Kat Henselek: It's all this ego inflated who's got the biggest dick, like king Trojan horse, like galloping giant man with oily chest.
Nicola Omundsten: If we schedule in a get down call and we start accidentally talking about, you know, whatever happened on Bache last week, then we're like, oh, hang on a second, we've strayed.
Kat Henselek: When the pandemic hit, my partner was an airline pilot and I was on maternity leave and we were like, oh, fuck, like we're gonna have no money. So the most logical thing to do, of course, was enter us all on a game show.
[Voiceover]: Welcome to ADD 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 and of course keep your customers adding to Cart.
Nathan Bush: Hello and welcome to Add to Cart. My name is Nathan Bush, host of Add to Cart and director at e commerce talent agency eSweet. Now, it might surprise you to learn it certainly did me that 41% of people who shop for condoms are women. And yet I don't think I've ever seen condom packaging that doesn't look like it belongs in a testosterone fueled, epic hero style fantasy. Enter my guests. Today, intent on disrupting this space, old friends Kat Henselek and Nicola Omundsten founded Get down, selling sustainable, super stylish condoms and promoting women's sexual wellness. And not an oily chest in sight. In this chat, the duo share their formula for writing spot on brand copy, how they navigate running a business together and being best friends. And this is an absolute cracker. The unbelievable story of how Eddie McGuire
Nathan Bush: ended up funding their condom business.
Nathan Bush: And if you make it to the climax, I could not resist. There'll be a discount code to use@getdown.com
Nathan Bush: so don't miss that at the end of the episode.
Nathan Bush: So thanks to our partners Shopify plus and Paclio, here's our conversation with Kat Hanselak and Nicola Omundsten from Get Down.
Nathan Bush: Kat and Nicola, welcome to ADD to cart.
Kat Henselek: Hello. Lovely to meet you.
Nicola Omundsten: Hi.
Nathan Bush: So like, so everyone knows who's who. Kat, can I get a hello from you?
Kat Henselek: Hello, I'm Kat. Nice to meet you all.
Nathan Bush: I love how you're doing a hand wave and this is an audio podcast, but that's great.
Kat Henselek: And Nicola. Hi.
Nicola Omundsten: Hi, I'm Nicola. I'm the one with the strange accent
Nathan Bush: in the background and up at 6 o' clock in the morning. Thank you very much to do the podcast.
Nicola Omundsten: I am in Kilkenny in the southeast of Ireland and I've got up very early to join you, Nathan. So I'm super excited to be here.
Nathan Bush: How good, how good. Kat and Nicola, we are here to talk about get down and it's not a new movie coming out in the cinema, it's a brand that you guys have up and running. Can you tell us what get down is?
Kat Henselek: Absolutely. Well, I guess I hope that you are all not listening to this podcast at work because we're definitely going to start talking about sex and all the fun things that come with it. Get down is an embarrassment free, sustainable sexual wellness care brand and basically we're trying to make protected sex sexy again.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Kat Henselek: Great.
Nathan Bush: And if you've got kids in the car, this is a great chance to teach them about the birds and the bees.
Nicola Omundsten: Right?
Kat Henselek: Absolutely. Yeah. Like Nicola and I, we weirdly started this brand when we were both pregnant because there's nothing more sexy and, you know, there's nothing more that makes you want protected sex than when you're pregnant. Nico and I both had daughters about a month apart from each other and Nico's actually pregnant now, so I don't know if that's a good thing for our brand or not. You're fired as our influencer, Nick.
Nicola Omundsten: Honestly, it's interesting marketing and running a condom company and a sexual health company when you are six months pregnant because you do have to hide it on camera
Nathan Bush: and you're like, I promise you they didn't fail. They didn't fail.
Kat Henselek: Exactly.
Nicola Omundsten: This is a choice. This is a choice, guys.
Kat Henselek: That's why we only later on podcasts because no one can see that she's pregnant.
Nicola Omundsten: So, like neck up. Yeah. But we're all about empowering women to take charge of anything risky whilst getting frisky is our kind of tagline. So whatever that entails and whatever that means to different women, we're here to kind of break down those taboos and make make protective sex sexy again.
Kat Henselek: Right.
Nathan Bush: And you've both got different backgrounds and we might start there before we go further into get down because I love it. And if you are listening and you're in front of a computer, make sure you go to getdown.com au because I think having the website in front of you while you're listening will give you a better idea of what we're talking about because the branding is just amazing. Kat, if I can start with you, your journey. You've had a crazy couple of months you were part of the Shopify team, which were impacted recently and you've had a long career in E commerce with brands like Patagonia and Frank. Can you tell us how the last couple of months have been for you?
