Curie founder Sarah Moret on leveraging QVC to be a national brand

0:03Hello, thanks for tuning in to the Modern Retail Podcast.

0:30listening and enjoy. We have our next session today. I am really excited. This is a founder I've known for a few years, Sarah Moray, who is the founder and CEO of Curie, and she is going to be talking about leveraging digital buzz to build brand awareness. So Sarah, please come on up to the stage.

0:54All right. Thank you, Sarah, for joining us. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited. Yeah. So for people who have never heard about Curie, can you talk a little bit about the brand, how you came up with the idea for it? Yes. So we started about four years ago. Curie really started out as a side hustle. I bootstrapped my company, started with one product, our aluminum free deodorant. At the time, I was super active. I was running marathons, not so much anymore, but at the time, I was running marathons, and I just could not find an aluminum free deodorant that worked for me. I was making the switch to clean products.

1:36Like many people, I wanted to use better products that weren't full of chemicals and toxins, but I also wasn't willing to make a sacrifice. And I realized that was the case for a lot of people. And there was still just this struggle of finding something that, you know, had good ingredients but also worked and could last all day. And so that was really the inspiration for my brand, Curie. We started with our aluminum-free deodorant stick, launched that about four years ago. And since then, we've expanded into just clean body care with our delicious signature scents. Yeah. Yeah. And so if I remember correctly, I first talked to you in 2020 after the pandemic hit.

2:22And so you had, I mean, you had a very interesting year one growth strategy. The pandemic kind of put a wrench in that. But kind of what was your plan initially to build brand awareness? Yeah. So COVID really put a wrench in things. I'm not sure if anyone was following the news, but one of the product lines that was impacted by the COVID lockdown most dramatically was deodorant. So people stopped buying deodorant at the beginning of lockdown. Which is a little horrifying. I know. I guess people were at home and they figured they can hop in the shower and they don't have to wear deodorant anymore.

2:59But I was wearing deodorant. A lot of people stopped wearing deodorant. And we felt that impact almost immediately. I think it was like March 15th or something, 2020, our revenue just fell off a cliff. At the time, we only had one product, our aluminum-free deodorant. And it was terrifying. I was, at the time, we were, you know, we were bootstrapped. It was me and my sister. And I was like, this is it. This is like, it's over. I don't know how we're going to survive this if this lockdown continues. And when I say it fell off a cliff, like our revenue, we were losing subscribers, like canceling left and right.

3:38People just stopped buying deodorant overnight. So I knew that if we were going to survive, we had to come up with another solution. We had to pivot. So we had already started working on our hydrating hand sanitizer prior to COVID. We had planned to launch that in October. We were going to be rolling out, you know, our spray deodorant and then next was going to be the hydrating hand sanitizer. So I called up our manufacturer and was like, can we make this now instead of October? And so we moved mountains. I was on the phone with manufacturers in China trying to track down bottles because that was the most difficult part.

4:15And finding bottles at the time was impossible. So I was calling factories at like two in the morning, be like, can we, any extra that you have, we will take them. I don't care what they look like. We'll slap a label on them. And we developed our product and launched it in May. And that single-handedly saved my company. We sold over 100 ,000 bottles of hand sanitizer in those first two months. And that really just continued through 2020. And I think that's when we first spoke. Yeah. The irony is now that product is discontinued. Yeah. So we talked about that. But it saved us at the time. Yeah.

4:51And, you know, so obviously it brought in cash, but did it also help you, the fact that you had hand sanitizer, how did it help you build awareness and other avenues? Yeah, it definitely brought us a lot of new customers and new brand awareness. We launched a hand sanitizer when there was a, you know, worldwide hand sanitizer shortage, first of all. Second of all, there were memes about how hand sanitizer all of a sudden smelled like cheap tequila because all these brands were capitalizing on this opportunity and using really not great ingredients. And we were using premium ingredients. We were using clean ingredients.

