Benjamin Goldbery is the Founder of Goby – an electric toothbrush and game-changing mail monthly mail subscription service for replacement toothbrush heads. Read on for the three key ways Ben shook up teeth-brushing for both big, established companies and consumers, by creating serious disruption to the oral care industry.
It’s not always easy….
Take it Personal! Turn a personal problem into a solution for everyone
Ben described himself as someone who always had great oral hygiene. But, once he hit his twenties he began to experience issues ranging from sensitive gums to more serious dental problems. To alleviate his pain, he switched to an electric toothbrush and gained some applause from his dentist.
Despite the minor improvement, he still felt frustrated at the expense of replacing his electric brush heads every three months. Even more annoying? Shelling out $100 for a new toothbrush, when his original purchase died. This constant source of irritation in Ben’s life got him thinking about toothbrushes in general…and if he could make a better one. The idea for Goby was born.
Takeaway: It’s the classic, successful entrepreneur’s story. First, pinpoint what’s bugging you. Then, create the solution to your problem – and provide a solution that helps everyone else out as well. Then you have an addressable market.
Exploit the Big Guys’ weaknesses with relatable marketing
The toothbrush market is dominated by two major players and Ben saw a huge opportunity to disrupt their traditional marketing and packaging when it came to branding and marketing Goby.
“When you look at today’s big oral care brands, their marketing is overly clinical… no one gets excited about Oral B’s Instagram. We wanted to build an unconventional oral care brand by being relatable.”
With that framework in mind, Goby’s website design and marketing focused on offering easy-to-understand information and transparency to the consumer. Another important part of creating Goby was to build beautiful, modern branding for the physical Goby toothbrush and the company’s online presence. The result? An oral care brand unlike any other in the market today.
Takeaway: When formulating your product or service, ask yourself where are the big players failing? What do people need and what could you do better? Those major weakness that you can exploit will turn into huge benefits for your business!
Make it simple and seamless
When formulating Goby, Ben not only wanted to make a superior electric toothbrush, he also wanted to create a superior toothbrush experience for consumers. With that in mind, Goby offers several options to make things easy for consumers when purchasing, like free shipping, free returns, and a money-back guarantee.
“We wanted to come in and deliver a better experience,” said Ben. “We wanted to make a product for today’s modern consumer.”
This also applied to the product design. Goby toothbrushes only need to be charged twice a month and the new brush heads come to you in the mail via a subscription service. These two modern upgrades to old-school electric toothbrushes make oral health easier for people – on every level.
Takeaway: Ask yourself – what needs to be seamless for your prospective consumer?
Watch highlights from Ben’s talk at the 2017 Propelify Innovation Festival:
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