Kat Henselek: Absolutely. Well, Shopify is such an incredible, like, commerce tool and I was so lucky and privileged to be able to work there because it's almost like being able to. It's like people that go to Harvard, like, once you say that you've worked at Shopify, you just learn so much. And their onboarding process is so comprehensive that having the ability to go in there and see, see what hundreds of merchants do at scale, at all different sizes, the problems that they have. It's so interesting that like the $1 million merchants versus the $200 merchants all seem to have very similar problems and those that you expect to have that stuff like sorted out generally don't. So it's incredible to have had that learning experience. Obviously devastating to be part of the 10%, but then also not so devastating to get a redundancy, being able to have a bag of money, go to Asia, go do some traveling and then just be able to jump into this project, which I've been passionate about and haven't had the time to do before. So nothing like an old redundancy to, you know, spend more time into your side hustle.
Nathan Bush: Silver linings. And Nicola, I understand you've got more of a health background.
Nicola Omundsten: Yeah, slightly. So I actually, my kind of background in education was in like kind of science and physiology. So I've always been like, passionate about learning a bit more about the body. But then I've also worked at one of the fastest growing UK startups. You know, I was the third person in the company and now we're a company of 30 or so and being able to be part of that journey. And as everyone who knows who's worked in a startup, you join in every aspect of the company as customer service, operations, marketing, product development, every single piece. I went through that journey and just became so passionate about then elevating a brand from the bottom up. And that's really the experience that I've been taking to get down is like all the bits that actually get you to even having a website dealing with suppliers, all the horrible bits that people don't think are the exciting parts of a brand. So me and Kat have kind of balanced each other out quite nicely. She's come with a lot of the strategy and a lot of the knowledge and then I'm kind of inserting it at different points according to my journey. So it's been a really good pairing.
Kat Henselek: Nicola gets shit done. Like I'm definitely the ideas gal and just think of some really all the silly fun things and then Nicola will be like, Kat, you cannot spend that money that, you know, this is how we're practically going to implement it.
Nicola Omundsten: I have to say boring things like we need to do our accounts.
Kat Henselek: She's definitely my husband.
Nathan Bush: I can see how this goes because Kat, you're up late, Nicola you're an early riser. So Kat must be up late at night thinking up all these crazy ideas. Off they go into a chat or an email and then Nicola wake up in the morning, check the inbox and go, oh shit, Cat's been up again.
Kat Henselek: That is exactly what happens every day.
Nicola Omundsten: Every single day I wake up and look at my phone and think, what?
Nathan Bush: So how did you guys meet?
Kat Henselek: So we're besties. I used to date a guy who was her partner's best friend and then we met each other and we fell in love and then Nicola and I just become bound to life. And then when I had this crazy idea that no one else really wanted to listen to, I don't know if Nicola just felt obliged, but yeah, she was on board.
Nicola Omundsten: Yeah. Well basically we say we're each other's wives and our partners and husbands just have to manage that. So it's been really good actually. It's an interesting balancing act having like separate WhatsApp chats for like bestie stuff versus like get down only. And keeping that separation has actually been key for us I think. And it's definitely run into each other every so often. But yeah, it's been good. A lot of the time they say beware of going into business with any really good friends, but it's worked so well for us. We've been quite strict being quite strict with it.
Nathan Bush: What do you mean by strict?
Nicola Omundsten: Just like that doesn't belong in this channel. Put it in there, put it in slack. When we're talking about rescheduling a get down call and we start accidentally talking about whatever happened on Batchee last week and we're like, oh, hang on a second, we've strayed.
Nathan Bush: Okay, we can talk about bachi later.
Nathan Bush: Mustard made make lockers.
Nicola Omundsten: Get that.
Nathan Bush: Mustard made made lockers. Mustard made make lockless Mustard made make lockers.
Nathan Bush: But these aren't your typical old sandwich in the back. Pam Anderson poster on the inside lockers. These are beautiful, bright lockers that are in demand all over the world. So in demand that When Mustard Made went to expand from the AU and UK into the US they needed a platform that would handle the expansion. And down the hallway skates Shopify plus. Mustard Maid implemented Shopify plus in just two weeks, including a new Wishlist feature, upsell features in cart and personalized product recommendations. The result was a successful US launch and an increase in average order value of 15%. That takes them straight to the top of the class. To read more of Mustard main story and see other case studies, visit the customer sections on shopify.com au+ so there's
Nathan Bush: one thing to have an idea around reinventing sexual wellness. Another thing to go, yeah, I reckon we can bite this off and we can like actually go for it, make a mark in this space. When or how did the idea go from an idea to something that you went, yeah, we're going to go in this together and start this brand.
Kat Henselek: It really came to be like it was. We were both in Italy, we went on this road trip in Prosecco because that's where all good things happen and we're actually staying in a castle and drink, I guess one too many glasses of Prosecco. That's where all good ideas happen, really. And they were just talking about complaining about problems that we had in our, you know, younger days and in our 20s and having younger sisters as well. Like this is a problem. Like the gripe that we have with the condom industry is that you walk down the aisle and there's not one packet that is marketed towards women. It's all this ego inflated who's got the biggest dick, like king Trojan horse, like galloping giant man with oily chest. And you're like, how the fuck do you think that I want to buy this? So even though in the market, you know, almost half of the market are women, it's like, well, how many of these are stolen? Because I know that as a teenage girl there's no way that I'd want to buy some creepy oily man that said king size penis just for you. And you're like, okay, there's a problem in this industry because these ego inflated brand names and the way that they market their product and their sizing is just confusing for women. And that to us was an opportunity.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, I think a lot of people might be surprised that 50% of the market buying condoms is women.
