Ten years into business, Laura Henshaw and her co-founder Steph Miller (née Steph Claire Smith) have survived the initial years of startup life. Now, she’s ready to set the company up for success well into the future.
In life – and startups – there’s a little heuristic called the “Lindy effect” documented by Nassim Taleb in The Black Swan that can help you predict how likely it is that an idea will be around in the future.
Derived from a deli in New York – called Lindy – actors who hung out there gossiping about other actors discovered that Broadway shows that lasted one hundred days had a future life expectancy of a hundred more. For those that lasted two hundred days, two hundred more.
Taking the Lindy effect into other domains, the logic goes that the longer something has been around, the more likely it is to survive into the future. Take marriage. Or Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Or an Australian-led female-founded health and wellness business called Kic.
This need to first survive before you can um, sur-thrive is something Kic co-founder, now CEO and actual marathon runner Laura Henshaw understood instinctively when first going full-time with Kic. She had read in a business book as a heads up to would-be founders that whatever you do, have at least five months cash (runway) in the bank. Because in those early days, before worrying about expanding into other markets or an ideal acquirer, you’ve first just gotta make it.
Today, nearly ten years into Kic’s journey as a business, Laura knows a thing or two about making it. Kic is a brand that’s been tendered with love and care through time and effort, with her and Steph’s roles today being as much about guarding the ‘soul’ of Kic as they are about broader strategy.
For Kic app users, who are predominantly women, the mobile app offers a smorgasbord of workout options from accessible running routines to mat pilates as well as tasty, healthy meals and recipes (a moment of appreciation for the creamy pesto tortellini) to complement their exercise routines.
Laura’s big, scary audacious goal? To evolve the business into a truly generational company – meaning Kic would join the likes of Nike, Adidas, and Lululemon – companies that have ridden out multiple flash in the pan fads to ultimately become truly non-displaceable in the health and wellness market.
MP readers, here’s Laura Henshaw.
Natasha Gillezeau: Hey Laura, thank you so much for making the time today. One of our Missing Perspectives contributors Cara Davies – who built and sold a Gen Z fitness app called Steppen – recommended a book to us called The Unfair Advantage. In it, the authors argue that all entrepreneurs have some kind of unfair advantages – and knowing how to leverage these is key. So my question to you… what do you feel is your unfair advantage?
Laura Henshaw: Ooh. So I actually initially interpreted this question a little differently. I feel like my unfair advantage is that I am very good at connecting with people, which has helped us to build the community that we have. And I have a very, very good gut feel about when things will work from a campaign or a content perspective. Which I haven’t always trusted, but now when I look back, I’m like, ‘actually I did know’. I don’t have a crystal ball, but that’s something that I’m starting to lean into as a strength of mine, which I think is an unfair advantage.
Have you had times where you’ve overridden that intuition, and campaigns of yours have gone out, and can you please describe what that has felt like for you in the past?
Absolutely. So, I finished my university while working at Kic and I haven’t had a “conventional” job outside of working in a hospital in admin and waitressing. I think what is one of the hardest things with being a founder that I’ve had to navigate is an insecurity around ‘well, I don’t have the experience.’
And I love working with smart, driven people – that’s how I feel motivated. I always try to live that cliché saying of never being the smartest person in the room – so important. But where sometimes that hasn’t served me is where we’ve brought in team members, or had people advising, and they’ve got 20, 30 years experience, so instead of taking their advice and moulding it to Kic, or even not always taking it, I’ve taken it. And then it hasn’t worked.
And I think it’s developing this trust in yourself, and even though I’ve internally gone ‘oooh from everything I’ve learned in the business, I don’t think that’s going to work, that seems like a lot of resource.’ I think for us at Kic, the biggest learning for anything that goes out to market is that our brand is such an asset. The fun, the colour, the relatability. Anytime we’ve led with that, it does really well. And anytime we’ve put a campaign out into market where you could have put any other brand on the asset that is when it doesn’t work.
It’s generic. And the specialness is the actual brand. I know you’ve been asked before why Kic is doing so well, when the health and wellness category is a very competitive space. I don’t always love the orientation from which that question is asked, but do you feel like brand and the specialness of that is the ‘why’?
In terms of how we cut through competitively, definitely brand, community, and relatability. What comes with that is trust. It’s actually quite hard to communicate from a marketing perspective, but when we speak to Kic users, and they say why they’ve been with us for five years, they say ‘Kic has soul’. And it’s like… how do you communicate that our business has soul? It’s hard.
