00:05
Lara Schmoisman
This is Coffee Number Five. I’m your host, Lara Schmoisman. Hi, you guys. Welcome back to Coffee Number Five. I my coffee is getting cold again because we had a little longer pre chat than usual. But I’m happy about that because I have a lot of information to share with you today. And as I told you many times and you heard it over and over, I suffer from migraines. It’s something that. And no, migraine is not a headache. Migraine is a lot. It’s very painful. I really hope that nobody listening had to experience it. But migraines are triggered by a lot of things in your life and even it can be food you eat, even a smell can trigger migraine. Today there is a lot more medicine and a lot of more knowledge about migraine that back then. 

00:59
Lara Schmoisman
But one of the things that I understood about myself, the migrants and the body is that we can get like intoxicated and with things that we put or we eat. And I got to meet a new brand. It’s not that news. Been around a couple of years, but they have a lot of backing from the medicine call part, which I think is super interesting for people who are really having sensitivity to so many issues. So let me stop talking and welcome to Annie Stenzik. Did I say it right? 

01:40
Annie Meyer
You got it right. Perfect. Hello. 

01:44
Lara Schmoisman
Welcome, welcome. Thank you so much for being here. I’m excited to have you here and to hear a little more about how intoxicated came across. 

01:55
Annie Meyer
Thank you. And I’m a genuine fan of the podcast. So I’m very excited to be here and share anything and everything as it relates to my background. Going from big CPG and big beauty into a small startup world, the need we’re solving. So I’m here for it. 

02:10
Lara Schmoisman
This is amazing. Thank you so much. So you’ve been at Unilever, you were at Candy Companies, you’ve been really involved in the CPG world and you sort from the different angles and it’s very different to how did you transition into those big roles? How did you decide, okay, I’m done and I’m going to do something else. How did it happen? 

02:35
Annie Meyer
Yeah. So, you know, I have to say I’m an accidental founder. I really didn’t expect to find myself, you know, in a true kind of founder seat. But what I can say is that, you know, I started or kind of cut my teeth in some of these larger organizations. The Unilever is the diageos of the world. And before that, in my past life, I was actually focused on the Agency side, doing some brand strategy and innovation work. And it turns out kind of when I made the transition, I really wanted to understand, you know, what does it take to operate a business? What does it mean? We make these great recommendations and, you know, I’d always wonder, like, how hard is it really? And it turns out it’s, you know, harder than one would think. But what I found in that operating. 

03:18
Lara Schmoisman
I always say that it makes me a better marketer because I understand. 

03:23
Annie Meyer
100% right, to kind of have the empathy and having walked in both shoes, to kind of really understand the realities of both. And, you know, as I was kind of spending some time in the operating world, I realized that part of me was still really tugging towards kind of the big picture thinking and the strategy and building brands and connecting with the consumer. But what I loved about operating is you were a degree closer in terms of being able to make that a reality. And I just found that those opportunities were a little bit fewer and further between within some of these larger organizations. Now, of course, those models are changing and they’re incubating smaller brands. But what that started for me was this journey. 

04:02
Annie Meyer
I kind of joke of the Goldilocks where I’m trying the different beds, but in this situation, I kind of found my way into these smaller and smaller organizations where I found that I had the ability more to be whether the brand’s been around forever and really needs to be rehabilitated or reimagined or look, we’re wanting to launch something brand new. How can we kind of create from the ground up? And as I kind of was on that journey, I was helping to lead a health and wellness company that worked with a lot of medical doctors. And through that I got connected with my now co founder at Intoxicated and His name is Dr. Martin Smith and he works at the Cleveland Clinic. And he had this problem that he was looking to solve. 

04:43
Annie Meyer
And very fortuitously the problem he was looking to solve was something I was dealing with for the first time as a consumer. And not to be a spoiler alert, but it was skin sensitivity. After spending decades, my first job joke and my longest employer was at Ulta, but then spending decades with it beauty putting everything on and in my body. I started to develop sensitive skin in my early 30s, which is quite common. And so again, fortuitously I met my co founder who specialized in sensitive skin, was seeing this issue in his patients and I’m dealing with it both as a consumer, but then someone that spent decades within beauty and personal care and Saying if I’m struggling to find good solutions, what does that mean for the average person? 

