Andrea Lisbona grew up in Barcelona, Spain, in a household of entrepreneurs. She knew she wished to observe within the household custom and begin her personal firm, however wasn’t certain the place to start out. In the end, she started trying to find a product class that was ripe for transformation, however wasn’t in an area with an excessive amount of competitors.
In the end, she determined readily available sanitizer. This was again in 2014, and Lisbona believed hand sanitizer might change into extra of a day by day routine product, like skincare — if solely it appeared and smelled higher. “Nobody appears ahead to sanitizing their palms,” she says. “It was principally performed within the health-care area.”
So she and her husband launched a sequence of hand sanitizers in Barcelona, however struggled to ascertain the model within the European market. “We knew that we had a good suggestion, however to make it actually take off, we would have liked to depart our households behind and cross the Atlantic for the U.S.,” she says. “That is what we did in 2018.”
They moved to Miami with their hand-sanitizer firm, Touchland, which, satirically, was doing tremendous till the pandemic — when everybody instantly wished hand sanitizer. Provide chains collapsed as all types of corporations tried to capitalize.
“Everybody thinks Touchland is a success from Covid — nothing could possibly be much less true,” she says.
However all through the chaos, Touchland caught to Lisbona’s imaginative and prescient of constructing hand sanitizers in a means that folks would need them for on a regular basis use. By 2021, Touchland had a tiny presence in Sephora shops. Each quarter, gross sales had been adequate that Sephora gave Touchland extra space. At the moment, they’ve 163 endcaps in Sephora with 1,000 anticipated subsequent yr, together with retail partnerships at Ulta Magnificence, Goal and Kohl’s. This yr, Touchland expects to promote shut to twenty million bottles of hand sanitizer. Subsequent yr’s income is projected to be greater than $100 million. All of this made Lisbona a finalist on our Entrepreneur of 2024 record of 20 modern leaders.
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What made huge retailers like Sephora consider that Touchland’s hand sanitizers would promote?
Sephora noticed our merchandise promoting thrice greater than skin-care manufacturers, even within the small areas they had been giving us, so that they gave us extra space little by little. In two years, we took over the shops with the endcaps.
Two years is not very lengthy. How did you deal with the challenges that got here along with your operations scaling that quick?
We have been rising triple digits yr over yr since 2021. No one thought a hand sanitizer firm might try this. For us, it is being surrounded by best-in-class companions. They must be nice professionals and even higher human beings. If you’re rising that quick, you’ll be able to’t do it alone.
How did your relationships with these companions evolve?
It is about transparency and planning, and never making an attempt to do greater than you are able to do. We might be in every single place as a model, however we have now obligations and commitments with our companions. We glance first at our obligations with our companions. After they forecast a model, they by no means know the way good it will end result. We had been at all times exceeding the expectations. It was about being a very good accomplice.
Did you decline some alternatives to get Touchland’s merchandise on extra cabinets?
Sure, we did, and it’s extremely exhausting to say no. For instance, we had an opportunity to launch internationally with numerous Sephora shops, and we stated no, we’ll begin with one market, the USA. It will be superior to be in every single place, but it surely’s necessary to start out in a single market and execute. We began with one nation, and little by little, we’ll develop. That could be a very exhausting factor to do, however I feel if you wish to construct a model that’s right here 20 or 30 years from now, it does not happen overnight.`
How did you be sure you had sufficient strategic partnerships to develop the way in which you wished to develop?
When a provider holds an excessive amount of enterprise for us, they assist us qualify one other provider to herald extra enterprise. It is the very best for everybody to diversify.
Did your development in retail shops — the model consciousness — additionally assist you to develop on-line?
Sure. Throughout TikTok and Instagram, we have now 170 million natural impressions with a complete mixed following of 720,000. We additionally grew on Amazon and in a number of locations.
The magic about it’s that we have by no means needed to pay anyone to speak concerning the model. The celebrities, the micro-influencers, it has been purely natural. I feel that exhibits the standard of the product.
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