5:29We put hyaluronic acid, prickly pear seed oil, glycerin. It was almost like a lotion slash hand sanitizer. We put our signature scents in it. We put it in a beautiful bottle, and we had this premium offering at a time where most of the products were like, you know, remember the liquid one? Yeah, I've been on the risk of bad hand sanitizer. There was a lot of bad hand sanitizer out there. So we just right place, right time, came in with a premium offering. That got us on the shelves at Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's, and Anthropologie all within six months. Prior to that, we were just D to C. So that, I think, was the biggest impact, was not only did we acquire a ton of new customers because of all the great press we got, but we also got on the shelves of these retailers that I had been dying to get into.

6:20And we were front and center. You walk in the door at Nordstrom. We were on a tower. So it kind of helped get our foot in the door in these retailers that, like I said, now we don't even sell the product, but we are still in those retailers with our deodorants because we were successful. Yeah, that's pretty incredible. Another big moment for your company was when you were on Shark Tank. So tell us more about, I think I've read a little bit about the origin story, but like how you got on Shark Tank. This would be like an hour conversation to hear the whole story. You can watch our episode and get part of it.

6:55Basically, I was a stand-in for Shark Tank. I was based in L.A. at the time. They told me, you know, if there's extra space this season, because you live 15 minutes from the studio, we might call you up and give you maybe an hour or two notice. So just, like, be near your phone for the next two weeks. And so that's what I did. I just hoped and prayed that I would get that chance. I prepared as though I was going on, and then I just had to sit tight and wait for my phone to ring. And it rang while I was on the top of a mountain hiking with my husband and some friends. Not showered, like covered in dirt, Griffith Park, which is super dusty.

7:38They called me. We flew down the mountain, drove home. I didn't even shower. Like, it was a great product plug. Yeah, great product plug. I used her deodorant spray and just like spritzed myself, did my makeup in the passenger seat of the car and got dropped off at the studio and got swept right onto the floor of Shark Tank. And that was one of the craziest experiences of my life. But, you know, we ended up getting a deal. Yeah, so spoiler alert. Spoiler alert. You didn't see it. We got a deal. But, yeah, so obviously you got cash from or an investment from Shark Tank. You know, you got the brand awareness of being on TV.

8:17I'm sure sales flooded in. But just overall, how would you say being on Shark Tank helped your business? Shark Tank, I think it's a business we've had. And I was reflecting on this actually on the way here. I was like, what have been the biggest inflection points in my journey running Curie these last four years? I would say the first one was the hand sanitizer during COVID moment because that was my first experience in, you know, wow, this is what product market fit feels like. This is what it feels like when you have a product that people really, really want and need. It was like we couldn't make enough inventory.

8:54That was our biggest issue. And that was, I guess, my first taste in what that feels like. And prior to that, I had just been slogging along, showing modest growth but nothing crazy. And that was like, boom, okay, this is what it feels like to get that hockey stick growth. The second inflection point was QVC. We aired on QVC for the first time in 2021. I've now been on air 15, 20 times, and that's really changed my business. And then the third and biggest inflection point was Shark Tank. Shark Tank will change your business essentially overnight. You know, the night of, you get a big pop of sales.

9:38I think we did like a couple hundred thousand dollars that night. But it really is the gift that keeps on giving. We aired a year ago, and we are still consistently getting new customers from Shark Tank. They're watching it on Hulu. They're watching it on YouTube. We're able to, you know, say, as seen on Shark Tank, which goes a long way. And there's just this virality with Shark Tank that I've never experienced. And I'm not sure it even exists through other channels where you get this free exposure. You're exposed to millions of people. It's a 10-minute commercial about you, your brand. You can spin that story and guide that story as much as you want in the Shark Tank.

10:27Nothing is scripted. And that has been, I would say, the single most impactful thing that's really catapulted the business. We have grown over 10x since we aired on Shark Tank. That's incredible. Did you make any changes to your website before the show aired or even during repeat viewings? I know that brings in a lot of sales as well. kind of how do you optimize for the person who is just going to discover you on Shark Tank, immediately go to your website? Like kind of what have you found, what information have you found you needed or product pages to guide them toward a sale? Yeah. So I got, I think one of my superpowers is, is networking and I have no shame just, you know, cold emailing someone, DMing someone on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and asking for advice.

