Wellington fragrance company disrupts the big players
Wellington’s fragrance startup, Speak Scents is changing the way people buy their perfumes, making it simple to choose the right one, from an often overwhelming selection.
SpeakScents was launched beginning of 2023 by former advertising executive Madeleine and data scientist Dr. Ankit Patel.
After two years of researching the global fragrance market, they found that the biggest frustration for consumers is the huge amount of branded scents to choose from. They developed their own scent ‘base types’ to reduce the choice down to eight, and collaborated with a master perfumer in France to help them to formulate their range.
They successfully launched their new business with a crowdfunding campaign, offering pre-sales of their fragrance range and doubling their funding target. Taking this as a market validation for their concept, they are now going a step further.
“Since we launched, our customers have been enjoying their ‘scent matches’ via our perfume range, using our handy online quiz,” says Madeleine.
“To power this deceptively simple quiz, we developed a unique algorithm, and along the way realised we could use this technology to also help our customers find their perfect fragrances from any other brand.”
This year they’re crowdfunding again to update their technology so it can do just that.
The new tech will use more specific algorithms that supply 34 million different answer combinations unique to each customer.
“Once we have a proven prototype we’ll be building matching technology for stores,” said Ankit.
They will continue to sell their own range of fragrances, and offer them for special prices in exchange for direct consumer feedback, through their current crowdfunding campaign on PledgeMe. “This will help to refine the matches for an even deeper consumer satisfaction.”
You can check out their campaign on PledgeMe.
