On this episode of Honest Ecommerce, we have Erin Burk. Erin made the jump to consumer goods two years ago and is now the VP of business development at August, a fast growing Gen-Z period care brand best known for building a cult-like following on social media while changing the the game for talking about taboo topics such as periods. We talk about finding and growing your audience organically, defining relationships with customers and fans, promoting product sustainability, and so much more!
Erin is the VP of Business Development at August, where she manages their retail, e-commerce, and B2B sales channels.
Prior to August she consulted with Deloitte at companies such as Twitter, Fitbit, and Silicon Valley Bank. Later joining Uber, Erin worked in growth and operational roles for four years, helping UberEats expand from 10 to over 600 cities.
She made the jump to August in April of 2022 when she was inspired by August’s mission.
In This Conversation We Discuss:
Resources:
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Erin Burk
Do all this work here and there to slowly build trust, to slowly show that you care, and to slowly put your voice out there so that when the time comes, if somebody else speaks on your behalf, it's positive.
Chase Clymer
Welcome to Honest Ecommerce, a podcast dedicated to cutting through the BS and finding actionable advice for online store owners. I'm your host, Chase Clymer. And I believe running a direct-to-consumer brand does not have to be complicated or a guessing game.
On this podcast, we interview founders and experts who are putting in the work and creating real results.
I also share my own insights from running our top Shopify consultancy, Electric Eye. We cut the fluff in favor of facts to help you grow your Ecommerce business.
Let's get on with the show
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Honest Ecommerce.
Today, I'm welcoming the show Erin Burk. She is the VP of Business Development in August. How are you doing today?
Erin Burk
I'm good. How are you?
Chase Clymer
I'm doing fantastic. We already talked about that beforehand. But talk to me real quick.
For those that don't know, can you talk about August? What types of products are you selling over there? What is the brand?
Erin Burk
Yeah, absolutely. So we are... Well, at our core, we're a period care brand. So we're selling tampons and pads, and soon to be more products. And we are most known for being a very Gen Z centric brand, inclusive and sustainable through and through.
Chase Clymer
Awesome. Awesome.
Now I know a bit of the background around the brand. You guys have an amazing start is that… You worked on building the brand out and even the audience out before you had something to sell. Can you talk to me about that?
Erin Burk
Yeah, absolutely.
I think it was interesting. So we are like a COVID baby. We were born when everyone was at home on TikTok all day. And one of our initial hypotheses before we even built what is now August is just that there was a severe lack of, I would say, conversation around periods. And with that, there was just so much that people didn't know whether you're a menstruator or not ,just had no idea.
And when we started doing our research, we found that over 60% of parents in the US do not talk to their children when they get their period. And if there is even health class in your city, it usually happens in about the eighth grade after which many have already started their period.
So we just, as we were building our brand, we just took to the internet and we started talking about periods. And that was one of the most... The reaction online kind of just gave us our entire business case because what followed was just... So many followers overnight, for one, but so many people engaging and having a conversation with us about it.
And we started to realize, wow. One, finding people where they're at, be it TikTok is really going to be a really good idea for us now and in the long run. And two, there's a lot of people that want to learn about periods that, you know, you might be 45 year olds and still have questions just because it's such a taboo topic.
And so we started just talking about things that no one was willing to talk about. Even our website said the word period when you went on other websites, it was a lot of euphemisms like special time of the month.
And we started just building I think we had, like, I don't know, 130, 140,000 followers before we even had a brand name and before we even said we were going to sell products. I think our handle was like, ‘The period club’ or ‘The period company’ or something like that.
And we just, we were just getting the conversation started. So that was really how we initially built an audience. And most of all, we started building trust with people online, which was going to set us up for success.
Chase Clymer
That's amazing.
And so do you remember or have any kind of tidbits of how you ideated on building out this content? Were you focused on edutainment? Or how did this work?