Nicola Omundsten: It's actually 41% and that really surprised us as well. It's specific to Australia. It's 41% of women purchasing condoms and there are maybe like 2 or 3% of the condom brands out there in the whole global market that actually target women. Women are just craving, like, a simple premium experience that is overwhelming. So I guess what made us really passionate when we were, like, drinking that fifth glass of Prosecco, was that we were talking about how, like, as teenagers, I remember being 17 years old and being like, you know, I'm going to go and buy my. I'm going to go and buy condoms, protect my own sexual health, as women should totally feel entitled and enabled to do. And you'd go and you'd be like, how quickly can I try and read all the information on the back of the condoms to know which one to buy without anyone seeing me? And there's so much stuff on that that is just about, like, nothing to do with what works for women. And then you put it in your basket and quickly cover it up with, like, shampoo and, like, you know, and Lou fur and, like, some makeup so people can't see that you're buying condoms because, you know, God forbid. So it was just that it was like, everything makes it harder for women to buy condoms, whether it's the packaging, the retail experience, or the actual opening experience itself. So we just got more and more angry about it, basically about how it's so much easier for men to protect themselves, but women have to go to much more extreme lengths.
Kat Henselek: Also, who wants chlamydia? Like, at the moment? Like, I don't.
Nathan Bush: I thought you were, like, putting it out there as an offer.
Kat Henselek: Do you want to commit it?
Nathan Bush: No.
Kat Henselek: Australian STI rates. Australian STI rates have been raising at this, like, alarming rate. It's like, in the past decade, chlamydia cases have increased by 43% and gonorrhea cases have doubled annually and syphilis cases have tripled. So, like.
Nathan Bush: And we've been in lockdown.
Kat Henselek: Yeah, like, well, because else have people been doing. If you've been locked inside, you're either having fun or doing jigsaw puzzles. So
Nicola Omundsten: sorry.
Kat Henselek: It's just so crazy. And chlamydia is a leading cause of infertility in women. And we're like, so many people don't build this. So even if we don't sell a whole bunch of condoms online or whatever happens, in the end, for us, success is just merely changing the taboo around and creating a brand that's like, hey, we just want to educate you that although there is this social stigma of women are like, hey, I'm. I have an iud or I'm on the pill, so I'm not pregnant. You're like, cool. But you've got the clap. Like you've got something syphilis. You've got all these other STIs and no one seems to be worried about that because they're so worried about like pregnancy to them is like the worst thing that could possibly happen. You're like, well actually, like, there's so much worse. And we want to educate you about these things and give you a simple solution to it that's easy to put in your handbag and doesn't have creepy oily men all over it.
Nathan Bush: Creepy, oily men. I did like, as a little side note, I loved some of the research. This was probably the funnest episode to research because there's so much great content and I learned a lot as we were going. But one of the amazing facts that I read on your website is that there's only 1.1 centimeter difference between small and king size condoms.
Kat Henselek: I don't know if you've seen that video of Jessica Fox. She was this Olympic kayaker and her kayak broke at the Olympics and she just whipped out this condom out of her pocket and then she starts stretching it out over the top of the kayak. And men were just like, oh shit. Like, we're never going to be able to say it's too small ever again. Because if so we figured out like this fact actually stemmed from when looking at our suppliers sheets of the size differences, they were like extra, extra small, like extra, extra large. And we were like, wait a minute, like. And then I started looking at all the suppliers and we're like, oh my God. Like these sizes, of course there is difference in what is comfortable and what is preferable to the men. But condoms stretch like they're latex. That's what latex does. That's what they do, they stretch. So like we kind of say to all of the listeners at home, if you've got a condom or you don't, you can order one@getdown.com au and then if you don't want to put it on your wingus, you can then put it over your leg or your arm and experiment because I betcha it's going to fit.
Nathan Bush: Or if you go kayaking, just keep one handy.
Nicola Omundsten: Yeah, just keep it in your back pocket for emergencies.
Nathan Bush: I feel the whole world has been a lie with that little fact revealed. So when we've gone to that point, so how do you then go, okay, great, big idea, we'll start with condoms. Where do you start to go? Yes, we can make an impact and we can have cut through with this.
Nicola Omundsten: That's a tricky one. I mean, I guess the first thing we did was ask. We sent out a bit of a survey to every woman we knew and ask what all the pain points were for them. Just to kind of validate our own experiences and make sure it wasn't something that was just our own personal gripe and to make sure that there was a gap in the market there. So we sent out, you know, some decent surveys and got back a lot of kind of usps from people. They were looking for where the pain point and sticking points really were. That really enabled us to think, okay, if we were to create this brand and create this product and really go down the condom line, what pain point are we relieving? What solution are we solving? And that became really clear.