But it’s all the things that come under brand and community. We do things differently to most other health and fitness brands that are focused on aesthetics, and obviously, we’re not. And there’s been so many times where people have said to us ‘well, if you just collected a before and after photo, and showed that you can lose weight on your program, you’d have a better CAC (customer acquisition cost)’.
But why we’ve been able to sustain as long we have, in our market, is by sticking to certain standards. To enter now, you need a lot of capital to even enter because the expectation is so high on the product, you also need a lot of content, because the consumer expectations are so high due to platforms like Netflix.
Because people superimpose their expectations from a well-capitalised US company like Netflix into a startup app.
Exactly. Now, if an influencer is launching a health and wellness app, it is a lot harder today, because the expectations on the product are so high. I do think what we’re seeing in the market, Kayla was obviously first to market with Sweat, but we’re seeing it start to mature. At Kic, because we’ve stuck to our mission, the core of what we do, we have that community, and that brand element. And all that time we’ve spent investing in brand – paid media is something we do a little bit of, but it’s never been a core growth pillar. Sometimes I’m like, ‘oh, I’d love to be able to turn that on and amplify that.’ But even this year we’ve had our most successful year yet, and industry wide, anecdotally, I’ve learned that that is not the norm. And I think that is because of the brand power and all of that investment that we’ve put in, we’ve been able to stay the course.
And the compound interest of how that builds up over time?
Exactly, which does not pay off initially.
How do you describe what you’re building at Kic? Do you think of it as an app, as a community?
Right now, Kic is a health and wellness community that is supported through the app. The app is currently our core focus, but we’re looking at what’s next for Kic and it’s definitely expanding from an app perspective, but we’re also looking into expanding what’s out of that, which is really exciting.
As founders, we’re always thinking ‘what’s next’ for the business. In terms of what we’re shipping right now, we’ve got more personalisation in the app coming up, which is probably where we haven’t kept up with as much.
Longer term, it’s about ‘how do we continue to support this community of women between 20 and 35’? We know it’s a hard market for companies to connect with – we’ve built their trust, we know them, and we’ve had tens of millions of workouts concluded through the app. So how can we support them in the app, and how else can we support them in a way that we could add value to their lives. We’ve had many opportunities to do so many different products, because currently in the economy, consumerism is crazy. But we’re really thinking thoughtfully around how we can add value.
When it comes to women’s health, one thing that comes to mind is how understudied women’s health is. There seems like there’s a lot that’s underserved. Is that more aligned with spaces you want to go into than putting Kic’s name on a new product?
It’s something that we’re looking at. That’s what’s been really incredible with the podcast. When we started the podcast, we wanted to make sure we had a longform organic channel that we were building. YouTube was not natural to Steph or I. So it’s about having a laugh, being there with them, and speaking about things that add value to their lives. Women’s health is something that we speak to a lot, and how underserved it is. It’s very much in an exploration phase, but it’s looking at validating the ideas of what we could do next there. Compared to when we first started expansion is so much different in the business. It used to be Steph and I being ‘yeah! We think this will work, let’s give it a go!’ and now there’s so much more at stake, we’ve got a team.
What are the differences between your and Steph’s work styles and how do you mesh that?
It’s definitely something we’ve had to navigate. I’m very Type A, I like to time block my time, more regimented, whereas Steph I would say is more flexible in her work style. We have these different work styles, but we also have different communication styles. That was something we had to work through earlier.
I remember we did a DiSC profile, Steph is more direct in her communication, whereas I am an intense people-pleaser. The funniest feedback I got from one of our advisors, it made me feel quite uncomfortable, it was my words so I was aligned with what I was saying, but it was tough feedback to deliver. And my advisor was like Laura, you did a compliment sandwich, but you had a hundred layers of bread and the thinnest slice of ham. No one would have heard my message. So I’ve had to work on that. It’s hard to be clear when you’re doing a 100 piece of bread sandwich.
Did you and Steph work with outsiders on this?
I don’t think it’s healthy to navigate different work styles and communication styles on your own. We’ve just used the advisors that we’ve had. What that’s meant is it’s not emotional, it’s about the business, and you always bring it back to the business. You don’t need to have these kinds of check ins with your friends. I can’t even stress how much of an impact it’s had on our working relationship, the business, but also our roles. We didn’t have roles – we were co-founders. I was always like ‘I don’t want give myself a role, no one gave it to me, I don’t want to put it on my LinkedIn, because I’m myself’. And also in my head I was like – ‘am I really worthy of the CEO role if I’m giving it to myself?’
