317 | Creating Connection Beyond The Product | with Brandi Corbello

Brandi Corbello

So for us, it's really been building the community, letting people along for the journey. We're starting to launch some new product sets. And the way I'm doing it is actually having our customers tell us what they want next. 

Chase Clymer

Welcome to Honest Ecommerce, a podcast dedicated to cutting through the BS and finding actionable advice for online store owners. I'm your host, Chase Clymer. And I believe running a direct to consumer brand does not have to be complicated or a guessing game.

On this podcast, we interview founders and experts who are putting in the work and creating real results. I also share my own insights from running our top Shopify consultancy, Electric Eye. We cut the fluff in favor of facts to help you grow your Ecommerce business. Let's get on with the show.

Chase Clymer

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Honest Ecommerce. I'm your host, Chase Clymer. And today I'm welcoming an amazing founder. We've got Brandi Corbello. She is a melanoma survivor and the founder of Melan, a sunscreen brand that's redefining sun care with a focus on comfort, fun and giving back to melanoma and skin cancer research. Brandi, welcome to the show. 

Brandi Corbello

Thanks for having me, Chase. I'm excited. 

Chase Clymer

I'm excited to chat. So first, I always like to shout out when and where I meet people. Because I like to encourage our listeners to actually get out of their bubble and go to events, which I know you guys are super event-driven over there. We'll talk about that. We met at the Surf Expo down in Orlando. 

Brandi Corbello

We did. Yeah. In January, I was freezing too. 

Chase Clymer

Yeah. You know what? Leaving Columbus, Ohio and then getting down there. And it was maybe one of the coldest things in recent history. This is no fun. People leave Ohio for Florida for the warmth. But it was no good that day.

Brandi Corbello

Yep. Totally. 

Chase Clymer

I enjoyed that conference quite a bit and it was great that we met. So quickly, take me back in time. You got an amazing story that you were telling me there. This is perfect for the podcast. So where do we want to start with this story? 

Brandi Corbello

Yeah. I didn't think in January of 2025, I'd be having this conversation. I love sunscreen as much as I do. But in 2019, I actually had just moved to Chicago for my job. I relocated there. I was 30, I was crushing life. 

I had seen a spot on my back. I was wakeboarding with some friends. I noticed this weird spot. I ended up calling a random dermatologist just saying like, hey, I don't like this spot. It's talking to me. It's very ugly. It's not cute. Could you just take it off?

Originally, my appointment was supposed to be set for April of 2020. We could dive into that as well. But I became so obsessed with this spot. I called back the next week and I was like, will you just take it off when you open? No big deal. 

And they said, yeah, sure. So I went in the next week. On a random day that they opened, they scraped it off. I left, went about my business. I travel a lot for work. So I headed to Wichita the following week. 

Got a phone call that it was melanoma. I was like, cool lady, thanks, gotta go, bye. She's like, no, you need to go into surgery right now. This seems a little dramatic. Because at that point in my life, I had only heard about people having this non-cancerous skin cancer, if that makes sense, like basal cells and stuff like that. 

So I thought that's what she was telling me. And I was like, this seems dramatic. I'm at work, gotta go, bye. And then I Googled it that night and I was like, oh, this is like the real thing.

Real cancer, like kind of a big deal, melanoma. I called back the next day and she said, “'I was wondering when you would call back.” I ended up flying back from work early. I went into surgery pretty quickly. The surgeon told me there was likely only a 10% chance it had spread. 

So basically what that meant is likely it was stage one and I would move on with my life after the surgery. Well, I got a phone call a week later and it had spread. So I was stage three, so I had stage three melanoma diagnosis in August of 2019 at the ripe age of 30. 

I went through 13 months of immunotherapy treatment. But what's really important and kind of the brand, like how did we get here, right, is I never wore sunscreen before. Getting a cancer diagnosis like that will force you to focus on what you put in and on your body because that's what you can control. 

You can't control cancer, but I can control how I take care of myself. So I started wearing a daily SPF because I was only 30 and I loved being outside. As I really started focusing on ingredients in my food, I also started focusing on ingredients in my skincare because your skin is like the gateway into your body, right? If you really think about it.

What I realized is a lot of the products on the shelves aren't that great for you. They have artificial fragrance and all these other things. Out of my own curiosity, I just started asking people questions. I realized that sunscreen didn't have to be made the way that we typically get it. I ended up doing a lot of advocacy. 

Brandi Corbello

So, this is 2019, 2020, we're five years later. So how did we get from that to this? I started doing a lot of advocacy and pushing for new active ingredients and all these other things and something happened at one of those events and I was on my way home to Nashville and I had met a lot of chemists and manufacturers at this time and I've been very blessed and fortunate with my career. 

I called one of them and I just said, how much will it cost me to do a sunscreen company on my own? They were like, they told me the number and I was like, I could make it work. I really focused on the product. 

