Saigu Cosmetics: the organic makeup startup from Menorca

Its creators, Gerard Prats and David Hart, are two young Menorcans who shared a flat during their university days but met again five years later to start a business together. Her cute project, which last year managed to bill 350,000 euros with her makeup products when she couldn't leave the house, has just closed a first round of financing with investors in order to consolidate her business and expand it.

ORIGINS. Gerard Prats studied chemistry and did a master's degree in dermopharmacy and cosmetology at the University of Barcelona. His specialization in the creation of beauty and skin care products helped him find work in a make-up factory in Barcelona where he started as a sales manager and ended up as technical director after five years. But being born on an island that is a Biosphere Reserve and growing up in a local environment where care for the environment is very present, leaves a deep mark.

That is why Gerard felt great personal frustration when he saw how production processes were developing in the traditional cosmetics industry, using all those materials from petroleum, buying plastics for the containers that arrived from the other side of the world. In short, a business model completely opposed to his way of being and thinking.

His dissatisfaction was what encouraged him to try to do things differently and think of a brand that was made with natural ingredients, that did not have to travel so many thousands of kilometers and that were not harmful to the planet. "I was convinced that things could be improved and that new consumers would value it regardless of price or quality," explains Gerard Prats.

That's when he called his friend David Hart for a beer and told him about his idea. David is an entrepreneur specialized in online marketing who, after a six-month training period in California after graduating in Business Administration and Management, returned to Barcelona in 2016 where he founded a digital newspaper aimed at millennials called Código Nuevo. “When Gerard called me, I wanted to make a change and I was already considering leaving my previous project”, explains David Hart. That meeting was providential.

FIRST PROTOTYPE. After the first prospecting studies and following the Lean Startup work model, the two Menorcans threw themselves into their idea of ​​organic cosmetics for twelve months, with the help of an industrial partner to carry out the tests. Natural cosmetics had boomed in recent years but there were no brands on the market that only made makeup and, furthermore, there was a great lack of consumer knowledge about formulations that were often presented as sustainable but then used, for example, olive oil. palm.

“It was very difficult for us to find nearby products and suppliers for our purpose because the world has gotten used to producing on the Asian continent, but in the end we succeeded”, details Gerard Prat. On February 14, 2019, they launched the first four products through Instagram: a fluid foundation, a mascara, a matte lipstick and another creamy one whose percentages of natural ingredients were between 99.4 and 100 percent. .

They opted for olive oil, rosemary oil, glass containers and included wood for the stoppers. They did it with the Saigu Cosmetics brand, which reinforced their Menorcan and Mediterranean origins, which fit so well with their philosophy of marketing something natural. As the native digital brand that they were, they relied on marketing strategies such as the creation of a podcast on sustainability as well as influencers to talk about organic cosmetics as well as support in specialized online media and social networks.

The test worked very well and after the first purchases from friends and family, orders arrived from all over Spain that brought them to August with a bill of 90,000 euros. "We ourselves were surprised by the initial success but we realized that there was a latent demand from consumers who were sensitive to this type of cosmetics, consistent with values ​​that are very present in society," adds Gerard. All marketing is done online except for the presence in five physical stores, one of them in Menorca.

ACCELERATOR. It was when they were looking for financing for their project that they came across Lanzadera, the business accelerator that businessman Juan Roig has in Valencia. In this way, they were chosen to participate for nine months in a training program in which they had the opportunity to reinforce their knowledge of management, marketing, finance or human resources. “The best thing about Lanzadera is the networking that you generate with all the people you meet and who have the same desire and the same problems as you”, explains David Hart.

“They also teach you how to prepare your project to be able to present it in financing rounds for future investors and this helps you a lot”, adds Hart. In parallel, the startup continued to produce in the Barcelona factory of its industrial partner and the products were later sent to Valencia to organize shipments from there to the end customer from its warehouse inside the Lanzadera building itself.

From the initial five products they went to ten with blushes, eye pencils, concealers or highlighters. But then the pandemic hit and growth plans came to a screeching halt. They decided to halt production for a month to protect all their employees and rearranged the priorities for launching new products, thinking of betting more on skin care products instead of makeup.

FUTURE. These days they have just successfully closed their first round of financing with investors. Saigu Cosmetics' future plans go through three lines of action. The first will be to invest in research and development to create new products. Secondly, increase investment in marketing, making a quantitative and qualitative leap through a greater network of influencers, presence in the media and social networks.

The third line will mean reinforcing its professional structure, which currently consists of eight people, with the incorporation of a communication director or a marketing director. The idea is to exceed a million euros in turnover.