Samantha Coxe
Learning about all of these things and making sure our processes were in place. And so we successfully delivered the product and got great feedback.
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.
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Honest Ecommerce. I'm your host, Chase Clymer.
And today, I'm welcoming the show, Samantha Coxe. She is the founder of Flaus. Welcome to the show.
Samantha Coxe
Thanks so much for having me, Chase. I'm super excited.
Chase Clymer
I'm excited to chat too. So for those that aren't unfamiliar with Flaus, can we talk about the types of products you guys are bringing to market these days?
Samantha Coxe
Yes. So we are the world's first electric flossers. So think of it like an electric toothbrush but for flossing.
Chase Clymer
I love that idea. So take me back in time. Where did this idea come from?
Samantha Coxe
Yeah, great question. So… I am originally from Southern California. I went to USC for undergrad, and then I went straight through to NYU Law, got my JD, and then came back to LA, and I was working doing mergers and acquisitions at a massive law firm called Skadden.
So really going down the lawyer route, invested a lot of time and money and effort into that. And I was about three years into my practice, and I had that dreaded dentist appointment notification pop up of, ‘You have a dentist appointment in a week.’
And at the time, I was an amazing twice a day tooth-brusher with my electric toothbrush, but a horrible flosser.
About a week leading up to the appointment I was like, I got to start flossing so that when I got on the dentist chair and she asked, “Have you been flossing?” my answer would be yes, and right away, of course, she knew I was a liar.
There was blood everywhere. I ended up leaving with nine cavities and a five thousand dollar dental bill. Really, really bad.
And I came home and I thought, I hate flossing, but I know how important it is to do. I didn't like putting my fingers in my mouth, how long it took, how painful it was, how gross.
And I thought, well, I love my electric toothbrush, why don't I go buy an electric flosser? I could just do it for me. And I actually went online to go purchase one and was shocked to discover nothing like this existed. So that was the origination of the idea.
And then over the course of the following weeks, And I came home and I thought, I hate flossing, but I know how important it is to do. I didn't like putting my fingers in my mouth, how long it took, how painful it was, how gross.
And I thought, well, I love my electric toothbrush, why don't I go buy an electric flosser? I could just do it for me. And I actually went online to go purchase one and was shocked to discover nothing like this existed.
Chase Clymer
And what year was this?
Samantha Coxe
Yeah. So I originally came up with the idea in 2019. So four years ago.
I stayed at the firm while working on Flaus for a year and a half. And then we launched... I launched a very successful Indiegogo campaign in April of 2021. So nearly two years later.
And that was really, like, the public stake in the ground where I knew I couldn't be at the firm when this thing went live. So that really pushed me to leave my career as a lawyer and go all in on Flaus.
Chase Clymer
Awesome. I want to dive into a few things there.
So you have this idea for an electric toothbrush, you realize that it doesn't exist on the market, and you get some kind of consensus from potential customers like, hey, this might be a good idea.
How does it go from an idea in your head to a physical thing you can try?
Samantha Coxe
So of course, at the time, there was no other electric flosser on the market. So you're really starting from scratch.
And so what I originally did was just kind of hacking it together with an electric toothbrush and then a floss pick and attaching those two and just seeing, do these vibrations make a difference? Does the ergonomic handle make it easier?
Just things that are really basic to what makes an electric toothbrush so much better than a manual toothbrush, but applying that to floss. And that was my first proof of concept, just putting together my favorite electric toothbrush with a floss pick on top and I was like, okay, this actually helped.
And then from that point, before I decided to go and invest any money in starting Flaus, obviously as a lawyer, you're quite risk averse and I had already invested a lot of money in becoming a lawyer.
So for me to be like, all right, 180 into oral care, I wanted to make sure that I was pursuing something that would have traction. And so before I invested a single dollar, I went and I actually ran a SurveyMonkey.
I sent it out to about 600 participants across the US. It was a 15-question survey. I was asking them about their current flossing habits, what they like about flossing, what they don't like about flossing.
