they had very little presence in.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um and the best way to sort of gain a you know a fast access to the UK was through acquisition.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we built the business up, you know, like I say, over the previous 15, 16 years.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we had you know brands at the premium level from sort of Chanel and Dior and Charlotte Tilbury and Estee Lauder companies right the way through to Rimmel.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: We had, you know, like a really strong presence in the UK.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: We had a great brand portfolio, we had great relationships with the brands, and you know, fortunately what that you know we were the target that they went after.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I sold the business to them in September, October 2021.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: Just before we'd completed the sale of the company, I have twin 12-year-old daughters.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I'd agreed at that point to stay on with Sephora for a year.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: So, in sort of August of 2021, when we knew the deal was done, but we hadn't yet, you know, gone through the completion phase, I was on holiday with my daughters and I was talking to them about fashion because as a retailer, as a beauty retailer, which is kind of what I was at that point, everybody wants to attract and retain a younger audience because you want to get them early and hopefully keep them as consumers as they grow up and before they go to other retailers.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I was chatting to my kids about fashion because the there's the you know, fashion does that really, really well.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: There are a number of sort of teenage fashion brands that operate specifically, you know, within that demographic.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, even me as a pretty uncool dad, I could name you four or five different fashion brands.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: If you said to me you've got a 14, 15, 16-year-old wants to buy clothing, I can reel off five or six brands.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I was curious from a retail perspective, what are those brands doing so well to engage you as a consumer, to keep you and sort of bring you into their community?
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because I knew that as a retailer of beauty products, the way that we marketed to our audience, which was traditionally probably sort of 18 to 60 odd plus, um teenagers aren't playing in those channels.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they weren't, they're not looking at television advertising, they're looking at looking at print, they're not looking at paid search ads on Google and Facebook and all these places that that we traditionally talk to our consumers.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, how are the fashion brands doing those things?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: And how are they engaging with you?
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: And the answer, as you would expect, was very much around things like YouTube and TikTok.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: But the really key thing for me was the next question that I said that I sort of asked them as we were having this kind of very casual conversation was so as a as a beauty retailer, what do we need to do better?
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: What teenage beauty brands are you guys buying into in the same way that you're buying into these fashion brands?
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: Frankie, one of my daughters, said, Well, there aren't really any teenage beauty brands.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: And without naming names, I, you know, obviously sitting in the industry, I'm like, well, of course there are.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I reeled off, I reeled off a couple and a particular brand, and which is led by a celebrity, and they're like, Yeah, but she's like kind of 20 now, so she's no longer really relevant.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: Then I name A another brand, and they're like, Yeah, it's great, but you know, great moisturizer, great skincare, but they don't really do makeup and they're a bit more Gen Z than teen.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then what we come down to is then, yeah, but that's kind of like pink, fluffy unicorns, and it's too young, or it's too cheap, or it's not good quality.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: And it was clear that there wasn't really a really complete teen offering.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it kind of got me thinking, and I'm sure you must get it yourself, and I know loads of people in the industry have this question regularly.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: I am often asked, I've got a 12, 13, 14, 15-year-old, wants to buy skincare or get into makeup, what brands do you recommend?
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I never have a specific single answer.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: It'll always be well, you could try a CereVay moisturizer, you could get a Toothface mascara, you could get, you know, I'm gonna be piecemealing it together rather than going, oh yeah, this is where you go.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: Go to, in this case, hopefully one day, Indie.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's a teen brand specifically for teenagers.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so there was no like obvious answer.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I so one of my kids, as it was almost as a joke, said, Well, we should start our own now that you know you've you've sold the company.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so what started off as a bit of a joke in a water park in Mallorca, later that day I kind of sat around and thought, do you know what?
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: There actually is something in this.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I sent out a bunch of emails and WhatsApp messages to friends in the industry, and I've been fortunate enough, obviously, as a retailer, to you know, build some great connections with founders of big brands and people in you know lofty positions within some of the bigger beauty companies out there.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so sent out a bunch of emails and said, Look, I've got this idea.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think?