Interesting.
I think the way that we worked through it – and the instigator of that was one of our advisors said ‘hey, you and Steph making decisions together is super inefficient, and the team need to know because they’re coming to you and you have different views and that’s not helpful.’
So getting that role clarity for you and the team is really important. It’s almost like building a really strong, functional marriage could be another analogy for the co-founder relationship. So taking on the CEO role, which you are so deserving of, and with Steph’s role as chief community officer, how did you start to shape that and get comfortable with that. Sorry, there are few questions in that.
I do that when I’m interviewing – people are like there are five questions in that.
[Laughs] Let’s break it down. I’m interested to know what your respective roles involve now.
Yes, so to answer the first part, my role hasn’t changed that much from that conversation, I was already kind of operating in the role of CEO.
But what did change, is I’m a big believer that if everyone is responsible, then no one is responsible. And I think what it meant was it gave me a level of accountability, when we were sharing it, but when it was passed over to one of us, it was clear, no this is my role, I think that was very positive for Kic.
Within my role, I have our three senior leaders of the team, our general manager, product, and content. So I’m responsible for making sure that they all can execute the strategy, and have what they need to do that. I also work with our GM on financial and legal – Em, she’s fantastic. She came in last year and took a lot of operations off my plate. I’d say 40 per cent of my role is unpredictable based on what fires are happening in the business, what needs the most attention, or something has rolled out and hasn’t worked as well as we needed. I think the other thing that’s complex – have you read Zoë Foster Blake’s new book?
Not yet, but I’d love to.
It was so interesting, even though it’s fictional there was so much good advice in there. It was very validating, because the character in the book is a beauty founder, and I find that women are very, very good at building community and brand. And a lot of the brands that are built are female founded, but what comes with that is that women are then often the face of the company and helping grow community and grow the podcast.
There’s a line in the book where the character talks about the fear that another social media platform will crawl out from the depths of hell. And I could not relate to that anymore. Now with TikTok as well, that’s an important platform, it’s an important funnel for reaching that next generation. But that’s probably one of the hardest things to navigate – being so front-facing. And with content – you just can never do enough. So it’s finding that balance.
There are limits.
Exactly. If I lean too far that side, then I need to find that space to do bigger picture and strategic thinking. You have to find that space.
You need to find that space to let your brain go to that mode. Sometimes the best ideas flow in when there is no one around.
Exactly. It’s interesting. And then with Steph’s role, she’s chief community officer. Whether that’s on Facebook, or with product interviews, we’ve got a better process around it now, which is great – growing up. And Steph is in the app ten times a day – so she really knows the product. And this is one of the biggest challenges is getting the IP out of your brain and into the team in a way that’s clear and concise and actually works for the business. Steph knows the product so well. If we’re rolling out a new feature – my role in that is making sure it’s moving, making sure the OKRs actually link into the business, and how is this project going to impact that. Making sure we’ve got resources etc. And then okay – this update that we’re rolling out – how is this going to work for new users? How will it work for people who have been with us for three years?
Is there anyone on your team – it could be from the TikTok perspective – who is doing a really good job getting the IP out of your and Steph’s heads into their particular ways of working?
Em our GM has been fantastic in optimizing operations. The other important role for us at Kic is PR & Comms, Nicole. Every article that comes out, Steph and I don’t write it. We don’t have capacity, and also I’m not a professional writer, so how long it takes me to pump out one article is not efficient. And I remember in Nic’s job interview we had really difficult questions for her – and I was like if she can answer these – she knows the Kic brand and mission. And I think it was me, Steph and Kic. And I read it – and it sounded like it was written by me, Steph and Kic. And I was like – you’ve got the job. We work in health and wellness, but not in toxic diet culture. And she does it so well.
Let’s talk about Kic being a SaaS (software as a service) business. And then this will – hopefully – connect to what you were saying about how a lot of women-led companies in Australia are often very strong on brand and community. And then you think about Aussie SaaS business – Seek, Carsales –
Yeah, they’re all B2B (business to business).
– how have you married like more traditional SaaS – even the language and approach to the build – and kept what’s so beautiful about being a women-led business and the strengths that come from that?