And then I gave a two sentence high-level summary of this idea and it was essentially like, would you buy this? And I remember when I submitted the survey to go out to the respondents, I thought I'm just gonna let the data speak to me wherever it ends up, no matter what.
And the data was so extremely positive. It was like, yes. And that's where I really discovered, wow, okay, flossing is a massive pain point.
So once I got that validation, I then went and turned around and found an engineer off of Google. Google is like your best friend when you're just trying to figure things out. I went and found an engineer, and then I went and I sourced two dentists to help me.
And that really got it going. And I probably went through about, gosh, at least close to 500 3D printed prototypes of the product, just putting it in so many people's mouths, iterating and honing and honing and honing.
It was definitely a very interesting and challenging but also a very exciting process because from lawyer to oral care founder.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely.
Where did you find those first 600 survey participants?
Samantha Coxe
Yeah, so SurveyMonkey is incredible. They offer that as a service. So it cost me about $1,000 to launch the survey and they have, I guess, just a huge audience of people that sign up to do these. They'll get a little gift card. Of course, that's a certain type of customer demographic that's willing to take these surveys.
But I just thought, you know what? What is the scrappiest, easiest way that I could prove this concept?
And one of the most interesting things that came out of that survey, aside from the validation, which by the way, we have only seen time and time again since that moment, was that was actually the first time one of my hypotheses was disproved.
So I originally started Flaus as a non-flosser, thinking I'm going to help other non-flossers start flossing. And what we actually found in the data, and again, which has been validated time and time again, is that while of course this was very appealing for non-flossers, what we actually found is our most avid customer was the daily flosser.
It was the person that was already doing it. We didn't have to invest in education about why flossing is important. And they just wanted a quicker, easier, better way to do it.
So that was actually exciting because I think when you're starting something so innovative, there is an education curve. And education is very expensive as well as behavior change, which is one of the most expensive things you can do.
And so to find that actually, our lowest hanging fruit, are people that are already doing this. That was a really exciting finding because we're like, okay, this is a core demographic we can easily tap into while we ride off the coattails of the millions of dollars of marketing and education that Oral-B and Colgate are already doing in the space.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely.
So you go through 500 plus iterations of the concept of the prototype and then you land on something for the first one.
Talk to me about launching your Indiegogo, what goes into that and how that turned out.
Samantha Coxe
Yeah, definitely. So going into consumer electronic hardware, it is definitely more capital intensive than, maybe, some other consumer product spaces and especially in the tech space.
I invested close to $100,000 of my own savings into Flaus, basically my entire savings into Flaus, but then I still needed more capital.
And so I had to go out and I had to fundraise while I was still at Skadden, but it was interesting because the feedback I was getting was initially, just my survey results were enough, and my little 3D render of the product.
But then certain investors were like, “Well, I wanna see that people are willing to put down their credit card for this.” And it's like, wait. I don't even have a product. I don't have anything manufactured. Who's gonna buy this?
And so I went back and forth on whether I should launch a pre-order campaign on my own website or a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter or Indiegogo. And I decided to go with an Indiegogo - it was a very methodical strategic decision.
So the reason I ended up doing a crowdfunding campaign and specifically an Indiegogo campaign is for a couple of reasons.
One, a lot of these crowdfunding backers are serial backers. This is like what they enjoy doing. They like being involved with innovative products. So they also recognize that they're getting an underground level of something.
And typically, the first version of a product, it's not the perfect version of the product. Whereas a direct-to-consumer customer, there's a lot less room for error. They're expecting to get a great product.
So I knew that I had a bit more flexibility in leeway with these initial backers of going with Indiegogo.
Also, we hadn't even started the manufacturing process. We were still in the engineering phase. And so, again, with direct-to-consumer customers, it's a lot more difficult trying to justify why it's gonna take a nine month, 12 month delay to get the product you just paid for, versus on Indiegogo where it's very much understood, that's just how it goes.
So it became very obvious to me that, okay, Indiegogo is the right audience for us, it's the right direction.
From there, I went both on Indiegogo and Kickstarter, and I looked at products in similar verticals. I went and I looked at electric toothbrushes. I looked at electric razors, things that were, of course there's no other electric flosser, but things that were in similar verticals.
