Lucy Wark: We make modern toys and essentials, so think like a range of toys that don't look like the kind of wobbly big pink and purple dildos. There's a ban on pink and purple, in fact on the brand. I sent an email to like the entire Australian office that was like, just let's be clear, I don't have a job I'm going to like, I'm just leaving because like this is unsustainable work and I don't care this much about corporate strategy. There's a huge and really important impact to be made through meeting people where they are online. So like one in five searches on the Internet is about welcome to add
[Voiceover]: to cart, Australia's leading e commerce podcast that Express delivers all you need to know in the fast moving world of online retail. Every week, Nathan Bush from E Suite and an e commerce industry expert will share the news, research and insights that you need to know to keep you at the top of your game and of course, keep your customers adding to cart.
Nathan Bush: Did you know that approximately 2 million Australians have gone through some kind of traumatic sexual experience? The numbers aren't entirely clear because there is a difference between how often sexual abuse occurs and how often it is reported. It's clear that there is a lot of work to be done, not only in preventing this trauma, but also in helping heal post trauma. This drives today's guest on ADD to Cart, Lucy Walk, founder of sexual awareness brand Normal. Now, on the surface, Normal is an online sex toy brand who is reinventing what sex toys look like and who they are made for. However, as you will hear today, their mission drives them well beyond product and into education, research and, dare I say it, advocacy and representation. Normal was founded by Lucy out of a Start mentorship and was soon backed financially by the team at Eucalyptus. You might know them as the team behind other health startups such as Pilot, Kin, Juniper and more. In today's chat, Lucy shares how she took the leap from her safe consultancy job at McKinsey over to starting up Normal. She also shares how attaching education into the product journey to has helped her grow Normal beyond a retail business alone. And we hear how she has a vision for working with universities and schools to reshape what sex education looks like for the next generation. Now, I will admit I went into this chat a little naive to sexual health and the prevalence of sexual abuse in Australia. We've had guests such as Rob from Love Honey, Fiona from Voosh and Kat and Nicola from get down, where we've chatted and and had lots of laughs around the importance of sexual health and how e commerce can help overcome these barriers. Today's chat is a little bit different. Lucy has a serious mission to give everyone the information, the confidence, the tools to explore sexuality on their own terms. And today, you will hear from Lucy, her own experiences with sex that have driven her towards this massive goal. And it's worth saying that if you are impacted by or would prefer not to hear stories about sexual abuse, this episode does include references to sexual abuse. Also, it's an open, honest, and unapologetic conversation around sex and everything that goes along with sex. So if you're listening out loud while on a quiet carriage in a train, just be aware of that. All right, let's get into it. I think you're going to find Lucy absolutely fascinating.
Nathan Bush: Thank you.
Nathan Bush: Thanks to our partners, Shopify plus and Paclio. Here's our conversation with Lucy Walk, founder of Normal. Lucy, welcome to Add to Cart.
Lucy Wark: Hey, thank you for having me.
Nathan Bush: Thanks for joining. I'm really excited about our conversation because I have a soft spot for sexual wellness companies. We've had some brilliant ones on Add to Cart in the past. The Love Honeys, Voosh, Get Down. And they're always fascinating conversations because I think they're fresh, they're different, and bring a new perspective on business, let alone e commerce. Can we kick off with the normal story? Can you explain to people who may not have come across your brand what normal is?
Lucy Wark: Yeah, for sure. So Normal is an Australian sexual wellness brand. Our mission is give everyone the information, confidence, and tools to explore sexuality on their own terms. And I think, like, probably what's notable in that is the mission is not sell as many sex toys as possible to people. Because when you're talking about a society where sex and conversations about sex and sex for pleasure have been things that have been stigmatized for thousands of years. There is a lot of deeper social baggage. There's a lot of deeper individual experiences as well as, like, an education gap in terms of everything from anatomy to how arousal and libido work to how to communicate well with a partner. Where in order to help people access sexuality that feels happy and healthy and fun over a lifetime, you. You actually need to be tackling a lot more than just the ability to connect with a product via a digital shopping experience. We make modern toys and essentials. So think like a range of toys that don't look like the kind of wobbly big pink and purple dildos. There's a ban on pink and purple. In fact, on the brand is that Legit.
Nathan Bush: You'd literally.
Lucy Wark: Yeah, yeah. I was like, we're not allowed to make them red, we're not making them pink, we're not making purple, we're not making them black. Because that is like you walk into your old school sex stores and you are overwhelmed with these like tight, tacky colors that feel like they've either gone down the corny and corny route or like classically like male identifying entrepreneurs were kind of one of the first waves in the industry would be like, make it look like a veiny penis and then make it pink because women like pink. I guess like that was kind of like the level of thinking about customer preferences in this space for a long time. And so we really tried to kind of reinvent, you know, how should these products look and feel and function and then also reinvent the experience of shopping for them and sort of tackle a lot of the pain points that are created by either like earlier physical retail or earlier like mass, like multi brand retail experiences to make it really easy for people to find the right product for them and have a great experience with it. And then we use the funds from that to fund a growing library of digital sex education. And our goal is basically to make all the sex education that you would need for a lifetime of sexual concerns and curiosities available for free online and then also funding research and advocacy. So we're sort of one of the things that we try and do is close the research gap in Australia around sex, intimacy and relationships. The ABS doesn't ask very specific or detailed questions about those things. And then the alternative is like brands surveying their own audiences, which is particularly statistically significant. So we try to really do like high quality data sets that can help shape social conversations and inform everything from our product development and what kind of education we make to through to like the type of communication we do out to audiences and what we prioritize. Yeah, and then advocacy is really important. I think like inclusion and equality is something that was kind of built into the brand from the beginning as well. So that's us. We're about two years old.
