Secret Skin founder Anisha Oberoi went from working at Amazon to founding her own skincare products company. She talks about the idea behind the company, how she identified a gap in the market, and how she plans to grow her business.
When did you come up with the idea of Secret Skin or realise there was a gap in the market for the business?
I moved to UAE in 2019 to continue on my corporate career path after five years of working at Amazon, but found that the opportunities were restrictive in their opportunity to contribute to the community, or in their sphere of influence. I was also experiencing a palpable spiritual struggle between money and meaning, given that my 10-year ‘cancerversary’ of being in remission was coming up and any new job would just be a bullet point on my resume.
Secret Skin founder Anisha Oberoi (Image courtesy: Secret Skin archive)
Two things led to the birth of Secret Skin: The inability to access safe, affordable personal care and beauty in the region was one. A customer would ordinarily need to wait two weeks to receive a product if ordered from abroad after paying steep prices (between 55-85 percent overage in shipping and customs). Second, there was a deep personal need to impact change. During my illness 11 years ago, my frustration at not being able to find toxin-free beauty or personal care products that wouldn’t disrupt my hormones or negatively impact my fertility became the inspiration to create a brand that women like myself could trust – one that would reinforce the importance of women’s health through the narrative of beauty.
Secret Skin’s value proposition to the customer today is competitive pricing on new-to-the-region brands, free shipping, same-day delivery, local customer care and local fulfilment for safe and affordable beauty and personal care products, with a plastic recycling program to incentivise customers for pro-environment behaviour.
What is your business plan?
We operate as an e-commerce discovery platform for global Eco-luxe plant beauty. As a retail partner we are a fully integrated service provider for brands that want to enter the Middle East but find the process cost-prohibitive, labour-intensive and time consuming. We position ourselves as their dedicated centre of excellence. We enter into exclusive commercial distribution and online retail contracts after due diligence on certifications, customer reviews, product sampling, etc, and then register them under our license with local authorities. We co-invest with them for amplification across platforms and assets from marketing to PR to influencer seeding and on-ground activations. The principal partner’s participation is integral to building the brand awareness and customer base in the market.
(Image courtesy: Secret Skin archive)
Is the company bootstrapped or have you raised capital from investors? Can you take us through your funding journey?
I initially used my Amazon savings to set up the business, but we were fortunate to find local angel investors to support our early journey. We raised pre-seed in July 2020 before our launch in October and have recently opened a new round for seed capital, which is currently ongoing. We are very specific about what kind of investors we want to invite: Apart from the obvious funding, smart-money investors help us with new introductions to more potential investors, opportunities to expand into new regions, create more distribution channels, help optimise supply, offer advisory counsel for growth specific to our industry etc. We are focussed on reinforcing women’s health in the region, so we have a local angel with a medical background as well as a woman investor in the digital media space. Since we just hit six months of operation we are now seeing an interest from early-stage VCs from EU, SEA & MENA which is quite exciting.
Tell me about your expansion plans?
With regard to new markets, we launched with shipping in UAE and to India, but recently rolled out Oman and Kuwait. We will launch formal on-ground operations in Saudi this year and as the customer data set builds (purchase behaviour/image drivers/volume drivers etc), we will start a subscription service and launch our AI-enabled App. We are also working on an in-house Private Label. At the moment the focus is on launching new categories such as accessories, beauty tools, clean makeup, an organic baby spa offering and new international brands.
(Image courtesy: Secret Skin archive)
Where would you like to see the company in the next five years?
In 2023 we plan to take Secret Skin to South East Asia starting with Singapore. My dream is to have our Middle East headquarters in Dubai and the South East Asia headquarters in Singapore where I lived from 2012-2014, and to ship globally. I want Secret Skin to be known as a pioneer in Sustainable Beauty Tech, a business that focusses on women’s health and wellness with contribution to social and environmental impact in line with UN sustainable development goals.
What advice would you give anyone looking to start their own business in the region?
- Start with why you want to do it: Is there a gap that you’re addressing? What problem are you solving and why is your value proposition unique as compared to others in the space with similar offering? How are you best equipped to provide the solution in terms of team skillset, strategy and infrastructure? If your idea checks off important boxes then you need to breathe life into it 24/7.
- An entrepreneur’s life is like braiding and climbing the rope simultaneously on a steep, rocky cliff. Its best to fail fast, so innovate cautiously and pivot quickly to scale faster.
- Find the right mentors and advisors to support you and allow your partner or spouse to be an objective sounding board.
- Take time to pause: It’s a marathon not a sprint.
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