'Not just hand sanitizer': How Touchland built an $880 million brand

when you need to build up your team to handle the growing chaos at work use indeed sponsored jobs it gives your job post the boost it needs to be seen and helps reach people with the right skills certifications and more spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes listeners of this show will get a 75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com slash podcast that's indeed.com slash podcast terms and conditions apply need a hiring hero this is a job for indeed sponsored jobs it was not a sexy category it was not understood we knew give us a chance to prove you that we're not just hand sanitizers welcome i'm michelle toe a journalist most recently with cnn and this is behind the business a show about the people behind top consumer brands category creators and emerging disruptors and how they push through to make the most of both work and life each day today i'm here with andrea lisbona who's enjoyed a stunning ascent as the founder and ceo of touchland touchland touchland people are obsessed with this brand and stock now for the uninitiated touchland is a personal care and beauty brand that launched in 2018 and scaled to 100 million dollars in sales last year this year it's being acquired by a personal care giant for up to a whopping 880 million dollars it's best known for its hand sanitizers that come in an array of scents from rainwater to mango passion to blue sandalwood and has since expanded to body mist and hair fragrances the brand is sold at about 3 000 retail locations including sephora and alta beauty in addition to direct to consumer why should a consumer purchase a touchland hand sanitizer for between 10 to 16 dollars versus let's say 249 for purell now what set touchland apart is that it's developed something of a cult following and it hasn't hurt that touchland has fast become a celebrity favorite described as an everyday essential by stars like kim kardashian and rosie huntington-whiteley in some circles it's even become a collector's item traded by kids and teens on the playground at school the company estimates that one is now sold every two seconds so i never cried in public they said this has been the best investment they've done in their lives andrea thank you so much for joining us thank you for having me michelle so i want to clear something up straight away despite it being what most people know you for you don't see touchland as just a hand sanitizer company is that right correct yes tell us why we have transformed the most commoditized and sexy functional category into something that people look forward to and how we did it we've been extremely methodical about that surprise and the light component of the brand and really being able to create those micro joys in the everyday um in the case of the hand sanitizer we transform the category within four foundations the first one is again everything that we do has to be on the go because it really builds a relationship with you that you don't build with the products that stay at home the second element is to truly design and create a product that really disrupts the the industry and so we created a design that really feels like something that you can put in your pocket you can throw in your bag it is cap less which again you can use without any type of mess um the third element that we brought in is merging two elements into one which is again the functionality with in this case the skincare forward element you do not have to sacrifice your skin in order to keep your skin uh sanitized so we added emollients and ingredients that really take care of your skin and the fourth element is the sensoriality component which really connects the the dots of the whole touchline experience and sensoriality can be everything from the non-stickiness of the formula which really it's not pleasing when previous competitors had that that you had to be shaking your hands for several minutes in order to get it uh dried up um but it also takes into account the the scent profile one of the things that touchline has brought in is that surprise and the light with multiple scents that are really important for the skin and the skin and the skin is that really match every mood and day of the week um we currently have 15 plus scents within the hand sanitizer and we launched eight body and hair fragrance mists so we always want to offer like a wide range of variety that really enables you to uplift your mood and really find something that matches that day of the week and one day you want to feel like beach cocoa and another day you want to feel like wild watermelon and that's kind of the fun of the brand yeah and i see that you've put that in your messaging a little bit right i think it's a really good way to think that having seen the organic growth of the brand we have seen that the brand is cross generational which is one of the beauties about the brand like we're as successful with a 10 year old than with an 80 year old and that's because again we want to tap into a psychographic we want to tap into people that look to find the light into the small moments that being a cup of coffee that being a spritz of touchline and that is really something that we've been fascinated by the complexity and the results with people like when people have been creating content about matching my outfit to touchline or again like just describing how they go to school and they are excited to go to school because they are gonna trade touchline with friends and so on so it's definitely an incredible reception of the brand in dimensions that i would have never imagined how people has incorporated touchline into their everyday and we'll get more into this later but just to share some context tell us how you decided to become a founder and how did you get started with touchline and how did you get started with touchline in the first place i understand that you know your family had a big influence on you growing up yeah definitely um i was raised in a family of entrepreneurs and for good and for bad i understood what it is to be an entrepreneur from very early days it's about feeling comfortable with the uncomfortable every single day and there's no guarantee there's no security and i feel like either you like that type of approach or you don't like it and i i grew up to love it um and i knew since i was a kid that i was going to be a entrepreneur and i was going to be a entrepreneur i think one of the most important things when you start this journey is you really have to find your reason why and for us when we started um i had to find the reason why i would wake up every day and fight this battle and and when i discovered this category i was fascinated by the reach and the impact that can have in people's health again like the the easiest way to stay healthy is to keep your hands clean but you don't look forward to sanitize your hands so for for me it was a personal challenge of how do i transform this perception on people about keeping your hands clean should be something you look forward to and that's how we got playful we reinvented the category the product experience and so on and we were able to somehow successfully change change that approach i i know that um your father especially had a big influence on you you mentioned previously that he's kind of taught you to be bold and not be afraid of taking risks are there any kind of certain stories or examples that come to mind when it comes to how he encouraged you to push the boundaries yeah i feel like uh it's been more what i've seen from him that has given because you always have to lead by example and and teach by example right and even if he would have given me like guidelines and so on for me was what i saw in him every day um he's almost 70 years old now um he has gone through all of the cycles of being an entrepreneur like he was he created a business grew the business then the recession in 2008 came he lost everything he had worked for all his life he stood up again he rebuilt the business he did it better smarter and so on so i think for me that was