There's so much education I gained over the five years before we launched on sunscreen and skincare and what everything means. I just felt like the general public, even though I like growing up, didn't know these things. 

I thought it was important to start a brand that is educational, where people feel empowered when they pick up a bottle and they can understand what's in it, what's not in it, what it will do, what it won't do. 

I do think too, so that's the product side. The other side of it too is if you really look at the shelf itself, I would say it's kind of a stale category. Everybody's doing the same thing. They're using the same color palettes. I thought it would be fun to bring something in that had some energy that's vibrant, that's refreshing that makes you feel a little thirsty. So that's really how it came about. I don't know if that's a long-winded answer. 

Chase Clymer

This is a long-form podcast. We're gonna get into it. Do you remember when you called that chemist and had the idea? This is when the seed was planted. 

Brandi Corbello

So it was being planted but I didn't realize it because I had been talking to chemists and manufacturers since 2020 just because I'm a curious person. 

I wanted to know how it was made. What is this ingredient? What's that ingredient? What does this do? What does that do? That's just me empowering myself and educating myself on the products. But then when I was like, I'm going to do this in July of 2023. And then we launched in July of 2024. 

Chase Clymer

Gotcha. So about a year from, “all right, we're doing this”, you launched the brand. What were some of the major steps in that year? 

Brandi Corbello

Yeah, I think the first step was getting the formula. Understanding what products you want to launch with because I had a budget. It's self-funded. So we launched with an OG, SPF 30 spray and lotion. It's typically of highest demand.

Then getting the formula, I had a lot of values that I wanted to stick to just from my education for the four years that I had it. I didn't want artificial fragrance. I didn't want EDTAs. I didn't want pegs. I didn't want any of those things. I also wanted the lowest chemical concentration possible, right, to achieve the SPF, which is hard to do.

The formulas came first, then it was, okay, what are we going to call this thing? What's this brand going to be? What are our values? What do we stand by? Then really starting to design it. Once we had the formulas and the branding, you just put it all together. But I would say those were the two big steps. 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. And then what's the go-to-market strategy? How did you make noise about this? How did you get eyes on it? 

Brandi Corbello

I grew up in the B2B space, mostly tech. So to me, direct-to-consumer is a whole new world for me. So for us, it's been direct-to-consumer, mostly on Instagram so far. We will be unlocking TikTok and some other things this year. But really telling the story of the brand, starting to introduce the product.

I think a big part of it too for us is community. I am very passionate about these products and what they stand for and what they can do for you. I want everybody to feel like they're a part of it. It’s a brand they can trust. So for us, it's really been building the community, letting people along for the journey. We're starting to launch some new product sets.

The way I'm doing it is actually having our customers tell us what they want next. So I'm working on 50 formulas at a time, but I'm basically saying, Hey, what would you like to see next? And I work on those formulas because I kind of have an idea of where they could go. But I'm launching it. I'm launching the products based on what they're asking for. That's how I've always been. I think it's been a really important part of just building this too, is making people feel like they're a part of it. 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. Obviously we met at a trade show. How many trade shows are you going to a month or a quarter? And how does that play into your growth strategy? 

Brandi Corbello

Yeah. We'll go to about 4 a year. So 1 a quarter, 4 to 5 a year, I would say. Maybe 1 quarter that has 2. But for us, the trade shows are the brand story out there, like creating some brand awareness, letting people know we're here. So that's part of it. The other part, too, is getting into retail. 

So for us, it's more like boutique play and making sure that people have the convenience of being able to access our product when they're on vacation or they're on the run. The trade shows for us are getting into boutiques. I would say anything that's 50 doors or less is really where we're going to sit for the next couple of years if I had to take a guess. 

Chase Clymer

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Chase Clymer

Now are there any moments that stick out to you in your journey so far that you think are worth sharing? 

Brandi Corbello

I think there's been a couple of moments where we're like, wow, I can't believe I didn't even think of that. One that sticks to me the most to me is as we were designing the packaging, the designer put a placeholder for the barcode on the packaging and I sent it to our manufacturer. I was like, here's our packaging. It's so beautiful. 

And they were like, well, where's the barcode? And I was like, well, I thought that's what you did. So I think it was one of those moments where you're like, oh, I need to go get the barcode. How do I do such a thing? Do I draw it? Do I make up numbers? I'm confused. 

Chase Clymer

Barcodes are such an annoying little world to learn about in retail. 

Brandi Corbello

It's like a whole world on its own. This barcode stuff, you don't even realize it because if you Google it... 

Chase Clymer

I would say it's kind of a little mafia-esque. 

Brandi Corbello

They control everything. They control everything. It's funny when you Google, how do I get a barcode? Because that's pretty much what I did. It's like, well, you can make one in Excel. That sounds interesting. 