Nathan Bush: Wow, that's a lot in two years.
Lucy Wark: Yeah, yeah, it's been busy. I feel like I've aged 10 years.
Nathan Bush: Amazing.
Nathan Bush: I love the mission and I love
Nathan Bush: that it is much bigger than retail. You've obviously started and put a lot of effort into the retail and the product side of the business. Was there a reason for emphasizing that part of the mission? Was it that you saw this as the way to scale and revenue quickly so that you could focus on the other parts of the mission.
Lucy Wark: Yeah, definitely. I think if you look at where people want to access information around sex and relationships, all of the data tells you that people prefer to do it online in spaces where they feel comfortable or even feel anonymous. Like we don't actually want to do those things as in person experiences. So I think it was a no brainer to say, look like if you're trying to solve the sex like issues with sex education, I think there's a really important pathway that's going through schools and universities, but there's a huge and really important impact to be made through meeting people where they are online. So like one in five searches on the Internet is about sex. There's a fucking enormous organic search volume around these topics because people are looking for that information. Sex similarly, you see like a lot of volume obviously on social media. It's usually like the top vertical in any youth focused digital media every day. Like it's a huge, huge kind of like, well of interest in these topics. So I think like with that in mind, we saw a lot of companies go down the pathway of I think trying to put content behind paywalls and make the business model around getting people to pay for access to like sex education or democratizing the insights of sex therapy and those types of things. I think that like a problems with that on a business model level, but B, like if you're looking at it from a social impact level, like you just dramatically like cut off your reach if you're approaching things that way. And I think it's a really big case to make to say that people like want to permanently pay for that type of content. But you can actually build an incredible business doing like the retail and physical product side of this, where I think there's also really big impact that happens through giving people access to products. Like for us, more than half of our users are buying a sex toy for the first time. So I think we really think about like how can we expand the suite of people who are able to figure out what they like with their own bodies through engaging with retail and engaging with this product space and the impact that that can have on their confidence, their experiences of pleasure, their experiences of pleasure with partners. Everything else is actually really huge in itself. But I think in terms of this space, there's probably over time going to be a really interesting shaking out of like what is the relationship between content and physical product? Our hypothesis on that and also our mission is like, we think that physical products can fund content in really exciting ways and can help you scale the size of that content in much more powerful ways. But also that there are benefits that come through that too, that we're really delighted to see, which are that people do discover brand and they do love the brand partly for those reasons as well. So we would do those things anyway. But there are real benefits that come through it as well. And that's, that's something that we sort of see as like over time, a kind of a reinforcing moat around the company too. Phew.
Nathan Bush: I bet you're breathing a sigh of relief now that Black Friday is over another year, right? Well, according to our friends at Shopify customers, they haven't stopped looking for bargains and they are going to keep chasing them all the way through 2023 as the cost of living takes its toll. Yes, that old chestnut. But Shopify have surveyed 2000 Australian customers and they found that 3 in 4 Australians are already reducing their discretionary spending and 84% of customers are comparing prices with price and value. Such a hot point for customers. It is worth considering how you are going to continually send price messages throughout 2023 to keep your customers interested. The battle for the wallet is going to be fierce. To view more resources to help with your 2023 planning and see how Shopify can take your e commerce business to the next level, visit shopify.com au today. And I love your background.
Nathan Bush: You were studying social science and business at university and then worked in consulting at McKinsey and then went on this adventure for Normal. What was the moment of inspiration from McKinsey to what you're doing, what you've established at Normal, what made you make the leap?