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: And nobody said, You're crazy.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: And quite a few people said, if you do it, I quite like to invest.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: And a few people said like to get involved and join the board.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: So two and a half years ago, we had this crazy idea to develop a brand and a range specifically for teenagers.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, uh October we launched it direct to consumer via our own website, and so far it's going really, really well.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: And in July uh this year, well, we launch exclusively in Sephora stores and online in the UK.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow, that's so exciting! Congratulations for that.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I think it's so interesting that you did this because you know, when I first saw Hindu, I was like, this is very, very interesting to me because I feel like a lot of everything you you mentioned really resonates with me, especially when you mentioned what when your daughter said, you know, well, this isn't really for teens, you know, those people grew up and it's not the same.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that really makes sense because we didn't have that.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when I was growing up, yeah, it was like uh quite a while ago, but we had this whole thing of, okay, we had Avon, you know what I mean?
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: All the moms had Avon and whatever.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then you just, you know, take whatever your mom right, it's still going.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: But I mean, but you take like from your mom, right?
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like you take from her vanity or like you steal from like, you know, your older sister or like whatever, and you just kind of go with that.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the way we discovered beauty.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: But I feel like this generation, it's so interesting to see that they're very like adamant, like, no, we want our own products, we want our own vibe, you know, like we don't want someone else's like whatever they think is cool, you know.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: We want to establish that.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so that that's where I feel like with what you've created, it's very novel because they're you're providing something that I think is not only a new category because, yeah, teenagers need stuff, but I don't think we've seen it before in the beauty industry where there has been such a need, you know, for teenage-specific brands.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's never been such a calling before, I should say, you know, from what I've done.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a couple of really interesting things sort of that follow from that.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: The first is that when we had that original idea, biggest challenge and the biggest worry that I have as a parent is social media and my children's the influence on social media and also the part that the beauty industry plays in that.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because when I when I said to the girls, okay, so if there aren't any beauty brands out there at the moment that are specifically for teenagers, what exactly are you guys using?
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: And this was where the the real kind of like killer moment hits because India pulled out of her little bag uh Too Faced Better Than Sex Mascara.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: And hey, look, it's a great product, you know, it's it's not harming her, the the price is good.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: But at the time she's 12 years old, and I'm like, okay, it's not ideal.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's like I wouldn't choose my kids to take a better-than-sex mascara to school at age 12.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: But it is what it is, and so she so Frankie then goes, Well, I've got this, and she pulls out NARS orgasm blush.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, they were nearly, they were nearly, they were nearly 13, but you know, they're just getting into makeup.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: And and again, I'm like, oh my god, head in hand.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: So as a parent, I'm looking at this going, so now my kids are being marketed to by brands, and they're being faced with this, and it's nothing, it's not a criticism of the brands, but they don't have a choice.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: So the brands that they're having having to buy into, A, are often portrayed in this kind of overly sexualized way, but the imagery and the the social media content and all of the stuff that goes with that, that they're that they're then aspiring to is these this idealized vision of what beautiful is based on 25, 35, you know, 40-year-old women.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: But these are these are teenagers, that they should be celebrated being beautiful as they are without this kind of aspirational idea, which can often be quite damaging.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I've got that.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then when I say to them, okay, so what skincare products are you buying?
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: And and I'm fortunate because my wife, she came from a skincare background, she worked for Clarence.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: So she's very good around making sure they're using the right products.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: But the key thing was like, even back then, two and a half years ago, India said to me, Well, I did see something on TikTok that if I use retinols now while I'm 12, it'll stop me getting wrinkles when I'm 30.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I'm quite keen to learn more.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, oh my god, Indy, I mean, this is madness.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: You don't need to think about these ingredients for another 20 years.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not her fault.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: She's being marketed.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Of course it's not.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: But it comes, then that becomes this whole kind of like, it's not the brand's fault, it's not the kids' fault, it's not the parents' fault, it's just a lack of choice.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: So that's why we had this kind of vision of okay, we need to provide something more holistic.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: It needs to be skincare and makeup, because as much as I didn't want my 12-year-old kids wearing, you know, plea mascara or whatever it was to school, the fact is they do.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I would rather that they had the choice of buying something which was relevant to them.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and obviously, with the potential for kids buying into, and without, and again, without naming specific brands, you know, brands that look super cool and very inviting and you know, that that they shouldn't really be using at this point in time.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: Our timing was just really good because then by the time we launched in October was pretty much around the same time that this whole kind of crazy Sephora teen thing, which frankly is nonsense and not really Sephora's problem alone, because that happens across every retailer.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but then also the the whole kind of you know, the story around teenagers buying into ingredients, which frankly aren't good for them.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: So when we when we set about building, so our timing was just very, very lucky.