I went and I found the most successful campaigns, and I tried to identify the patterns. Of course, there's always patterns with these things.
And so as I was analyzing the pages, what I realized was the most successful campaigns, nearly every single one worked with a crowdfunding marketing agency, which I didn't even know existed at the time, but these are marketing agencies that are specialized in the very unique funnel of crowdfunding.
So I interviewed the top five that I found and I ended up selecting my partner, Rain Factory. And it was one of the best decisions I made. I mean, it was a lot of work, but one of the things with doing a crowdfunding campaign is that it's been around now for 15 years. So it's hyper saturated.
And a lot of these backers have been burned before. So you have to make sure that not only are you creating a very convincing campaign, you have that FOMO momentum going into it, but also making sure that you have appropriate transparency and communication with your customers and these backers.
And there's so many unique aspects that you don't typically experience when you're just launching on your own website.
It was incredible. We did $360,000 of pre-orders in 6 weeks. We finished in the top 1% of Indiegogo campaigns ever. So it was very, very successful.
And it really just provided the validation and momentum for me to get to my next milestone with the business.
Chase Clymer
That's amazing.
Can you talk to me a little bit about how Rain Factory helped you acquire and reach out to those new customers?
I know that the marketing element behind these crowdfunding campaigns is massive and crucial to their success. So if you can share anything there, I think our listeners would love it.
Samantha Coxe
Oh, absolutely. So this is one of the reasons why it's very beneficial to go with a crowdfunding agency like Rain Factory.
So again, this audience is very, very unique. And Rain Factory has been doing this, I believe, gosh, I think 12 years now, 12 to 10 years.
And this was all happening in 2021. So before the iOS 14 rollouts where we could still be collecting this different data.
They had these huge lookalike audiences of other people who had invested in historical Indiegogo crowdfunding campaigns. So, and again, these people are serial backers.
It's like, for example, if I got an ad for Flaus and I clicked it, let's say on Instagram, I clicked it. If it took me to an Indiegogo campaign, I know personally for myself, I would drop off. I'd be like, “I've never backed something like this. I don't know what this is.” That's why it's really important that with these crowdfunding agencies is that they're tapped in to this already very primed audience who like to participate.
So what they do is that they helped us establish an email waitlist landing page about eight weeks before the campaign. And we collected about 9,000 email leads. It was very, very, and we just, again, it was all a traffic conversion campaign and it was great, very efficient for us.
We collect these 9,000 email leads. We sent them a survey. We had 2,500 responses on the survey identifying what are the most important features you're looking for, pricing, all of the things you need to know to really hone and lock in that crowdfunding campaign.
And so we did that. And then as we got ready to launch the campaign, we then kept warming up this email list so that when we went live, we then had this momentum going in where we were fully funded.
Our funding goal, I believe, was maybe 30 or $40,000. We were fully funded in three hours. And that's really important with a crowdfunding campaign. It's all about that momentum.
The crowdfunding campaign goes like this on, let's say the first three days or four days, and then it slowly goes down. And then in the last week of the campaign, it goes back up.
So they really help grease the wheels so that you have a really successful shootout. And the more successful your shootout and your launch is, Indiegogo will then put you on their home screen and things like that. So it's kind of a flywheel effect.
I would not have been able to execute it with such strategic perfection without working with a crowdfunding marketing agency. They really know what they're doing.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely. Yeah, it's definitely... There's a method to the mayhem of getting those things to launch the right way.
And also just expectation setting, right?
Samantha Coxe
Totally.
Chase Clymer
They're there to be like, “This is what you should expect. This is how it's going to work.”
Samantha Coxe
Yes.
Chase Clymer
You see that thing go down that valley, you're like, ‘Well, this is it, I guess.” No, there's...
Samantha Coxe
Yeah, exactly. You're like, “Oh, this is it. Here we go.”
And also two, setting the expectation that you go... hearing we're the top 1% of campaigns ever, and we did $360,000.