11:20So I did a lot of that prior to airing on Shark Tank. So I really gathered all of that advice from other people that had gone on Shark Tank, put together a little guide. You know, my team, we did so much work to our website. We basically relaunched an entirely new website before we aired on Shark Tank. Kind of risky. I think we launched it like five days before we aired. Risky is the way to do it sometimes. It was a good bet. But we did a lot to prepare on our website, creating bundles, creating Shark Tank offers. Shark Tank viewers love a deal. Really, I think the key was optimizing our website for someone watching Shark Tank that's like rabidly shopping because these Shark Tank viewers know that products sell out on Shark Tank.

12:08So when they are watching the show, they are like, add to cart, like check out. and they want to do it as quickly as possible. So we optimized the website for that. Like, what is the easy? We don't want them to have to think. We don't want them to have to select a scent or do any reading. We want it to be super simple, two-click checkout. So that was the biggest thing. But I actually ended up putting together a guide. If anyone goes on Shark Tank, I'm happy to share it with you. I just put a Google Doc together that I've shared on Twitter before that is, I think, like 25 things that we did to prepare for our Shark Tank airing.

12:44Nice. Another thing you mentioned, a big kind of growth moment for you, was going on QVC, been on there many times now. So first of all, what have you found makes a good QVC pitch? So QVC does a training. They do a two-day training before you go on air, where they train you up, you know, not only on who their customer is, but it's sales training. They teach you how to sell your product, how to speak in front of a camera, how to be persuasive. And that was the two, like that was like a little mini MBA. Yeah, that's incredible. It was really interesting. They focus a lot on the psychology and all that.

13:26So QVC has taught me, obviously it's brought us lots of new customers and revenue, but I think the coolest thing that I've taken away from QVC is, one, it's taught me how to talk about our products, how to talk about rather than I think before QVC, we would be like, we're aluminum free. We have clean ingredients. We're made with coconut oil and arrowroot powder. What QVC taught me is nobody really cares about the features of your product. They care about what it's going to do for them. Like inherently, we're all just buying products for that. We're buying products for ourselves. Like we want to know what is this going to do for me?

14:06And so it really shifted the way that I talk about my brand and talk about my products away from just listing out attributes to instead being like, hey, we use arrowroot powder. If you ever get, you know, sweat stains on your underarms or your T-shirts, this ingredient is going to help you with that. Or we use coconut oil. If you ever get razor burn or rashes, like this ingredient is super soothing and it's going to help keep your skin moisturized. So really framing everything is like, how is it going to help the consumer, the person watching? So it's not only helped me be successful in QVC, but we've taken a lot of that learnings and applied them to our social media ads, like our website.

14:51And that, I think, has been the biggest takeaway from QVC is learning how to sell and how to appeal to what people are looking for when they're shopping for products. Mm-hmm. So QVC is also pretty frenzied. I haven't watched it actually in many years. But from what I understand, you know, it's you, there's a deal you can get within this limited time. So it's like, it's chaos. Buy quickly, buy quickly. But how do you, do you do anything else to, you know, if a person discovers you on QVC to kind of get them to come back or like capture their interest in any way? How do you think about that? So unfortunately, they don't share customer information.

15:33So that's one of the downsides of QVC, of Amazon, of these channels that you don't own is that you don't usually get access to your customer list. So we can't retarget QVC customers in any way. Really the only way that we can even tell if we're acquiring new customers from QVC to our website is by looking at our post-purchase survey. We do get quite a bump when we air on QVC. So it does have a halo effect. We see a bump on Amazon, on our website, but we can't remarket to those customers. So we kind of just have to hope that QVC is doing that. But I think one of the things that I've learned and that I kind of caution other brands about is that most QVC customers are very loyal to QVC.