Lucy Wark: You know how like so many entrepreneurs and founders will tell their stories as like a light bulb moment and then 10 years later, the exact vision that they had back then is what they've built like? Definitely not that I think probably even if I go back like a decade, I'm 30 now, probably at around 20, I would have been exceptionally surprised if I told myself back then this is what I'd be doing. But over the course of a decade, I think I had my professional resume progressing along, which was I was studying social science. I did a master's in social science and business. I was doing internships with management consultancies. I'd always really enjoyed the way that social science can help you answer questions about how the world works and how human beings behave and how social change happens. And I'd also really enjoyed, I think, the way in which business helps you understand the world. It helps you see the tectonic plates that are shifting in the world. And I think it can be incredibly satisfying and fun to watch things grow and when you find those intersections of social issues and where there's like, which are poised for change or have the potential for real change and things where you're like, actually no, a business solution is the right vehicle or is one of a number of important vehicles for that change. I think that has always been to me, that had always been to me something where I was like, I'd really love to work on that and that feels very satisfying and like, something I'd be good at. At the same time, like, in my non LinkedIn resume, you know, was like, going through a number of, like, positive and negative experiences around sex and intimacy that were really sensitizing me to how important this space is, how neglected it is, how widespread the issues are in it. So, like, went through sexual assault and recovery, went through the experience of exploring my sexuality. So I'm part of the LGBTQ community, sort of realizing how shit my sex ed was for anything related to that. Like, anything that's not like penis and vagina sex. Preventing pregnancy is basically, like, not really included in my sex ed. So, like, went through that experience, spent time living in very sex positive environments, which was really helpful. And being around people in cultures where I was like, oh, like, this shows me what it looks like to discuss sex in a much healthier way. And I wish that this is something that more people had exposure to and felt like they were part of, either in person or in digital communities. Yeah. So I went through that also went through the experience of dyspareunia, which is basically like pain during sex. So had, like, poorly treated infection that led to, like, essentially so much pain during sex that I couldn't have penetrative sex for about 18 months and went through, like, a really complicated and expensive journey of trying to get diagnosed, get support, get treatment, get everything I needed around that. And that was also as someone who is, like, incredibly sex positive and, like, had the resources and had access to healthcare and had all of the cultural support that you'd want to go and tackle those issues. And I still found it, like, deeply alienating and, like, a really supportive partner, like, everything was good and it was still really fucking hard. And I think, like, you know, to just put those things in context, like the experiences of experiences of sexual assault, like in Australia, the statistics vary a little bit based on reporting rates and which data set you look at, but it's somewhere between sort of 1 in 3, 4, and 1 in 6 women have experienced sexual assault after the age of 15. Sort of 1 in 25 to 1 in 15 men have experienced sexual assault after the age Of 15. So that's like over 2 million Australians who have gone through incredibly traumatic experiences, which there's not a ton of useful support and which affect your experiences of intimacy for the rest of your life. If you think about things like sexual dysfunction, they're twice as common as mental health issues. But because we don't talk about them in public and because they are stigmatized, I think a lot of people feel really alone with those questions. Yeah. So, you know, you can go through, like, the size of the orgasm gap, like, the prevalence of issues like pain during sex, like, any of these things. Like, if you've had those experiences, you're probably a little more aware of them. But even if you haven't, I think, like, once you start diving into the statistics, you're like, this is this, like, huge hidden iceberg of which we only see the tiny bit that is like, what we talk about on the surface, which is like, maybe we talk to friends, maybe we see things in pop culture, maybe we talk to our partners, but we do not appreciate the scale and volume of the set of issues here that need support. Yeah. Anyway, so back to journey from McKinsey to normal. Like, had been over a decade getting more and more familiar with that set of problems, while at the same time I had, like, worked in startups a little bit through university. So I had some experience and I'd, like, worked in Berlin for a startup. I'd done a little bit of work while I was at uni. I'd, like, created a tiny, tiny media startup on campus at uni. Like, so I'd done a little bit of that and really, like, got the startup bug anyway. And I had also spent a lot of time looking at how bad the consumer products and consumer experiences were in the space of shopping for sex toys and essentials. And just being like, this is crying out for reinvention. It's decades behind the experiences that we have in education and healthcare and entertainment content. And there doesn't seem to be a good reason other than this stigma is holding back capital and innovation and talent. So it's kind of aware of all of those things. I left McKinsey, not sure what I was going to do. I sent an email to the entire Australian office that was like, just let's be clear, I don't have a job. I'm going to. I'm Just leaving because this is unsustainable work and I don't care this much about corporate strategy.
Nathan Bush: Did you write that in the email?
Lucy Wark: Yeah, in a diplomatic way. I was like, met lots of awesome colleagues, learned a lot, but was just like, I don't think that this is the thing that I want to spend my life doing and I don't think I'm going to have the capacity to figure out what I want to do while I'm working like 60, 70 hours a week here. Yeah, so like left, started doing some like independent consulting mixed in with like pro bono work on a lot of topics I was interested in and sort of social impact topics like human rights, civil liberties things. And then like eventually found myself like a year later starting the Start Mate women's fellowship which I have to give like a huge plug to. If anyone listening is interested in getting into the startup world. There are a series of different fellowships. They're not all for women. That there is one that's specifically focused on like bringing women like high potential women, often out of corporate careers, but not always out of corporate. Can come from a diversity of places into the startup ecosystem. And so it's like a combination of learning about what different types of roles are and how your skill set might translate intros and networking and then the opportunity to do internships and work placements with companies in the Australian and New Zealand startup ecosystem. So really, really awesome program, like life changing for me and I think I was ready for it and there at the right time. So through that, worked with a couple of direct to consumer health techs, started kind of understanding a more about like what does digital marketing look like? How do you think about go to market? Found that I was really liking that kind of type of business where you're able to scale impact by scaling product or scaling a product or scaling a business. And I was like, okay, cool. I think this is something where I would like to spend more time through that process. Got connected with the founding team at Eucalyptus, which is a venture backed health tech company in Australia. And I was like asking questions about growth marketing because I was like, I don't really know what growth marketing is, but you seem to anyway series end of that conversation. Basically they were like, look like we're thinking about our next brand. It's probably going to be women's health or sexual health. You seem like you'd be like the exact right person. Do you want to recruit for it? And I was like, yep, that sounds like the dream. Getting to launch that with like money and teams and opera and people around me would be amazing. And so, like, the rest kind of is history Normal there that was. Started building it and now we launched about just over two years ago. So, yeah, that's like the backstory of normal.
