When Suzie Welsh Devine saw women struggling to find the answers they needed at overcrowded fertility clinics, she knew there had to be a better way. At the time, Suzie was a women's health and fertility nurse, but she came from an entrepreneurial family. Seeing a gap in the market, she combined her business savvy, passion for women’s health, and personal insights into fertility treatments to create BINTO, short for “Bun in the Oven.” She hopes that the company will change the way we see women’s health, supplemental treatments, and the medical industry as a whole.“Wouldn't we be better off focusing on preventative medicine over inpatient care?” Suzie asks in this episode of The Empowered Challenger. “Are there other ways of handling things before we move to prescription drugs? That’s really what we’re interested in.” Suzie founded BINTO in 2016, with $20,000 she’d saved and without traditional investors. Initially, she targeted the supplements to women receiving fertility treatments. Using the industry-disrupting powers of direct-to-consumer selling, and personalized marketing and products, BINTO is challenging an industry that’s been tough to crack. Since then, Suzie has started looking beyond fertility treatment, at other elements of women’s health that need a revamp. “I think we’re just at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to our potential, and what we want to be,” Suzie says. Featured Challenger👱♀️ Name: Suzie Welsh Devine⚙️ How she challenges: Through BINTO, Suzie hopes to provide women at all stages of life with monthly supplement subscriptions customized to their needs.💊 Company: BINTO💎 Noteworthy: Suzie knew she wanted to go into nursing after a trip to Malawi with the Global AIDS Interfaith Alliance when she was 16. She got her nursing degree from the University of Virginia, and is still a licensed nurse. 🔍 Where to find Suzie: LinkedIn | Instagram Challenger Wisdom Highlights from the conversation appear below.💡 Challenging your expectations of yourself“The world of wellness was always floating in the back of my mind as something I was passionate about and really interested in. Did I know this was going to be my career? No, not a clue.”💡 Offering convenience is disruptive “Five years ago, no one was doing what we're doing. We really believe in personalized medicine, and we’re direct-to-consumer. We aren’t sold on a shelf and we don’t use bottles: Everything comes in easy, grab-and-go daily packets. As a nurse, I know that medication adherence is huge, and that means your supplements too. Building the brand in a way that’s easy for customers is key.”💡Taking on the market clichés“We're a scrappy startup, and we didn't work with an agency off the bat. It was just the team creating [the packaging]. In the fertility market, [the marketing] is a lot of baby bumps and hot pink. We wanted it to feel warm and fun and inviting, without having baby bumps everywhere.” 💡 Tuning out the background noise“People who haven’t built something think they know how to build something better than you do. I’ve had to learn that everyone has their two cents, and they think building a company is easy. Just take it with a grain of salt, and ignore it like white noise in the background.”💡 The new way to advertise“We do traditional pay-per-click ads, and we do some influencer work. Social media has been one of the biggest benefits to starting a brand today. If you’re starting a brand, you need to be present on social media channels. Instagram has been a phenomenal way for us to gain customers for a lower cost.”💡 Harnessing the disruptive power of personal connection “Word of mouth is really powerful. Any time that I can get in front of a group of women or potential customers, it sells. We used to do a lot of live events [before the COVID-19 pandemic]. Accessing fertility communities and doctors’ offices through B2B partnerships is also very powerful for us in terms of sales, because it speaks to trust. If someone’s doctor is telling them they trust a brand, they’re more likely to buy it.”💡 An alternative to traditional investors“I'm really glad that we were able to test things without a lot of investors involved. A lot of running a startup is throwing darts on a dartboard, and testing, and figuring it out. We were able to do a lot of the testing and figuring out on our own, so that when we have fundraised, we haven’t had to go through many painful points.”💡 Customers first, competition second“It's about our customers. If I get caught up in what other people are doing, then I forget about our core customers and I'm not serving them. Of course, it’s important to be aware of the competition, have a pulse on it, and know what's going on in the market. But we need to focus on our business and serving our customers, giving them what they need and creating products ...