Erin Burk
I think it was a couple of things. I think part of it was... At first, we were like, we want to be authentic. And we also want to be accurate. So we know that online... Anything online can very quickly become an echo chamber. So anything that we put online that was period-specific, we made sure that the information was approved by our Medboard. So at least everything we say is gonna be accurate.
And then yes to the education and entertainment piece, I think it just became, I think it was rooted in just being honest. Like, periods can be really crummy, but it can also be something to be excited about, like your body's doing amazing things. And so it's how can we just show up authentically?
But yeah, it was definitely a marriage of like, “Let's do really funny things and also let's talk about what a lot more important things are. If you're having a lot of pain, what could that mean?”
And so on one end, we had videos of being on hikes and out in the wild on your period. And then we also had dialogue for parents on how to talk to their kids and this and that. So definitely a mix.
Chase Clymer
Now how did building this following evolve into ideating out and building a product to sell to this audience?
Erin Burk
Yeah. It was one of the best things about building an engaged audience online as they have a lot to say and in a good way. And so, so much, you hear this phrase a lot, ‘Built by our community for our community.” But truly, we spoke to hundreds and we pulled our community all the time for information.
Like, do you want a long applicator or a short applicator? Like colors for branding and everything.
Everything we did when we built our products and our brand was either from online feedback or so many focus groups. And so I think that also is very validated. So many of our early decisions are in a way like a gamble and a risk. And to have that immediate validation from surveying X thousand people here or there was just offering us constant signals that were good in our nascent days.
Chase Clymer
That's amazing.
So do you remember the first market... Sorry, not the first market, but the first product that you launched with?
Erin Burk
Yeah. So our product suite right now, our Hero products are almost what we have now. We have new products in the works. But our core products right now are just like our tampons and our pads. And I think that tampons are FDA medical devices. Innovation with them takes a long time. But there are things that you can do to really make them more comfortable while still working.
And I think a couple of things to call out in this space is one, which is in a lot of industries, but I think there's this idea that if you have a sustainable product, you have to compromise on quality. And when we were creating our products, we said, “We need to have the most sustainable product possible without compromising on quality.”
And so every single thing that we did, we made sure that the efficacy was going to be there, but that the sustainability element was as well. And so a lot of smaller decisions that you might not notice right away were built on those two things.
I think another thing is also around comfort. The shape of a tampon can really impact people that have different sensitivities. So ours, for example, opens up axially to fit your body versus being more like a bullet. So there's things we did like that, especially just because so many people we talked to had such major sensitivities that had we not gone through all those conversations, we might not have realized that.
Same goes for a plastic applicator. That was really hard for us to make a decision to use plastic in our products. However, given how painful sometimes using a tampon can be for so many menstruators, we made the decision to use the softest thing available on market and now we're looking at using, I think 75% sugar cane in it so that it's not wholly plastic.
So again, it's that being as sustainable as possible while ensuring that it's a comfortable, pain-free, and positive experience.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely.
Now do you remember the launch of the products? How did that roll out?
Erin Burk
Yeah. So the launch of our products, we launched as a D2C brand. And we were still riding the wave of... We were getting a lot of momentum online. And so it's nice. When I think we launched, we were, I think we launched and had like 2 or 3 million followers across our TikTok and D2C handles.
And that just really helped us because back in the day, the algorithm was so friendly that you could gain so much organic traffic without needing to dump money into paid ads. And so much of what we did was very scrappy in that we had this online audience, we were able to launch, we didn't have a ton of funding. So a lot of it was just, how can we be as loud that our products have arrived as possible?
And we built up a lot of excitement. We went from being almost this educational source to being more, to saying things like, “Hey, we've listened to everything that you have said and we've had a conversation about for the last X number of months. Here are the products that are a result of that.”
So we built this excitement so that when we launched, I mean, we had like 60 to 90% month over month growth for like more than just our first year. So it was very exciting to ride the momentum that we created.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely.
Did you launch with a pre-order campaign or was it like, “These things are live. Let's go.”
