While consumers only see the finished product, most don't know the amount of rigorous testing... or lack of that many beauty tools go through. On this 147th episode of the E-Comm Show, Andrew Maff interviews David Bean, CEO of NIRA. After years of rigorous testing, FDA clearance, and now an ocean of raving testimonials NIRA has proven to be the real deal in the world of beauty tools.
In this episode, David Bean pulls the curtain back on the challenges faced by e-commerce beauty companies and the importance of separating the real from the fake, especially when it comes to beauty tools. From UGC content to credibility we cover it all! Through his commitment to education and the highest standard of testing, David has been a
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Andrew Maff and David Bean
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David Bean
David Bean is the Founder & CEO of NIRA, located in Danvers, Massachusetts. He is a laser expert with an extensive research, development and engineering background. David holds 25 patents and developed semiconductor laser chips used in professional medical laser systems, military lasers, space navigation, and autonomous cars. He majored in Mechanical Engineering at Syracuse University and holds a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) from Purdue University. David has a background in marketing and business development where he founded three successful companies and launched industry-leading products in fiber-optics and lasers. In 2003, he founded SemiNex Corporation, maker of high-power diode lasers for use in military, medical, communications, and homeland security applications. David went on to found NIRA in 2012 to develop home medical lasers for skincare. At NIRA, he developed a patented non-fractional laser technology that delivers professional in-office laser results at-home without any of the side effects or downtime and at a small fraction of the price as compared to professional treatments. David has a strong Christian faith and enjoys water skiing, CrossFit, fine wine and travel. David is happily married and successfully raised 3 children and 4 foster children who are now independent and doing well in various fields of work.
00:03
So the skin does take three months to rejuvenate itself, just like if you work out with your muscles, you're not going to see a big difference after week. And Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of The E-Comm Show as usual. I'm your host, Andrew Maff, and today I am joined by David Bean, who's the amazing founder and CEO over at Nira, which is like one of the leading laser skin care companies. David, super excited to have you on the show. You ready to do this
01:20
Absolutely. I'm excited. Let's do it.
01:24
Really happy to have you here, very familiar with the space, and I know it can be a nightmare, and you guys have done a fantastic job of breaking through. So I'm looking forward to learning a lot more about that. But I do like to start this off relatively stereotypically and kind of take us take a second to chill and let you tell us a little bit about, you know, your background, where you started, how you got into near and we'll take it from there. Okay, sure.
01:46
I'm an engineer by training, and I got in the telecommunication space making fiber optics and lasers to amplify fiber signals so it amplifies basically all the internet traffic around the world with a large company, and that's where I got to know lasers very well. These are semiconductor lasers, which is lasers on that semiconductor chip. And that was in the late 1990s early 2000s that I really got into that. And with a market downturn in telecom, there was a bust in 2003 I just started to take that technology and move it to medical so I started my first company to make laser chips, to take the big lasers that are used in medical offices, like by plastic surgeons and dermatologists, and to shrink them into laptop size, or these small, portable ones on wheels. And that company is doing very well and has helped with that transition. But I really wanted to get to the home market, so I launched my second company called Mira, where we basically took those semiconductor chips and we put them into home handheld devices so you can get at home at a fractional cost, the same efficacy as you would with a professional, you know, appointment at your doctor's office or your dermatologist, and that's what we're doing, and it's really taking off.
03:09
That's, I mean, it's a very crazy story. First of all, that you where you started and where you're at now, because taking that jump into medical is not, not a small feat. And then even to go from, you know, kind of more of a, I guess we'd say, like a, b to b element into your more D to C, like at home market is also a big jump. So you, you don't really mind taking the big leaps and just kind of seeing what happens.
03:36
Well, I got, I got my, my, you know, B school degree, and in that, I focus on entrepreneurship. And the interesting part about that is people that really transform industries. They always come from outside that industry. You know, look at Elon Musk with rockets. Look at Steve Jobs with computers. You know, you can There's any number of it. So in fact, you want a creative, innovative approach. So in fact, many entrepreneurs, they they really don't weigh the risks well, because they're not from that industry, so they don't know any better. And I guess I was kind of that way, so I figured I'd just learn as I go, and it would be exciting, and it has been nice.
04:16
So tell me a little bit more about Nira. So obviously, you know, you went from kind of traditional B to B medical into at home. What was that jump like? Because I know that, you know, educating the market on how this stuff works and that you can do this at home on your own isn't always the easiest. And I do know that, you know, since you started, there's been competition that's come out. So like, how do you kind of, how do you navigate all that?
