Meet Hawa from the FEM-START Team!
Hi Hawa! We’re thrilled to be chatting with you today. Could you share a little bit about yourself? Hi! I am Hawa, 21 years old
Angela and Cathy Ursem are the founders of Food for Skin. Food for Skin is more than a skincare company. It is born out of two sisters’ mission to revitalize the skincare industry away from waste and pollution. Their brand consists of an upcycling program promising a large impact with minimal products made in the Netherlands. We spoke with Angela about Food for Skin’s mission.
A more sustainable world! 5 years ago, I discovered how ‘ugly’ the beauty industry can be, by adding, for example, consciously microplastics and other nasties that can harm the planet and skincare products. My sister and I decided we had to prove it can be done differently: 100% natural, vegan, made in the Netherlands. After 2,5 years of product development, we launched a skincare line without any nasties!
We didn’t wait until everything was perfect but pre-launched at an early stage to test, get feedback and improve our product, packaging and communication messages, prices, and target audience. We tested everything extensively, collected loads of data and improved along the way. Was it a perfect launch? No, but it gave us the opportunity to learn and grow, and we kept in close communication with our following! It took two years, but now we have a crystal clear positioning which resonates with our customers.
We build our customer base grassroots, one by one. By listening to our customers, by offering happy customers something for their friends to try, by building reviews and by winning multiple awards. This gave consumers the confidence to try a new brand. The strongest marketing a brand could have is word of mouth! It goes slow in the beginning, but when you’re in it for the long run (which we are) it works out like a pebble in a pond.
We faced many problems, like wrong packaging, a webshop that did not work, by trying to do everything at once. We learned, for example, that regarding our distribution strategy, we had to choose. It was simply impossible from the start to focus on our own shop, retailers, etailers, B2B and drop-shipping. We saw opportunities everywhere, but it diluted from the core business. We lowered our expectations and selected a couple of sales channels which gave us the right focus. From there we started growing the business.
We are very proud of our collaborations and certifications with organizations that have the same goal, like with The Plastic Soup Foundation (no microplastics inside) and we recently became a B Corp. Being on a mission-driven journey (to clean up the beauty business), together with like minded companies helps you to keep aiming to fulfil our mission!
Our advice to other women is to stay bootstrapped for as long as you can make it, so you’ll have the time to build a strong and validated business case with loads of data. Don’t start pitching to VC’s too early; you might have to give away too much too soon. Wait until you are sure about your data, until you have a proven business case that can scale! So far, we are still bootstrapped (after 2,5 years) and we might have to collect additional funding in the near future to start scaling abroad, but at this point we have proven we have a validated business case, which would make negotiations way more ‘even’ to us.
Hi Hawa! We’re thrilled to be chatting with you today. Could you share a little bit about yourself? Hi! I am Hawa, 21 years old
Introduction My name is Ayanna Colden, and I am the CEO and Co-founder of Aroma, a 100% natural skincare line. Our mission at Aroma is
Hello Madelief! We’re thrilled to be chatting with you today at FEM-START. Could you share what sparked your entrepreneurial journey and the motivation behind launching
Hello Ery! We’re thrilled to be chatting with you today at FEM-START. Could you share what sparked your entrepreneurial journey and the motivation behind launching
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