Kat Henselek: Yeah, it was interesting because like when assessing the gap, we saw this, and this maybe perhaps came from my background when working at Patagonia. I've definitely seen how sustainability is just and what true sustainability is not just greenwashing and what that means to our consumer. There is no leader in sustainability and ethical condoms. And so we definitely saw a gap there. Like especially Gen Z and millennials are leading society and demanding premium products with an ethical and eco friendly supply chain. We were like, okay, there's an opportunity to storytell what that means and how condoms are made. A lot of people don't know, like, how is rubber made? Well, it's kind of tapped out of a tree, which a lot of people don't realize.
Nathan Bush: I didn't realize that.
Kat Henselek: So yeah, so rubber's tapped out of a tree and it's like, cool. Well, who taps the rubber out of a tree? And you're like, these farmers who are tapping rubber out of trees. And it is quite awful. Like if you start researching like, how is rubber produced and the conditions that these rubber workers that in hot climates, a lot of child labor, slave labor, in places like Asian countries, parts of Africa that are, you know, unethically sourcing this rubber and then selling it to large companies, we're like, okay, like we don't want the whole total supply chain needs to be considered when producing our product from not only the raw material, which a lot of people dismiss, they're like, cool. I'm using premium fair, you know, ethical papers and forestry certified paper. Like, that's great. But if your raw materials are complete rubbish, then like, I don't believe that your supply chain needs to be a hundred percent perfect. But at least be honest in your storytelling about what you're trying to do and what you're getting better at. So you'll notice that in our copy we're like, we're definitely not perfect because with two people running a company and the budget we have, we cannot have the most ethical company on the planet. But God will try and we'll do everything that we can and tell people what we're doing and trying to educate people if they ask.
Nathan Bush: I think that's really interesting, the word you use there around story. Because for a lot of the condom brands that are on the shelf at the moment, I feel the experience from a branding perspective is probably similar to that of a lot of their customers. Is like just quick get it up there. Don't tell too much of a story. Don't make too much noise. It means to an end, just get it happening. Whereas you have actually created a beautiful brand and it looks like a great community as well around get down, which isn't just a product led business. It's about sexual wellness. How did you develop and how did you get that brand started and land on that brand identity?
Nicola Omundsten: Well, this is an interesting one because like when we look at the brand, we just see ourselves all over it. Like it's because we write the copy and we kind of pick the images and we literally be like, if this makes us laugh or we like it and it's going in. So for us, us it was just about being really authentic and being about ourselves. So it's what we think and what we do and how we would say it. So we're never trying to match like a message that we've kind of predetermined between ourselves. And I guess because we're besties as well, we have that similar approach to the way that we think. And I feel like consumers are way more savvy now. They don't want to be like sold to by this kind of perfect looking, really super oily men kind of oily man. You know, I was trying to avoid taking oily masks, but really that's what I was. And you just need it. They just want to see an authentic person, authentic brand. So it's not actually hard for us to get the stuff up there and for it to be really consistent across
Kat Henselek: all of our channels.
Nicola Omundsten: It's a bit of work, but other than that we just enjoy it.
Kat Henselek: Like we have no choice in being authentic and selling the way that we do because we literally are in the most restricted category on the planet. Like with Facebook or Meta being owned by an American company and then TikTok in China like, you can imagine the kind of restrictions that we face trying to sell sexy things on the Internet. Like, we couldn't have made things more difficult for ourselves, technically speaking, if we tried. Like, I don't know why we decided to sell condoms instead of underwear or skincare. Like, my gosh. Like, boy, did we pick a hurdle. What that means to us is, like, when competitors come on the market, like, I praise them, like, my God, if they got to where they are, congratulations, because we want to start a condom brand. It is so difficult. And if you try to sell it digitally, you have no choice but to do the hard work in branding and storytelling, because acquisition isn't easy for anyone right now. But it's really hard if you've got a hard category.
Nathan Bush: So how do you get around that? When you've got such barriers, like Facebook,
Kat Henselek: Insta, TikTok, there's definitely tactics that you can use. Like, for those who haven't used something like Link BE before, we had a mentor, Olivia Carr. She started Shush Silk. We actually won at the start of our journey. We've won a couple of things, but my. When the pandemic hit, my partner was an airline pilot and I was on maternity leave, and we were like, oh, like, we're gonna have no money. So the most logical thing to do, of course, was enter us all on a game show. And so we all went on who Wants to Be a Millionaire? I won fastest finger first, but I only won a thousand dollars, and then Eddie stole it back off me. But Tom won a hundred grand. So what? Yeah, so that was amazing. So thank you. Eddie McGuire. He probably unknowingly, then has funded a condom brand.
Nathan Bush: You've got to make a condom called the Eddie.
Kat Henselek: The Eddie. Maybe, like, oily Eddie would be.
Nathan Bush: Can I go back to the hundred grand? What was the final question? How nervous were you at that time?
