Tell us about KIND-LY’s product range?
KIND-LY offers an award-winning 100% Natural Deodorant range, made from only natural and organic ingredients. Our liquid roll-on deodorant is also enriched with probiotics and magnesium – the only brand on Australian shelves to offer this combination – and is vegan, cruelty-free and Aussie made. We also have an innovative product called The Armpit Detox, which is similar to a mud mask product for the face, but it goes on the pits! The Armpit Detox is designed to draw out impurities, clear skin and assist with the transition to natural deodorant. This was created as the switch to natural can be less than pleasant for some people, as the body can take some time to full-adjust to a natural deodorant after many years of using pore-clogging aluminium-based antiperspirants.
What inspired you to start KIND-LY?
The need for an all-natural deodorant that was both effective, fun and convenient was what inspired me to start KIND-LY. Over many years, I was successfully able to find natural options to replace the majority of my skincare and household cleaning products, but the elusive product in all of that was deodorant. Quite simply, the few options available on the market at the time were terrible and did not work. Gradually as the years went by and natural ingredient options improved, so to did the available options for natural deodorant, but I still couldn’t find my perfect match. Most of the early natural deodorants were a paste option that came in a jar and required application by hand, which certainly was not my idea of fun or a convenient option which would encourage me to switch from the regular supermarket antiperspirants! Further, as a woman who is very much into beauty and fashion, I found that none of the natural deodorant brands spoke to me as a consumer. They were either boring and played it safe with their branding or were aimed at sporty people participating in triathlons every weekend. In starting KIND-LY I thought ‘deodorant should be something we can have a bit of fun with, can look good and sit proudly next to our other beauty products and still be effective and easy to use’.
Tell us about your career background?
My career background has spanned several different industries – from an events and promotions manager to working in television and film as presenter and producer. I think the common link between all those previous roles and my current one heading up KIND-LY, is that they’ve all involved a good amount of organisation, creativity, planning and managing a team of people with individual responsibilities to deliver a result.
Describe what a typical work day looks like for you?
Currently as a one-woman business, I do wear many ‘work’ hats during a typical day! A good portion of my day is spent on the computer responding to emails from customers, suppliers and our stockists. I also handle all of our social media posting and interaction on a daily basis. All customer orders through our website also currently get packed and dispatched by me, as to do all the wholesale orders sent to our distributor and stockists. In between all of that, I work on new product development for our future product launches which involves co-ordinating artwork and packaging requirements, product samples and just generally ensuring we have enough inventory of existing products (which is always a struggle!). On weekends you’ll most likely find me catching up on work from home or taking KIND-LY on the road to exhibit at an event, market or trade show which is a wonderful way to increase our brand awareness and meet our KIND-LY tribe in person.
What advice do you have for those wanting to start a business?
The best and simplest piece of advice I could give, is to just start! Start with whatever you have available to you at the time. There will never be the perfect conditions or an unlimited amount of money (usually!) and there is only so far that talking about an idea and asking advice from other people will get you. It’s usually a fear of things not being perfect and being judged that is the biggest killer of dreams and the hardest hurdle to overcome in starting anything. But, I’ve learned as long as you’re moving forward, no matter how small the progress may seem, you’ll be so much further ahead of anyone else still sitting at the starting line.
What are some of the hurdles you had to overcome in launching KIND-LY?
The major hurdles we’ve encountered since launch relate mainly to brand awareness and ensuring people know that we exist and have amazing products! That will always be somewhat of a struggle when advertising budgets are limited and you’re in a very competitive product category which is controlled by a couple of major industry players who spend literally hundreds of millions of dollars every year on advertising. It does force you to be more creative with how you advertise, how you position the brand and identify your point of difference as in indie brand that the big boys can’t compete with.
The other major hurdle is a common one that the majority of startups will face at some point, and that is the cashflow needed to scale up the business. This becomes particularly evident when you’re in a product based business that requires inventory to sell. When you’re selling products faster than you can manufacture a new batch and have products out of stock, it’s quite stressful, but I’m sure some will say it’s a good problem to have! Even so, if you want to scale your business, supply to larger stores and start to export your product, you do require deeper on-hand inventory levels, which of course requires more funds upfront to produce larger manufacturing orders!
What’s next for you, and the brand KIND-LY in 2020?
I predict that 2020 is going to be a big year for KIND-LY! We’ve been gradually making in-roads by increasing our brand awareness with consumers and have been receiving amazing reviews from our customers who have been loving our products. We’re launching a new deodorant product very shortly that will be an Australian first and are also launching with some great retailer partners in 2020 which will be fantastic for the brand. I hope to also see our presence in the USA grow as well by securing a large US retail partner.