Then you really look at it and you're like, that's not the proper way to get a barcode. It's not going to be accepted. So that was interesting. I think the other thing too is the brand. So originally, this was a lesson learned that I've started sharing with other founders who are a year behind me. 

I originally was going to call it Nuda, which translates to naked in Italian. And the reason why in Spanish, I believe, but the reason why is in the melanoma community, they say hashtag get naked, which means get naked for your dermatologist, right? So they can check your body for moles. And it's a little risque. And I remember originally, I'm going to make sunscreen sexy, you know, like I'm going to be all blacked out and it's going to be this sexy brand that people are like, wow, I feel sexy when I wear sunscreen. Now that I'm saying this out loud, like a year later, I'm like, I can't believe this was the direction I was going. 

Brandi Corbello

But what happened is I actually did a brand market poll. So I did some sort of like market surveying of the brand and. The feedback I got was mostly from moms and they told me, I would never buy a brand like this. It's too sexy. I would never want my kids to wear that sunscreen. I literally in that moment was like, moms can be sexy too. They're gonna love it. I was just not listening. 

Chase Clymer

Head blinders on. 

Brandi Corbello

Yup. I was obsessed as any founder is. I was actually on my way to the manufacturer to print our packaging because the packaging was going to be all black and it was going to be really cool and fun. And you noticed too on my product, there's black and that's the color of the melanoma and skin cancer ribbon. 

So we like to pay tribute to the founding story ribbon, which is why we have like black in the branding, but it was going to be all black. And I was on my way to Miami and I got a phone call from my trademark attorney and he told me, you need to rebrand like a self-tanner that is called NUDA, that's trademarked in Canada and the US. And we sit in the same category for trademarking. Devastated, mortified. I was like, what am I going to call this thing? Because I had a print in the next couple of weeks. 

So I basically had a rebrand. We ended up coming up, I ended up coming up with melanoma on a run. And while I was in Miami, and it was funny, a couple friends that knew what I was up to. And I talked to them and told them about it. And they're like, Melan, I don't really get it. I was like, it's like short for melanoma, but we can be like, honey, and be cheeky and cute. 

And then we did. So we came up with a brand and over 48 hours, by the way. And I did a market poll on the same group I had done for Nuda. And we earned another 50 basis points. Everybody loved it. And I was like, is a brand everybody can center around that's interesting. They're my two big things. 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. Now, we're recording this at the beginning of 2025. So I have a two-part question for you. Okay. What are you most looking forward to this year? What excites you? And then what gives you pause? What might be a little scary? 

Brandi Corbello

So I'll say what excites me the most is some of our products that we have coming out this year.

We have an SPF 30 mineral spray that's coming out, very clean, great for babies and kids. Why I'm excited about it is that most mineral sprays in the US are actually aerosols. So they have propellant in them and ours is a non aerosol. So there's no propellants. It's super clean, easy to put on, and doesn't leave a white cast. It's a really great experience for folks that are looking for a mineral.

So I'm really excited about that just given, you know, no propellant part of it. I think propellant takes away from what you're trying to accomplish like a zinc or mineral sunscreen. So I am very excited about that. I'm also very excited that we will be launching our OG spray in a 3.4 ounce can. So all of those people who are like weekend trip go getters, like they can just have a nice

healthy, clean sunscreen on the go and they don't have to check a bag, which I'm super excited about. And then I think in general, we've got a lot of really fun. 

We obviously do trade shows, but we're doing a lot of really fun brand collabs and more intimate events like bringing people together from a community perspective. And I'm super excited about that just because it fills my cup, being able to have intimate conversations and bringing people together on a common ground. That's what I'm most excited about. 

What was the part? Nervous about? 

Chase Clymer

Nervous, afraid. Who knows? 

Brandi Corbello

It's our first full year. So last year, we launched towards the end of July. So we're kind of at the tail end of our high.

Chase Clymer

The summer season. Yeah.

Brandi Corbello

Our high season. So I am very nervous to have a full year. I will be honest, I can't believe it's only January 28. I've already been nonstop and it's not even the season. So I am very nervous about that. And I'm just hopeful that we can keep up. 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely, Brandi. Now you talked so much about how passionate you are about your product, about how much time went into the formulation of it. If I'm listening to this and I'm curious and I want to check it out. Where should I go? What should I do? 

Brandi Corbello

Yeah, you can find us on Instagram, Melan suncare. And then also the same thing on our website, Melan suncare.com. This is like new news, available on Amazon as of last week. So you can find us there as well. 

Chase Clymer

Awesome. Congrats on launching on Amazon, by the way. Thank you so much for coming on the show this week. 

Brandi Corbello

For sure. Thanks for having me, Chase.

Chase Clymer

We can't thank our guests enough for coming on the show and sharing their knowledge and journey with us. We've got a lot to think about and potentially add into our own business. You can find all the links in the show notes. 

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Until next time!