05:27
Lara Schmoisman
I love, I love that you found a problem and then you are went and got a solution. But I’m super interesting. How did you get the solution? How was your process of getting the solution? Because it’s not so easy. It’s not only the ingredients it found in the contract manufacturer. You come from the part of branding. So I know that probably came easy to you. Oh you have it in your mind what you wanted. That happened to me too. But the whole other part that weren’t involved before, that’s the hard part. So how, what was your experience? 

06:06
Annie Meyer
Totally. So I’m happy to share that. And one of the things that I would say is I think one misconception about my background in transitioning into a startup world is that so much of what I did, you know, leading billion dollar businesses at these large organizations translates to being a day one starter, a found up starter startup founder. The reality is so much of it is just persistence, you know, creative problem solving, removing obstacles. So I would say like that kind of connects to how do we go. 

06:40
Lara Schmoisman
About crying, crying and then get. 

06:43
Annie Meyer
The emotional roller coaster. Yeah, yeah. But I think like that, you know, I think that’s very much kind of how went about finding the solution. So I will say in Martin, his background is organic chemistry. You don’t want to see how I did in high school and college in those classes. So we’re great compliments. But he really started to get into all of the empirical research to start to kind of identify things that back what he was seeing. And I’m going to share this because it helps you understand kind of how went about formulating was that patients were coming in. He’s an allergist and immunologist that specialize in sensitive skin. 

07:19
Annie Meyer
They were using a lot of these kind of leading dermatologists, recommended sensitive friendly brands and many of the ingredients in them were creating problems for people’s skin to an increasing degree and with an increasing kind of prevalence. So he started to turn those around, decomped all of the ingredients and started to just get into the research. So again, like no silver bullet here, really just had the curiosity and the persistence to say, what’s going on here? Can I identify the problems and then can I create something that eliminates as many of these as possible? And so, you know, he kind of had this concept, he had the research. 

07:56
Lara Schmoisman
Let me ask you a question. Was intention to eliminate the amount of ingredients that you put or Just to be very selective in the combination. 

08:07
Annie Meyer
Both so. Both. So first and foremost, a lot of these products still contain things that have been science like the medical community has raised their hand and said these are known allergens and irritants for skin. And so for him, it was, let’s eliminate as many of these as possible. And we got to formulas that eliminate over 99% of those. 100% isn’t completely possible. If you want a stable formula that’s going to be okay to sit on shelves, you’re not worried about contamination. But first of its kind in that regard. So it was like, let’s eliminate as many of those as possible. But in doing that, everything that’s in our product has to have an intention. So, you know, it’s just. It’s not just there unnecessarily because of filler or it’s. Yeah. And so we kind of see our products of everything. 

08:56
Lara Schmoisman
It’s what people are looking for nowadays. They’re working for performance, they’re looking for performance. They’re not looking just for pretty boxes. 

09:06
Annie Meyer
Totally. And I think, you know, kind of as were chatting about both of our skincare lines and kind of the intentions we have, I think we have the benefit of some tailwinds in the category where you have consumers that whether it’s a problem, they’re addressing this idea. Idea of sensitive skin. It’s a 20% jump in two decades. It’s now over 70% of people. Or it’s more of a proactive consciousness around, I don’t want to have problems. So I’m more aware of what I put on and in my body. I think we have the benefit of that’s really kind of helped us, especially for folks that aren’t so acutely sensitive they can’t use anything else. But for us, we kind of say it’s everything your skin needs without the unwanted extras. And so everything is limited ingredient. It’s, you know, 13 ingredients or less. 

09:50
Annie Meyer
So it’s not just eliminating over 99% of those irritants or allergens. So anything that’s going to bother your skin, but it’s also adding back the things your skin needs to be healthy and thrive. 

10:00
Lara Schmoisman
Okay. There’s a myth out there, and there are a lot of people know that they’re going for organic products. Yeah, I know that in my personal life that some organic products are not so good for me. 