16:21So most of those customers, if they are going to repurchase your product, they're going to repurchase it through QVC. They're not going to come to your website. So that was one of the biggest learnings and cautions that I give other brands is prepare yourself for that. It's not going to have as big of an impact on your D2C business or your Amazon business as you would think having that much. Again, it's millions of people watching, but they all shop on QVC and most of them really only want to shop on QVC. So it is challenging because QVC debt, you do take quite a margin hit when you sell on QVC.

17:00So when you're thinking about going on the show, you really have to think about long term. Okay, we're not only going to be discounting our products that in that time frame that we're airing, we also need to expect ongoing sales on QVC.com going forward. And are we okay with that. Can our merge and support that. Yeah, double-edged sword. Yeah. Another thing that I think you've done that's really interesting, you have partnerships with SoulCycle and Equinox. My roommate actually said, oh yeah, I've heard of Curie. I saw it in SoulCycle. Can you talk more about why did you pursue those partnerships, first of all, and kind of how they came to be?

17:39Yeah, so actually we might have talked about that when we met in 2020. So we had, at the beginning of the pandemic, we were just about to launch our spray deodorant. So our full body spray deodorant, aluminum free deodorant spray for your underarms, but you can also use it on your full body. And we inked a deal with SoulCycle, I think on January 27th, 2020. And we were planning to launch in studio, I think in April. So obviously that got completely wiped off the calendar. We kept delaying it, delaying it, delaying it, and then we ended up, I think we launched in like January of 2022. So it was a mega delay, and that was disappointing, but the fitness studios have been a big part of our strategy.

18:28We are in all SoulCycle locations. We're in all Equinox clubs worldwide, so if anyone's an Equinox member, you can use our deodorant spray in their locker rooms. We made a special scent for them. And that's been, those partnerships have been really successful for us. Granted, a little harder to measure than, you know, a Facebook ad, but it's, we're getting exposure to people like your roommate, like people that are in these clubs, in these studios, they trust them. And they're, they're getting exposed to our product at a time when they really need it. They're either post-workout or pre-workout.

19:04and we've seen really a good ROI on those. And how it's difficult to measure. Do you still try to measure it? How do you go about that? At the beginning, we tried. We put QR codes on the bottles. Spoiler alert, nobody? Yeah. We put the QR codes hoping that people would scan it and shop. We tried doing email blasts. we gave SoulCycle and Equinox discount codes for their members. Those would be kind of, you know, we'd see a bump when they would send out an email or in-app notification. But we weren't really seeing consistent sales until we started selling the products in the Equinox clubs. Initially, we wanted the business to come to our website, so we didn't launch in the Equinox club stores.

19:54And then we quickly realized we've got to be where the people are. If you try that deodorant spray in Equinox and you're dying to have it, there's an Equinox club store downstairs. That's where people are going to want to buy the product. So we started selling in the Equinox club stores, I think, about six months ago, I think Q3 of last year. And I think we're their number one best-selling product, actually. So it's been successful, and that's helped us at least have a little bit of a measure on ROI. But other than that, it's really just those QR code scans, which are few and far between, and post-purchase survey.

20:36We always get people saying they heard about us at Equinox or SoulCycle or one of our other studios. Yeah. So as you are expanding into all these different channels and partnerships now, what do you view as kind of, not like the goal, but what's the purpose of the D2C website now? Who do you think are the people who are going to continue to buy from there? and who do you focus on attracting to that website? Yeah, so most of our sales right now are driven by Facebook ads. We do a lot of our customer acquisition is through Facebook and Instagram, Google. And then, of course, Shark Tank is still driving a lot of sales.

21:16We have our fitness studios. We have some QVC. And those are really our main channels. and then we are launching in our first big box retailer in August and so now we are thinking beyond just D2C into how do we grow the brand how do we grow brand awareness which is something we've never really focused on we're bootstrapped we're profitable we are very very ROI driven in all of our decision making. So this is a big shift for us about thinking, all right, we don't want to just rely on these PPC ads. Yes, it's beautiful to be able to measure your ROI and have a clear ROAS and know exactly what targets you need to hit.