incredible because again uh to see someone that at 70 years old still wakes up at 5 a.m uh to go to work is the last one to close every day the office like that kind of thing always hits you and and that has been for me like the most important thing for me is to be able to my my greed and my work ethic comes from what i've grown up next to he he was in the import export business uh he distributed multiple products american products in the spanish market and he's been able to create a pretty sizable business in spain and with a very nimble approach also and he has learned right he he grew the business through again external funding when the crisis came in he lost everything and he's been able to create a pretty sizable business so when he started again he's like i will never depend on external funding again so i think if i look back on how i've grown this business and the way that i've grown it part of the reason why i've been able to do it in such a nimble way in such a efficacious way it's because again i wanted to make sure that i would control my destiny and that there would not be any sort of macroeconomic impacts or anything that we would be depending on having gas coming from the outside to to be able to scale this business in some ways it sounds like that really primed you to be an entrepreneur how old were you when that happened when the crisis hit and let me see i was 23 20 yeah 23 years old still in those formative years right when you're really thinking about what do i want to be in this world correct um and in some ways did you kind of just always know this was a path you were going to take like even before all that you know just as a kid were you always thinking like i want to start my own business i want to be a hundred percent always but i think for me what's about finding the reason why um i've been always about finding again i don't believe in like competing in prices competing there's like always someone that can do it cheaper than you there's always someone that can be more aggressive than you so i believe in creating value and creating differentiating value propositions and i had to take my time to find it um and and i think i got inspired because i studied in in the u.s for six months when i was doing my erasmus in from from a side of business school and i came across this product that everyone had hanging on their backpacks everyone was complaining about and i'm like that is fascinating because back then in europe you would not see hand sanitizers in 2010 and so that's what got me again interested in understanding how big the reach of this category was how important this category could be into playing into people's life and how upset was people to use this product so i you the similar on how nespresso transform coffee industry and apple transform the phone industry and and dyson transform their own industry i feel sometimes you simply need to see through different lenses to transform the consumer journey so you saw people literally carrying it on their backpacks hand sanitizers and you were like this is everywhere yet it's not something that's really been reinvented yet correct correct i see that you studied fashion design and then went on to one of the top business schools in spain your professional background pre-touch land uh was also in fashion right particularly on the marketing side how did those experiences inform you on what you later decided to build well i first studied the study because i wanted to to study business administration i wanted to have the foundations to understand how to run a business it was a very competitive school that was a school that my father had gone to and he was kicked out and then he said there's no way you make it five years to so i almost end up going there for a bed with my father not only i finished i finished top top students in the in the year um so so i finished that and then i've been always passionate about design and how it changes people's perception and how it really transform experiences so i studied fashion design um and i quitted during the the middle of the three-year course um because the crisis came and i decided not to be more a source of expense but to start becoming a source of income to support my family so then you decided to go and work for the family business or what did you do in that time not really so i wanted to do it in my own way so that's when i started distributing other hand sanitizers to really learn on the business and i did it by myself and i started again learning from feedback and i always think that entrepreneurs when they design products they need to always like i always say we have two years and one mouth to listen twice as we talk and so never make assumptions false assumptions about like when we started distributing hand sanitizers i'm like maybe people like alcohol scent i'm not going to make an assumption just because i don't like that killer scent that comes from hand sanitizers that is gonna it's it's gonna be everyone's perception so it was about listening and understanding and and really crafting then a solution that is for everyone right don't you don't have to act like you're the smartest person in the room right like there's no stupid question here you can you have to go and actually study and examine and find out what's actually happening in the market correct and that's how we approach innovation for us like everything that we do is always we do a lot of social media listening we really i go through social media i read comments i i really need to understand what our audience and our community needs as we continue to craft the future of the brand so even before touchland andrea you were already in the hand sanitizer game you were distributing hand sanitizer right it was the pre pre phase of launching touchline it was really learning that must have been great market research for you it was yeah it really was yeah well okay let's talk about the origins of touchland i gotta say when you first started this there probably weren't that many people around who would look at a hand sanitizer and say this needs to be more chic right but here we are how did you come up with the idea you kind of touched on this already seeing people carrying it and not necessarily having the best experience but kind of walk us through this this experience for you yeah again it it also comes from looking at other industries right when as i said i've been always inspired by disruptors that have changed i never thought i would be excited about the hair dryer and here i am super excited about my dyson hair dryer um i would not have had the patience to warm coffee every morning if i didn't push a button and get my coffee out of the out of the nespresso machine so i am amazed and and always surprised about how you can you don't need to invent something you can simply reinvent experiences in multiple ways that being designed the form factor that the the formulation and for us with hand sanitizer was the opportunity to really do the same that other people that inspire me from other industries we could bring those learnings and do it with hand sanitizer and again we wanted to create a product that would be a little bit more that would become a status symbol like something that would be recognized that would bring again that connection with people that would create that conversation with a stranger in the street about what are you wearing what is that and so that's how that's how it all started wow because i was going to ask you did you always set out to invent a whole new category or did it kind of come about very organically it sounds like it was a bit of both it we always i always say like if i start something i have to be the number one so when we started that it was not to let's explore like we wanted to create the disruptor of on the go personal care and we wanted to take the hardest category and really and really surprise and delight people because once you get one thing that is the hardest right you get the respect from the audience to be able to do it in other categories and you studied the playbooks of companies like dyson like nespresso like