The few are likely to have heard something of the Vivere GmbH. The “Consumer Good Incubator”, as founder Sebastian Johnston calls the company, is well on the way to implementing a mid-double-digit million euro amount in 2019.
The team claims to have developed around 1,300 products from various FMCG categories with its own research team, including curious things such as an anti-snore spray. Johnston reveals in the new OMR podcast how ideas for such products are created, what sales channels Vivere sells for them, and why the company uses only natural ingredients.
“We see the market, categorize it, try to understand it – and then build the best possible product in response,” says Sebastian Johnston in an interview with Philipp Westermeyer. Johnston is the founder of Vivere GmbH.
Together with his school friend Christopher Glatzels, for some years now he has been developing a wide range of products that are in the widest sense of the household and care sector – such as a paint that is designed to prevent nibbling nails or a spray that keeps cats away from furniture. There are now around 1,300 products in total, divided into 40 brands.
“Like the big FMCG companies, we think in categorization and assortment structure by brand,” says Johnston. The ideas for the next spray or the latest ointment do not come about by chance, but through analysis using a variety of tools, the search queries from Amazon, Google, and other platforms evaluate.
Once a potential new product has been identified, development is the key. Sebastian Johnston says, “We have a research and development team of chemists, biochemists, biologists, bio-engineers and pharmacists.”
For the most part, Vivere sells the products directly to end customers, but trading partners are becoming increasingly important, according to Johnston. Initially, Amazon was the largest distribution channel.
“Fortunately, that is not the case anymore. We never wanted that addiction, “says Johnston. There are still some shops for individual verticals, but the relevance is decreasing. The founder says: “For three to four years, the stove seems to have been turned off in vertical e-commerce.” In the future, the company wants to position itself in such a way that private-label cooperation with, for example, influencers is possible.
The fact that the business would work so well, both founders would have initially not expected so themselves. “We can not really do marketing and we’re giving it too,” says Sebastian Johnston. “And actually, we are still in the midst of product development, certification and supply chain management.
We want to tackle marketing in the course of the year. “However, the growth of the company, which still has no external financing at all, can already be seen. With just eight permanent employees plus production staff, trainees and students, Vivere GmbH is aiming for a turnover in the mid-double-digit millions for 2019. Currently, the expansion in the US run, there are first big steps towards China and India.
And otherwise, the goals are anything but small. “We want to build a FMCG group. Without bullshit, with sensible, honest organic products, “says Sebastian Johnston. The fact that the company completely dispenses with artificial ingredients has been this way since the beginning and was a fundamental decision. “Powered by nature” and “only organic, certified ingredients” are announced today on the Vivere website.
Which was the first product, the Johnston and Christopher Glatzels have developed, at what curious occasion they had the idea and how it came to the cooperation with a Hamburg handicapped workshop, you will learn in the complete episode.
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