Nathan Bush: That's a great story.
Lucy Wark: Yeah.
Nathan Bush: One of the really powerful, what you were saying around your personal experiences, but also the impact and the lack of help for people who may be going through sexual health issues. You mentioned, you know, 2 million Australians impacted earlier in the conversation you talked about. The one in five searches is about sex. And there's a huge amount of content online out there. Do you feel there's a disconnect between that content actually talking about useful stuff and the help that people actually need?
Lucy Wark: Yeah, I think that's a really important qualifier to put on that statistic. It's a really important nuance to add, which is like a bunch of that is porn. I have really, like, argue quite nuanced views on, like, the impact of pornography. Like, I think there are people who would say pornography's impact is like, free digital pornography's impact is almost all negative, whether they're sort of thinking about, like, is this ethically produced or, like, what kind of, like, lessons are people taking when they treat this as educational or instructional content for what good or normal or, like, pleasurable sex looks like or what's likely to produce pleasure. But I think, like, there are also really important cases for pornography. For example, like, for members of the LGBTQ community, it's often. I mean, this is starting to change in mass pop culture, but like, it off for a very long time was the only place where you could see any sex that was relevant to you on screen and anything that spoke to your desires, your interests, even to how to have the kind of sex that you're interested in. And I think for a lot of people, it can be incredible as a way of, like, understanding what desires you have, exploring fantasy safely. The line is very much, for me around, like, how can we move towards a world that's like, ethical porn production and then being able to kind of verify, like, where things come from, understand the experiences creators have had in making it? But at the same time, it's also being like, are these storylines diverse, realistic? Do they show diversity bodies? Do they show pleasure in ways the realistic? If you look at pornography, you'd be like, yeah, penis and vagina is best way to have orgasm for people with vulvals. And I'd be like, Statistically, no. Statistically, 80% of people with vulvas need clitoral Stimulation that is far more important than penetrative sex. But porn teaches people kind of the reverse en masse. So there's all these things where you'll sort of say this is like teaching people literacy as well as being able to kind of change some of the things around. How platforms verify that content is produced safely, make sure that performers are paid properly, all that type of stuff. I think there is a future that's really positive. The present is quite mixed on it. So yeah, porn is like a huge chunk of that. And then I think when you get to sex educational content on the Internet, maybe I'll speak to the lane that we try to sit in with normal. So lots of sex ed, like lots of content about how to have pleasurable sex, good relationships, anything in that zone on the Internet. It's very clinical, kind of Healthline style information which is very helpful, quality Dr. Verified information, but presented very clinically. Or it's gossipy columns that are not well researched, that are pretty light touch, that are not sort of made with experts, that can be anywhere from very helpful to pretty unhelpful or actively misleading. And I think what both of those things like leave out or don't accomplish very well is like helping people get over the internalized like shame, awkwardness, fear that we all have around sex and exploring sex openly. And so like when you're just reading a blog that is like written clinically or something that has no like voice or face or community or sort of humanness embodied in it, it puts an enormous amount of pressure on the individual to almost like reinvent the language and the posture and tone and ways of behaving and speaking about sex for themselves. And so one of the things that we try and do is actually make sure that we like really humanize the content that we're making around sex at normal. So like our flagship, sort of our biggest course that we've made to date is called the Modern Guide to Sex. So it's like movie length, it's like 16 video episodes. There's a 200 page ebook that comes with it. It covers the pleasure anatomy that you missed in school. It covers topics like arousal, libido and orgasm and how those actually work, which is not how you think. It covers how to have good sex. So PNP, V on V, oral, anal and venous and vagina or vaginal sex. So we really want to make sure that it's actually diverse and inclusive sex. It covers, it covers sex and gender, it covers sexual health, it covers how to communicate and talk about consent in A really practical way. Like it really was like built around like the big kind of research surveys that we do which told us around these. Like these are the biggest issues, the population as a whole. And it's also built around like the most common questions that we get asked as a brand when people are asking us in sort of safe, anonymized ways for sex ed. So we wanted to build that as like the anchor to then what becomes like a much larger library of courses over time. But that's like a really great kind of basic primer on the things that you missed in sex ed that most people want to learn about. But with that, it's hosted by our amazing sex coach, Georgia, who sort of works in clinic like a couple of days a week with her clients. Also has a large and growing presence as an educator on social media in her own right. So her Instagram is @gspot if anyone wants to check her out. She's fucking great. And she sort of hosts stat course. And I think it was really important to us like when we were making that content that it's not like low production quality. It feels and looks like masterclass. It's in like a beautiful artist's house in Rosebury in Sydney. Like it's. We really wanted it to feel like a friend talking to a friend with a lot of expertise. Completely shame free, really enjoyable to watch, really. Like clean, modern, like everything about it is designed to kind of make you feel comfortable, to make you feel normal for engaging this conversation and to sort of invite you in in a warm way. So we really think we're very conscious in how do we make content that will actually move the needle, not just how do you make SEO blog shit, which is great and has its own role. But I think that might be in some ways if you're looking to be like, what's the difference between a brand that's saying it has a mission and is actually just doing content marketing and a brand that's actually committed to these topics? I think that might be a really good marker. It is much more expensive to make that stuff. And that money could be going to inventory, or it could be going to growth marketers, or it could be paying someone more. And we are very deliberate in sitting down at the start of the year and being like, okay, we think we're going to make this much money this year. We think we can afford to put this much aside for impact work while still breaking even. We think that in terms of the data from our users and from wider Australian population wide surveys, we Think these are the biggest issues. We think we want to make these courses about them and that's like the impact model. So like very deliberate and like thinking about those trade offs quite a lot.