apple to kind of see okay what are some of the tips and tricks here that i can take and apply to my category correct correct so andrea you moved here to miami as well by the way in 2018 which was a pretty big move i can imagine you know new country you probably to uproot your whole life back home i understand you had spent some time here before but what brought you here to miami specifically well in 2016 we knew that if we wanted to launch a company in the way that we wanted to launch it and really have impact worldwide we had to do it in the biggest market so we decided to move to the u.s. it took us two years in between developing the product and so on to make it compliant and so we launched in 2018 and when we were deciding where to go i feel it was more of a decision of i had to study it in la i loved la but as an european that talks to their family three four times a day that became very challenging when i was studying there to truly make me disconnect from europe because of the time difference and i think miami coming from it's i mean it's very close that whether the culture the the dynamism the colors it's it's a very vibrant city and so we moved here in 2018 and we love it here never look back i mean i look back because of course i we let as you said we left behind families and so on so it's always challenging because i'm a very familiar person but i knew if i wanted to do something big i would not be able to do it from spain so that sometimes sacrifices that entrepreneurs have to do in their lives and i always said like if i if it didn't work out it would have been challenging but it worked out so the sacrifice the challenge the missing and so on at the bare least was worth it because we were able to prove this was the place we had to be to launch the brand and so definitely we we are very happy here so you felt like to crack the u.s market like you had to just take the plunge go all in let's move there you just do it like forget like flying in and out like every whatever like just be committed and do you have to yeah yeah we talk to our retailers almost weekly if not daily like it's we build a team here you get to understand the market here i i don't think i would have been able to do that the same job and execution from an office in barcelona when you need to build up your team to handle the growing chaos at work use indeed sponsor jobs it gives your job post the boost it needs to be seen and helps reach people with the right skills certifications and more spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes listeners of this show will get a 75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com slash podcast that's indeed.com slash podcast terms and conditions apply need a hiring hero this is a job for indeed sponsored jobs on any journey using uber it helps to know you're getting into the right car pin verification adds an extra step to make sure your ride is your ride before the trip begins your app gives you a unique pin just click on the pin and you're ready to go just tell it to your driver and they'll enter it in their app before the ride can start hey what's your pin 2538 that way you know you're in the right car taking the right trip and your driver knows you're the right passenger make sure your ride is your ride with pin verification from uber one more way uber is putting safety at every turn learn more on the uber app and under how did you get started when it came down to even financing the business right because there's so much that goes into it to even get off the ground i know you ran a kickstarter campaign which raised fifty seven thousand dollars beyond that did you also have to you know bootstrap put some of your own money in so So we've been very scrappy from the beginning. We did a very small round to be able to move from Europe to the U.S. And it was very challenging. I always said that fundraising is one of the things that distract the most founders because founders should allocate their time to grow their business. That's where you create true value. And that's why we've been so scrappy because where I'm most valuable is running the business, creating ideas and all that. And fundraising can, for some founders, can take most of the time. And I feel like that doesn't really add the value to create more innovation and so on in the business. So it took us a long time to find the right partners. And we were able to secure a family office from Europe that I happened to know from business school. They knew my work ethics. So when I pitched to them, they took the decision in 24 hours, not because they even saw the business plan. They said, no matter what you set your eyes to, like your work ethics, your grid, we want to be partners in this journey. And that was, they were an amazing first partner to be able to move here. They said, this is a bet on you. It's a bet. Yeah, usually it's in the beginning for everyone. It's a bet on the founder. Yeah, yeah. That must have been so humbling. I never cry. I must say that the day they told me that in 24 hours, we had to make the move to the U.S. And they decided in 24 hours, I ever, never cry. In public, that day, I remember the words that I said to them, like, you're never going to regret it. And they said, this has been the best investment they've done in their life. And you were like getting on the plane. Yeah, it was emotional and movie moment. Yeah, no, it's those highlights really that probably make the journey not feel so tough sometimes, right? Yeah, and it's who you surround with. I feel like with everything that we've done, since we started, has been a gut-filling decision always, and it's never failed us. And I feel like with partners, with investors, it is very important that you find people that share the vision, that are going to be supporting it, that are going to be your sidekicks. And I feel like in our case, we've been extremely fortunate because you have already a lot going on as a founder. And I've heard a lot of stories of founders that didn't have the same luck that I did. And I do think that it makes the journey way more pleasing to be surrounded with great people. Well, a lot of people don't know also how much goes even into the crowdfunding side, right? What did you learn from your Kickstarter experience? And is there any strategic advice that you'd give to folks at the early stages of their businesses now looking to take that route? Sure. So for us, the Kickstarter was more of a market validation process. As I said, we're extremely humble. We're very hungry. We're very ambitious. But at the same time, we're very humble. And so when we were about to launch in the U.S., the product was going to be launched end of 2018. I'm someone that always wants to be doing something. So we moved to Miami in June. And so from June to December, we were like, what are we doing here in Miami? Some people would take a vacation, which maybe wouldn't have been a bad idea. But we're like, no, let's do a Kickstarter. Let's test the market. Let's see how people feel about it. And it was extremely successful. But I think the most important thing for us and I think the most important is it started building this community-powered brand. And it's incredible because the way that Kickstarter works is every time that you reach a certain milestone, you unlock some perks. And those perks usually are defined by the backers. So, for example, one of the things when we reach in 24 hours our goal, we ask the community, hey, what would you like to see from the brand? And people were like, it would be great to have like a case that you can attach to your kids. So right now, again, fashion accessories for Touchland, dressing our products is a big part of our business. And it all came from listening to our backers in Kickstarter. And it is amazing, for example, like when we see comments on social media, we've done some events and it's like, hey, I was a backer in 2018. And they are so proud that they got to believe in the brand even before we launched in the U.S. market. Oh, yeah, no, I'm sure. I mean, you might even like hear from some of them now, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They said, like, I was part of it. I was part of your Kickstarter campaign seven years ago. They feel like they've been part of the growth of your company. Correct, all the journey. Well, on the product side as well, how did you get started in terms of formulating the spray, looking for partners and creating those initial prototypes? So let's break it down for the design. The design, again, it was we look at other brands that we like to, what are the design principles? We were looking at the golden ratio principle in design. And so when we were looking at the shape of the product itself, we applied that principle of design. And it is something that, again, not everyone is going to look at it and say, oh, that's a golden ratio item, but it's designed to be pleasing to the human eye. And so that was one of the things that we applied when we created it. In terms of the formula, we always like to partner with people that is expert on the matter. And so we have a lab that helps us develop our formulas. And when we develop formulas, we do it like in a two way approach, which I think it's very unique to Touchline. One is the end goal and the functionality. We want this to be hydrating or soothing. We want this to be revitalizing. OK, that's one thing. But then sometimes you start building the formula, and the formula starts delivering certain sensorial feelings that we don't want, like stickiness, the consistency is not good enough, and so on. So whenever we create a formula, it's always that balance of end goals and sensoriality. Like, it needs to feel amazing on skin, it cannot feel sticky, it cannot dry your skin. So that's how we develop formulas, and it takes us a lot of back and forth. Right. So they all have to pass that test, right? Right. And how long did it take you to kind of get your first product made and out to market? Was it a long process for you? It's a long process. For us to create products, usually it's two to three years. It's a long process. Even now, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And from day one, Andrea, it sounds like you had a pretty clear vision in mind. What was your response to critics who didn't, or perhaps still don't, get the appeal of the product right off the bat? So, for instance, with respect, why should a consumer purchase a TouchLan hand sanitizer for between $10 to $16 versus, let's say, $249 for Purell? Correct. I think, like, in regards of the pricing, TouchLan offers a lot of benefits that the 249 doesn't offer. Like, again, like, the formulation, again, it's good for your skin. It comes, like, with fragrances, again, that are uplifting, that they are developed by Givadan Perfume House, which is one of the top perfume houses in the world. It's a capless experience. It's not a goopy experience. You can put it in your pocket. It's a lot of benefits that really create that experience. On top of that, not only the product benefits, it's what people also connect. It's the whole brand. Like, being part of a much larger community, the social media, like, the fun that we have with it, the partners that we have created, it really has created a 360 experience. So for us, like, it's very fun because it's, as I said, it's not a demographic. It's a psychographic. Not everyone is going to buy the same phone. Not everyone. And you can have people thinking the phone that everyone uses may not be the best. But again, it's what you look for that. Like, in my case, when I look for the phone. The product that I use, it's like user experience for other maybe the gigabytes that the phone has. So it is about really creating something for your audience. And for us, it's that surprise and delight. We want to get to people that really looks to inspire their everyday, that moment of happiness. And again, it's not just a functionality. Like, if you just want to sanitize your hands, but you're not looking to really have this elevated experience, most probably you're not going to end up buying Dutch Lund. But I think, like, that's. Like, that's also feeling comfortable about building a brand, that it's designed for people that really understand and appreciate those surprise and delight moments. Knowing your customer in a really deep way. Correct. And I'm actually curious. Do you even see Purell and Dettol and the like, your direct competitors anyway? Would you say that in some ways they're not even the same direct competitors? Dutch Lund offers a beauty forward experience. So we don't really. If we think about our retail district. If we think about our retail distribution partners, Dutch Lund is, I would say, the only. If not, there's two, three brands of hand sanitizer that they sell, because they are in the business of beauty and skincare. So what Dutch Lund has been able to do is really create a category within beauty and skincare for personal care. And so that's why we don't even compete in the same channels. Yeah. That most of them, they sell through pharmacies, supermarkets, like Dutch Lund has decided to really. Yeah. open up a different distribution strategy. How did you manage to convince folks to get on board with the concept that this. It was entirely new at the time, wasn't it? That this was a beauty product. Obviously, the skincare benefits that you've outlined are really visible. But for instance, when you first went to pitch stores like Sephora or Ulta, what did that look like? Did they get it right away? Or was it kind of like, "Hey, that's nice, but why don't you try CVS down the road?" I feel like we've been very fortunate. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like we've been very fortunate that the product does most of the work. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. content creators that buy the product to review it and then like they start of like I don't get the hype with this hand sanitizer I've seen it everywhere then they open it oh oh so that transformation from skepticism to I did not imagine that I would be so surprised and excited about it happens with a couple of sprints so I feel with our retailers we've been fortunate enough that they've been evangelist of the brand users of the brand they loved it and so again and they also made a bet on us like when we met with Ulta in the end of 2019 I mean we didn't have any large distribution partner and then they they were like we're gonna give you the chance we're gonna launch you all doors and see what happens and we launched and we sold that within weeks and let's talk about retail actually because you went into conventional retail fairly early on which can be seen as a big deal for you and I think that's a big deal for you and I think that's a big deal for you as a scary place for many founders that tend to you know want to stay direct to consumer online how did you decide to make that leap so we took a one year before we went to retail we started with a d2c because we wanted to know our consumers I mean one of the things that we were most fascinated about is how we transform the way people buy personal care like when you think about personal care and the other hand or anything you usually buy one at a time and you buy the next one you're running low when we went to retail we started with a d2c because we wanted to know our consumers we launched our d2c one of the things that we saw is the average order that value was four to five six units at a time so people was buying the same functional bottle four or five so we started calling customers and asking hey why are you buying five at a time like are you stocking them for the next six months and people was telling us either it was buying for friends and family which is very unique in the personal care space like I don't know if I would be happy if someone would give me a pack of the other ones I maybe there was a subliminal messaging in there but we truly transform how personal care can be giftable and exciting and the second element is like no I buy multiple cents because one day I feel like I want to wear one cent and another day I want to wear another cent so that capability to really select out of a wide