The team behind Nuud are bringing an ethical revolution to the beauty sector with their game-changing natural deodorant. Its super-concentrated formula contains no aluminium, parabens, propellants, artificial fragrances or alcohol, and is designed to be applied once every few days. What's more, it comes in an environmentally-friendly sugar cane tube and is delivered in a biodegradable cardboard box.
We asked founder Martijn van Seters for his thoughts on challenging the status quo, what he learned in his first year in business and how to set your brand apart from the others.
Who? Martijn van Seters
Disruptor Brand: Nuud
Founded: 2017
Employees: 10
Parent Company: Independently owned
What inspired you to create Nuud?
We noticed all the disadvantages of regular deodorant and were convinced that these could be solved if we started to rethink deodorant from scratch. So, we started looking for an alternative formula that did not block your pores, was based on natural ingredients, would not leave yellow stains and so on. Most important of all, it had to be effective. And what we came up with turned out very effective, Nuud needs application only once or twice a week!
What were the big lessons you learned in your first year as a business?
What we learned and immediately executed was to listen very carefully to our customers. Based on this we have altered some of the ingredients to make Nuud fully vegan for example, without losing the effectiveness.
What are the brand values and promises you stand behind? How did you challenge the status quos and disrupt conventional wisdom? How did you set your brand apart?
Our goal is to make a deodorant with the smallest footprint possible, without cost being a determinant. For example, shortly after we started in business the possibility of using sugarcane tubes became available - these were almost 100% more expensive than the regular ones, but without any hesitation we opted for those. We were the first in the Netherlands to use these, but now you see more and more brands following us.
Most large deodorant brands are sales driven; the companies behind them need to make shareholders happy so the margins need to be a bit larger every year. With prices that can’t go up for shoppers, the only way is to push for lower cost. With Nuud we see this totally differently. Our drive is to make the most innocent, yet most effective deodorant, where price is not the main driver. The funny thing is that Nuud, because it is so concentrated, works out at roughly the same cost as regular deodorant to use per year.
What’s next for Nuud?
This we call the Nuud secret, you’ll be the first one we’ll tell ;-)
What’s your personal mantra?
My mantra would be: not feeling like doing something is the worst reason not to do something.
What’s your favourite self-care activity?
Spending time with my wife, my son and all the friends we’ve got!
What’s your favourite book?
Way more important than my favourite book is my favourite movie: Babel. I graduated from university with a focus on the consequence of cultural values on everyday decisions, a very underexposed field of knowledge in my opinion, which explains most of the conflicts worldwide.
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