Building Success Stories: Laurie Lancee’s Vini Mini, preventing food allergies for babies!

Laurie Lancee is the founder of Vini Mini. Vini Mini aims to reduce egg and peanut allergies for babies. Laurie’s mission is a fundamentally important one in today’s world. This one-of-a-kind revolutionary brand even has a free and simple test you can take to get a better idea of supplements and foods your baby needs. 

What inspired you to start your own business? And why this business, what drives you?

The mission of Vini Mini is to prevent food allergies. My son Viggo had a life-threatening, severe allergic reaction when he was just 6 months old. By giving him peanuts and nuts in a controlled and dosed way, we managed to prevent him from becoming allergic to those allergens. This experience was life-changing for me and made me decide to leave my corporate job and start Vini Mini. I want to help other parents in this journey and ensure they won’t have to go through such a traumatic experience as I had with my son Viggo.

What are some of the most essential things you did to get your business off the ground?

The first thing I realized when I left the corporate world and entered the start-up world, was that I didn’t like working alone. I was very happy that Jozien Boersma joined as my co-founder, who- next to being one of my good friends for the past 20 years- brought along experience in Sales & Marketing in the baby food category. Next to that, we set up an Advisory Board with experts from the medical, business and foodtech field. I believe having the right team in place is the key to a successful business.

How did you build your customer base and grow your business?

We have joined many consumer fairs, such as the Negenmaandenbeurs. We spoke to many parents to-be and this gave us valuable insight in our proposition and target market.

What are some of the biggest mistakes you made along the way, and what did you learn from them?

In my 2 years in the Vini Mini journey, I have learned more than in my entire/almost 20 years in corporate career. It sounds very cliché, but it is really true: it is a very bumpy ride with many learnings. Small things like packaging errors and items out of stock due to undeliverable resources. But also betting too much on 1 supplier and being too perfectionist about our products, led us to quite some delay in getting our first products in the market. You cannot have a perfect product as a start-up, you have to go out there with your version 1.0 and learn as much as possible; and then you can make improvements. Your perfect doesn’t mean it is perfect to the world!

What is your biggest achievement since founding the company, and how did you get there?

I am very happy to work together with one of my best friends and have a great team of experts in our Advisory Board. The day you have your own product in your hands, gives you really a moment of pride. And every time a parent sends us positive feedback and we have helped in preventing a food allergy in another baby, we are extremely happy!

What advice do you have for other women who want to start their own business?
If you really believe in something: just try it! If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t matter; you can do something else or pivot. You can never lose, only learn!

3 key takeaways

1. Be picky with your team to succeed!

2. Speak with your target community regularly!

3. You can always improve, don’t wait for perfection!

If you’d like to know more information about Vini Mini, click here!