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: But then when we set about building the company and building the brand, the two things that we took conversations with Sephora, because obviously at the time I had this idea, I was still employed with Sephora, so they were very useful and helpful and resource that we've been able to call upon through the whole development was two things that came out.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: One is that the product has to be amazing and it has to be genuinely designed for teenagers, otherwise it's you know, it's pointless because we can all sell something once with pretty packaging, but selling something that people want to come back again and again for, that's a real challenge.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: And the the second thing, and and it was Artemis Patrick who said it to me at one of the first meetings that we had, she said, This has to be authentic, otherwise, teenagers will smell it and it will die.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: But if you get it right, it could be amazing.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so to that, the first thing that we did before we formulated a single product was we recruited 2,000 teenagers across the UK and the US and spent three months on a sort of deep dive research with them in terms of you know what they liked, what colours, what textures, what smells, how they like packaging, what brands they bought into, even as sort of deep as what music they listened to, what time they went to bed, a whole kind of lifestyle thing.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then we from that we created a sort of subcommittee of what is now 280 teenagers.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: So every decision, every product testing, every formulation, every every texture, every smell, every colour, use of language, tone of voice, you know, the models that we use are all from the committee.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: Everything gets run through that committee.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: So we can kind of hopefully stand behind the narrative of that, you know, it is genuinely an authentic brand that teenagers have played a much bigger part in the development of than, you know, a bunch of grown-ups who put some money in and you know, built a website.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and somebody who's just trying to again market to teenagers, you know, it's not, it's not like that.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's so it's so interesting, everything you said, because I want to kind of go back to that point, you know, about these bigger brands that have these like beautiful products, right?
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, everybody knows about NARS's orgasm blush.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody does, you know, and it's iconic.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: It will always be but it's a great product.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the day, you're right, like the needs, yeah.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: When you're 2025, you're you are working on things like sex appeal and you know, uh appealing to the you know, the person that you really like.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that is a factor that comes in the psychology of those individuals, you know.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: But for I'm not criticizing that.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: And there's nothing to criticize.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're not criticizing them, but at the end of the day, that's a real thing.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like that psychology of why we buy products.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like with teens, that's where I feel like this is so I'm so glad that you did this because we they don't, they're not thinking about that, you know.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Even like a 12-year-old, a 15-year-old is thinking about just looking pretty, right?
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's what I would imagine.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like a like a young girl, and she just wants to pr put on a pretty lip gloss, you know, or like the the glittery makeup or something fun.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that that's such a unique thing, you know?
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's so unique.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: My my girls are almost 15, they're 15 next month, and I really hope you're right about that.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: But I have a horrible feeling that they are.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like every father's thinking a bit more deeply than that.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: But no, you're absolutely right.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: And and the fact is they can still think that way and feel that way and want to look pretty for boys, but they don't have to have kind of sex rammed down their throat with with packaging.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: And they also don't have to, they don't have to look like a 25-year-old who's going to a beautiful restaurant or a nightclub.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: That shouldn't be their ideal of what beautiful is, you know.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: They should just accept that they are gorgeous right now in this moment age, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, you know, without thinking, oh my God, that's what, that's what I need to look like.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you don't.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: You just need to be you.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, that's one thing I wanted to actually really commend you on because I noticed the I noticed the little tiny things.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when I was checking out the products, like for example, like the doe foot, like the applicator for the gloss, right?
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's like smaller, like it's made for them.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's not made for like full-size lips, you know, when you're like 28, 29, like it's really made, like down to the little details of the packaging, you can see that it's specifically for a certain, you know, age group.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's something that they can really actually utilize, you know, it's not just something that's pretty and they'll put it in their bag.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna use it because it's made for them.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: And also another thing I love about you guys is that you're not making teens feel like they need to like immediately jump into like, you know, full makeup, like, you know, cover everything up.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's like all of the things, like all of the offerings are beautiful makeup and it's beautiful litter and stuff, but it's still, you can see yourself through it still, you know, it's still like becomes prepared enough to where it's not like an opaque lipstick, right?
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: That you're putting on and it's just too much.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I just think it's just so classic, you know, how you approach this.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I really, it shows, it really shows how much homework went into this brand.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I'm really, I commend you because this is such a unique category.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's so new and it's always growing.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: And to speak on a little bit more on your point you had made, when it comes to this whole topic of what teens like, I think we also have to keep in mind like the safety of things.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you had brought it up, retinol, and I completely agree with you.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it scares me to think that young kids are using some of the ingredients that we have in our more clinically geared skincare products, you know what I mean?