10:16
Annie Meyer
Totally. I would say organic is great for food, not always great as it relates to what we put on our bodies. And the reason Kind of, there are a few reasons why we would say that. So some of these kind of organic or natural ingredients, I’ll kind of use those a little bit synonymously. Although organic is kind of a better version of naturals. We know some of these ingredients are great, they have wonderful benefits for the skin. Some of them are not great. So we always, you know, my co founder, Dr. Smith jokes, Poison ivy is natural and it can be organic, but does that mean it’s good for your skin? So I think there’s a little bit of this, there’s quite a bit actually of misinformation and a misunderstanding that just because it’s organic organic and natural means that it’s good for you. 

11:01
Annie Meyer
The second thing is just because it’s organic doesn’t necessarily mean it’s better for the environment. So some of these kind of lab manufactured chemicals are actually more consistent and more stable. You’re not having to mind the environment in the same way. And because they’re created in the lab, you’re less worried about variability and contaminants and other things. And so from our standpoint, the way we formulate is it all has to be science backed and endorsed by the medical community. It’s not, is it natural and organic or is it not? It’s what does the empirical literature say? And if it is natural and organic and the empirical literature supports it, we’re all for it. But if it doesn’t, then, you know, it doesn’t deserve to be in our process. 

11:39
Lara Schmoisman
I don’t know your line in this brand. And because one thing is about products that are good for you and other products that they are not considered as clean. And I understand that this brand is a brand that you guys wanted for a physic efficacy. Yeah. So how do you, can you be clean or critical clean in this case or like high standards of clean and at the same time be efficient? 

12:11
Annie Meyer
I think absolutely. I don’t necessarily think that those things are natural tensions. I think there are a lot of ingredients that the world of clean skincare has kind of demonstrated are quite efficacious. Our challenge with the clean beauty space, and I’ll say my challenge personally, as somebody that’s been in this space for decades, Credo’s definition is different than Sephora’s, is different than Ulta’s, is different than maybe X, Y and Z manufacturer. So there’s no standard definition of clean and frankly standard definition of a lot of these terms, hypoallergenic, a number of these other things. So with that, I think there’s just a lot of gray area and, you know, disagreement as to what is considered clean and what’s not. In our case, we really work to kind of circumvent that whole debate. We’re clinical skincare, not clean skincare. 

13:02
Annie Meyer
So if there’s an ingredient that kind of overlaps, right, and the clean community loves and the scientific community loves, it’s in our product. But we’re really, again, kind of focused on all of the empirical and the scientific data around these ingredients, and that’s kind of what we hold up and champion. Now. All that to be said, the clean movement, I think, stands for so much that I think is great. Do we need to test on animals? Can we be vegan? And, you know, cruelty, like all of these other kind of broader considerations, we should absolutely, I think, be considering as kind of responsible business leaders. And we’ve adopted all of that into kind of the way that we operate in our ethos. But in terms of how we formulate, we’re really not looking at that and saying, here’s yet another definition of clean. 

13:44
Annie Meyer
We’re really looking at kind of like, what does the clinical data say in our case? But again, I think efficacious and clean can coexist. I would just challenge what is the definition of clean. 

13:55
Lara Schmoisman
That’s fascinating. We can have a whole podcast about that. 

13:58
Annie Meyer
But 100. 

13:59
Lara Schmoisman
But let me ask you a question, because again, you coming from a brand created by a doctor who has a very unique office and unique patients, what’s the business model for your brand? Is going into big retail or going more into the doctor’s path space? 

14:18
Annie Meyer
Yeah, it’s a great question. So we spent a lot of time kind of discussing this, and it was pretty clear to us that, well, Mark, Dr. Smith saw, and I call him Martin Saw, a number of the really extreme end of sensitivity in his practice. Seven out of 10 people have sensitive skin. So this is fundamentally a challenge that the mass or the majority of the marketplace is dealing with or contending with, whether it’s episodic or ongoing and enduring. So our perspective was, should we be creating a solution that two or three out of those 10 can access and afford or that everyone has access to in terms of price point and availability? 

14:59
Annie Meyer
And we really felt like, you know, we believe in and wanted to create a better solution that was affordable and available for anyone when they, you know, who needs it when they need it? And so for us, our ambition is fundamentally to disrupt the kind of clinical skincare space at the mass shelf that targets the Walmarts of the world with our product. And we would be looking to medical doctors and these experts not to sell our products, but as kind of the thought partners, whether it’s sampling or endorsing or other things, to build that awareness and that advocacy, see with their patients. 

15:32
Lara Schmoisman
That’s very interesting. And so how long have you been in the market so far? 