Erin Burk
I don't remember if we did pre-order or not. I joined after... So I lead our sales for our retail, all of our sales channels outside of D2C. And I don't remember what they did for the D2C site launch. But we've definitely done some pre-orders.
It's so interesting looking at how D2C functions now with all of the drops here and there. You think about 5 years ago and selling out with such a taboo thing. And now it's like, the goal is to show that you've sold out. So it's funny how just creating hype online has evolved. We definitely tapped into certain trends there.
Chase Clymer
Well, absolutely. You guys amassed over 6 million followers on social media.
I'm assuming there was ROI there from capitalizing on that community.
Erin Burk
Absolutely.
I think that it's very interesting trying to understand what this cohort of people are. We don't have 6 million customers. But a lot of them are our customers. And so starting to understand who these people are and what sort of relationship we have with them, I think, has been very helpful for us.
In the beginning, they fueled our entire... What was August at the time? And I think now, some people come to us for information, some people come to us as products, some people come to us just because they like what we're doing for women's health and how we talk about women's health.
And so I think that one of the things that I've been talking a lot with my team or we've been talking about together is just like distinguishing between the customers and the fans. And so it's like knowing with those 6 million followers or however many it is, like what sort of relationship that they want to have with us.
And it does change a little bit like how you use the online platform.
I think one of the coolest things that's happened late online is like you do so much work. It's like 10,000 baby steps. You do all this work here and there to slowly build trust, to slowly show that you care and to slowly put your voice out there so that when the time comes, if somebody else speaks on your behalf, it's positive.
And a couple weeks ago, I don't know if you saw this, but a study came out that lead was found in like 16 tampon brands and it created a huge scare amongst, I mean, the menstruators in the US for sure. It was a very early study. They didn't test the impact it had like if it actually wasn't contacting the skin. It was very early. It was just that trace amounts might have been found in some brands.
And it was really, luckily for us, it worked out in our favor. We've had our largest sales month we've ever had in our life this past month.
But something that was cooler to see, I think, is to see voices online, go to our website, go to stories they know about us, and speak about our products without us even asking. And I think that when you say, “Oh, the 6 million followers, it's like it's having voices outside of ours that are able to advocate for our brand because they know who we are and they know what we're about.”
I think that's one of the coolest things to see online and in a way that is really beneficial if you build up that trust very organically over time.
Chase Clymer
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Chase Clymer
Another thing that I think is a little unique to your brand is you're very open about this idea that profit and impact can coexist. Can you talk more about that?
Erin Burk
Yeah, absolutely. We've been doing a lot of meetings with retailers lately.
And something that I've been distinguishing between is like, what is our brand is one thing. We're unabashed. We are for Gen Z, by Gen Z. I'm not personally Gen Z, but our brand is.
Who our brand is, but then who we are outside of our brand. And so I think that outside of this identity where we're trying to help people change the way they feel about their bodies is the decisions we make as a company.
And as a company, we're like, one, we're a very sustainable brand. That's not like our branding, but every decision we make will have sustainability in mind. But two, it will also have an impact in mind.
And so we do a lot of the things that we think that we should do. We donate products with every purchase, just table stakes that like, if you have the skill that we have, you need to be doing something like that. And we also do things that we don't even tell the public, like there have been wars that have occurred. Like we have spent months on how we impact, you know, how do we support menstruators in need globally?
And maybe we don't need to go online and tell everyone about it, but how can we make sure that we're giving back? And I think that giving back has always been a part of who we are and always will be.
And I think there's this, there's this added layer of impact, which is there's a lot of period companies, there's a handful of period companies out there that are trying to do good and we all are trying to do it in our own ways. But when there's overlap, you need to find it and make your collective effort as great as it can be.
And so, you know, as an example, tampons, it's nicknamed the tampon tax, but like tampons are still in a lot of states taxed, a luxury tax that was created in the early 1900s. Almost all goods are off of it. But tampons are like the last thing that is still taxed.
