Bold, bright and beautiful

 

Trilogy has just sold for an estimated $20 million and co-founder Sarah Gibbs says she’s having more fun than ever.

 
Sarah Gibbs could very well be the face of the contemporary natural beauty business. Her glowing peaches-and-cream complexion, sparkling eyes and warm smile suggest someone who is happy, healthy and well and truly content in her skin.
 
Sarah and sister Catherine de Groot made headlines yet again last month when they announced the sale of their company, Trilogy Natural Products, to fellow home-grown business success story Ecoya in a deal worth $20 million. The scented candle company, owned by 42 Below vodka founders Geoff Ross and Grant Baker, paid $10 million cash for the cosmetic company upfront and a further payment of up to $10 million is set to follow at the end of the 2011 financial year.
 
Sarah describes the sale as a natural progression for the company which, with its range of beauty products made from natural, eco-ethical and, where possible, organic ingredients, is considered a pioneer of the now flourishing green beauty business.
 
“Catherine and I have always had big plans for the company and we’d reached a stage where we needed an extra pair of hands – a fresh perspective,” she says.
 
The sisters first approached Ecoya about the potential acquisition in May, having decided the two companies were a good fit from a philosophical and business perspective.
 
“We’re both eco-ethical companies that use active natural ingredients – that was the emotional connection,” she says. “And from a business perspective, Ecoya is developing in some areas we’re yet to break into geographically, such as the US and the Middle East.”
 
Ecoya will run the two brands independently of one another, meaning the sisters will continue as directors of Trilogy.
 
“Our positions won’t change,” Sarah explains. “It’s very much business as usual.”
 
As for what the sisters will spend their newfound fortunes on, Sarah says they’re taking their time to decide.
 
“We’re realists so we’re not going to go and spend up large!” she laughs.
 
The sisters appreciate how fortunate they are to have the luxury to decide given their humble beginnings. Starting out in a tin-roofed Trentham ‘office’ owned by their brother in 2002, the sisters have gone on to create a truly international success story. Trilogy’s expanding range of skin and hair care products – most of which feature certified organic rosehip oil – is now stocked in more than 3,500 retail outlets around the world, its major export markets being Australia, the UK, Ireland and Asia.
 
Sarah says she isn’t surprised by the brand’s success – although she won’t let her sister and herself take all the credit. Back in 2002, there were various natural beauty products on the market, but Sarah says they tended to be of the ‘hippie’ variety and weren’t terribly appealing or effective. She and Catherine, who have always been firm friends, had a strong sense that women the world over were just waiting for an eco-ethical natural skincare range that delivered real results – whether or not they knew it yet.
 
“We believed that, like us, people wanted to make more natural and ethical choices without compromising on quality,” she says. “The opportunity was obvious.” Obvious to the sisters’ seemingly hardwired business brains at least.
 
Born in Wellington to entrepreneurial parents, the sisters were always encouraged to pursue their own passions and projects. When the family moved to Australia’s Sunshine Coast and took over an avocado farm when Sarah and Catherine were aged nine and 10 respectively, they developed an appreciation of nature – and botanicals’ potential health and beauty benefits – that only increased with time. Even then, Sarah says they had an inkling they might run a skincare company one day. “Although we’d have imagined our key ingredient would be avocado oil.”
 
After qualifying as a chartered accountant, Sarah went on to enjoy a high-flying career in corporate finance, working variously in Hong Kong, South Africa and London. Meanwhile Catherine returned to Wellington where she embarked on a career as a beauty and fashion journalist and later set up a café. Sarah returned to Wellington in 1999 and joined forces with her father to launch a business manufacturing botanical ingredients for the cosmetics and natural supplement industries. It was during this time that Sarah, as she puts it, struck oil. Rosehip oil to be exact: the nutrient-rich botanical extract that has become Trilogy’s star product in certified organic form and is a key ingredient in most of its others.
 
Excited by the oil’s potential as a skincare ingredient – it’s a great lightweight moisturiser and loaded with skin-friendly vitamin A and essential fatty acids – Sarah enlisted expert help to extract its purest elements. Catherine, who suffered from eczema, became a willing guinea pig and the two were so excited by the oil’s powers of renewal and repair that they started planning their business venture.
 
“It was like nothing we’d ever tried before,” Sarah enthuses. “After several months of trials and research into the science behind it, we were hooked. We knew we’d discovered a future cosmetic star.”
 
Determined from the outset to create a ‘high-performance’ range that met international standards, the sisters consulted those they believed could help realise their grand business plan. One of the first on their list was old friend Lucy Dobbs, who worked for boutique Wellington web and brand design agency DNA. Together, they set out to develop a brand they felt reflected their commitment to producing natural products “with maximum impact on the skin and minimum impact on the environment”. Well aware of their niche, they were conscious to differentiate themselves both from homemade-style natural products and the big name synthetic brands at the other end of the spectrum. The result was a clean, contemporary design they felt did just that. They also opted for recyclable packaging with labels that describe what the products do accurately, clearly and without exaggeration and conform to International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredient guidelines.
 
To lend their products further credence, the sisters submitted them for independent clinical tests, becoming one of the first natural skincare brands to do so.
 