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Nathan Bush: on the website you can tell the impact that the modern guide to sex has had because it's available as a free download and you can see all the amazing reviews and people who have come on and said the way that it's impacted them and their lives. Have you had any knock on effects from that? You know the thing that comes to mind is around redoing sex education in schools and all the other communities that may need this information. Has it opened up doors to make bigger impacts?
Lucy Wark: Yeah, definitely. We sort of have worked with either like student unions or university Admins on about 10 Australian uni campuses. That's like a quarter of Australian universities at the moment. And I think being able to say like look here's a free, high quality, engaging resource that actually reaches Gen Z populations that you can just have is really helpful and has been something where we're like we just want you to use this, like please share it with your students. Like we, we would love you to share it. And we've also done like things like workshops and various different sort of forms of more focused education with those types of stakeholders. So that's something that we've like really loved being able to do. I think also like one of the things that doing the kind of research that we do. So the big sex survey is like our big annual sex Census, essentially asking 60, 70 questions to a demographically balanced group of about a thousand Australians and summarising the insights into like a big database and a big report and release, stuff like that. Plus the education work that we do I think has meant that you know, for a lot of Australian media they are very comfortable coming to Us and being like, hey, do you have stats on this question which are actually high quality or do you have like resources that we can share with our audience when we do this article or do you have like comments on these topics that you'd like to make? So I think again, like walking the walk on those topics actually does have long run benefits as well. Or just like, I think like, I guess I'm always hesitant to frame those as business benefits. I'm like, those are like those are the missions.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Nathan Bush: But it strikes me as it's important to you to create things that are more than ClickBait titles or PR headlines that it's got to build towards the overall mission and the understanding and education.
Lucy Wark: Yeah, definitely. I think particularly given like the seriousness of the issues that we work with an on. I get ethically appalled by people who want to treat this space as clickbait. I'm like, if you would like to use the COVID of doing good to misrepresent what is purely a business decision, particularly on issues like sex and consent, I'm like, that doesn't sit very well with me. So I think we try very hard to keep ourselves like very honest on those topics.
Nathan Bush: And it's interesting that you raise around the business is just part of the mission. But I could imagine that all the data that you do collect and you have great insight into sex lives of Australians, do you use that data to help you in a retail sense around being able to segment and being able to talk to different customer groups in different ways?
Lucy Wark: Yeah, I think it's definitely like, well, for example, we ask all these questions around which of these practices or products have you bought? Which ones have you maybe tried because of a partner? Which ones are you curious about trying but haven't. If not, why not? And those questions are, can apply to both tracking, you know, how much is sexual wellness as a category, being destigmatised, how much are Australians feeling comfortable engaging with their concerns and curiosities in the space. But it can also and does also for us shape the types of products that we want to release and which audiences we think are going to really be interested in those types of products too. So everything from like, do you want to release a range around anal sex? Which for us is both actually an important thing because we, we really do want to like be inclusive and produce products that speak to the needs of the whole population. But also it's a huge area of curiosity and fantasy, particularly for Gen Z and Millennial audiences. And so there's like a just a Case for doing that thing.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lucy Wark: So stuff like that.
Nathan Bush: I love that you can use that research to influence what you do in retail. Does it go the other way as well? Because one of the things that I read from your research before our interview was that Australian libidos actually bottomed out during the pandemic.
Lucy Wark: Yeah, yeah.
Nathan Bush: Do you see that through your retail data as well or, you know, what role does that play in?
Lucy Wark: I wouldn't say we necessarily saw a libido linked effect like in sales. We definitely saw the effect of lockdowns in sales. So we sort of launched in February of 2021 and so lockdowns were happening around the country in various ways. And some of I think like the favorite marketing that fans of the brand have seen us do came through that period. And we did see like really strong sales through that early period as well. Because for a lot of people they were like. Well actually like this has taken away the ability for me to date, meet new people like, or even sort of. They may well be in a relationship but for various reasons unable to see a partner or you know, like there's. I also don't want to frame sex toys as an alternative to partnerships either. It's really important not to do that because I think they like coexist in lots of great ways. We definitely have seen moments where I think wider social trends are certainly like super, super visible in sales.
Nathan Bush: Amazing.
Nathan Bush: And what I love.
Nathan Bush: And going back to what you said at the start about reinventing the sex shop and as we've heard, it's way, way more than that already. But from a UX perspective, what kind of changes from an online experience did you were really important to you to make, to kind of reinvent it that it wasn't just products on a page.