Kat Henselek: So I, I, we're both. Because it was the middle of COVID we were living in this, like, apartment in the Docklands, and we're like, if you live in Melbourne, like, go and sign up to who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Like, people are chasing all these, like, investors. You dummies. What are you doing? If you want a technical way to make money, you've got a one in six chance of winning who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Have you not watched the show? And so we're like, okay, I just put the whole family on there. Tom, My partner was the only one who won.
Nicola Omundsten: Anything.
Kat Henselek: Good on you, Tom. And the last question was, which country was King Kamehameha from the choices are Samoa, Japan, Hawaii, or some other random Pacific island. Yeah, Bushy, what would you choose?
Nathan Bush: Oh, God, I feel the pressure and I'm not up for anything. Samoa, not.
Kat Henselek: Well, he almost went with Samoa, but luckily he went back to Hawaii and then he won the 100k.
Nathan Bush: Wow.
Kat Henselek: So that.
Nathan Bush: Did he know that or was it a guess?
Kat Henselek: Tom is like. Because he's an airline pilot, he's very logical. He's not like me at all. And so he just kind of just methodically worked through like five or six questions and was like, I'm going to work this out because I'm a pilot and my pilot brain is like, this is what makes the most sense. And then he was able to get it. But yeah, that definitely helped us with funding at the start. So, yeah, if you guys need some cash, go on who Wants to Be a Millionaire or just try weird crazy shit to make money.
Nathan Bush: I don't even know how we got here. Like, this is the weirdest tangent we've ever had on ADD to Carver. I love it.
Kat Henselek: I'm interested how we got here and you're talking about. So we then we had this founder, Olivia Carr. So we won this money and then we also won money through Olivia Carr. She had this incredible incentive. She's like, you can win $5,000 to get your business start up if you're affected by the pandemic. And we're two pregnant lasses inside. And it's like, if you can find competitions like that, like, whether it's $5,000 through competitions or 100 grand through a game show, like, just look at creative ways to make money so that you don't have to give your part of your soul and your brand away to big investors.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Nicola Omundsten: And also we had, like, amazing mentorship from Olivia as well. Along with getting some of the funds. We also were able to, like, ask her really key questions that could make or break a brand at the beginning. And she put us in contact with a few different people and just really got us started down the road of how to create a successful brand coming from someone who's just done it. So that was just, like, completely invaluable. So it was great. And there's so many of them out there as well.
Kat Henselek: It's good.
Nicola Omundsten: So many competitions.
Nathan Bush: It's not like you're.
Nathan Bush: You guys are coming into the industry fresh, though, because Kat, you've obviously got great history there with Patagonia and Frank and Shopify. Where were the gaps for you? Where were you kind of to put it in like the easiest terms. Where were you shooting yourself when you're starting this?
Kat Henselek: I guess with all those brands what the consistency between like Patagonia and Frank Body is definitely storytelling. So I'm really comfortable in that space of how can you authentically get your brand story across? Like how can you lean into feedback, listen to your customers and see what they want. Whereas less confident is definitely from an operational perspective like the negotiations with logistics suppliers. Like how do you get your products? Like even just thinking of a product we thought of the brand really before we were thinking of the product and how we wanted to communicate tone of voice, colors and all that branding side. But when it comes to the operations actually getting the goods, trying to negotiate with suppliers that's where and even PR for us is definitely I don't like sales to me is hard. I like I. It's not my. Not my area at all and putting my neck on the line to go talk in front of people. So having that confident boost in that space like I need it.
Nathan Bush: You've refreshed your website. The new range is about to drop. You've never had more customer service options. Hey but take a look over there at that boring pile of packaging boxes.
Nathan Bush: Ugh. Ugly.
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Nathan Bush: Do you find that you're a natural salesperson though without being a salesperson she
Nicola Omundsten: 100 is and she doesn't know it as she was just saying that I was like cat it's just because I talk.
Kat Henselek: I just talk so much shit that like I'd be terrible. You're like just you weren't meant to talk about that. You're meant to be selling light bulbs. Not this.
Nathan Bush: No but I think people buy into
Nathan Bush: that honesty as well. Like that's part of it as well. And I think we are seeing a whole. You know I'll probably put myself in that realm as well. Is like I always fought against being a salesperson but in the end it's what I do. But not in a tradition traditional way. Like similar to you guys is going out There and having a message, having something you're passionate about and sharing your story that can help others.
Nicola Omundsten: That's definitely the way the whole industry is going. E commerce that the consumer base and markets and audiences don't want to be hard sold to. They want to hear from people who are actually selling something that they're passionate about. Which is great because then we can really lean into that rather than you know, the kind of really strongly influencer led and clearly kind of painful commission based structure and that people are you know, just wised up to now all over social media.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Kat Henselek: Tricky though because if you want to sell a product that isn't necessarily like you know, we are in our 30s. I always have to ask Tom every year how old I am because I genuinely forget. I have to be like
Nathan Bush: to give him four options.
Kat Henselek: No, he knows.
Nathan Bush: 50. 50 chance.