Within our team, our head of product is very experienced with that. So we have people who are able to support from the SaaS perspective. Steph and I are technically tech founders, because we have an app, but neither of us are technical or came from a product background. So that’s been something that’s really important to plug in the team so we can focus on the stuff that we do really well.
We worked with a big games and app company before we brought our tech in house, and I remember the interview, at that stage it was 2021, I’ve grown so much as a leader, but he could have said anything to me and I wouldn’t have known. And it was like – oh my god the trust we are putting in this person, in this team. But it’s always worked out. You don’t need to know everything – especially as the business scales. My automatic go-to thought is if I don’t know something I’m like ‘okay, I’m going to go learn it, I’ll study it.’ And it would be detrimental to the business if I didn’t know anything about product and tech. But it’s not actually always the most efficient for me to be the person who understands it to the deepest level.
I feel this on a deep, visceral level. Have you had any conversations outside the business who haven’t really gotten what you’re doing? There are a lot of different moments in Kic’s journey – working with the games company, hiring someone for tech – any conversations where people haven’t gotten it?
Oh, one million per cent. Way more than people who have gotten it. Especially when you consider how much venture capital goes to female founders, its 2 per cent of total funding, which is madness. Madness. It’s just crazy.
At the moment B2B SaaS is a very big investment piece in Australia, but what I think we’ll see over the next ten years is very strong brand-led, community-led businesses take up more space. In Australia, direct to consumer can be harder especially when it comes to raising, because we don’t have the population of the United States.
I know now that we do not work with people who don’t get what we’re doing. I’ve learned that that ship is off somewhere else, and we don’t need to be on it. It’s not like if a door closes, that’s it. We’ll follow up, we’ll do all those things. But there’s a difference between something being a really good opportunity, and we have to navigate or negotiate, and there just being this feeling I know in my gut, that if they don’t get what we do, we won’t be able to have a successful partnership with them.
It reminds me of that Brené Brown quote, that there’s a difference between fitting in and belonging. You can contort yourself to fit in, and pretend to like something, and you might succeed in that, but long term it doesn’t really work.
Totally.
So, slight segue into an idea that’s come from Lucy Wark, who is the co-founder of Normal. Introducing… “yeah, but how”? I think the media can focus on the high level stuff of building a business, but a lot of women really want to know… “yeah, but how”? What are the essentials for you when building Kic?
Sleep is one of the most important things for me. I need eight hours sleep. If I don’t get eight hours of sleep, I’m not great at anything. Sometimes I have 15 hour days – and it is what it is – sometimes those days just happen. But if I follow that up with 3-4 hours of sleep, I’m written off for the rest of the week. And also trying to find small moments of mindfulness in the week, before the conference yesterday, taking three minutes to reset the nervous system, which you can do with breath. My husband and I also did a health retreat recently, which was the first time I’d switched off properly in ten years, and it was quite a shock to the system.
It was the kind of place where it was so hard to get to the reception, so you had to be conscious about using your phone. My interaction with my phone became so purposeful, it was only when I had to put something up, or check an email. So my screen time was like 10 minutes a day, rather than five hours a day. I actually had a panic attack when I got back.
Do you think they were related … you go and do this hectic Millennial detox with your husband and then immediately dip back into real life?
Probably. It was like dipping into an ice bath, and then dipping back out, and being like ‘omg, we’re back in this again.’ While it was unpleasant, I’m grateful for it because it was a reminder. I’m good at keeping on going, but my body was like, no.
What I found after the health retreat that was my work flow, without checking my emails, Slack, was so much better. I get so many emails, I get so many notifications. And yes, when I go through them I’ve supported the team, I’ve not been a blocker – but sometimes it’s like what strategic work have I done that’s going to move the business forward? And I’m probably back into the bad habits, but after that I do notice how much people pick up and check their phones.
What is the big scary dream for yourself and Kic that you almost feel scared to say outloud?
We want to be a household name in Australia for health and wellness, and to be a generational company. We see a lot, especially in health and wellness, they go so big, and then they crash. Some franchises, like workout types, they go so well, and everyone jumps on them, because a lot of the wellness industry is so fad diet. For Kic, we want to be a generational company that is still here, and still making an impact.
Laura, thank you so, so much for your time. This has felt like an interview and a beautiful conversation all at once. Good luck to you and the Kic team for the next phase!
