The First Electric Flosser and Gelato Flavored Floss
Flaus is the first electric flosser and was started by Samantha Coxe. She was an attorney and after a bad dentist visit realized she needed to start flossing regularly.
She went online to find an electric flosser and was surprised to find they didn’t exist. The lightbulb went off.
She invested $80,000, found two dentists and an engineer. Product development kicked off in mid-2019 and by December 2020 they had their sixth working prototype that was their minimum viable product.
They spent $20,000 to hire a firm to help them launch a crowdfunding campaign in April 2021 on Indiegogo and watched their screens as the orders came in. They were fully funded in under 3 hours and ended up generating $345,000 in sales to more than 3,400 customers.
After the successful crowdsourcing they raised $2 million dollars from friends and family which covered all the engineering, the first 10,000 purchase order and the website.
Sidenote: Their site is really slick. I love the multiple gif’s explaining how the product works visually.
And their purchase page with the multiple short form videos in the bottom right is next level.
Protip: Tushy bidets found that informational gif’s of their product led to a 20% increase in conversion on their website. Noted in this video which also includes the founders insights into how to build $100 million companies.
In their surveys Flaus found out they had blind customers, as many had issues flossing with regular string. So they added braille to their packaging and it only increased the cost by 8-10 cents.
Sales in 2022 were forecast to be $2 million and Flaus raised another $2 million from YETI Capital. They wanted a strategic partner that had created a premium brand in an unsexy product category.
They currently sell direct to consumer and have a dental professional affiliate program where the customer receives a discount and the dental professional receives an affiliate fee. They also plan to expand into retail, as that is where the majority of oral care purchases are still made.
Flaus is forecast to be profitable in mid-2024 and the goal is to sell to a large consumer product goods company in the future.
Now Flaus’ technology is patent pending so that opportunity is best left alone. But here’s another interesting one in the floss space.
Cocofloss. Now Cocofloss is a premium string floss company that uses a textured weave that removes more plaque than “gliding” floss.
It was started in 2015 by Dr. Chrystle Cu, a preventative dentist and her sister, Catherine Cu, a financial analyst.
I love this business as it takes simple floss and creates a luxury product. They have traditional mint, but also feature flavors like watermelon, vanilla bean, banana daiquiri and gelato affogato. And they sell them for $10 each.
Now Cocofloss doesn’t release revenue numbers. But based on the fact that they were included in the Inc. 5000 recently they are making at least $2 million dollars per year. And based on the most recent results they’re growing at a 98% 3-year growth rate.
Best part. It’s still just the two sisters and one other employee. That’s an interesting business!
Sources:
Subscription Scaled interview with Samantha Coxe
Kara Goldin podcast with Samantha Coxe
Dear Doc podcast with Dr. Chrystle Cu (not a lot of business info)
Coco floss press release covering debut on Inc. 5000
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