array of cents depending on how you feel that day is also the reason why we got such a high average order value and then we started receiving calls from retailers and so on and that's where you need to make the right choices like for us we've always taken a very disciplined approach into everything that we do everything that we do there has to be a reason why so when we thought about distribution you cannot make a small mistake like everything that you do builds up to to the the the brand image so for us we knew we have to grow within prestige beauty partners and that's why we we started working with Ulta very early on we launched in Bloomington and then we started working with Ulta and then we started working with Ulta and there's like in places that they didn't sell hand sanitizer at the time well that and I do want to note it's also extremely rare for brands to be available at both Sephora and Ulta it's quite a win for you you know given what it requires to not just succeed in one but also the fact that they often ask brands for exclusivity can you talk a little bit about how you managed to navigate those conversations and secure both and what were some of the thoughts behind the decision to go for both I think we knew one of the dreams for the brand is touch launch would be in every pocket and I think like for us making the product available in a very disciplined way it's it's very important and because we know that with the growth that we've had with a very extreme line discipline approach most brands would have opened the gates and sold the product everywhere we've been very disciplined about controlling how do we grow where do we sell and so on so we started with Ulta they supported us with the accelerator program they have been a phenomenal partner of us and as we continue to expand we also met with Sephora I think because of the category and the wide opportunity for the brand they understood that touch land was going to be a brand that was going to be distributed in multiple retailers and they have been supporting the growth both of them for the last years so Andrea touch The company has now scaled to $100 million in annual sales. And I got to believe that was a pinch me moment for you. What was your reaction when you first saw you'd crossed that milestone? I wish I could say that I was like super excited and all that. I think like because I have such a big pressure, like the moment you keep growing, the pressure keeps growing. And I feel a lot of people around me say like you should have those moments of celebration and so on. For me, every time that we continue to grow, the backpack is heavier. And I feel it was an amazing moment. But I'm also someone that is like, OK, what's next? The moment that we reach a certain milestone, like I celebrate, but I'm always on the eye of, OK, let's go on to the next one. And that is something that I need to work on, that a lot of people have said you should just. Stop, pause and celebrate the moment. But I feel because it's such a big responsibility, it's always that that concern inside that you have of like wanting to protect it, wanting to make sure that you can continue growing and not ever getting too full about growth. Because a lot of people, when they reach certain milestones, they are like starting to think that they are untouchable, that they and you're always touchable. Like you're you always can lose what you have because I've been there, I guess. It's because it comes. And from what I saw with my family of going miles and miles of growth and then pull back to square one. So I think it is a good thing because it enables me to always have a feet on the ground. And yes, be very aware and to really feel accomplished. But at the same time, also to understand that it's not about a certain number. For me, it's every day, the journey, the team meetings. That's what really fuels me. Results come of doing a good job. And that's for me, like that has been my approach to business of really enjoying more of those moments with the team. When we launch a product, the stress, the nerves and all that, rather than crossing certain dollar milestones. Because I believe that if you focus on doing something very well, financial goals will come after. But if you focus on financial goals, you may miss all of the all of the fun and all of the journey. What has meant the most to you throughout this? Has there been anything that's really stood out as like, wow, that was really that was really something to me, like to create a product like the ultimate goal is to make people's life a little bit better. And I feel for me what I feel more accomplished is like when I go on socials and I see all of these people and videos and and kids getting dressed off Touchland for Halloween, like those things are mind blowing to me. I'm like, I text them personally. And they're like, Oh, my gosh, my daughter saw your comment, you made her day and I'm like, no, she made my day like I truly feel like the way customers have loved the brand is to meet them the wow moment and it's a wow moment that happens every day when I visit socials when I see videos like that is again, the reason why I have gone through every single wall that I've encountered for the last year. And you did all this with a fairly loose. time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. On any journey using Uber, it helps to know you're getting into the right car. PIN verification adds an extra step to make sure your ride is your ride. Before the trip begins, your app gives you a unique PIN. Just tell it to your driver and they'll enter it in their app before the ride can start. Hey, what's your PIN? 2538. That way you know you're in the right car taking the right trip and your driver knows you're the right passenger. Make sure your ride is your ride with PIN verification from Uber. One more way Uber is putting safety at every turn. Learn more on the Uber app. Anything you look for in particular when you're scouting for those new team members, especially since when you do bring them in, you know, it sounds like they're family to you. It's a very tight organization. Yeah, I would. Listening to a podcast the other day and they said that brands should look at team members like a sports team. Because I think like, I remember that I heard that they said, if you treat them like family, you sometimes don't like someone in your family, but you have to take that member of the family because it's part of the family. But if you think about sports teams, it's about like a group of performing individuals that contribute to a much larger goal. And you don't think of the of the logo on the front of the shirt. And I feel like for Touchland it's the same because it really helps everyone be motivated. You want to make sure that there's not someone that is taking advantage of someone else, that everyone feels the same sort of commitment with the company. And I feel like we have been able to create this culture that everyone feels the same way. And so when we look for people that we hire, yes, resumes are very important and experience is very important, but it's almost more important to me, like the work ethics and the culture, like the attitude. Because, again, we are challengers. We're people that don't settle for the norm and you need everyone to have this need inside them to always go for one more, try to challenge everything, not settle for what's the norm and the standard. So that's something that for us it's a must when we look for newcomers. That dedication to go above and beyond. Yeah, the detail orientment, that craftsmanship, that in everything that you do, like I was looking at other companies, even, for example, when they think of customer service and they externalize that, we don't. Like I was doing last year several weeks of customer service myself because, again, how you answer every customer, like what they tell you, like that's a source of knowledge and we try to really look at, I always say it takes a lifetime to build trust and one second to lose it. So every answer that we do in customer service needs to be the best in-class answer. Every