Kat Henselek: 50, 50 chance. It's interesting. Like my boss that I had at Shopify is this amazing guy, Gideon Banks and he was an absolute legend. He recommended for me to read a book that I feel like everyone should read is the how to what is it? How to win friends and influence people. And it seems like this really dated old book but the one thing that I took out of that book is definitely when you're fishing for something like what kind of worm do other people want? Like don't necess try and sell people what you would like to be like I guess what you want. Always consider when talking to people what you're trying to sell to consumer like what worm do they want? What is their worm?
Nathan Bush: And so very appropriate when talking about condoms.
Kat Henselek: I know so oily worms.
Nathan Bush: I want to just quickly go back to the brand and the copywriting because I think it is so exceptional. I'd love to dig in a little bit deeper. So you've got smart copy all through the website. Nicola, you referenced it before when you said you just write what you want but like to give the listeners just a little bit of a preview. My favorite line in there was when you had the call to action for the email signup. Email signups are pretty generic, right? But your line there is don't lie there like a starfish. Sign up today. And I don't think you're going to say sign up today. That'd be too generic for you but and then when you've got your values listed it was like fuck each other, not the planet. It another one of my favorite lines and I know that you put it down to that. You just write what you believe in and is part of your Personality, but it takes effort to put creativity into everything. Like those two examples there. They could be very generic statements and probably be a lot quicker to do than to write what you have written. And how do you keep that consistency across all your channels and touchpoints?
Nicola Omundsten: That's a good question about consistency. I mean, both those phrases came out of, like, late night or early morning zoom calls between Kat and I where we're just like, almost like, I think we're both a little bit stupid. So, like, when we're reading, like, other people, other people's websites, they're like, so what is the actual thing that they're trying to say? And we're like, okay, so basically they're just saying this and then we say it as if we're in a conversation. And one of us is like, I'll type that down and we write that and then it just ends up in the copy. So it's literally from one of us is usually either on coffee or a glass of wine and we just type each other's sentences constantly. So it's as if you're hearing someone say it. The starfish line is definitely cats. That's cat written all over it. But, yeah, so we write what each other said, what each other says as we're explaining things to each other about what we're trying to get across in the most stupid way possible. We feel like it reads better to a consumer because you hear someone saying it.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, yeah, you definitely do. And I think it's the opposite of stupid. But I think I found the secret in there is, like, one has to be on wine, one has to be on coffee to keep the balance right. I'd love to see. Can you rewrite your website when you're both on Prosecco?
Kat Henselek: Yeah, I don't know. It could be disastrous. Like, my spelling is not amazing generally. I think there's some punchy, silly line. And then Nicola, try and make it grammatically correct. Having my experience at Frank Body is all about copy. So seeing how copy accompanied with good imagery was definitely great learnings. And same with Patagonia. Like, again, good copy comes to storytelling. And what is that? Copy accompanying. And just really thinking about the user journey is so experienced. Like, it's just so, so important. Like, you see so many generic, like, 10% off of this. You're like, no, like, just, I don't know, make them laugh if you can't give them a good deal, which, like, 10% off, everyone does. And, you know, we just know that's what the consumer expects. But if you can make them laug art as well. Like, that's a foreigner.
Nicola Omundsten: Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to say. Go with emotions. Like, we feel like everyone should read something on our site and there should be an emotion that it creates in that person. Or you can hear the emotion in our voice as we're writing it. Whether that's like funny or angry or.
Nathan Bush: I spent way too long reading stuff on your website, way too long. And your blogs are incredible. And it kind of reminded me of Ashley who we had on a few weeks ago, who's got the diabetes kit and started as a community around how can she change stigma around diabetes, especially for young people and the impact that it has on lives. It struck me as obviously very different tones, but very similar approaches to create a community and create lots of content where we raise this and go, this is actually a problem, let's talk about this openly and honestly. How do you develop all that content? And have you got a bunch of different writers who contribute into the those articles?
Kat Henselek: Not yet. Like, and that's probably where at the moment there's so much opportunity for us. Like, you know, when resource is so interesting that when you're a startup and you're like, who is going to do what? We're both two mums on either side of the planet with little crossover. We literally have an hour a day. And so that has been such an interesting flow of trying to work out who writes what. We definitely have gone through and as anyone can do if you need content at the scale, we went and experimented, we went on upwork and these other things were like, okay, we need an article written like this. But what we found, and definitely some of our learnings is the tone of voice was so off. Also culturally, how, you know, you'd find that we might have someone like a lady in India writing an article about, you know, sex way six ways to do this. And it just didn't hit the mark because of different barriers and different, you know, perceptions of sexual across the world and everything that ethically comes with it. What's the norm in those countries? And we're really aware the area that we have in the privilege that we have being women in Australia and Ireland, but you definitely don't have that privilege. And it's really an interesting lesson for us. It's like, okay, going onto upwork and trying to get content written for us in a cheap way. We had that done. We found that we just have to rewrite it all ourselves because it was just so off or just didn't Wasn't authentic. It just felt like if you're punching out blog posts just to punch out blog posts, then you're missing the mark. You may as well just write one a month, then one a week if it's just going to be complete crap or not resonate with your audience.
Nathan Bush: Great advice.
