Finding the Target Market

What started as an idea turned into a 3 month plan to launch TreeToTub’s first products, shampoo & body wash, on kickstarter. After a successful campaign that raised over $40k, the challenge was to take it to market.

After spending thousands of dollars on paid ads that didn’t work, we went back to square one to really figure out our niche.

We were spending $$ targeting many different types of people, and were running out of funds. Yikes!

Some of our niches included:

• Busy moms with children who care about organic products

• Specific ethnic groups with difficult to maintain hair

• People with sensitive skin

• Females in their late 20s who have $$ to buy higher-end products

Yes, this was a mess. We learned a lot about how to figure out niches and test for them.

The main question we wanted to answer was: does our product stand out? and for which group? how do we find that group?

This will drive the direction of the entire design. Not just that, the entire business.

We gave ourselves 2 weeks to explore the different groups. We sent samples to influencers, did guerrilla marketing at parks, and created events where friends (and friends of friends) came to try the products. We asked questions like:

• Out of all these brands, which one do you prefer and why?

• What do you look for when you buy shampoo & body wash?

• What are some of your favorite brands?

Surprisingly, the comments and reactions we got were more important than the generic questions we came up with. We found users with sensitive skin pouring their feelings and expressing gratitude at finally being able to find something that didn’t irritate their skin. We found our dedicated followers.

Here’s a fun clip of the event we put together:

We also know that that these questions are terrible. I learned a lot about just how important it is to ask the right questions (afterwards).

We were looking for genuine enthusiasm, and not ‘under pressure’ responses.

We also learned that people love this idea that soap can come from a fruit. So we made sure to add a dried fruit to each order to create that fun experience.

Second Round of Research

We rounded up a list of 10 people that had sensitive skin. The list included friends, friends of friends, and strangers. We asked questions like:

• What products do you use now?

• What do you like/dislike about each product?

• Which products didn’t work? And what types of reactions do you have?

• What words/ingredients do you look for when you shop? What do you stay away from?

I put more focus into making these rounds of questions a lot more impactful than the last.

A few things that we learned about our users:

• They get an allergic reaction to most, if not all products. Every time they have to try a new product, their initial reaction is fear. Allergic reactions include: excemza, seborrheic dermatitis, flaky & itchy, etc.

• Labels always have to say sensitive skin. If they know products that they’re allergic to, they always look for that.

• Some of them preferred organic and vegan products as a standard. But if a product works, they’ll go with that one.

• Paying more for a product they love is not unheard of.

We used the information to redesign not only the website, but also labels. A section that we highlighted was that it was unscented. This was very important for people with sensitive skin, as most are allergic to essential oils. An unscented shampoo is not as common as you would think.

before

after

Notice my attempt to be a bootstrap photographer.

Coding the Website

I was super excited about building the site from scratch. I got to test out my front-end development skills.

Looking back, this was surprisingly plain. I was limiting my design based on my coding skills.

Once we launched, we tested the site’s performance. It had issues such as not sending welcome emails, validation errors, lack of email collections and other api integrations, etc. I didn’t expect my coding skills to be up to par with those of website builders, so we eventually decided to move the site over to shopify.

As a designer, taking the coding portion off my plate was great. I was able to put much more focus on the brand side of things.

What’s Next?

We created several research groups in order to test and get feedback from users. I would also work on continuing to update the label design, packaging, and maintain the website. Eventually, we would want to build more products for people with sensitive skin by asking them what products they would like to see next.

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