15:38
Annie Meyer
So we launched last May, June. So we’ve been in market for, I’d have to do the math, about 16 or so months. And then we worked on the formulations for about three years preceding that. 

15:47
Lara Schmoisman
Wow. And so how has been the experience of being in the market right now? You’re D2C by itself, right? 

15:54
Annie Meyer
Yes. So we’re available via our website in Amazon. And again, our goal is kind of ultimately to scale into additional, you know, e commerce and brick and mortar retailers. Man, it’s been wild. It’s been fun, but it’s been wild. I would say, you know, the first thing that comes to mind is I don’t think we appreciated how much money really exchange hands behind the scenes in this category. 

16:18
Lara Schmoisman
Yeah. And how much it costs to show out there, to show up. 

16:23
Annie Meyer
Absolutely, absolutely. I think, you know, with margins, in our case, we’re fighting against a number of very large incumbent brands, some of the largest in a Target or a Walmart, if you walk through the store, owned by some of the largest consumer goods companies in the world. So when you think about not only the margins for personal care tend to be healthy, which gives quite a bit of money, especially at scale, to be able to spend, but then deep pockets of the owners of these brands, we’re competing against very large budgets. 

16:53
Annie Meyer
And then with that, the way the money is being spent, to be able to get in front of people, whether it’s via advertising, even if the return on ad spend isn’t something that we would be willing tolerate, just to kind of maintain that airspace, or with medical doctors, just to be able to maintain that airspace has been a lot like, that’s probably the thing that keeps us up at night in terms of we can’t outspend. So much of being in a startup world is how do we out think and outmaneuver with the resources we have. 

17:23
Lara Schmoisman
Yeah. And. But also, how do you insert yourself in such a busy space? 

17:30
Annie Meyer
Totally, totally. You know, the way I think I have the benefit of kind of leading some of these larger brands. And so kind of going back to the spirit of how do you insert yourself? Our perspective is, you know, it always starts with the consumer. We need to show up where they are and where they’d expect us. But can we do that in different ways that help us break through? And some of it is can we use our competitors playbooks against them? Can we do things they would never do? So, you know, one example is last year we launched a cream like this. Kind of like really awesome occlusive cream had won a bunch of awards. We did some early consumer testing and the blind trials of it. 

18:08
Annie Meyer
Our product was preferred 2 to 1 versus the number one selling cream in the market, full stop. It’s the number one skew on Amazon come winter, not even in skincare like period. And so all that to be said, we thought, well wait a second, our competitors would never come out and do a head to head, you know, Coke Pepsi challenge in that way. Why don’t we do that with people and then do like a little bit of like a viral unveil to see if that catches on to say, you know, David and Goliath, try it blind, see which one you prefer. And sure enough, you know, the results played out as they did in research. And then when people turned it over they were like, not only do we prefer this product experience, but you’re vegan and cruelty free. 

18:49
Annie Meyer
You’ve got better ingredients, you’ve got less of the bad. So for us it kind of disproportionately, you know, created share of voice and helped us break through. So it’s a lot of again, like how do we think and distort our resources in kind of smarter and more clever ways that our competitors might not in order to. 

19:07
Lara Schmoisman
I think that’s one of the advantages that we have. I say we because we work with so many brands that they are in early stages of middle stages brands and you are, because there are less people involved. You can be a lot, you can spin, you can change, you can pivot fast and you create. You don’t need to make decisions. Such a big deal. You just can go and execute. 

19:33
Annie Meyer
Absolutely. And that has been really, has been a really cool and really fun part of the process. It’s also daunting because you’re existing in a world where sometimes, and I love your perspective, it almost feels like the possibilities are endless. So how do you prioritize the thing you’re going to go against? So it is, it’s, I think we do have the privilege of a lot of, you know, we get the data and we can respond quickly and react to it whether it’s paid media and we want to test, you know, a Hook or a creative or doing something like, you know, so and so posted about us virally. 

20:03
Annie Meyer
Let’s lean in and do something kind of over the top with it in a way that you don’t have to get on the phone to get a hold of your person at the PR agency to have them get the product to send them. You know, it’s just, it’s. I think that’s an advantage we’re really, you know, working to lean into. To your point. 