And so last year, we kind of joined forces with a lot of other brands, Lola, Cora, etc. coming together to find a way to... We basically would Venmo people back the tax that they spent on the product. And it was just a cool way to be like, “We, all of these brands, we see you, we hear you. We want to give you this tax back."
And it was raising awareness that it still exists. Kind of like a subtle lobbying, if you will, to attempt to eradicate it. And so I think it's doing things like that as well. Not just as August, but as a period care company that has been really cool and we hope to do a lot more of.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely.
Now, are there any other challenges that you have faced in the last year as it kind of relates to growing and any learnings that you can share?
Erin Burk
There's always challenges. Right now, I think the period care industry is in a really interesting space because there's a lot of fear given the studies like the lead that came out literally a couple of weeks ago. And I think there's also, I hate to say it, but like a lot of, there's an opportunity that some people could capitalize on the fear mongering in a way.
And I think something that we've been having just because this study came out is, and we saw it last year with titanium dioxide is like, ‘How can we be as honest and communicative with our community while not instilling fear that doesn't need to be there?’
And so I think that it's not necessarily a challenge for the business. Like I said, we had the best sales month we've ever had this last month. But I think it's one of those things that makes you slow down everything you're doing and ask really big questions about “How do we?” You're gonna have to face things and challenges you just didn't think you were going to have to face.
And so I'll give you an example. Like when last year it came out that titanium dioxide was found in tampons and it scared everyone. And there were huge names online, accredited sources that were like, if you see this or that on your ingredients, don't buy it. Our products do not have titanium dioxide. We came out and we said that.
But it was also like, hold on a second. There's no… We were talking to so many accredited sources, we were getting our facts straight, we were finding all this information out and it's like there's nothing that actually says titanium dioxide is harmful for you. There's nothing that says it's not, but there's nothing that says it is.
And so we could ride this wave and stay silent and just let our sales go up because people know that there's none in August, or do we come out and do we talk to people?
And we made the choice to come out and say something to say, “Hey, this is really scary and it doesn't have to be.”
That has been the biggest thing on our company's mind lately because sales aren't always... The challenges your company faces aren't always about sales. And I think it's some of these bigger things and especially in the period care industry, we know women's health has historically been really under researched.
I think that when articles like that came out a couple of weeks ago, it's a really important time to understand, like, is there a gap in existing testing that's going on or this or that?
And I think that something that is just very important for us as a business is to be... Our whole goal is to not only be the most trusted brand, but the most loved brand. That's like what we say a lot, we want to be trusted and we want to be loved. We want to have that two-side relationship with our customers.
And I think the largest challenge for us right now is more of an opportunity. I would say it like, how do we hold ourselves to the highest bar possible? Taking all necessary measures that we need to in order to continue to be operating in the way that we have.
Chase Clymer
That's amazing, Erin.
Now, is there anything I didn't ask you about today that you think will resonate with our audience?
Erin Burk
I don't know. I think we covered a lot of... I think we covered a lot. But no, this has been really fun. I appreciate you having me on, getting to riff a little bit.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely. Now, if I've been listening to you speak so passionately about these products in the community that you've built, where should I go to see the content that you're creating and potentially purchase the products?
Erin Burk
Yeah, we are available at Target online and in store. We are available on Amazon, on our own website, and a few others. We have a big announcement coming in a couple weeks with another retail partner we're very excited about.
But we always have a store locator on our website where you can find the specifics. And then you can find us obviously on social media @itsaugustco.
Chase Clymer
Awesome.
Erin Burk
On pretty much any social media site.
Chase Clymer
Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing all that, Erin.
Erin Burk
Of course. Have a good rest of your week.
Chase Clymer
We can't thank our guests enough for coming on the show and sharing their knowledge and journey with us. We've got a lot to think about and potentially add into our own business. You can find all the links in the show notes.
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Until next time!