$46M BEFORE HE’S 24
YOU may recognise these guys from the rich-lister headlines – they’re the blokes who made $46 million before their 24th birthdays; the ones who got Kylie Jenner to Instagram their product; and the brand Connor McGregor turns to when he wants whiter teeth.
The hype is well-publicised, but the sheer focus driving these Gold Coast friends is less obvious.
HiSmile founders Nik Mirkovic and Alex Tomic (no relation to tennis star Bernard) have, since starting their company with $20,000 and an idea in 2014, built a staggering global following for their products, which include a teeth whitening light, gels, toothpastes and coconut mouthwash.
In the first 18 months they turned over $10 million and began a recruiting drive and now employ 25 staff. Their growth was sharply amplified when reality star Kylie Jenner endorsed HiSmile to her 95 million followers.
“No, that’s actually just the majority of the media that says that, but we’d actually already had our breakthrough,” Mr Tomic says. “For us, the big thing with Kylie Jenner was to establish the brand, to estab‘there’s
lish that as a global dominance we are entering the market for everyone to see.
“We just wanted more eyes on us – we’d already broken the noise quite a bit but this brought more attention.”
The pair say they don’t take advice, don’t have mentors, don’t look at traditional metrics and as for revenue: “it doesn’t matter”.
It’s about a product that works, sold with a media strategy that works even harder.
“It’s been a lot of hard work and being critical with ourselves,” Mr Tomic says.
“Along the way not listening to the advice that every single person gives you, going with your gut. If you’re going to be successful, if you’re made for this, you’re going to find ways to do it.
“If we do well, it’s on us; if we don’t do well, it’s also on us.
“We look at the big picture, as opposed to people looking narrow-mindedly and saying no ROI in that’ and turning away.
“We see a different ROI than the metric you’re getting from Google analytics and Facebook advertising and that’s one thing that we do differently.”
HiSmile’s Instagram feed is an explosion of brands and faces ranging from pretty young things with a paltry few thousand followers up to superstars with tens of millions.
What may seem like Greek to traditional business leaders is really quite a conventional formula for success: identify your market; make something they’ll buy; and take it where they can see it.
The family friends met when they were 15 and discovered they shared a drive for hard work and competition.
“We were probably doing 10-14 hours a day in the beginning, but the one thing I believe separates us is that we live this thing, 24 hours a day,” Mr Mirkovic said. “I’m constantly evaluating everything I see and do and seeing how I could correlate it to the business.”
So why teeth? The pair saw oral cosmetics as “the most static industry”, Mr Mirkovic said.
“Nothing was happening, there was no emotional engagement with any brand at the time, so we wanted to really create something where we could build a community and build a product range that people actually love,” he said. “We came to the market wanting to be something different, we’re not going to be generic and just cosmetic-based. We wanted to be a lifestyle and for people to represent themselves through our brand.
“You have to work hard, customers are paying their hard-earned money for your product or service so you’ve got to be good at what you do.”
How do you get your product into Kylie Jenner’s mouth anyway? You pay her a lot of money, too much to mention, but before that there is a lot of groundwork – you can’t just DM her and hope for the best.
Secondly, you’ll need time and perseverance – it took more than six months of negotiating before Ms Jenner even tried the product.
“Someone like Kylie, as you can imagine, would be getting offers all the time, big-money offers – but it has to suit her as well,” Mr Tomic said.
“She had to try it, review it, make sure it did what we said – her brand is key.”