Lucy Wark: If you sort of look at what incumbents in the space have typically created or like the typical experience either. Like it's a store. Like a physical store might be like a big box store out near the airport or like a store that you have to climb upstairs or like to a basement in the CBD to access stuffed with products, very little information and education though a lot of the people who work in those stores can actually be fantastic. So I should, I don't want to like take away from that work. But I think for a lot of consumers, they'll walk in panic, feel really embarrassed, really confronted, really confused by the huge range with very little differentiation and very little instruction or support that is like sort of self serve to make a choice, pick the first thing that they can think of buy that have anything from like a totally unhelpful experience to like maybe a good experience and then decide sex toys aren't for them. And I think like that experience there are business model reasons, reasons why that has been the experience that was created like for multi brand. Like the history of this industry is like you have the people who make sex toys, the brands and then you have these multi brand retailers who were historically the only distribution point. And so the multi brand retailers are incentivized around just carrying as many ranges as possible within inventory constraints and sort of offering choice but aren't necessarily thinking as much about like the needs of the end consumer consumer and what curation or education or support might be needed to ensure the best experience for that person. They're sort of incentivized much more around just like let's carry all of these ranges. We see ourselves as broadly a distributor. And then in the case of brands, so like a LELO or WowTech or whatever, people who make sex toys because they don't control the end customer experience, the only levers they can really pull are like price or adding features. And so that's why you get these vibrators with 25 different random settings and one of them is a DJ. Nobody fucking likes that setting. Or even trying to do things like long distance connected vibrators. There are all of these kind of innovations that people use twice and then fucking hate. And I think a lot of that has to do with the structure of the industry historically. Whereas once you start getting the rise of E commerce and once you start getting as well the rise of direct to consumer consumer brands in this space, the E commerce experience of those multi brand retailers often replicates in a pretty unthoughtful way what you get in the store, which is, you know, if you go on to even like Lovehoney's website and search vibrators, you're like that's 200 options. I have no idea what to do, particularly if you're embarrassed to even be on the website. And so like we'd hear from people all of these pain points that were like I don't know how big it is, I don't know how I'd actually use it. I don't even know what the G spot is. There's way too much choice. I don't know what to pick here. I'm worried that I'm going to pick the wrong product and it's quite expensive and I won't be able to return it. I'm worried about like all of these other features and sort of feeling like that experience really didn't serve or equip them. And so then you see, like direct to consumer brands. And this is something that we've done sort of really consciously at normal, trying to rectify a lot of those pain points. So we sort of said, okay, we want a much more simplified range which has like a really great version of a classic, like a few classic toy categories. We want it to look and feel totally different. Not something that you're ashamed to have out on the bedside table, not something that you're worried about. It's something that actually looks like quite a beautiful, like household object that fits in with the rest of your life and self image. We have like instructional video explainers from Georgia, our sex coach that come along with every toy on the website. We have this policy called the Hundred Night Stand, which is basically like, you can for 100 days after you buy it. If for any reason you don't like it, it doesn't have to be functionally broken. It's just like, if this toy is not living up to your expectations and it doesn't feel worth it for you, send it back to us and we'll give you a store credit to buy something else. And our team will literally support you to figure out what else you want to get. So we really want to take away any risk of someone having a bad experience. Give them as much education, information upfront as possible to enable that sort of choice. We have recommendation, quiz, all those types of things. So we've really tried to be like, if you knew nothing about sex toys and you had a mixture of internalized stigma and curiosity and excitement, how would we build this experience so that you're able to find the right thing for you and then have a really good experience with it? And like, that's how we sort of thought about changing that.
Nathan Bush: Amazing. That 100 night stand is a great proposition for the customer and really well named.
Lucy Wark: Obviously we do have a lot of fun with naming and puns generally.
Nathan Bush: Do you have many customers take you up on it?
Lucy Wark: We do. So we have like, I think at the moment it'll probably be about a 3% sort of usage rate, so people like it. Like, I think the nice thing is, like, if you're confident in your products, then, like, it's a promise that you're very happy to make. But I think also, like, for so many people, like, if you check out our reviews as well, for so many people, they'll be like, hey, like, I got this Toy actually wasn't right for me. I had the best customer experience and customer service experience I've ever had. Either, you know, they helped me find this other toy that was really right for me or like, they helped me like to sort of decide like not to shop with the brand or whatever. Like, but they were just, I think people are so overwhelmed and like pleased with how well that experience goes, particularly in a space like sex, where they kind of expect everything to feel like seedy and dodgy becomes a reason why they like the brand and they tell people about the brand as well. So I think like, for us, we're like, we genuinely just like never want someone to regret an experience with normal. And I think as a broad business policy, that's something to like build long term customer relationships around.
Nathan Bush: And I love the positioning of it because it's, it can just be. It's just not right for me. It's nothing wrong with the product. The product works fine. It's the right product and it should be in market exactly how it is, but it might just not be right for this person. And that's okay.
Lucy Wark: And that's also just a reality. Our bodies genuinely are diverse. You could never design a sex toy that every person in the world would find pleasurable. And given that price points are kind of like 80 bucks up to 200, that's a lot of money for most people. And you don't want to feel like you've had a disappointing experience.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. Lucy, you strike me as someone who is a deep thinker and considers the impact of everything that you do at a really deep level. And I've really enjoyed this conversation with you. In the two years of normal, from where you went in with your perception of sexual health to where you are now in your perception, has anything surprised you along the way that you were like, oh, I just was not expecting that?