20:18
Lara Schmoisman
Yeah, absolutely. And I just did a blog actually, and if you guys don’t subscribe to my blog, subscribe and I. You find out about collaborations that you want to collaborate with these young brands because they’re young and they’re hungry. I think collaborations is the best thing that can happen to brands because you amplify. And like I always say in Spanish, we have a saying that says, tell me who you hung out with and I tell you who you are. So it’s good to just align yourself with brands that you have similar values or that you are in the same space and that you can help. I think that there is space for everyone. You just need to learn how to work together. 

21:01
Annie Meyer
I think that’s such a brilliant point and kind of like tactic as it relates to how do you break through with more limited resources. It’s exactly that aligning with other properties, whether it’s influencers or celebrities, medical experts or brands, to your point, you can tap into their audience and you’re at the same time building awareness and equity because you’re suddenly affiliated with another brand the audience has love for that can then side by side demonstrate we share these values and other things. We’ve even done that with other skincare brands. Your point? There’s room for more than one of us in a routine. And the reality is you don’t open somebody’s vanity and find even in mine, you don’t find all just intoxicated. So there really is opportunity to collaborate and grow, which is fantastic in that way. 

21:54
Lara Schmoisman
Yeah, absolutely. Let me ask you a question, because I’m looking at your startup line and you are telling me that right now you have four products, right? There is any reason why you decided four and not three or. 

22:10
Annie Meyer
Yeah, great question. So we launched with two actually, and then we introduced our third last fall and our fourth just a couple weeks ago. So for us, congratulations. Yeah, thank you. Part of our ethos is kind of less can be more. And you know, we’ve talked about this as it relates to our own skin journeys that you don’t need to have a 13 step routine. But in fact, you know, fewer, more simple things can actually be more powerful if you kind of give your skin what it needs and then kind of get out of the way. And so for us, we really wanted to start with the core of a skincare routine because that’s fundamentally, you know, if people are doing anything, they’re cleansing and moisturizing. And that’s where, you know, where a number of Dr. 

22:50
Annie Meyer
Smith’s patients were coming in and getting caught up is like, my skin can’t tolerate anything else because I’m stripping it when I cleanse it. Or, you know, I’m having so many issues because, like, I can no longer handle a moisturizer. So we really wanted to start there in terms of, you know, if you’ve got the base of a routine down, I kind of see it’s a lot like nutrition. If you eat healthy 80% of the time, your body can handle the 20% pretty well if you want to go out or go on vacation and rebound. Similar with skin, if you’ve got the right fundamentals, it’s able and it’s healthy, you’re able tolerate a lot. So we started there and then we launched our cream last year. Knowing that especially if you’ve got sensitive skin, dry and sensitive skin have quite a bit of overlap. 

23:30
Annie Meyer
You know, our lotion was not sufficient for winter, so we wanted something that again, would kind of meet the needs of the most of our audience that we could. And then our micellar as a compliment just launched because the reality is Nami is wearing makeup. So my seller is a 3 in 1 makeup remover. No rinse, cleanser, toner. 

23:49
Lara Schmoisman
I was about to ask you. I mean, that’s a super interesting combination. 

23:53
Annie Meyer
Yeah, yeah. And, you know, not only is removing wearing makeup irritating, but the act of removing it is also irritating. And so Martin was finding that Dr. Smith was finding that a lot of his patients were also having issues with that, which is. I might have found a mascara that works for me, but taking it off as a nightmare because I’m doing so much rubbing. The product is so irritating because of what’s in it. So that felt like a natural extension for us as well, which is again, kind of everything starting with the consumer need or the consumer problem kind of expanding out from there. 

24:24
Lara Schmoisman
You have that consumer focus group all day long. Being in a doctor. 

24:30
Annie Meyer
Absolutely, absolutely. So between Martin having that kind of with his patients in the more extreme group, but kind of my world being between myself not conflating myself as the sole Consumer, but having sensitive skin in my need and then being able to build kind of a community around us with kind of intoxicated consumers has been so great to sanity check. You know, does this make sense? Does this resonate with you? What should we introduce next? And really kind of anchoring ourselves in that. 

25:01
Lara Schmoisman
So what’s next for the brand? 

