Breaking Into Beauty: How Scentbird Found Space Where There Was None

The beauty business is a crowded market from focused retail stores to department stores to online shops to subscription boxes. One might think there wasn't room enough for even one more player in the game. But Scentbird founders Mariya Nurislamov (CEO) and Rachel ten Brink (CMO) thought otherwise.

With a background in Applied Mathematics, Computer Science and Marketing, Nurislamov was COO of Neuvey, an IT outsourcing company and co-founded Beta Week, an invite-only IT conference based in Moscow prior to founding Scentbird with Sergey Gusev (Founder & COO) and Andrei Rebrov (Founder & CTO).

Brink, who holds an MBA from Columbia Business School, spent over fifteen years in Global Marketing leadership roles at L'Oreal, Estee Lauder, P&G and Elizabeth Arden before embarking on this endeavor.

Mariya Nurislamova. Photo Courtesy of ScentBird

They took a gamble in October of 2014 and they played their cards just right. Investors flocked and sales soared. Why, you ask? Because the brand considers themselves a tech platform first. An interesting position and one that has paid off “scentsational" dividends.

Mariya Nurislamova: Scentbird was created with the simple notion of offering choice when it came to personal fragrance.

As a true fragrance lover myself, I oftentimes found myself wanting to try something different. I didn't (and still don't) believe in a “signature scent" because I like to mix things up – sometimes I want a floral scent and other times I want a musky scent, it's just the way of life. I then would embark on my search to find a new fragrance and realize that in order to find my next perfume I have to dodge salespeople at the department stores, sniff numerous scents until my eyes watered, and then pay for an entire bottle that I never finish.

Sticking to one scent feels stifling and outdated; however, perfume bottles are expensive, impractical for travel, and last forever. We had many conversations with women who found themselves in the same situation that I was in saying, “I like the scent but I'm so bored of it. But there's so much left that I feel bad buying something else." That's when we came up with Scentbird, a way that would make it fun and be engaging to try new scents in a small sized atomizer filled with a designer fragrance of choice that lasts 30 days for only $14.95 a month. We knew very early on that there just had to be a simpler, more pleasurable way to discover different fragrances so we used that as our fuel to create Scentbird.

Rachel ten Brink: Absolutely. Perfume is supposed to be an indulgent, sensory experience, yet we found that shopping for perfume to be anything but easy.

We knew very early on that there just had to be a simpler, more pleasurable way to discover different fragrances so we used that as our fuel to create Scentbird.

Andrei Rebrov: Like many new businesses, we had identified an issue and created a solution. But only after trial and error did we eventually realize we were on to something special. Scentbird was developed with two major things in mind, the customer and the current fragrance space. There are no “one-size fits all" when it comes to finding a perfume or cologne and the marketplace didn't seem to grasp that concept at the time.

What makes us different from other subscription boxes, is that our customers have the ability to choose what they want. Every time. If they need a suggestion from us Scentbird's unbiased approach to recommending perfumes combines analytics with highly visual design to help direct them with recommended choices. There is some serious technology we developed called, TrueScent that helps pair the person with the fragrance of their desires.

Rachel ten Brink: Technology. We started Scentbird as a recommendation engine where we took 500M authentic consumer reviews. Instead of industry terms, we did a semantic analysis based on real consumer language (e.g- “I love it but it smells like grandma"- what other scents are consumers describing with these words?).

Mariya Nurislamova: We were lucky to be funded by Y Combinator in the early days and that really helped open up our network. Demo Day was instrumental in terms of meeting investors and getting our message across. It was reasonably straightforward from there.

Mariya Nurislamova: Truthfully, we have been very capital efficient, so didn't have to raise much. The strong unit-level economics and high margins really help tell our story and do most of the work for us. Recurring revenue stream and fast growth also help when it comes to raising outside capital.

Sergey Gusev: The fascinating thing about Scentbird is that it appeals to a variety of people.

Scentbird is not only great for those perfume addicts who know exactly what they want or love trying new scents. It's also good for people who have no clue what they want in a fragrance and need a little help figuring it out.

Having an appeal to the masses is key. Our growth is due to a lot of hard work of course, but focusing our energy on consumer feedback and actually implementing their needs is what keeps us strong. That's one of the reasons we recently launched our own namesake line of scented hand creams and shower products. Our consumers wanted more fragrance and based on a poll including over 1 M consumer insights we created unique scents like Earl Grey & Blackberry and Rose & Prosecco into everyday luxury products.

Mariya Nurislamova: As a startup, when things get tough, I always remind the team that the darkest hour is right before the dawn and we need to focus on the prize, not the hardships of getting there.

By staying in a focused, positive, and driven mindset, we have been fortunate to have grown rapidly and hope to continue to grow!