Nathan Bush: Especially around customers and their perception, experience of sex.
Lucy Wark: Something that might surprise a lot of people is we get this really interesting window that we're very grateful for into what information people want and also what information people feel comfortable engaging with to different levels because of, you know, what we do as a brand. So like our socials will do a couple of different, deeper educational explainers every week or two. And we have, for example, really interesting insights into what we call a kind of stigma index, where the ratio between forms of private engagement on a piece of content that we're doing versus public engagement. So there will be some things that go right up at one end where you're seeing a lot of sharing to stories. You're seeing a lot of. Of public likes. You're seeing a lot of commenting. And it's clearly a topic where people are like comfortable sort of intersecting their identity with that in different spheres or in different, like more public spheres. And then there are ones where you see it looks on the surface to not be very. And again this is separate from mission like it looks to be not be successful content. If you're just looking at it as like a. From a pure like all we want is engagement point of view, which is
Nathan Bush: not what we want.
Lucy Wark: Like we're like actually no, we just want to make the thing because it's important. But we watch engagement as well. But yeah, there are often pieces of content where on the surface it looks like, oh, you know, that's something a lot less people are responding to. But you see these incredibly high rates of saving or private dming. So I think that's been like really interesting to kind of see where are these different topics on a journey of people being comfortable talking about them publicly? And we'll see things like anal sex and prostate play, particularly like pleasure for people with penises are topics where you see fucking enormous rates of like private engagement but much less public engagement. Whereas things like for example clitoral stimulation or memes do super well in public. And I think it's really interesting that actually in some ways like the sexual wellness movement in responding so much to a world that is like privileged penis and vagina sex and is often privileged. Like the experiences of heterosexual male identifying CIS people in like whose pleasure is shown to us in pop culture and porn and social media. So much of this movement has been actually kind of responding to that and correcting misconceptions and sort of foregrounding the experiences of groups who aren't that. That actually in a lot of ways I think we see topics that are really relevant to the journeys of people with penises and CIS heterosexual men actually being less far along that journey now. It's really interesting. Yeah. So stuff like that, super fascinating. I think also like we see a lot of engagement with topics like loneliness and rejection and experiences that are kind of eternal, but even ones that we're still not really comfortable admitting publicly that we're sort of having negative feelings about. So yeah, it's really like, I'm really grateful for the opportunity to kind of like see those things and think about, well, how can we support, you know, that group of people and what, what does that do for the.
Nathan Bush: What we're going to make next fascinating and I love that tip around looking at the engagement metrics, what's shared publicly versus what's private engagement, and not always looking for the likes and the shares and all the public stuff. But I think also what you said there is around being grateful for having that is, I think it goes two ways is obviously you put out a lot of genuinely helpful and thoughtful content. It'll come back around. So another good lesson there as well.
Lucy Wark: I think, like a lot of just like, we take the trust of our community really seriously, particularly when people are sharing experiences that can be vulnerable with us as well. Like, we just did this survey a couple of weeks ago in advance of our next course, which will be on the topic of sort of body confidence, body image and the link to pleasure. And just like for a little bit of background, like when you ask females in mass surveys, like, what are your biggest sexual issues? That one dwarfs everything else. So body image making it hard to enjoy sex. 40% of female identifying people rate as an issue. The next biggest issue is not even half as big. And there are many that are very profound, but I think it's like absolutely fucking huge. And so we're like, we've always been like, we want to tackle that not just in terms of like body image for females, like, in terms of body image and your relationship to genitals and all of those topics, like going into this next course. But we recently, like sort of did a call out on our socials and we're like, hey, you know, we'd love to hear about your experiences around body confidence, body image. What's worked for you? When did your issues start? What hasn't worked? What are you confident about? How can we help? What do you want us to make? And so we sort of have had about 1500 responses to that survey over the last couple of weeks. And we've read like every single one and had a lot of tears. Like, there's a lot of stuff in there that makes me incredibly sad. There's also stuff in there that's really hopeful. There's so many of them where people are just like, thank you for the experience of doing this survey. Thank you for what you do. So experiences like that are ones where we're like, collectively, people have spent probably all up a couple of months of their time doing this survey for us, and we incredibly highly value those inputs and the vulnerability and trust that people show in talking to us about those experiences so we can build something that everyone can use. So that was just like one where I was like, it really hammered home to us, like how. How lucky we are that people trust us to speak about those things as well.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, that's huge. That's absolutely massive.
Lucy Wark: Yeah.
Nathan Bush: We've run out of time. I've got a. A thousand other questions for you, but it is.
Lucy Wark: I don't know if we did any e comms more.
Nathan Bush: We didn't really talk about that, but such a good conversation. I absolutely loved it. What's next? What's next for yourself and the team at Normal? I bet there's a thousand things going on.
