I Emptied My Savings To Create A Hard Candy Brand [Sold In Anthropologie]

Alisa Pospekhova

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Published: August 25th, 2022

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About
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Alisa Pospekhova

Founder, kindroot

Founders

Employees

kindroot

kindroot.com

from El Segundo, CA, USA

started January 2019

Founders

Employees

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My name is Alisa. I am a health and wellness fanatic and a marketer by trade. In 2019, I decided to launch my supplement brand, but one with a twist! I saw a need for supplements that would be as delicious as they are beneficial and that is how Kindroot vitamin and herb-infused lozenges were born!

We are an independent woman-owned wellness company, making herb and vitamin-infused lozenges for everyday health support - sleep, mood, immunity, and focus. Our special slow-melting formula is designed to begin absorption in the mouth, which leads to faster and more direct action.

Our product is proudly made in the USA in small batches and is gluten-free, made with organic ingredients and third-party lab tested. Today we can be found in over 150major retailers with a presence in Anthropologie, Erewhon, and Thrive Market and we also recently launched on Target.com. The business has been growing organically with the growth of 300% year over year while being fully self-funded.

What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?

I battled auto-immune and respiratory conditions since childhood and, finally, in my 30s and after working with a holistic doctor, I felt the transformative effects of adaptogens and other herbs on my health and energy levels.

But I found most herbs unpleasant to take and difficult to incorporate into my daily routine, especially because my job often took me traveling where I didn’t have access to blenders nor could I bring heavy tinctures with me on the plane. I saw a need to create a supplement that would be nourishing, but also would be both convenient and fun to take - and that is how the idea for a functional vitamin and herbal lozenge was born.

Around the same time, I felt creatively blocked at work. I spent over 15 years in brand management, working in health and wellness and yoga, and was at the point in my career where I wanted to have full control and drive the strategy. That is always difficult in larger organizations where executives tend to be risk averse and just want to do safe innovation, so I knew that to create something truly differentiated, I would have to go out on my own. With my background in business and passion for supplements, I felt like I could pull this off, so I decided to give it a shot and go for it. To this day, my main motivation for launching kindroot has been to bring an amazing product to market and to create a type of company I’ve always dreamed of working for - one full of creativity, exploration, and kindness. Money and growth have continued to be secondary, but I believe that when you focus on what you are passionate about, everything else falls into place.

So after doing some initial ideating, I spoke to a few of my friends and they validated that this would be an interesting idea to this day I often hear “wow, your product is so unique”.

I spent the next 18 months working on formulations, figuring out the production process, and working on a pitch while working a full-time job to finance the launch.

Take us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing your first product.

The hardest part for me was production. I came up with blends and had a clear idea for branding, but at the same time, I was calling every single manufacturer I could find (even overseas!) and every one of them said no to making my product.

Some just politely declined, but others literally chuckled at me over the phone and I even vividly remember one man telling me: “Why do you think you will be successful with this? You will probably fail.”

It was difficult not to get discouraged and I had to dig deep to find the motivation to keep going. But, ultimately, I believed that I had something that the market needed, so I decided to hire a scientist and a product expert and make them myself. I’ve never manufactured anything before and I don’t even like cooking, but here I was running a full production and learning how to work with all kinds of ingredients, testing protocols, and packaging. It was like adding Food Scientist, Supply Chain Manager, and QA Expert titles to my resume!

Making them by hand in a commercial kitchen in Los Angeles was an incredibly slow process, managing ingredients, and shipping - all very laborious, but it was enough to start and test market fit, and see how retailers would react.

Eventually, the product started to take off and I did another round of factory searches. This time I had a good volume I could offer and a product that was ready to scale. So about 8 months later we moved into a factory and that is where we make them now. After that experience, I got the confidence to believe that I can work through any challenge and accomplish anything - the answers are always within me.

Running trial batches:

Very first production batch:

Describe the process of launching the business.

Due to our initial manufacturing constraints, we started slow, but I am glad that was the case because it allowed me to learn and fine-tune the business.

Everything takes longer and requires more money than you think, and I will say that is very true!

I was very mindful of our branding since I considered it to be an important part of the overall experience, so I invested in that and our website, which is just a very nicely customized Shopify template.

We did some initial PR outreach and even got a placement in POPSUGAR, then really focused on organic social media and a few key retailers with the right demographic.

About 3 months into it, we tested some Facebook ads with a small spend of about $30 per day (but it was big money for me, of course!), and those performed well getting us to about $7 cost per acquisition. Funny enough, that same POPSUGAR placement we got turned into our best-performing ad creative for a while since it had built-in authority and social proof! Low acquisition cost still left some margin room and with our high repeat of about 50% on Snooze product, Facebook ads were a great tool for a while until the iOS changes.

I financed the whole company myself via my savings and some credit cards, so I had to be very mindful of spending, making sure that there was very clear and immediate ROAS. It took about $50k to launch, most of which were R&D costs, branding, and ingredient purchases, and, of course, it is always amazing how much basic admin costs add up too! The hidden blessing of having to manufacture by myself meant that I didn’t have to sink a lot of money into also buying finished inventory - I was just making little batches as needed every week and curbed my up-front start-up capital making it manageable. Since I had a background in Brand Management, I was also able to handle a lot of tasks myself and not have to pay anyone.