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: And because they have acne, that's the biggest thing.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where I get scared because I'm like, they're so easy to market to because they're going through things like developing acne for the first time, seeing that on their face, trying to find a solution.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that is like, when I think about it, I'm like, gosh, this could mess up someone's skin barrier so badly, you know, for the long run.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: If no one intervenes, donors and yeah, it's crazy.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: They don't need that.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: So so what we did though was when we thought about the skincare range, the first thing I did when I kind of put the business together was I recruited a bunch of advisors to join an advisory board.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: So we had, you know, we had a really famous makeup artist over here who helped us kind of formulate and come up with some of the ideas about that.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: We had, you know, some great people in e-commerce and in retail.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: But skincare was really, really important because obviously, especially as a parent, you know, I'm yeah, I'm probably but a bit kind of overly protective of my daughters, but I'm very, very conscious about what they put on their skin and the fact that it's being ingested.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, ultimately, there's so much that could potentially harm them that they don't need to have.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I asked a friend of mine who was one of the founders of Elemis to join our advisory board, um, Noella, and she did.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so she helped us kind of think about how we position the skincare range, and she helped us to recruit a guy called Jan Kasmirik, who is a really, really wise old sort of cosmetic scientist in the UK.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: And he basically, he's the brains behind quite a lot of Elemitis hero products.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: He's the guy that went out and found the specific algae for their pro collagen cream.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he is a really an absolute legend in the skincare industry.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: So he he worked with us for the first sort of year and a half on designing the skincare range.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: But the the approach that he took from day one was that we need to accept that actually teenage skin is as healthy as it's ever going to be.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: There has the most elasticity, it has the most collagen.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the difficulty with teenage skin is that it's very subjective, it's very subjective to hormonal, environmental, and other impacts.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: So we want to create a range which is aimed at is rebalancing it rather than hitting it with harsh ingredients.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: Skincare was designed specifically for teen skin, but also, you know, very much around rebalancing some of those harsh external impacts on it.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that that is that is the way to go.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I've been working on like a this is my own personal thing that we're we're working on some things for the safe seal and that we have a team seal.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things is like we had consulted like a pediatric dermatologist and stuff, and some of the things that you know were mentioned were some of the most obvious things, right?
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm you had brought up retinol and like you know harsh acids is another one right so that's like some of these things just shouldn't be used and so when I look at teenage products like you know in Sephora or in any retailer I'm always like or not teenage products but product that you think a teenager would buy you know what I mean I'm always looking for that and I and I I'll tell you right now you know Aaron I use like one of Indus products I actually use on the daily is the cleansing pads from your skincare range.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god you know what so many so many of parents have been like rebuying them but my daughter's best friend's mother she buys them all the time they are really cool though they're they're great and like they're I was using the products in the skincare and I was like this is actually really brilliant because it's good for everybody you know what I mean like when you go gentle with skincare you're not doing anything that's can't be used by everybody.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know if you need like a routine like kind of maintenance that you can if you're a parent and your and your child is you know buying the products you can use them too.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: They're really really good for you.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: So you know it's more of an I think an a question of what is safe right at this point in our industry and bringing that safety forward and I think you guys have just done it so beautifully and elegant in an elegant way that I I really see why teens are gravitating you know towards this because it's not something also it's like from the education side I don't think they care about all these different ingredients.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean that correct me if I'm wrong but I don't remember the last time a 15 year old chimed in on one of our education posts, you know what I mean and said, tell me more about you know Mendelic acid like they don't care.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: They just want something that works for them, right?
