We speak to the founder of Roam, the natural sex care brand
Give us the elevator pitch. Tell us about your brand
Roam is pioneering next-generation sex care, making waves in a category polluted by outdated brands. We’re on a mission to make the world a more sex-positive place, with elevated products that enable consumers to explore with comfort and confidence.
What inspired you to set up your company and setting your company up, what goal did you have in mind for Roam?
As an LGBTQ+ identifying founder, I found it shocking that there was no credible alternative for sex care available in the mainstream market, and what did exist was unpleasant to buy. Beyond that, it felt uncomfortable that non-hetero folks didn’t have products that catered for their needs, and that the products that existed exacerbated performance anxiety. More than ever, we see that sexuality and sexual preference is increasingly fluid and hence we felt that consumers deserved de-gendered products that supported this evolution.
Therefore, as we built Roam, we constantly asked the question: how do we build a brand which is inclusive and supports expansive and ever-changing sexual needs? Our goal was and is to become a beacon for exploration, whatever that looks like for individual consumers and in doing so, support people with products and services to help them “discover what makes them tick”.
Our journey with understanding our body never ends and we’re here for consumers as this changes. On product, our thesis was that we could elevate basic propositions and bring skincare science into our 100% natural formulas to deliver more than basic benefits during sex. We’re committed to creating products and services that reflect this.
What was your biggest challenge in year one?
We operate in a sparse market where recall for smaller brands is low. Cutting through in a monopolised market is tricky as consumers are not yet aware of alternatives. To cut through, advertising is key. This category faces additional barriers as there are outmoded restrictions in advertising because of the category nature. So, our biggest challenge has been about re-education and the far-reaching benefits, sex, masturbation, and intimacy can have on physical health and mental health for consumers to break down this underlying stigma.
What would you say has been your biggest marketing success?
Fundamentally our greatest success has been getting close to the heart and minds of the consumer. Being with them on this journey has built real brand advocates. Our CX function continues to drive the greatest conversion mechanism for us. Service teamed with human understanding and connection is at the heart of everything we do. By spending time daily with our consumers, we’re optimizing the full funnel and building out consumer-centric innovation never seen in this segment.
What has been the biggest mistake you made?
Every day we make so many mistakes. Our mistake at the beginning was seeing them as that. We now try to celebrate every single failure as a learning – attributing the same value we would to a ‘win’. By being resistant to failure we curbed our inherently experimental nature. By being brave and shifting the perception of failure, our experimental practice is thriving and alongside that, our revenue is exponentially growing
Tell us about your plans for the future
Making the world a more sex-positive place is a mission that never ends. We’re exploring new categories in the next 12 months and as a modern, natural sex care brand for all, our eco credentials are a huge part of who we are. We’ll be looking to support these initiatives as we scale.
