“The hardest part was convincing foreigners that Lithuania is not just a country of furniture and milk”
What is the biggest challenge for a young brand that is still growing?
Radvilė: the biggest challenge in growing a business for the first time is unknown. When you do everything a second time, it’s a little easier. If I went back a year and a half now, our growth would be much faster. Everything happens very slowly at first. What else did I learn from having a small business? Don’t be afraid to ask. I just write to people and they are happy to share their experiences. You need to listen to yourself smarter, especially professionals in the field. When I started doing this, I immediately saw growth. In Lithuania, we have such excellent conditions to grow both due to the excellent conversion of opinion formers and due to its competitive advantage. Lithuanians also like to buy at the Lithuanian price. Of course, when you no longer have that advantage, then the challenges begin.
Another challenge is the budget. It is especially important when traveling to a foreign market. The budget shows what markets we can try at that time, so we naturally start with the slightly smaller ones. Europe is very big, so we need to start with smaller countries and then start with bigger ones. A person has to see a product several times before buying it, some need more. And a bigger budget is needed to do that.
How to enter the market ten years ago? What were the challenges then, or was it much due to less competition?
Lena: When we started Berry Berry more than ten years ago, there was a vacuum in the market for organic cosmetics. We were lucky to have come here, to start making affordable and fun cosmetics. All organic cosmetics come in brown packaging, very clean but boring. We want access from the buyer to the other sides. We thought everyone should have at least one natural product on their shelf. We did not need such an experiment in Lithuania, because there were no such brands, but we need to be able to export to the market when there is already a completely different situation. Nobody knows what Lithuania is and why to choose Lithuanian products. This is not France, where lavender grows, here is Lithuania, where they understand we make furniture and milk. So, the hardest part was convincing people that we could be a party for quality cosmetics.
What solutions have worked, or could not, work to grow the Daily Spoon brand?
Radvilė: I am very pleased that we have invested from the beginning in building a community and engaging in its education. All you have to do to start building a community is handwriting the notes on the order. These are such small things, personal attention is very significant. We’re also consistently building a community in our Instagram account. Building a community has paid off for us on two fronts. First, it is a completely different support.
People themselves highly recommend products to their loved ones, which really helps us. Also we invest a lot of time in tracking, not about our products. In both the newsletter and our account, maybe only 30-40%. all content is about warranty. All other content is about nutrition, healthy living, exercise. We aim to communicate that a superfood mix is just an extra aid, not a magic pill that will solve everything. People accept that sincerity and show that they lack it, so the simple composition of the products, which is very understandable, and the sincere communication of the real goods really paid off.
It didn’t work out that we were trying to give someone else to define our brand and quickly realized that no one else understands your brand that way yourself. Sure, you can consult people who can refine, but you need to know the essence of the brand, the values. Our second mistake, made out of obscurity and fear, was that we started allowing paid advertising on social networks and campaigning with opinion leaders only half a year ago. With the launch of paid advertising, our growth has jumped threefold.
And how about an easy introduction of the Uoga brand to the audience a decade ago? What mistakes would you make today?
Lena: I think it’s important for the customer to know that the connection is real. We took part in exhibitions, we met a lot of people there. Lithuanians are a nation that loves to try to innovate. We also released two recipe books to help people make something at home. We think a person has to do something at home and buy. In this respect, we show that we care about man.
The mistake was the same as in the case of the Daily Spoon – it didn’t start advertising on social networks for a very long time and we started with it only about a year and a half ago. As a result, we lost maybe five years in which we were able to grow even more. We seem to be always in action, but from the side we are very buried. Our goal is not to make millions. We want to do what our customers like, keep a good relationship between life and work, and the latter would be really fun and inspiring. We know that certain products will not be very commercially successful, but we are interested in developing, designing and launching them.
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