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean that's what I would assume.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah and and I think you're right it's like it's it's it's quite interesting because obviously we've we've spent a lot we spend a lot of time with teens we have we have somebody whose full-time job is interacting on sort of a four or five times a week basis with the committee through this kind of online digital platform that that we have.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I think we kind of they're no different to any other demographic you you know there are there are a small number of probably ingredient geeks within there but there are certainly no more no more of them are teenagers than would be 25 35 45 year olds.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's just I think it's if if that's something that you're super interested in in with so to answer your question yes the bulk of them care more about you know the the overall efficacy of the product and also I think the sort of validation that it's not doing them any harm.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: For us you know the difficulty that we had from day one not difficulty but the challenge that we had to overcome was we had to create something like the fashion brands do that teenagers think is cool and works and that they could afford and it was good quality but at the same time as a parent I'm I'm cool with it.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: Now the danger there is that if I'm too cool with it, the kids aren't going to want it as a parent.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: But it's more often than not it's the parent who will just do the digging online and and just make sure it doesn't contain anything harmful.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: So often I think the sort of deeper science the deeper science exploration bit is more people like me who are helicopter parents and you know overbearing yeah they they want to know they want to know everything's good.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean I that makes sense and you know it what's interesting is that there's been such a a a shift in the generations too I mean I feel like you know I'm in the millennial generation and I feel like a lot of my friends you know that I grew up with they have kids now and they're like always very um you know and this is I like this is that they're very like proactive about not stopping kids from exploring as much as we were stopping you know when we were growing up and I really like that.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think that kids should be encouraged like yeah play with makeup go ahead you know play around have you know explore and I think that's something that is such a beautiful thing to have now in our culture you know as we keep going forward and to have a brand that really celebrates that and offers those options.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean I can't tell you how brilliant I think the whole customizable palette portion is that you guys have created with the makeup but yeah it's great.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean when I think of kids I think of you know they're always changing they always want you know something different every day.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: And there's this for everyone listening I mean you if you haven't experienced the products yet they there's a beautiful offering in Indus lineup where you can change out the little pans you know of eyeshadow and like you know bronzer or whatever you can switch them out and it you know kind of snaps into place on the palette.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's so great, you know, and the way that you can kind of attach your lip glosses on there it becomes a little package and you can they can throw that in their backpack.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: They can take it with them on like sleepovers like that is so cool.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know I feel like if I was a teenager I'd be all over this you know immediately.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: So that that's a really it's a really great point that you raised there because and and and it goes back to actually when you talking about the doe foot and you were talking about the sizes of the the products and everything.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: That all goes back to that before we did anything we spoke to and I think this is a really important lesson for anyone who's considering launching any kind of brand before we did anything we spent like in this case three three months talking to 2000 teenagers about what they wanted and why they wanted it.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: And that that went beyond just I would like an XYZ it was like how would you like the packaging?
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know how would it be useful to you for you to be able to attach your lip gloss to your rucksack and you know collect all these things and and a lot of the the innovation that that I think we ended up with beyond the formulations themselves which are specifically you know very specific was was around how we package it.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: So the size of the the sizes of some of the products are a bit smaller normally because teenagers will by definition they will contaminate it they will lose it they will get aboard of something more quickly that you know they'll want to change it more quickly.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: So making smaller making smaller sizes but obviously slightly less money um or a lower price meant that they would have that flexibility a bit more and the whole kind of customizable palette again came from you know conversations with teenagers about how are they using products you know what would they like to be able to take with them became clear that they wanted a degree of flexibility.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: And that's really kind of where a lot of that innovation stemmed from having those long conversations with you know our specific audience because what was really interesting was a lot of the things that we were putting to kids kids teenagers a lot of the questions that we were asking you know and we were a group of you know industry experts let's call us that you know most of us have been in the beauty industry for a long long time and we went often went in with preconceived ideas going oh well oh my god they're gonna love this because this is brilliant you know there might be three or four there might be three or four options but we think they're gonna absolutely nail this one and the reality is is we were often wrong and actually what they wanted was quite removed from what we thought they would want.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's a really important lesson not just for teenagers but for any kind of market research or you know um product research group is talk to your actual audience and you know don't make those assumptions because you'll often I'm sure be surprised but especially when you're working with a demographic which is kind of you know outside of the norm.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: That makes sense no that makes it actually it's fascinating that you know you guys did this because I think that research I mean that I'm a firm believer and as a scientist research is always at the forefront for me.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know it's like you got to do your research.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't know where you know you don't know where you're going you don't know what's gonna come from it you have to actually dig in and ask questions and you have to look before you create and that's something you know Aaron I really want to actually kind of pick your brain about this because you know every day there's a new beauty brand these days.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know every single day I see something new whether it's skincare, beauty and one of my biggest questions is truly like you know what do you think people need to just know before they embark on this journey because I think like it's this I don't know there's something going on right now where I think everyone thinks okay if nothing else works I'm gonna start a beauty brand and I feel like that's the worst thing you could possibly think, right?
