When Bernardus Smith first came to Luxembourg in 2019, he quit his corporate job to pursue “15 ideas I had on a whiteboard”. While many of them were viable, it was his 16th idea that became what is now SaltyLama, a Luxembourgish startup selling sustainable laundry detergent and building an online marketplace for green products. We caught up with the CEO to learn more about their products and their new affiliate programme.
SaltyLama has been around since the end of 2020. Can you take me through your roadmap?
SaltyLama has gone through multiple iterations since launching the startup in 2020, from graduating the Founder Institute, to developing our business plan and of course, surviving the pandemic. Currently, we are in the exciting “Phase 1” of SaltyLama. This is our Direct-To-Consumer or “B2C” phase where we sell our first product introduction with our private label to our customers. I am happy to share that our initial product is fully available in the EU, UK and US on SaltyLama.com and Amazon.com, where thousands of units have been shipped to customers in dozens of countries thus far.
The team at SaltyLama has significant new product introductions in the pipeline which will be launching within the next 6 months. This augmentation to our initial product launch will provide the consumer with an eco-friendly and sustainable 1-stop-shop alternative to their ongoing laundry room needs. “Phase 2” of our roadmap encompasses the buildout of our wholesale to retail or “B2B” model where we’ll be expanding our reach and brand presence in various retail stores. We are excited to announce we have just launched on Walmart.com and Faire.com in the United States and see the continuation of this model as a cornerstone of our future.
Having recently partnered with the Pall Centre in Luxembourg and being in active discussion with several other retailers, we are now entering “Phase 2”. With the expansion of our wholesale team this October, the funding we raised in May as well the government grand we just received, we hope to move to “Phase3”, our marketplace, as soon as possible. There we want to onboard various other brands and not only our own private label.
Currently, your main product is detergent strips which are more sustainable than liquid or powder detergents. Other than being more sustainable, how are detergent strips different?
I really believe that detergent strips are the way to go for everyone doing their laundry. They weigh about 4% of conventional detergents, the packaging is 100% plastic free and it’s biodegradable. The strip itself dissolves in seconds and takes up a lot less space than regular detergent. This is a massive benefit in industries that do laundry on a large scale such as cruises, hotels or other high-capacity commercial operations. To that point, our solution not only takes up less space, and is incredibly lightweight but also becomes substantially more cost-effective when compared to liquid or powder detergent currently being used.
“We want to hit our target of €3 million, streamline our processes and really push in the right direction with our marketing and sales team.”
Bernardus Smith, CEO of SaltyLama
How do your products compare to regular detergents in terms of pricing?
In terms of pricing, we are very much in line with other laundry detergents on a per-load basis. But once we launch our extended range in November this year and we bring in our larger load sizes, our value equation becomes a major differentiator. The major reason behind it is that our transport is much cheaper because of our lightweight and so we can actually transport a tonne more versus liquid and powdered laundry detergent for the same transport cost. As a result, the reduction of carbon footprint has a substantial positive impact on the environment.
How many subscribing clients do you have?
We are really excited to report that we have over 15,000 followers combined on all of our social media outlets. This has been growing at a fast rate over the last quarter! The response our brand has received tells us we are headed in the right direction. 25% of our customers have signed on to our subscription service and many 1st time customers are coming back to our subscription service for the value we offer, which is a 40% off savings.
Our hope is that once our government grant comes through this will increase significantly with the help of our Affiliate Programme through which we will be able to leverage influencers, bloggers and brand ambassadors to help us spread the word about SaltyLama.
How far are you along in reaching your revenue target of €3 million in 2022?
So far, we are a bit behind target, mostly because we had to wait longer to receive the government grant than was initially expected. Having just received it, I believe we might still be able to reach it, we will certainly try our best. But as a startup you sometimes have to deal with unexpected obstacles that come into play, so we try to stay flexible and adapt ourselves.
What else do you have scheduled for 2022?
Apart from having launched our product on Amazon, Etsy and Walmart as well as our own online shop, we are in conversation with multiple other online and offline sellers – both in Europe and globally. We also have our first pitch to a major investor coming up in October so we’re excited to see how that goes. For the rest, we want to hit our target of €3 million, streamline our processes and really push in the right direction with our marketing and sales team.