04:43
So in terms of the transition, when I was selling the chips in my first company to, you know, the professional systems for doctors and dermatologists, I got to know the customers and the people designing these large, very expensive professional systems. Symptoms. I mean, these ran from 20,000 but typically, 100 to $200,000 was a typical price for a high, you know, professional grade medical system. And that's why the treatments, if you go for a laser treatment, you're gonna it's gonna run you minimum of 5000 typically 10,000 plus for a series of treatments. It's because it cost the equipment so high in terms of how I transitioned, I felt there had to be a better way. You know, these were so expensive. But even beyond that, they were painful. People had a lot of downtime. With the laser treatments, you know, redness, some scarring that needed to heal, and things like that. With the ablative treatments that I dug into. I went to the conferences. I went to the where they presented their papers at the American Association of dermatology ASL mass, which is the Society for lasers in medicine. And I started hearing the presentations, and that the science behind laser tissue interaction is fairly straightforward. There's obviously some important nuances and safety considerations, but I learned it right from the experts, and I thought, well, to take this to the home market, instead of getting a massive dose of treatment once a month at your doctors, why don't we downsize the dose and do it daily in a low cost home device that's handheld, and would that work? Was my question. I said, there has to be a better way that it's cheaper, more accessible, and avoid all these side effects. So I said, All right, the inspiration was, well, what if we do with like we have in the computer industry, make it smaller, cheaper, but still powerful enough to get the job done on an individualized basis. And so we made some prototypes with my company, and then did a quick clinical study. It seemed to work, so I spun out another company to say, All right, let's go after this. I think we can do it, and that's with, candidly, no medical background, leveraging, you know, consultants and medical professionals, but in clinical studies, and we learned about how to do the FDA clearance and how to do everything the right way, and it's it's working.
07:14
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08:00
Exactly that. That's the key in any D to C marketing. That's that's the biggest obstacle, because it's expensive to advertise, it's expensive to get the word out there, and you want to do it in a way ideally that pays for itself with a reasonable amount of return on investment. And so what in our space is a lot of noise. I mean, there's a lot of going back 100 years ago, when they were selling snake oil. There's over promises, under delivering at all levels and all types, whether it's topicals, arrangements or or, you know, you know, your pills, you know, in terms of, you know, vitamins and minerals, but also devices, right? So what we did is, first of all, we were fully authentic, and we partnered with a lot of influencers and affiliates, people that have blog channels and are focused on beauty initially, and we said, hey, we'll give you a free laser if you just read all about what it does and you try it for 90 days, so the skin does take three months to rejuvenate itself. It's just, that's what it takes. You know, you can't just, like, if you work out with your muscles, you're not going to see a big difference after a week. You know, it takes time for the body to adjust, right? But if you do it for 90 days, like exercise, you can transform your body. It's without question, and there's many case studies on that. So this is the skin approach that we're doing. And so they did it. It took a while to convince folks to do that. It's a big ask for an influencer. Normally, they unbox it, they use it, they blog about it, and they're done. And, you know, they get their, you know, royalty off, people buying and things like that, which is fine, but we said, No, you get to do it for three months and then show before and afters, you know, explain, how was the experience? Did you enjoy it? Was it painful? Etc, etc. So we did that a few years. Ago, and it was amazing when people saw the authenticity, and they saw real world before and afters and the real world experience that they said, Hey, although it's a laser, I actually enjoy using it. It's not painful. You feel a bit of warmth, but it's a comfortable warmth, almost like a massage. And after 90 days, they were blown away by the results. So those authentic testimonies with real people and real influencers that have tried everything, and they, and many of them, said, I love one, one influence. I gotta tell this story. She said, I have all these products. None of them worked, but one. And of course, ours was lined up, you know? I was like, Oh no, what's gonna happen, you know? And I said, I, you know, said a little prayer. And she says, Well, I'll tell you all about all of them, but first, let me tell you the one that I love and I'm gonna use every day. And she picked up our product, and she started saying everything about it. So that's how we broke through with both education and credibility, is through our influencers, and then, of course, our website, there's a lot of How To videos. We actually post our patents on our website, so our clinical results, our FDA clearance letters, so we've got all the science to back it up, and that's how we break it through,
11:14
yeah, one of the things you mentioned, which I could be wrong here, but so you kind of referenced the influencers, like, oh, you know what we had done a few years ago. Bob, are you still doing influencer marketing? Or have you started to kind of shy away from it?