I mean, initially I was like, “Oh, that doesn't really sound like much,” because you can go find campaigns that are in the millions of dollars.
But then you kind of, as with this whole journey, you kind of see behind the curtains and you see how the sausage is made. And you're like, there is so much money and effort that has to go into driving any sort of campaign that big. That doesn't just happen off of virality. That is a really, really honed process.
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Chase Clymer
So you guys have a successful Indiegogo campaign. You raise some great money. I'm assuming you take that back and you get some investment.
Talk to me what happens after you go public with this and you get such great reception and you get people buying into the product.
Samantha Coxe
Yeah, it was amazing. It set off the fundraising wave for me.
So I was able to do my first pre-seed. I did $2 million pre-seed, all family and friends, which was amazing.
That went all towards the manufacturing process. And keep in mind, this is 2021. So we are peak COVID. I'm not able to go over to China to meet the manufacturers. People are scared to put the device in their mouth as we're trying to hone it in. It was an experience.
We went straight into manufacturing and production. In November, it took us about over a year to fully produce the product and deliver it. And we delivered all 4,500 units to over 50 countries. Over half of Indiegogo's audience is international.
So it's kind of interesting because most direct-to-consumer companies will start in the US then go abroad. We started going international and now we're focused on the US.
It really forced us to get our logistics set up to make sure we were in lockstep with our three PL. Also, just the customer communications and the cadence of it and being very transparent and forthcoming and everything like that.
I felt like it was an amazing trial period for actually hard-launching the brand. It was learning about all of these things and making sure our processes were in place.
And so we successfully delivered the product and got great feedback. Of course it's a version one, it was a beta product. So we definitely had some improvements to make as well.
So our thought process was, it's gonna take us another 12 months to get to Flaus 2, which is our hard launch product. Let's use this time to just do customer focus groups, customer surveys, interviews, and learn as much as we can from the customer experience using the product so that we can roll it into the next iteration.
It's just so incredible to see what a massive improvement we've been able to make over the last year. We also brought on some really strategic investors such as Yeti Capital, the founder of Youth to the People, Halo Top, Theragun.
I brought on some really, really amazing consumer product hardware founders to help me be able to reach these different milestones. Because again, I'm a first time founder doing something totally outside my wheelhouse.
Chase Clymer
Let's talk about the pivot from crowdfunding to building that direct-to-consumer market here in America, as you said, you've started to focus here in the States.
What's the difference? How are you finding these customers now and not doing a crowdfunding campaign? What's the marketing look like these days?
Samantha Coxe
Yeah, definitely. Oh gosh, we learned so much from that period. And we've been able to utilize those findings and those survey results.
I mean, I'm so data driven. I think you have to pay attention. The proof is in the pudding always. And so being able to rely on those 2,500 respondents and even the surveys we've done after the fact has all funneled into our marketing and our website and everything that the brand looks like today.
And right now we're focused on direct-to-consumer. We're relying purely on Meta and Google. And we feel like we don't need to diversify yet. We definitely have enough room to grow. I mean, it's a massive market opportunity.
But we've definitely been focusing more on learning more about our customer audiences.
So with Indiegogo, Indiegogo was very much the tech explorer audience. It leaned heavily male. Most personal care items leaned female. So that was kind of an interesting mix up there.
And so we've discovered four really interesting audiences that we're still learning more about, but one is our tech explorers, skew male, millennial, into tech gadgets, all the coolest things.
We then have our plugged in professionals. They skew female, older millennial. They're into optimizing their personal wellness routines. They're investing in them. They're the Peloton buyers of the world.
We then have our dental professionals who are trying to do anything they can to get their patients to actually floss. We get a lot of inbound organic interest from dental professionals.
And then finally, we have a very interesting audience who we call our bang and boomers. It's a more senior audience. They are in the throes of oral care problems and they have fine motor dexterity issues.
So whether it's from arthritis, cerebral palsy, MS, Carpal tunnel, that actually makes traditional flossing, floss string and floss picks physically impossible to use. So that's been a really interesting audience.