Lucy Wark: Yeah, look, there's a lot going on. We've got new ranges coming out over the next few months, which we're really excited about. New retail partnerships that's going to be really fun. A couple of really big creator partnerships in the works that we're super excited to launch. We've got five or six new courses launching this year. So we just launched the first of the year, which was a collab with the brand Unyoked, which is like an awesome nature cabins company. So we filmed it out at one of their beautiful locations. It's all about the biggest issues that couples have. And our sex coach, Georgia, sort of providing like, insights from science of sex and very practical tools and exercises that you can do together with a partner. But that was like a really fun collab. So we've got a bunch more of those coming out this year. What else is going on?
Nathan Bush: Maybe a little talk at south by Southwest.
Lucy Wark: Yeah, yeah. Well, hopefully we'll see. Yeah. So the south by Southwest is coming to Sydney in October. I think the New South Wales government paid them an absurd amount of money to come here. But anyway, I think we will be doing a talk there. I think it's like an application process. So, like, ours is one of a number, but we're sort of like quietly confident that topic titled Sex, Money and Power is going to get up.
Nathan Bush: I think it's a worthy topic.
Lucy Wark: Yeah, I think it should be good. But, yeah, it'll be with me and an amazing female founder, Christie Hobbs from Verve. Super, like, used to run camps for the un, I think, and then decided to create a super fund for Absolute Baller. And then Jesse Wu, who's amazing from Afterwork Ventures, is a VC investor and I think, like, really, like, principled, outspoken, thoughtful about the ways that investors use their time and money. Yeah. So I think that one will be, like, super spicy and fun.
Nathan Bush: I will be keeping a very close eye out for that one. And then lastly, we were talking just before we pressed record is that you are also growing the team. So if people are interested in joining your team, where should they keep an eye out?
Lucy Wark: So follow us on LinkedIn. It's just normal. Follow me on LinkedIn. I do a lot of chatting on there. Follow us on socials ormalco on Instagram at it's normal co on TikTok so like those things sign up for emails from the brand and you'll get across any opportunities when we post them in the next couple of months. I'm actually really looking to bring on and this is part of why I was like this is the perfect podcast. I think my job is getting too big for one person. It's probably been too big for one person for a long time. But I think there's going to be kind of a point where we divide that job into like medium term levers that I'm working on. That's like some of those like big retail partnerships, some of those big new product ranges, a lot of scaling our mission work, those types of things and I think they'll be a really interesting role for someone who's a classic E Com nerd gm, can do ops, marketing, finance, who feels aligned to the mission and wants a lot of room to run, a lot of autonomy and trust and a lot of upside. That profile of person I'd really love to hear from. If you've run a brand before or built one or been a significant part of building one, you can find me on any of those platforms and would love to hear from you.
Nathan Bush: Good thing we got a lot of E commerce.
Lucy Wark: Yeah, I know, I was like this is exceptionally targeted leads. But yeah, genuinely I think for people who care about these topics or at least who are interested in something that feels a bit more compelling than just random household goods, it's so fun to work on.
Nathan Bush: Amazing. Lucy, thank you so much for sharing your story. The normal story.
Nathan Bush: Amazing.
Nathan Bush: And I've got a feeling it is only just the start. I can't wait to see where you go from here.
Lucy Wark: Cheers, thanks. Thanks so much for having me.
Nathan Bush: So if you are looking for an in depth conversation around conversion rates, website ux, shipping rates, deep e commerce topics, this one might not have hit the mark for you. But if you are looking for a conversation around disrupting an entire category and and having a really important mission, I couldn't think of anyone better than Lucy. Here are the three biggest lessons I took from our chat. No red, pink, purple, black dildos. Look, no judgment if you own one, but I love that Lucy's set on disrupting the legacy sex toy industry and has put some hard rules in place to make that line in the sand. No red, pink, purple or black like dildos was.
Nathan Bush: 1.
Nathan Bush: Don't create products with features that are gimmicks. Don't be in locations that are hidden or seedy. Instead, give customers instructional videos with an expert when they make a purchase. Make designs that can be on display in the bedroom. Have a 100 night return policy. These are the real boundaries and changes that will help normal reinvent the sex toy experience.
Nathan Bush: 2.
Nathan Bush: Public versus private engagement I thought Lucy's insight around private and public engagement on social channels was really interesting. Regardless of whether you're in the sex industry, we are very quick to measure social content from public engagement, likes, comments and shares. They are important. However, the private engagement such as dms, private sharing, even bookmarking is arguably even more telling. For deeper and meaningful connections, make sure you're measuring both. And thirdly, the startmate Women's Fellowship. Lucy called out this program during our chat as being life changing for her and even though we didn't get to dive into exactly what it looked like, I think it's worth calling out now. Startmate have a bunch of events, courses and content for startups in Australia and it's has featured some great e commerce founders not only as students but also as mentors now. So if you are on the startup path, make sure you check them out. Startmate.com to get the highlights of today's episode. Head on over to add to cart.com and sign up for our free newsletter each Tuesday. We will send Monday's episode summary links and discount codes for you to go next level on. And if you're looking to explore your next e commerce opportunity, come and Visit us at eSweet. We're a dedicated e commerce talent agency connecting the best e commerce talent with the fastest growing brands in Australia. Head on over to esweettalent.com where you can download the free e Commerce Salary guide and sign up to our weekly e Commerce job emails. Thanks for listening and until next time, keep those customers adding to card.