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: I mean it's a lot of work from what I take, you know, I can take away from all of my podcasts.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I would love for you to speak a little bit on that in in terms of like what you think is like fundamentals, you know, that before you go on this journey that you need.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think there are there are two really important sort of points I can make around it.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: And that's and it's a great question because I come at it from a slightly different background and then my background was as a retailer.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: So you know to your to your audience I I the the business that I ran was kind of like Sephora but in the UK.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: So we were a multi-brand retailer.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: I probably saw 10 to 30 new brands a month would approach us for a listing in another capacity I also you know I've invested in a number of beauty brands over the years.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: I also see a lot of beauty brands looking for investment and as a retailer when a brand would approach us you know and generally we'd get a brand deck and if it was vaguely interesting that we'd we would sort of sit down with them and talk to them and get a pitch and but as a retailer I'm always thinking how do we merch if we take this brand on how do we merchandise it because just listing it on its own is not going to be enough you know we need to know how we position this brand how do we talk to our consumers about this brand which of our consumers do we talk to about this brand what's the point of difference and all too often it's it's too ambiguous.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know it's like well we're a we're an avocado based vegan millennial brand it's like well that's great but you know what there are another 300 millennial brands out there that might not be using avocados but they're using something else potentially you know unusual or whatever it is.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like how do you pitch this to your audience and all too often your audience is going to be a retailer or it's going to be a consumer and so so what is it that that your brand does that that does make it different and I think you know and I've had we've had loads of ideas about beauty brands over the years and I think the reason that we decided to go ahead and execute in do was because it's a really simple proposition.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's a teenage beauty brand.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: So when we sort of talk to retailers which obviously we're going through that whole thing ourselves it's very easy for them to understand and go, oh yeah, okay I know exactly what that is and I know exactly who my audience is and how we pitch it.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that that's that's a really important thing is think about how can it be merchandise, how can it be presented to the outside world.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: I want to ask you though while you said that because you know one thing I I've noticed and this is something obviously you did this you know with Indo where you did this like kind of aerial view and you looked at it from an area like where are we like this is an actual missing it's a white space it's a true white space in the industry right now.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: But I feel like sometimes it could be hard right for entrepreneurs to be like is this really a white space you know or am I just making it a white space like that's another like it's a big question I think that needs to be addressed is this idea of like when do you and how do you really take a minute and figure out am I really like dissecting something or am I looking at it from a broader sense, you know, and analyzing if this is even necessary.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know I said this before I feel like there's a lot of packaging in our industry now and not as many new ideas.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where I'm like where do we like stop that cycle and you know I don't want to stop anybody obviously you know from doing what they love but you do have to evaluate right at one point am I really addressing a need here?
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: So that's my question like how do we do that?
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: What's your process I guess?
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: So my process might be different from most other people's in that as an entrepreneur and obviously having worked in the beauty industry for entrepreneurs I've had lots of ideas for all sorts of things and including you know some some beauty ideas over the years.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: And what invariably happens for me and don't get me wrong I still have amazing ideas but but the process is that you have an amazing idea and at the time for five minutes it's amazing.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_01: And what happens is over a period of time and that might be a matter of minutes or it might be a matter of days or maybe weeks but most of the time you have this brilliant idea and it kind of tracks your enthusiasm for it usually tracks down because I think if you're sensible about this and you don't allow yourself to be married to the idea you're open to being objective what happens for me is that I have a brilliant idea and then over a period of time I might realize that actually oh well there's a bit more competition than I thought or you know the cost of goods are going to be way more than we thought about that or this is going to be really hard to market in some way or consumers just aren't going to maybe buy into it as much.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: So the idea often tracks slowly down to the point where you forgot it ever happened.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I've forgotten about most of my amazing ideas.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: But every so often it was certainly the case with Feel unique you have an idea and the reverse happens you go oh my god I've got this great idea and then you do a bit of research and it's like oh well actually do you know what there's less competition than I thought there was and talking to you know you know straw polar potential consumers people might actually buy it and you asking yourself these questions and then suddenly you find yourself I found myself at the point where I've gone oh my god this is so good that we can't that we can't not do it and that was definitely the case with Indy because it was I was so excited by it and getting so much validation from research and from talking to people that I thought if we don't do this it is gonna happen.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know it is going to happen but I was just very very fortunate with our timing in that I had daughters who were buying into the industry at that point.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: I was facing those challenges that are now at the forefront of a lot of people's minds two and a half years ago and the idea kind of came at the right time.