Working out that their launch budget would just cover the cost of their first production run and packaging, the sisters sussed out who would do what. Business and finance-savvy Sarah took on the role of chief executive, while Catherine, with her in-depth knowledge of the beauty business, assumed responsibility for product development, marketing and communications.
 
Clear about what they could and couldn’t do themselves, the sisters went in search of expert assistance. Several weeks and hundreds of conversations later, they’d assembled their dream team, which included cosmetic manufacturers, a French fragrance expert, packaging designers and sales staff.
 
Eager to get their product to market ahead of the rivals they sensed were snapping at their heels, the sisters dove headlong into the Australasian market, securing distribution agreements with organic healthcare chains in New Zealand and Australia.
 
Sarah describes that first year as an “absolute rollercoaster” but, by the end of it, they had their products in several hundred stores on both sides of the Tasman. Unusually for a one-year-old business, they’d also turned a healthy profit.
 
Trilogy’s rapid growth spurt has showed no signs of abating – it’s made the Deloitte Fast-50 list for three consecutive years. The company now has 20 fulltime staff, overseas offices in Melbourne and London, and exports about half its total products, mostly to Australia, the UK and Ireland.
 
Sarah attributes Trilogy’s success to a combination of factors, including getting the right product to the right market at the right time and “consistently doing what we say we will”. She says that although it can be relatively easy to get your products in to stores, the real challenge is to keep them there. Store owners are typically eager to stock the next big thing (particularly when it’s attracted good publicity), but quickly dispense with it if it doesn’t sell like proverbial hot cakes. Trilogy’s solution has been to visit stockists regularly to check displays, train sales staff and garner feedback.
 
Another likely key to Sarah’s success is that she has maintained her straight-up, down-to-earth and instinctive approach throughout the company’s rapid expansion. The company’s holy trinity – simplicity, purity and vitality – seems to sum up her approach to life in general.
 
She believes running the business with her sister has also been a major asset – the two have dubbed their combined powers “sisterology”.
 
“It’s been really cool working together,” Sarah says. “We have different skills but the same personal and moral values. I don’t think either of us would have done this on her own.”
 
Believing work and fun can co-exist in harmony, Sarah has always fostered a laid-back and sociable work environment and describes her leadership style as “pretty laid-back”.
 
“You don’t have to slog your guts out to succeed,” she says. “I expect to be able to have fun at work and I hope my staff feel the same. Some of my best ideas have simply occurred to me while I was doing something like chatting with the girls at Friday night drinks or cooking dinner.”
 
Her belief that positive environments breed positive outcomes is well served by the company’s hugely successful ‘R-Proof’ campaign last year. Originally an internal initiative designed to discourage staff from uttering the ‘r word’ (recession) and encourage them to think about how to improve the business, it was subsequently adopted by more than 80 other Australasian businesses.
 
One of the biggest misconceptions about the beauty business, in her view, is that it is full of preening, pretentious women with superficial priorities.
 
“It’s actually a very real industry full of fantastic people committed to helping others look and feel better,” she says.
 
Sarah has relished the opportunities her work has provided to promote eco-ethical practices and contribute to the causes she cares about. She and Catherine have set strict eco-ethical standards at Trilogy and favour certified organic and fairly traded ingredients. In 2007, Trilogy achieved carbon neutral certification and continues to work to reduce and offset its carbon emissions.
 
The Trilogy team has also supported a large number of New Zealand and overseas charities. Particularly passionate about animal welfare, she is a driving force behind the company’s ongoing campaign to save orang-utans from extinction. For the past two years, Trilogy has donated $1 from every sale of specially marked bottles of its rosehip oil to the Borneo Orang-utan Survival Foundation – the world’s largest rescue facility for the endangered species.
 
Well aware the company can’t afford to be complacent in a market that’s now full to bursting, Sarah is always looking for new ways to enhance and expand it. The company plans to expand its presence in the US and Middle East, where Ecoya is already well-established, as well as in Asia. Sarah reveals it’s also developing a (top-secret) new product range.
 
Relishing the challenges that come with founding and nurturing a new business, Sarah says she is likely to start another eventually although she says her ideas are still pipe dreams at this stage.  
 
In her personal life, Sarah says she prefers to take things as they come, saying “I live for today, not for tomorrow”.
 
That said, she would like to free up more time to devote to charity work and business mentoring. She’s also very keen to spend much more time at the holiday home she and husband Peter own on Auckland’s Waiheke Island. As to whether the couple would consider moving there permanently, Sarah says “yes, write that we’re moving to Auckland – let’s see how the husband responds!”
 
Like many successful entrepreneurs, Sarah doesn’t seek to divide the personal and the professional in to two distinct categories; for her they frequently overlap. You get the sense that her intelligence, positivity and fierce commitment to her self-decreed holy trinity will serve her well in both.
 
As Sarah sees it, the key to leading a beautiful life is to adopt the right mindset.
 
“It’s about being happy, healthy and confident to be yourself and do what it is you enjoy.”
 

Organic growth

 

Sarah’s advice to fellow entrepreneurs:

 

• look for the opportunity in the market and go for it
• innovative ideas are crucial to business success and these can come from anyone and anywhere
• hire people that have skills you don’t and who are smarter than you are
• give yourself space and time to think
• create a culture where you and your team can have fun while you work.