time that we post something on social media needs to really meet the principles of the brand. So this approach has enabled us to really maintain this brand consistency and this perfectionism. I think you're right to focus on that. It's not something that everybody devotes that much time and energy to. One misconception of your business is that this took off only because of COVID. And to be clear, your company did enjoy success in those early days. I believe in 2020, Touchland blew up on TikTok and sold out the first week of the pandemic. At one point, it was reported you even had a wait list of nearly 35,000 people for the hand sanitizer. Is that correct? Around that number, yeah. I don't know exactly the number, but yes. A lot of people. But contrary to what some may think, much of your growth has actually come post-COVID, right? In the last couple of years specifically, right? I think it's so fascinating. Revenue has grown from $15.9 million in 2022 to over $100 million in 2024. Why do you think it's caught on so well despite the slowing market? Yeah, we definitely, there is this misconception of the brand. The brand, again, was having success in 2019. We suffered a supply chain challenge that left us without product for a full year during 2020. And then we relaunched the brand in a moment where the category, it was decreasing by 6%. Retailers were floated of hand sanitizer not selling. But again, we knew we were not selling just hand sanitizer. So we were able to be given a tiny bin in those retailers. We were told that's all you're going to get because hand sanitizer is not selling anymore. And we knew, just give us a chance to prove you that we're not just hand sanitizer. So fast forward from that tiny bin in August 21 to today that we have 2,500. Thank God we're doing Sephora and Ulta. It's been quite a journey. And it's been one step by step, proving with the metrics and the velocity that we were overperforming the trends. And so it's definitely been a journey of, again, one step at a time. And really, we didn't go from zero to half all those end caps. We had one bin, two bins, three bins, 110 caps. And it's been growing to this point. And I think part of the success has been product availability. And there's still a feeling that Touchline is scarce and hard to find, even though we have grown tremendously. And it's because, again, there's a lot of demand for the brand. So I feel that the awareness that we have seen growing has enabled us to be able to put more product in the market and really define how high is height, which, again, doesn't feel like we have gotten anywhere to understand what is that number. Those who don't know, though, with the supply chain, the issue you had during COVID, how did you actually manage to bounce back? Because I can imagine that was really brutal at the time. I think it's because of what I experienced with my family and what I saw with my father. Again, he had to restart from scratch. And I sort of did the same. And I feel like it's about kind of containing yourself, rebuilding yourself. And again, every good story always have a rock bottom moment. Right. Like in our case, it was a pretty big rock bottom moment. But we were fortunate enough, I think, not only to be given a second chance by consumers to come back and see this demand even bigger, but also from retailers like Ulta. They supported us. They gave us a second chance because we left those shelves empty for a long period of time. And so we're always thankful for partners that have been, because that's about the partnership, right? There's going to be good moments, hard moments. I believe in honesty and I believe in transparency. And like bringing them in and opening when you have a challenge. So they are aware of what's going on. And so I feel for us, it was about what I had seen at home and really having to, unfortunately, had to go through a very similar situation. Yeah. And I think it's a good reminder, right, that at the end of the day, all these people behind businesses are just human beings. They're people too, right? Like during COVID, there were countless businesses that were stagnant, stymied because of supply chain issues around the world. So, you know, you weren't alone in that boat. Yeah, definitely. Our partners were very understanding. And I feel like it's about, again, you have two choices. Either you quit or you stand up again. And in our case, we stood up again and we were able to prove that this was much more than hand sanitizer. If it weren't for COVID though, Andrea, do you think your business would have taken a different trajectory in the sense that obviously there's nothing that brings more awareness to. Sanitizing your hands in a global pandemic, right? That spread through touch. Was that kind of the moment that you saw, okay, this is going to go big? Or did that come after? I would say it was actually more the opposite. If anything, when COVID happened, it made it harder. Because again, we were already having really good metrics and growth. And when the pandemic happened, actually a lot of people and the mentality was, oh, that's a COVID thing. And. And for us to rebuild that communication, we did a very fun campaign to really tell people this is not about a pandemic. This is about like wellness and self-care. And so we did a campaign called Touch Like India before. It was like a very risky campaign, I would say, but we wanted to deliver a message that, again, the brand has always been about finding the light on everyday moments. And so part of the things that I think through the pandemic, we were deprived is just. To be human, to hug, to party, to go out. So we did this campaign called Touch Like India before. And it really wanted to promote the message of just like hugging those human feelings that we have not been able to do for a. Those are the kind of things that we have always been as a Touchland, like communicating and empowering. Touchland has had some prominent collaborations with partners like Sanrio, the company behind Hello Kitty. I see this particular line had H1N1, 27,000 person waitlist before selling out in a day. What made you think of that? And how did it all come together? I think in the last five years, we've had four collaborations. So very, very disciplined approach also to collapse. When we think of collapse, we always want to find, again, brands that really match our DNA, that match our principles, and that share our vision. So we've collaborated with Disney, with Smiley, with Blackpink, and lastly with Sanrio. And again, part of this is like, yes, really matches all of our criteria of really bringing the light to everyday moments like we know hello kitty does and the second element when we think of collaborations aside of does it really align with the brand is the world community does our community want it and we when we released the collaboration we did a teaser what is like hundreds of comments of people hello kitty hello kitty so that's what i was saying about the social media listening i think it is so important to read the comments we we always always really review comments of who should we partner with which essentially we launch and all that and so for us when we released that it was almost like yeah we listen to you we've been screenshotting every comment that you guys did for the last years and here it is so that was when you were asking your customers who should be next or was it just something that organically used generally generally both like we sometimes you know we're asking your customers who should be next or was it just something that organically do pause what we ask who should we call up next but also like we receive a lot of comments on like everyday posts yeah of suggestions via email via dms so yeah people are invested yeah you've also been very fortunate in that your product has become a beloved staple that's shouted out by celebrities online a lot of brands have to fork out heavily for this kind of content but you've talked about not spending a dollar on sponsored posts talk us through your approach on that so one of the things that we wanted to do is