11:29
So yes, we're still doing it. We are, and we're going broader with the influencers as well, because, and we're upfront about that, we say we're actually slanting more towards affiliates, which are unpaid. We'll give them a free device, but we don't pay them, because when a company pays to for an influencer, then they can edit, you know, they can say, No, you got to recut this. You got to do this. You said that wrong, and because they're paying for it, you can edit that. We prefer not to do any of that, believe it or not, we'd rather take the risk, because we're so confident what we're doing. And of course, we'll give them materials on how to use it. And here's some some talking points if you want to use them, which, here's the science, etc. And then they say whatever they want, you know, yeah. And then it's completely how they approach it, what they think about it, how they use it, and we've got some surprises out of that. So let me give you an example, Andrew, and this is the cool thing, right? So this is safe to use on all skin types. We've proven that out. FDA is clear for that and all ages, from 12 years old, and knowing that people have tried it in places we didn't test yet clinically, but it's safe. And they're like, literally improving their neck. They're taking their their age spots off their chest, the back of their hands, which a lot of older women are very concerned about. They've seen huge improvements there hooded eyelids, where your eyelid just sags a little bit. You're improving that. And so now we're actually entering our next phase of clinical studies where we're going to test all these things in a controlled environment so that we can say no joke, it works on your neck, it works on your chest, it works on your hands, your hood, and be able to say all these things. And also it's helped with age spots, and we prove that out dark circles around your eyes, poor size and things of this nature. So the cool thing about letting people express themselves and try it out is you get some nice surprises.
13:32
Yeah, you've referenced the the clinical studies several times, and so I got to ask you about that, because I know there's a lot of you know, more or less, whether you're the creator of this space, but there's more or less, like, a pretty good amount of competition out there that does similar things. But the studies are not there. They're not publicized. They just they lean into, like the pastel, like Instagram vibe, but otherwise, that's the only thing that they do. So what's your what is your stance on them, on how is, is the clinical studies really how you're standing out? And also, like, how do you, how do you kind of paint the ROI of that? Because I know they're not cheap. And to have all of those studies done and get that completed, how do you measure? Like, once we get this done, we know that we'll see X return from doing it.
14:22
So we're in this for the long run. Andrew, there's a lot of companies that literally can buy or have things customized in China, whether it be an RF device or an LED device or microcurrent or micro needling, and for very short money, you can have them customize it, put your logo on it, and then you can say anything you want about it. This is the next sexy thing, or combine a few things, modalities together with and not even run a clinical study, and then go ahead and sell it, and you can even get FDA clearance if you can say this is similar enough to other things. Were cleared, and say it's cleared. And many of the claims for FDA cleared devices are so, so bad in terms of, there's no meat to them. So they, for example, they could be cleared for, you know, a device indicated to help with skin, but have no details, right? Or, you know, it can address the appearance of wrinkles or things like that, but, but they have no clinical state that their device does that right? And the appearance of doesn't mean you address wrinkles. We're actually clear to reduce wrinkles and renew the skin, very strong claims, right? And so because we don't want to be a fad, we're in this for the long run. I raised several millions of dollars to do this, and we literally spent eight years developing the device before we launched it commercially. That's, that's and that went through several iterations for both performance, for user experience to make sure it's enjoyable user experience, to reduce cost. So we simplified the design so it's designed for manufacturability, and of course, all the clinical work, several clinical studies, to optimize exactly what we're using and prove it. So when launched, we could say it without confidence. So it does cost more, and it takes a lot longer. Literally, it took eight years before we could sell a first unit. But now we can, we can use that to support the business going forward. And frankly, there's been several companies. In fact, one company is our biggest one of our biggest competitors. They claim to be a laser, but they're not even a laser. They're an LED a couple different wavelengths. They claim to be the most powerful, which they're not even close. They claim all these things, and they put a super high price, because a lot of people think, Oh, if it's that expensive, it's got to be it's got to work, it's got to be good. It's kind of a reverse psychology marketing approach, which is really not good. And we kept our price. We could raise our price to kind of match them and things like that. We said, No, we want to be true to what we think is a fair value. And have, you know, a broader market, and have people really experience and enjoy it anyway. In the UK, they least recently called them on this and kind of shut them down in the UK, and they're doing the same things in the US. And so that stuff will probably catch up to them eventually here too. So those things like that will be a fad. We're not intended to be a fad. We're going to launch new lasers and improvements and for new indications every year with deeper claims and clinical studies. And so if we do it right, my dream in the long term is that every bathroom will have a laser in it, so that everyone can they have a skin concern, they can touch themselves up right there and fix the problem. That's
17:55
awesome. What about availability? Obviously, we know you have your own DC website. Have you? Are you on marketplaces, Amazon, Walmart, that kind of stuff? Are you in retail? Like, what's the what's the approach there?