25:04
Annie Meyer
Yeah, so I think as we look forward, two things. So one is we’re really focused on how do we continue to grow our awareness and our community so that we can build kind of enough of a force around ourselves to kind of scale into that increased retail distribution, as I mentioned. And then the second part of that is really kind of along with that, how are we growing our brand and our assortment from a product portfolio standpoint? And there are a number of places we could go. But I would also say one of the benefits that we have as a D2C brand kind of compared to our competitors is we have a more, I think, intimate relationship and feedback loop in some regards than we do brands that are just sold through Walmart and have social hands. 

25:45
Annie Meyer
And so we’re really leaning on our community to say where should we go and how should we build ourselves out? Whether it’s, you know, where should we show up on our path to getting to an altar or Target or what products, you know, are you most in need of? And every single write in we get tons of customer service, emails, social comments, we keep track of every single one of them to kind of guide us on our path. 

26:07
Lara Schmoisman
Yeah, and that’s absolutely the best thing you can do is learning from the social proof on the audience. 

26:14
Annie Meyer
Yeah, absolutely. 

26:16
Lara Schmoisman
You had to start the process all over again. What would you do? 

26:23
Annie Meyer
Man, I’m about to like tears thinking of going through that like the founder scars. What would I do differently? 

26:28
Lara Schmoisman
A trauma. 

26:30
Annie Meyer
Yeah, that’s a great question. I think I would have focused on kind of leaning into and finding a network of founders earlier on. So I think the number of situations, the number of times where I’ve been like, I really don’t know how to solve for X or you know what, I really need someone that can help with this very specific problem or challenge or can sanity check me. 

26:59
Lara Schmoisman
I’m so glad you said that because this is one of the recommendations I always give myself founders, my clients is go to events, network, get to meet other people. I mean, if someone sees a competition, it’s not a person that you want to be aligned with. Find people. Because I really find that there are very generous people out there and they’re ready to help you 100%. 

27:24
Annie Meyer
And that, you know, were talking about this kind of, you know, a little while ago, which is, I think I. Again, one of my misconceptions and a common one was my background. Big CBG would translate into being a founder, and it has to a very small degree. But I think as a result of that, I was a little bit slower to building these kind of allies that really understand this world. And almost everyone I’ve spoken with to your point, Laura, is like, I would love to pay it forward because someone helped me get here. And so there is this community and spirit of generosity that I chat regularly with some people that would kind of be considered competitors in terms of where we’re going, not head to head. But there’s overlap. 

28:04
Annie Meyer
But we’re all just here to help each other because we think there’s room to succeed and we all respect the fact that we’re kind of pursuing passions and ambitions. So that’s been so fun. 

28:13
Lara Schmoisman
We understand that a brand is not for everyone, that you’re not gonna get everyone. There is people for Coke and there’s people for Pepsi, and there is another option too. So the same happens with any kind of product. 

28:29
Annie Meyer
Absolutely. And I’ve been so inspired by the number of people that share that mentality and this idea of ye there’s kind of room for a lot of people. And I think being an entrepreneur can be so isolating sometimes. And there’s this. 

28:44
Lara Schmoisman
I always say it’s lonely up here. 

28:46
Annie Meyer
It’s lonely and it’s hard to put into words because I think so much of it is not just what you’re learning from the job, but I found what I’ve learned about myself and my needs from these experiences that it’s hard to put into words what that emotional rollercoaster can be like. But I think there is within the kind of the startup community, I found my way into a lot of respect for that journey, even if the products, to your point, are technically competitive, but therefore a willingness to be like it is lonely. I respect the hell out of your doing. How do we help each other? And frankly, I didn’t find a lot of that in the corporate world. I found it a lot more in the startup world where in some ways the stakes are higher because we’re not making a salary. 

29:25
Annie Meyer
And this is all of our, you know, each of our ambitions or dreams. So that’s been really cool. I would have done that day one. 

29:30
Lara Schmoisman
Well, Ani, thank you so much for having coffee with me. This was lovely of course. 

29:36
Annie Meyer
Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. It was great to chat. 

29:40
Lara Schmoisman
And to you guys. We’ll see you next week with more coffee. Number five. Find everything you need at larashmoisman.com or in the episode notes right below. Don’t forget to subscribe. Was so good to have you here today. See you next time. Catch you on the flip side. Ciao, ciao.