we wanted to do a lot of things that we wanted to maintain is authenticity um for the brand i feel like the the way the world has approached today when i'm screening through social media and i see someone talking about a great product and how much i love it hashtag advertising you start wondering if there's like real love for the brand or if there's like again that financial uh that financial boosting to to really align with the brand we've been approached by celebrities and so on that they wanted to receive the product we send it but it's up to them if they want to post like we don't want to again have to force anyone like pay anyone to pause like if someone really loves the product and goes on a stage in a concert and uses touchline that's phenomenal and that really shows that the love for the brand that goes again without any financial uh contribution that really boosts that sort of act and so for us it's been about maintaining authenticity on reviews because it really has allowed us to create this organic that that really loves the brand for for what it is and the product for for what it delivers when you need to build up your team to handle the growing chaos at work use indeed sponsor jobs it gives your job post the boost it needs to be seen and helps reach people with the right skills certifications and more spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes listeners of this show will get a 75 sponsor job credit at indeed.com slash podcast that's indeed.com slash podcast terms and conditions apply need a hiring hero this is a job for indeed sponsored jobs on any journey using uber it helps to know you're getting into the right car pin verification adds an extra step to make sure your ride is your ride before the trip begins your app gives you a unique pin just tell it to your driver and they'll enter it in their app before the ride can start hey what's your pin two five three eight that way you know you're in the right car taking the right trip and your driver knows you're the right passenger make sure your ride is your ride with pin verification from uber one more way uber is putting safety at every turn learn more on the uber app well i want to get your thoughts really quick on competition in an interview about two years ago you mentioned that you were dealing with 2 000 patent infringements i imagine there's even more by now is that something andrea that you expected coming out of the gate and how do you deal with the knockoffs i think like that's part of being successful and that's why we invested in design patents from the very beginning because we knew that this was going to be again some thing that would happen um with success and it's part of the game i feel like uh it happens to the to all of the best brands and it's a process that you need to be extremely diligent about keeping it and enforcing it on a daily basis and so we have a lot of programs of enforcement we have a platform where we screen through all of these listings and enforce them automatically so there's like an ongoing process so this doesn't get out of your hands but it is and for them for me it's an important part of growing and being successful well just to check by the way what are you most commonly seeing is it infringements on your design your utility patents like what is it that you're specifically it's on the design of the bottle i see yeah was there a concern andrea that this would significantly take share from you guys at any point because you come across pretty unflappable to me um but i got to imagine that that took a toll on you some days i don't think that is the case like i feel like for like who wants to buy touchland will buy touchland and who buys a dupe a dupe it's gonna buy a dupe like i don't feel like we're losing uh market share if anything i think it's even given us more awardness as a brand so i think it's it's part of what it is again like the the only thing is that there are this is like illegal uh behavior and again like that's why like if you don't have design patents you have to deal with it i think for brands that have design patents again it's that ongoing effort to make sure that you your rights on your patents because ultimately it also may create confusion it may create confused customers so you have to be able to to again keep fighting this this fight well no entrepreneur goes through this journey without facing rejection at times what were some of the hardest moments looking back on your journey and how did you deal with setbacks i mean i think until very few years ago still like hands like every time i was like hand sanitizer like and it's been a lot of people just judging from the outside of like it was not a sexy category it was not understood when we did fundraising people did not even consider this could grow to the size that if it's grown so again when you're doing something that has not been before done before you have to be able to understand that not everyone will understand it and that doesn't mean that your idea is not good enough sometimes it means that you just have to prove them wrong and i think for us we saw that there was the opportunity to really take this category to everyone's pocket and to really create excitement as of others did in other categories um we just had to prove it and there's no better way to prove it than growth and metrics and so on um to really show that there was really demand for something better yeah and in some ways it fuels you doesn't it yeah it's kind of like just watch kind of just watch yeah let's talk about roadmap it's been just weeks since you launched your latest products the body mist and hair fragrances how has that been going so far and why did you pick this category it's been it's been an amazing moment for the brand because again we were a single sku category for five years six years now and so for us was an important moment for the brand when we thought of like the pipeline of innovation we knew that we want to own the sensorial self-care essentials on the go that's that's what we want to grow into and we also did social media listening to a number of people was asking for many years you should do body mix you should do fragrance people saying that they were using touchline already as a fragrance so we were like this has to be the second out of the five categories um because it really connects the dots it's the next extension it's been the most requested category it's on the go no one has thought about fragrance concept on the go aside of the roll-ons with that which are in glass they are not very like if you're clumsy which i am falls to the floor and it breaks so really creating a concept of that compact fragrance on the go was something that we through the touchline lenses wanted to reinvent it's been mind-blowing like the shells of sephora and ulta were empty the metrics are doing phenomenally well so of course we took that very seriously because again as i said part of being very humble is that you don't think you're going to win everything and that makes you always be ultra cautious ultra competitive with yourself and so when we did that we put everything for this we did an amazing campaign we did a new website we did we did everything to make sure this category would be a success i'm curious as well about your international plans now obviously we're both expats you're from europe i come from east and southeast asia where it's much more ingrained in our culture to constantly wash your hands when you come home hand sanitized on every flight covid or not how do you think about plans to push into those markets or back home to europe or any other region outside of north america yeah we've been focused on the us for the last years we recently launched in canada in january this year it's been a phenomenal success like way more than any of us or them expected with sephora canada and then we're going to be launching in a month in sephora middle east and we're very excited about it we're going to have like a window a display on dubai mall of sephora and sephora dubai mall so very excited about the first launch outside of north america it's very