Today, we do more retail partnerships and invest in endcaps and promos, where we see lifts of 250% and more. And on the DTC side, invest in SEO, and partner with micro-influencers to drive our DTC and Amazon.com businesses.

Measuring retailer shelves while designing packaging:

Launch photoshoot:

Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?

I was told by another founder that everything takes longer and requires more money than you think, and I will say that is very true!

I am still working on figuring out the exact tactics, but post iOS, we’ve focused more on organic tactics like PR, social, and partnerships. Last year we ran about $1k per month in Facebook ads, but I moved that budget now into sampling and other less measurable, but more high-touch activities. I regularly update our email flows and test different opt-in offers to help with acquisition and retention.

Another focus is on upselling and trading customers up to purchase multiple flavors, so a lot of our content is focused on education and explanation of benefits and usage.

Amazon has been a good channel for us and ultimately even with fees, our acquisition costs have been just a fraction of traffic to our site, so we have been running search ads there and optimizing our listing and are seeing nice and steady growth. We’ve participated in the Vine program for new launches and the subscribe and save feature is starting to show steady growth.

Amazon growth:

We’ve also seen great success with FAIRE wholesale platform that lets us tap into the boutique channel. We make sure to provide excellent service and have been ranked as a Top Shop every quarter for which FAIRE rewards you with extra traffic and visibility.

When I was just concepting the brand, I already had it in mind that we would be omnichannel, so I spent a lot of time making sure everything from our packaging to case count to margin structure would work down the line when we would start working with retailers and distributors. It was more planning up front, but it meant that I didn’t have to make any changes to get into retail - the whole process was pretty seemliness.

It was kind of unbelievable when I got an email from an Anthropologie buyer, which is my absolute favorite store, I think about 80% of my wardrobe is from there and she asked for me to send them some samples. It just casually came through the website customer service form and I just sat there looking at the email in disbelief, then I verified the name and position via LinkedIn just to make sure it wasn’t a prank. Later they told me they found kindroot through Instagram. A lot of larger retailers have foragers who are tasked with finding new and on-trend products, so I guess my hashtag strategy and content were working! From there, expanding into retail was a mix. Some buyers were found via Linkedin and we just cold-emailed them, others I got introduced to via other entrepreneurs I met and it honestly still baffles me how many of them were reaching out directly to me. Once you start expanding, it becomes a snowball effect where more and more people see you in other retailers and that acts as proof and desirability, and then they want to bring you in as well!

For retailers, our best performing activities have been quarterly promotions and investment in endcaps and displays, so we do that once a quarter for all retailers and distributors.

Getting off the red eye to train my very first account - Clean Market in NYC

Working in the lab

How are you doing today and what does the future look like?

This year my main focus has been on growing Amazon and our eCommerce retailers like Thrive Market and the recent launch on Target.com. With Amazon, we are 2000% above last year and that is only with organic growth and some minimal advertising.

We also onboarded a major distributor - KEHE and with that focused on expanding our footprint in SoCal natural grocery channel and some other trend retailers like Foxtrot. In most of our retailers, we are seeing a growth of 35% year over year.

I am still mainly a 1 person show, but I do have amazing partners who help me with PR, social media, and sales, so I can manage a variety of projects with their help and guidance.

I am also tackling something that I’ve been passionate about for a while and something close to my heart - and that is how kindroot impacts the community around us. End of this year, we will unveil a community cause partnership with a local organization in Los Angeles where we will be sponsoring and also donating time to have a positive impact in our communities with herbal education and sustainable food practices.

Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?

As an independently owned company, finances and bandwidth are always challenging. I started my business while having a full-time job to help fund it, so I’ve always felt like I wasn’t spending enough time on my own business, and many times I would get to it already exhausted from the day’s work.

Learning how to be hyper-organized, prioritize tasks, and then also know when to bring in help and delegate is something I slowly learned, but once I got comfortable with it, it was life-changing!

What platform/tools do you use for your business?

Our site is on Shopify, which has been so turnkey. For reviews, we use Junip - it has a much better interface and reasonable pricing for small businesses.

I also love Awtomic for subscriptions and their build-a-box and add-on features helped us raise our AOV.

Later.com for social media automation.

Canva for quick design projects.

And, of course, Google Drive and Notion for project management and databases, etc.

What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?

Social Media Marketing podcast is absolute gold. I listened to every new episode. Not only does it keep me up to speed on everything social, but also gives me ideas for how to better leverage my marketing strategy.

I also devour the weekly DTC Newsletter. It has very direct insights and actionable tips, so I feel like I am learning, but like I am also being coached every time I read it.

Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?

Take care of yourself! I put a lot of pressure on myself to launch by a certain day and accomplish a to-do list, which is great, but it also left me feeling quite burnt out at certain points, which wasn’t healthy for my creativity or motivation.

Now I make sure to take time off or even simply do things that are outside of work and make me happy. You can’t take care of your business if you are depleted.