So kind of the challenge we're facing now, challenge in the most positive way, is trying to understand how can our brand flex in different ways for these different audiences? Because of course you don't wanna be everything to everyone, but now with the power of targeting, especially with meta, you know, you have certain ads that are focused more on this bang and boomer audience.
And we're trying to make sure we're then funneling them to a landing page that's focused on things that are important to them, the ergonomics, making it easier, making it quicker, things that we know are really important.
So that's been a very kind of an interesting dynamic. And then looking ahead, it's like expanding our distribution model. We're not going to stay direct-to-consumer forever, whether it's Amazon or retail, B2B, a B2B2C play of just getting into just dental offices in general.
And so it's really exciting. But I'm trying to do my best to stay as focused as possible because there's still so much room to grow on Meta and Google. We've just scratched the surface.
Chase Clymer
Oh, I cannot parrot what you just said so much. I see so many young brands start to diversify their spend away from what is working.
And I'm like, you guys haven't even reached the point of no return yet. Just keep doubling down and doubling down on what is working.
Why noodle around and fail at other things when this thing's working? Just pour more gas on that fire.
Samantha Coxe
Oh my gosh. And I think that's the hard part, there's so many pundits out there. If you go to D2C, CBG, Twitter, I always have to remind myself whenever or even LinkedIn, I'm reading these things.
Especially for other founders listening, it's so important to contextualize and remember that a lot of these people have never operated a business themselves. So they've just been in agents, they've been at other companies, they never actually have been an operator.
And it's so much easier said than done. And I think it's really easy to get distracted by the next shiny thing that's happening.
It's like, okay, TikTok shops, we need to go there. But that is an entire distribution channel in and of itself. You have to make sure you're locked and loaded. That's not something you can just throw up.
And so I totally agree. Just trying to stay focused and my mentors, Yeti Capital, I would say they are one of the biggest proponents of being like stay focused.
I'm like, I wanna do color skews. I wanna do different flavors of floss. And they're like, don't complicate the logistics and the skews. You still have so much room with this one product. Just focus on that.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely, Samantha. Now, you shared so much amazing stuff with us so far.
Is there anything I forgot to ask you about that you think would resonate with our audience?
Samantha Coxe
I think that something that I would mention is having to build a consumer product brand, particularly hardware electronics during this time is definitely challenging, especially being a more capital-intensive business because I have had to fundraise and it is a bit of a scary time and we're out of the glory days of D2C for sure.
But for anyone that's listening, that's feeling maybe a little disheartened or disillusioned with what's going on, what I'm finding is that building during this period has been such a blessing in the sense that everyone is so focused on making sure that the business fundamentals are there.
And that's a win-win, because eventually you won't have to rely on anyone else's money. And really, if you're having to pay people to buy your product, maybe the product's not as good as you're hoping it is.
And so I really feel like this period, albeit very challenging, is a really exciting time to be building because it's really forcing the good companies to rise to the top. I'm excited about that. I hope that maybe that can help shift some people's perceptions about what's going on.
‘Cause I know it's kind of like doom and gloom on everything I'm saying. And I'm like, no, this is a good thing. It's a good thing to be building a healthy business and that you're actually profitable. The fact we got away from that and it was like scale at all costs is just wild.
So yeah, I think it's a good thing.
Chase Clymer
That's amazing, Samantha.
Now if I'm listening to this, then I want to go check out the product. Where should I go?
Samantha Coxe
Yes. Okay. Go check us out at goflaus.com. So G-O-F-L-A-U-S.com. You'll find this on our website. We are an amazing gifting product.
We have some really fun bundles and stuff and swag as well. So definitely check us out online and keep an eye out for us. We're definitely popping up in some other really exciting places.
Chase Clymer
Awesome. Thank you so much, Samantha.
Samantha Coxe
Thank you.
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.
You can subscribe to the newsletter at honestecommerce.com to get each episode delivered right to your inbox.
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Lastly, if you're a store owner looking for an amazing partner to help get your Shopify store to the next level, reach out to Electric Eye at electriceye.io/connect.
Until next time!