22:02But I think once you get to that next stage, which for us is mass retail, with mass retail, you really need mass awareness. And mass awareness sometimes comes in the form of billboards, TV ads, you know, PR, all these things that you don't necessarily see that direct impact. But my goal and the goal for my team is when we launch in that mass retailer, I want people to be walking up to Curie products and being like, I keep seeing this brand everywhere. And how you get there, I think is having that focusing really on, you know, We'll always be running our Facebook ads. We'll always be driving direct-to-consumer sales, but shifting to the broader umbrella.

22:48And if people go buy the products on our website, if people go buy our products in the retailer, then that's really our goal. And how we get there, I think, is going to be more of a combination of the direct response advertising combined with some of the more high-level brand awareness plays. Yeah. So you are getting ready to launch in your first big mass market retailer. What are you thinking about as you're preparing for that? This is a new world for me, so I'm not going to pretend like I know all the answers. Again, I'm big on networking and big on reaching out to people that are two steps ahead of where I am.

23:30So I've been having a lot of conversation. We just found out we got into this retailer. We're not announcing it yet. But one of the main things I've been doing over these last few weeks is just talking to as many people as I can that have been successful in mass retail, asking them what levers they pulled, what worked, what didn't work. And, you know, similar to what I did with Shark Tank, like compiling all that information and then executing on it and giving my team some direction. So I think one of the main things is working capital. Access to working capital, it's tough right now. I'm sure this has been discussed already here.

24:12It's a really tough time to fundraise. It's a really tough time to convince a bank to give a startup a loan or line of credit. So that's been the biggest challenge is thinking about how we're going to finance this working capital that we need. In the past, with most of our business being direct to consumer, we've been able to get away with having really lean inventory. Usually about a month's worth of inventory is all we carry at one time. And now with retail, the worst thing that's going to happen is we run out of inventory and we can't fulfill purchase orders. So we need to prepare for that and go from four weeks of inventory to potentially three to four months of inventory.

24:55and with that comes significant costs. So I've been negotiating with all of our suppliers. If there's business owners out here that haven't done this recently, this should be something you do once a year is go to your suppliers, go to your manufacturers. We're going to even our corrugate suppliers, like every single supplier or manufacturer that we have and asking for terms. So if you've been working with a manufacturer or supplier for a year or more and your business is growing, you should be able to get terms, and that is going to help us tremendously. Having an extra 30 days or even 60 days to pay for this inventory is crucial.

25:35So that's, I think, a big thing I'm thinking about is the working capital piece. And then also just thinking about, you know, direct-to-consumer is no longer going to be our number one. We want to be successful in retail. We want to prove that we can be successful in retail and that we can move mass volume. And that means preparing my team for having to deprioritize direct-to-consumer, for preparing them to, you know, we might not have growth this quarter on direct-to-consumer. And that's okay. Because at the high level, if people are buying Curie products, I don't care where they're buying them.

26:14We want these products in people's homes. And if it's at retail or if it's D2C, we need to be okay with, you know, direct-to-consumer might suffer when we launch in mass. And that's just kind of how it works. Yeah, that makes sense. But exciting time. So we do have time for a few questions. Anyone have a question for Sarah? Hi. I have a quick question because I see the brand is Curie. Yeah. As a French speaker and native, sorry, I know Marie and Pierre Curie, which are the most renowned scientists from a century ago. Did you inspire your brand from them? And if yes, do you intend, because nowadays storytelling is kind of doing a lot for brands.

27:00And if you can find an angle to include that renowned scientist into your strategy. Yeah, so the great question. The brand was named after Marie Curie. If you're not familiar, Marie Curie was a famous physicist and scientist in the 1800s. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two different sciences. She did all of this in the 1800s when women weren't even getting an education. And she was winning Nobel Prizes. Her and her husband Pierre had a lab together. They raised two wonderful daughters that went on to win Nobel Prizes. So to me, and honestly, I did a book report on her in fifth grade.