Nicola Omundsten: And I guess to add to that, it was also just about a lot of the writers that we would find would be like, okay, what SEO keywords are we targeting? And they would really focus it around that. And we would end up with this kind of fairly boring and bland article that technically wouldn't rank well of SEO, but no one actually enjoys reading it. And we thought, why? What's the point of putting up? It's just fluff to try and get traffic. And again, as part of that authenticity, we're like trying to avoid that. Obviously you need to lean into SEO a little bit, but I think definitely E commerce moving away from that being the main thing. And it needs to be a lot more kind of wanted content, which we were able to answer kind of what's wanted? What are people interested in? Just using social media? Like, it's all over. It's all over social media if you actually look for it at the questions people are asking and what people are engaging in. So we tried to lean into that bit a little bit more.
Nathan Bush: Where do you do your research?
Nicola Omundsten: Online, Everywhere. You should see my Google history. Very suspicious.
Kat Henselek: We definitely do it in an incognito tab and not on our work computers. We definitely have separation of state and church. There's no bloody way that I would have had a job as long as I did at Shopify if I was was researching the shit that I needed to, like, some of the samples I didn't have because I live in the middle of the bush. We don't have post boxes here. So we have to go to the post office to collect all of our mail. And I get so scared that, like, that one day, like some sample box will open and then like poor old Lynn at the post office will then all of a sudden be like, what is this?
Nicola Omundsten: Do you know what? As a slight tangent, I actually had to send Kat some, like, some of the samples I have here in Ireland, like, with like different packaging and stuff. And so I went down to the local, like, little Irish post office and because obviously because of customs, they have to write on the customs, what is it? And the post office was like, quite busy, but very quiet. The woman was like, and what's in here? And I was like, condoms. You could See her look up and she went grunge. And then she, she was like, and what's the value? And I was like. I was like, I don't know, €100 or something like that. People in the queue must have been thinking, how many condoms are in there? Are you sending and who are you sending it to? I could feel the eyes watching me as I laughed. It was so funny. Obviously pregnant. It was so funny.
Nathan Bush: So good. Now, speaking of samples and products, you've obviously got a limited range at the moment. What's next from a product perspective?
Kat Henselek: I think with our experience, like where we've gone now and diving into the world of Gen Z, it wasn't a space that honestly my experience was, is like Nicola And I on TikTok, just we don't feel like our authentic selves sometimes. So Nicola, you know what? Nicholas, the TikTok queen out of both of us, like, I hate it. I hate making TikTok. But we were like, how can we. There's so much opportunities when it comes to the taboo around sex is we don't just want to talk to those who want to protect themselves, but how can we help couples have better conversations between them? And how can people have better sex? I think it's hard for people to communicate. Like, I would argue that one of the biggest problems that any couple has is communication or expectations. And we're like, that next line of products is definitely we're going to lean into. We're creating a game at the moment that basically means that the couples can have better communication, better sex and just have better experiences with each other. Because Jigsaw puzzles over Covid has got a little bit boring. And we're like, at the moment it's quite fun. Nicola and I are in the midst of kind of working on some products in that space to basically help. Yeah, help couples have better conversations and better sessions.
Nathan Bush: Amazing. That sounds exciting. You must be just. Just have so many ideas, so many opportunities ahead of you. Picking the right one from both like an acquisition perspective, but also an expansion perspective must be really hard.
Kat Henselek: Well, the way that we did that is we're like, okay. So the biggest thing that I noticed when working at Shopify is the issue that a lot of these brands, whether they're big, big, big, kind of, you know, multi kind of, you know, million dollar apparel brand or just starting off these resources course. It's so interesting that people don't tend to evaluate their staff internally or their pricing. It seems to be like a. I don't know what it is, but they're like, okay, here's the price of our product. We're just going to keep it like that forever. And these are the staff that we have. We're not going to evaluate their roles or change them. We're just, as we grow, we'll just keep them as it is. So Nicola and I have recognized, like, Nicola's pregnant at the moment, so she probably needs some time to bring up her wee band, like, as they grow up. And then for me, I'm like, okay, what's my journey going to look like in the next couple of years? So like, okay, we need another one of us and we need someone to come in with an additional skill. So we've recently had another business partner, Paris, join us and her background is she's a psychologist. She is incredible when it comes to thinking about communication and connection and I feel like she'll be really complimentary to us. So I guess when looking at how we're going to acquire new customers, for us, that came down to internal resource and bringing on another partner to our brands that can help us target an industry that we're really interested in and help us see a different perspective. Not having that E commerce automation, geeky brandy side and think of it from a more holistic, like actually get into the head of our customers perspective.
Nathan Bush: That's exciting. Very cool. All right, so I think we've answered this, but I'm going to ask it again if what's the one thing you're focused on next for yourselves? So I'm probably more interested in your own, your own journeys right now because you're at different stages. What's next for yourselves, what's in the crosshairs?
Nicola Omundsten: I think for both of us it's making get down no longer a side project or a side hustle. And one of our main jobs is like, we're both very diligent working towards that goal. And I mean, yeah, it's slightly different for me because obviously I'm gonna have to take like, let's say two weeks out while I have a baby.