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you know there's going to be a lot of brands coming along beside and behind INDU for sure.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: But the but the great thing is I think and you also need to obviously as well you need to think about the size of the pool that you're about to go and play in because as I said you know we're fortunate in that we have a tight demographic of sort of six years whereas you know a Gen Z brand has got a demographic of 12, 13 years the difference is although we've got a tighter demographic to talk to there are probably I could count on one hand the real competitors that we have right now.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas if I was launching a Gen Z brand into a demographic of 13 14 years there will be for most beauty brands, you know, two or three hundred competitors out there right now.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's a very valid point actually because I I feel like Gen Z just kind of they came into the scene and I feel like everybody just started marketing everything to Gen Z.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so you're right there's just I think I can't think of a single brand right now that isn't really marketing to Gen Z.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know so that's that's a great point.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry we're generation agnostic.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: We are not a Gen Alpha brand.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: We are a teen brand.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: So we're a demographic brand not a generational brand.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's actually one of my questions for you too is this idea of because I feel like what you've created is not just right now, the teens love it right now.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's more of like it's gonna keep being something that teens love for many years to come because it's the brand the look the feel the the details everything it is so easy to evolve it with time you know and so I guess my question is like what are you what is your vision for the future you know once the 12 and the 15 year olds right now you know they go and move on how do we get it and they will and that's great.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_01: And we want them to you know and hey don't get me wrong my kids are now nearly 15.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: They are I'm not gonna say they're beauty junkies but they're lucky that that you know kind of myself and your mother sort of worked in the industry.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: So they have access to a lot of the products they're really into skincare they're really into colour and they still buy into a whole bunch of other brands as well as Hindu.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: No consumer only buys single brand that just doesn't happen anymore.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: My kids probably both use seven or eight Hindu products each and some of them cross over and some of them don't but to answer your question how do we remain relevant and that's again where two things two things happened.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: One is we took a lot of influence for how some of those fashion brands like Hollister and subdued and brandy Melville how do they do it and it's very much around community it's very much around involving teenagers in all of your decision making.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: So we now have this committee of 280 and even after only six months of trading some of them are aging out but we're recruiting new ones every day that are coming in at the kind of you know 12, 13 year old level so all of those decisions that we're making is we still have this kind of relevant community but then we have a much wider now fan base and that will continue to happen you know so the hope and you know only time will tell whether we get this right is that by continuing to kind of engage with teenagers and on all aspects of the business that's how we stay relevant.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: And the brand will evolve and you know we have a lot of NPD coming through we have some great new products and you know we have an SPF launching soon.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: We we just launched liquid eyeshadows we've got some lovely milks coming out in the next couple of weeks um you know the whole NPD process is very much driven by what they're asking for what they want what they think they want obviously alongside the kind of industry experts that we have in-house.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: I love that you know the whole idea is so cool and I I really love that you're you're doing this and you're creating true options you know for our youth I just I can't commend you enough for doing this.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for sharing.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think that anytime that someone really fills a white space it's really you know something that we need to look at.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I really feel that with Indu.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean like I said the products are I I feel like they're just as much for the parents as they are for the kids you know and they're really really um versatile and you know the way that things are kind of interchangeable and they're yeah it's very functional and it's just amazing.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah I really applaud you Aaron and I wish you guys nothing but huge success, you know, because you deserve it we've got a lot of work to do yet.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: No I'm I'm really excited about it.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really I hope our our listeners for any of you tuning in that have kids or you know any nieces and nephews I know that I'm gonna be definitely recommending this to a lot of my um patients like they're always asking me because they discover that I have a podcast and like oh tell me what I should tell my child to use for you and I'm I know I'm gonna be yeah I mean it's it's something that I think we can all relate to.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: We all have a teenager in our life in some way.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know it's like they are they are here and we have to we have a responsibility to provide actual real options to them.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: I really believe that I don't think it's fair to just kind of turn a blind's eye and pretend like it doesn't exist.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what I mean?
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's just like that doesn't seem fair to me.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: But thank you so much Aaron this is such an honor thank you.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 41:13
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• 41:23
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• 41:45
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• 42:20
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