18:06
So this is a important question, right? You want to be careful, right? You, if you put yourself in the wrong channel, it can cost you your company. And I've had a I've talked to a number of people that have launched in this space, in a Jason spaces, one went, got into CVS. They thought they had their ticket made, you know. And when you go into a mass market channel like that, you got, you know, depending on the place, you can have slotting fees, you've got chargebacks, you've got inventory returns, you've got all these costs that you don't know up front, right, that at any time, they can just send you your product back or apply these fees, and your cash flow can go right out the window, right? And of course, you've got, you know, a long sales cycle in that respect too. And so in knowing that and ours is a luxury brand as well, so the mass market just wasn't a fit. It's just you won't find a Rolex in CVS or not that they wouldn't sell it or do a good job with it. But it's just not the right channel, right? So we decided to go direct, because we wanted every dollar to go to its education in a way that we could ideally recoup the cost and then make a small profit, or at least break even, and we ran a loss for the first couple of years. And that's okay. It's common when you're building a brand, but then we turn the profit and then just plow those profits into better products, and then scaling, you know, our geography and our reach, so we are over 95% direct to consumer. We tested on Amazon, and what we found is a lot of, you know, games that you have to play if you want to be successful on Amazon, and a lot of brands, frankly, you know, they'll get friends, family, associates, and they'll get. In the system to get those good reviews. And then, then, of course, you have to pay for ads and placement in the list and sponsor your listing on searches. And that can be expensive, right? Even though Amazon has a relatively small margin compared to brick and mortar, you have to add on to the advertising and these other things that make it, you know, about the same expense, you know, give or take. So we, and it really isn't the place to go for luxury goods. So we, after experimenting with it, we decided to stay with DTC. And the few non DTC we have is high end luxury spas, and this is another way where you can get education, right? So the esthetician can say, Do you want an enhancement with your appeal or your facial? And they'll give them a laser treatment for a very small of charge, you know, well, well under $100 you know, typically under 50 or even under 30. And then they get to experience that some have just put this in the prep area. Say, try the laser, if you like. Then people, while they're waiting for the facial, will just laser their face, and they see how easy it is, and stuff like that. And then the SPAS say, Okay, if you like that, you know, we represent and we can answer any questions and sell you the laser, you know, as a retail product. You take it home with you, or we'll drop ship it to you. So we like the channels that you can get a strong education, strong endorsement with the luxury product. And you know, if you're going to put out a few $100 you kind of need good service too.
21:31
Yeah, I agree. It's a very smart concept, right? Because you think, like, almost like, there's a lot of CBG brands out there that don't really do well unless they're able to have someone in a grocery store and kind of getting them to try it and getting them to sample etc. And it sounds like that's a very similar approach, to get people to learn about it and try it yourself before you buy it. So you have these spas that are almost like your affiliates as well. I love the model. It's genius. Awesome. David, I don't want to take up too much more of your time. I know you're super slammed, but I greatly appreciate your time today. I loved every minute of this. I'm sure all of our listeners did too. I'd love to give you the opportunity to let us know where you can find out, where we can find out more about you, and, of course, more about
22:16
Nira. Sure. Our website is niraskin.com that's niraskin.com. All the information is there. You can also to learn more about us. Go to YouTube and just put in Nira Laser, there'll be, you know, dozens and dozens of videos, and you can see what other people are saying about us, and it is a high interest item. So we encourage people to do your research. In fact, we actually give a 90 day full money back, guarantee that for any reason or no reason at all, you can return after 90 days, and you should see really good results after 90 days. So we like the idea that it's totally risk free, and we're the only ones doing this, others you know are less and you need a good excuse and you need receipts and things like that, but not with us. So anyway, encourage your listeners if they want to go to naraskin.com or YouTube or us on Facebook, Instagram, etc.
23:16
Beautiful David, thank you so much for being on the show. Everyone who tuned in, of course, thank you as well. Please make sure you do the usual rate review, subscribe all that fun stuff on whichever podcast platform you prefer, or head over to ecomshow.com to check out all of our previous episodes. But as usual, thank you all for joining us.
23:38
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