Kat Henselek: It's not America. Nicola, you're in.
Nicola Omundsten: But I see. I seem to remember when we had our babies last time, we kind of took about two weeks off and then we're like, well, I'm up in the middle of the night, sure, I might as well be doing something on my phone.
Nathan Bush: So the copy's about to get a lot more crazy, right?
Nicola Omundsten: Oh, you'll probably see the switch in our website. Be like, Nicola, row that sleep deprived and up at 3am but yeah, so, I mean, that's the main focus for me, I guess, is just moving as fast as we can towards that and doing everything in our power to achieve it.
Nathan Bush: How will you know when it's no longer a side project?
Kat Henselek: I feel like it's when we can start, like, paying for ourselves. I feel like, you know that when you can think of a wage that again, from Patagonia days. And also the lesson learned over the pandemic is people just live simply. Don't buy houses that you cannot afford. Don't buy shit you can't afford. Because when my partner two years ago lost his job and lost everything, we're fucking lucky that we. He won a game show. But not everyone does that. That's not normal. But like. And then the day that he got his license back and started flying jets again, I lost my job. Fortunately, like, there's other things that we can do to kind of spin plates and make a living. But I guess for us it's like, okay, how can we make an income? And also how can we start to reach some of our broader mission goals, like for our. When it. It'll become more than a side hustle for us. And it's like, when we can start creating, like, working towards some of our impactful goals around sustainability, like working towards women organizations. Like some of the causes that we. Part of the money, when you purchase these condoms, go towards. We'd love to be more active in those because we genuinely believe in those causes. We hate that we have this privilege in the countries that we live in and not every woman does. Like, the condom thing actually stemmed from when, ages, years and years ago, I was working as a teacher in Africa, in Tanzania. And while I was there, I was staying with some nurses, some Norwegian nurses, and they were going around soccer pictures telling different communities and young teenagers about condoms and trying to convince them that they're not evil and they don't give you aids. Because that was the belief in some of the communities. And that's a privilege that we have and not everyone else in the world does. So I guess success to us looks like. Not that we're going to solve that problem, like, no one has to date, but if you can make a dent in changing taboo in whether that's some kind of minority or someone who's, you know, doesn't have the privilege that we do, like, that would be success to me. And being able to, I guess, live where we do, I think would be good.
Nathan Bush: Oh, I love it. I love it. I feel like we've covered so much ground. So I've loved our chat. If people actually just want to go out and get some get down condoms, where do they go?
Kat Henselek: You can get down@getdown.com yes. Visit us online. And if you are feeling that you are wanting to, you know, you can put in the code Bush 20.
Nathan Bush: So just code ever.
Kat Henselek: It's just if you, you know those after hours bushy, you're just thinking of bushy after hours then just remember oh Bushy 20. And then you can get 20% off your entire order. You can have have 500 condoms and get Bush 20.
Nathan Bush: There you go. Thank me later when you that's awesome. Thank you. I'm sure we'll have plenty of people redeeming their bush 20@getdown.com au cat Nicola, thank you so much for joining us on Add to Cart.
Nicola Omundsten: Thank you. It's been great.
Kat Henselek: Thank you so much.
Nathan Bush: Okay, as promised, there is a discount code for Add to CART listeners, but I have to apologize in advance for what you have to type to get it. If you want 20% off your order at Getdown, enter the code BUSH20. Yes, apologies BUSH20@getdown.com au Alright, there were some cracking stories in there and lots of laughs, but also some gems of advice. Here are my top three Number one Write for your audience, not for the bots. It was really interesting when I asked Kat and Nick about how they developed their brand, there was no real answer. And that's because they just wrote what they like writing and they wrote what they think would be interesting to read. It's not rocket science, right? But it's resonating with their customers. It might mean that they don't pump out hundreds of articles like they could if they used upwork or rank highly on obscure long tail keywords. But they're building a devoted audience by being themselves and being interesting. Separating work and play. We know how hard it is to separate work and life in any job, but separating work and play is extra hard when you're building a business with your best friend. Tangents, stories, distractions. They will all be welcome distractions. Kat and Nick did a great job, great thing by setting up boundaries and agreeing to channels for communication so they can get their work done. And then watch Batch injury. Prosecco Number three When the chips are down, sign up for a game show. Well, no, that's not exactly the advice, but I love the idea and the spirit behind it. When Kat was pregnant and her partner had lost his job, you couldn't blame her if she sat in the corner and cried, but instead she entered the whole family on who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Crazy idea, eh? Not so crazy when you win 100 grand. But whether it's millionaire or putting your hat in a ring for a founder funding program, being proactive and having nothing to lose in your attitude is always better than feeling sorry for yourself. And you just hey, never know your luck. 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 E Suite. 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 ecommerce Ecommerce Salary Guide and sign up to our weekly
Nathan Bush: e Commerce job emails.
Nathan Bush: Thanks for listening and until next time, keep those customers adding to cartoon.
