Starting Earlier so I can Adapt as Needed

The more I learn the less I know.  Such a small sentence but speaks paragraphs.  I feel like I have been 6 months to launch for almost two years.  Every step is one step closer - or so it would seem.  There are so many variables in starting a company and sometimes you just need take a leap of faith.

Read more: Fight the Fight until you Can’t – Then Get up – and Fight Again

This is where I am with the prelaunch and the layout for the bottles.  I used logoworks.com to come up with a logo and I highly recommend using them.  I used the 10 options with unlimited revisions package and love the final design.  It is simple yet sophisticated; has a bit of ying/yang feel to represent the gender neutrality of the product; and a color which reminds me of hydrangeas on the Vineyard.

But if that wasn't difficult enough - try synthesizing what matters most on the back of a bottle.  Competing in an industry that is so highly fragmented I struggled with presenting the product as my own.  Then I thought about it.  I have spent the better part of my career taking difficult concepts and putting them into english.  Beauty is no different.  So I sat down and this is what I wrote:

Smart, Savvy and Simple.  We've done the homework so you don't have to.  Advanced technology with SPF 30 that feels like silk; you will look forward to using it every day. Science never felt so good.

I have learned that no one buys a product they don't understand.  And skincare has got to the point where many companies think if they drown you in technology you will just believe them.  People who try to talk over my head annoy me.  The logic behind the technology of Scalisi is simple.  We have partnered with a company that has spent ten years studying how the skin reacts in wound healing.  They treat a wrinkle as an unhealed wound and synthetically solve for that repair.  Not complicated, makes logical sense, and works.

Read more: How a Formula becomes a Product

I also learned that you don't "sell a product" - because you can't make someone buy something.  What you want to do is explain or show why the client needs it - and then work with the client to make the product strong enough to sell itself.

So I'm going with it.  The goal of the prelaunch is to get feedback.  We will give away thousands of samples for people to try and all we will ask for is feedback.  The bloggers and textbooks refer to it as innovating.  But for me it just makes logical sense, the customers should be the ones to tell you what they really like and want.