HILMA, NINA, HILARY, & LILY: The Natural Medicine Cabinet
As Covid-19 makes its mark on history and the fabric of our society, consumers are looking for an alternative, healthier options to keep their daily immunity high and their medicinal side effects low. In an attempt to offer products that do just that, Hilma creates natural remedies, backed by science, to revamp your medicine cabinet one pill at a time.
Hilma was launched at the end of 2019 by co-founders Nina Mullen, Hilary Quartner, and Lily Galef. When it comes to forming their boss team, these ladies have known each other for quite some time. How so? Nina and Hilary met during their time at b-school at Harvard, while Nina has known Lily ever since she could remember playing dress-up. Fun fact: Nina grew up with doctors as parents. As a result, she is a total hypochondriac!
Co-founders, Nina, Lily and Hilary (left to right).
“When it comes to your gut health, natural remedies are often more effective than the traditional options. They also don’t have any long term side effects or risk of overuse behavior forming,” says Nina Mullen.
When you look at the natural remedy landscape, almost every sector has been “cleaned” up over the past few years. The revelation started with food and beverage brands, which led to the beauty sector following suit and dripped into home cleaning products. Now brands are coming for your health and your medicine cabinet!
Priced between $15 to $20, the idea for Hilma was planted back in 2017 when Lily was coming down with something, and Nina handed her an Emergen-C packet. You know, those cute little bright packets you buy at CVS, or Duanne Reade that target cold & flu. “It was this kind of moment when we realized that something better should exist. Traditional OTC products are made with synthetic dyes, sugars, and imitations of vitamin C. It was so incongruous with everything the modern-day consumer is turning to nowadays in terms of clean food, clean beauty, and clean household cleaning,” says Nina.
“We worked on the sidelines for about a year and a half before quitting our jobs to launch Hilma,” says Nina.
At this time, in 2017, Nina was working at Dia & Co, Lily worked at Refinery29 and Hilary was at The Wonderful Company with a prior background in Investment Banking. Nina tells us how “we took this time to diligence the idea, talk to a bunch of consumers, and conduct focus groups. We did all of this on the weekends and at night. We also took the time to recruit our scientific board of advisors. We wanted the brand to be backed by science as this was very important to us.” It wasn't until Hilma was able to get the validation of their board of advisors that the ladies decided to quit their jobs.
The Challenges
“Finding those early people who believed in us was very important. We needed guidance and validation for product creation”, says Lily. With no prior knowledge or experience in this sector, the ladies of Hilma sought out key players to help provide them with a competitive advantage. Their first challenge? Finding a formulator.
“We reached out to over 300 people via LinkedIn and other sources to find these people. Finally, we got in touch with a lovely professor at Bastyr University, known for alternative medicine. He took the time to chat with us and ended up connecting us to our formulator and scientific advisors”, says Lily.
As for product development, the Hilma process looks a little something like this:
Research the category and identify potential ailments to target with natural solutions.
Work with the formulator and scientific advisor to create the shell of the formula with potential ingredients and clinical research to validate each ingredient.
Gather feedback from the scientific board of advisors and submit for approval or iterate until an effective solution is agreed upon.
Use a form function that is widely adopted by consumers versus creating something that folks don’t know how to access.
Hilma targets three main issues: immunity, gut and tension relief. “Our immune support contains no dyes or fillers and has less than one gram of sugar as opposed to six in the leading alternative. Our main ingredients include zinc, ginger, turmeric, echinacea, and ivy leaf extract,” says Hilary.
“We are excited to show up where our customer already exists”, says Hilary.
When it comes to their marketing, Hilma has taken an omnichannel approach that consists of collaborations, influencer marketing, retail partnerships, and content. They have partnered with Y7 fitness, Neighborhood Goods (NYC and Texas), Fox Trot (Chicago and Texas), Erewhon (LA), Standard Dose (NYC), as well as a number of clubs and hotels.
Hilma also engaged in an activation at launch where they took over the medicine cabinets of different offices in New York such as Refinery29, Glossier, The Skimm, The Farmer’s Dog, Lola, Dia & Co, and Cuup. “We brought in samples to share with employees as well as stocked their corporate medicine cabinets,” says Lily.
And it doesn't end there! Hilma also believes in the power of community and uses it as a tool to educate consumers and increase their brand affinity, without breaking the bank. Their blog includes personal stories by influencers, founders and experts on their natural approach to health and how they stock their medicine cabinet. “We want to be non-judgemental, especially when people are oftentimes not using natural alternatives for their health”, says Lily.
The Advice
When looking back at her childhood, Nina has always been a boss babe. “I used to have a thriving lemonade stand business growing up. However, my parents were very strict about us having to buy all of the ingredients, and would make us pay for them with our profits. This helped me understand the costs associated with running a business at an early age,” says Nina.
Hilma raised $4M in Q1 of 2020 as their seed round (woo!). Their advice for those looking to start a company:
Talk to people who disagree with you. It is good to identify early on where your future pitfalls might be.
Take a lot of notes you can refer back to.
Find a good team early on, especially if you are a solo founder.
Have a support system in place because it is extremely hard to start a business.
Find a way to increase repeat business.
Persistence is key. You will get rejected by everyone - your suppliers, investors, everyone! Keep calm and carry on.
Looking to increase your immunity, relieve your stomach or tension? Mention promo code “radiche” for a 10% discount. Offer expires on April 30th.
Photo courtesy of Hilma.
Written by Alysha Malik.