exciting dubai mall that's quite an iconic property as well yes yeah i've heard that that's actually one of the world's best performing sephoras correct so middle east is the next big frontier and andrea what is the end game for you here i know that you were saying that you feel like you've kind of just gotten started in some ways even though of course it's been a years-long journey is it owning your own physical stores one day is it becoming the next beauty and personal care unicorn is it to go public one day or you know if a A large consumer goods company came to you tomorrow with a huge check to buy you out. would you say we i feel like we are so focused on the everyday and the journey that we again have not defined what that success is i feel for us we have the opportunity to build a legacy brand and that's the ultimate goal like i would love touchland to be a brand 20 years from now that has remained like the apples the nikes of the world and again that takes a lot of innovation scale and and all that so for us like that's the ultimate goal to be able to build that legacy legacy brand and to do it with your husband right just correct a lot of people i think don't know that you actually work with your husband who is a co-founder correct wow that's incredible it's been an amazing journey and i feel like being an entrepreneur is a very tough journey um and doing it with someone you trust someone that balances you someone that that's gonna call out what other people may not want to say you see is has been the best for me in my case because my father had to do that journey alone now recently my brother has started working with my father and i can see that change of he has now someone that he can trust to and i i've been blessed enough to have a partner in crime through this journey that has been next to me to not tell me everything that i do good but also watch out for this be careful here and i feel like having that that someone that you trust covering your back and in my case covering his back it's it's been the best and the reason why we've been able to get it here because each one has its own uh skills and very different from each other and i feel like that has helped us create the company that we've built a true partnership in every sense correct right this brings me to a segment we're calling what it takes where an audience member and fellow entrepreneur gets to ask for advice and hear more on what it takes to get where you are so elise thank you so much for joining us today thank you so much for joining us thank you so much for joining us today elina from dubai who runs a cosmetics business winning a beauty retail seems to be a matter of how much capital brands have access to was fundraising essential to your decision in entering major giants sephora and ulta and can you share any real insights on how demanding it is to do well in retail i in our case as i said we've been able to do it with a very efficient and self-funded growth which is very unique and we've been able to go to large players like ulta and sephora being mostly self-funded through the whole journey um what it i think it is very important to win is to do one step at a time i feel for touchland we had patience we had resilience we were okay with one bin at the beginning then a second bin then a third and then you can build up the business so you have the financial your own financial support of course you have to build up your own financial support of course as a if there's a brand that launches 2000 end caps without testing the brand without yes you run a lot of risk because if it doesn't sell most probably they're going to return to vendor and that is very risky so i always say to to do one step at a time to start small and grow big because again like when you start playing with those retailers you have to make sure that there's demand you have to make sure you're gonna succeed because if it doesn't succeed you only have one chance you're not going to reach your goal you're not going to reach your goal you're not going to enter again two years later to prove that you have velocity so i would say in in my own experience we did it very conservatively very cautiously and we did it self-funded most of the journey so i think in my case i did not want to just take outside cash to fund a massive launch in those retailers i wanted to do it also showing that the the demand for the brand was there so you don't feel like someone necessarily needs to always have that big bc or uh you know war chest to come to the table and not in our case in our case we've done most of our growth self-funded and again doing it one step at a time very cautiously one bin at a time one new space at the time so we could gain confidence that the velocity was there to keep investing in it and what kind of metrics inform your decision on those things when you say we waited till we're ready we were patient about it was it monitoring your sales data and seeing if it was going to be successful or was it going to be a failure we're seeing okay look this is really taking off to the level that we think it's right now or what what do you mean by that yeah it's weekly velocities like i think all of the retailers give you the retail pos on a weekly basis and it's about that growth you don't need to do one to one thousand you can go one a hundred two hundred that sort of growth that enables you to prepare for it because again like some of these can be very rocky so you it's better that you do it one step at a time one space at a time maybe a few stores at the time prove the numbers and then get more space and more space thank you andrea now we're going to do a quick rapid fire round to end off don't overthink it just say whatever comes to mind okay ready how many hours of sleep do you get every night four to five stop it how are you actually what's something you do to manage stress um i have a couple of dogs so i love animals and that really distresses me so i always bring my dog to the office and she she gives me a lot of calm and i try to call my family to when i need to distress i love to watch netflix i'm someone that also needs my 30 minutes of netflix a day to decompress so i i like to find those micro joys in the everyday because if not i would go crazy yes how do you prepare mentally before a big event i tend to listen to music and try to not talk to anyone for 30 minutes before the event if you could go back and give yourself advice in your 20s what would you say i would say to again to not which i haven't done it but even more to not listen to anyone to trust yourself to dream big from the beginning and because at the beginning i felt like i had to prove a lot and i wish i i trusted myself earlier on to do certain things like for example moving to the u.s like it took me quite some time to make that decision yeah trust your gut yeah yeah andrea thank you so much for being here for this conversation i really enjoyed it thank you so much thanks for joining us on behind the business for more stories on business and leadership follow our show on apple podcast spotify youtube or wherever you get your podcasts see you next week on any journey using uber it helps to know you're getting into the right car pin verification adds extra step to make sure your ride is your ride before the trip begins your app gives you a unique pin just tell it to your driver and they'll enter it in their app before the ride can start hey what's your pin 2538 that way you know you're in the right car taking the right trip and your driver knows you're the right passenger make sure your ride is your ride with pin verification from uber one more way uber is putting safety at every turn learn more on the uber app now at kroger your points add up to more ways to save every trip use them your way to take dollars off groceries at checkout or save at the pump you can even save up to three dollars at checkout or save at the pump you can even save up to thirty five dollars on your next fill up same points more choices and with low prices on fresh quality food plus digital and 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