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Itching to make a profit
By Jenny Hirschkorn (Telegraph.co.uk)
Six years ago Shaun Hopkins' eldest daughter, Lottie, brought more than her homework back from school. She had contracted head lice and, before long, she had passed them on to the entire family.
Between them, Shaun and his partner Lucy A'Bear have seven children and trying to eradicate the "little beasties" proved an almost impossible task. The couple tried virtually every product on the market but were unable to combat the infestation in all of the children at any given time. Also, they were reluctant to continue treating the children with chemical substances on a long-term basis so set about looking for a natural cure.
Whatever gave them the confidence that such a solution existed? "A great deal of naivety combined with a great deal of positivity," confesses Mr Hopkins who, by that stage, was reaching the end of his tether. "We looked on the internet day and night for information that might help us. We had had a certain amount of success with tea tree oil and eventually we came across neem oil."
Neem is used in India for a variety of applications and Mr Hopkins, who was then a self-employed carpet fitter, realised that, if it worked, there was an opportunity to market the product on a commercial basis. He had some neem imported from India, looked carefully at its safety history, and tested it on the family. After successfully getting rid of the lice in their own family, the pair offered the product around the local community and, again, the results were encouraging.
Once they had settled on a basic list of ingredients, Mr Hopkins and Miss A'Bear contacted a natural products manufacturer and asked them to make up the first batch of what they had decided to call Nice'n Clear. Six months later, Natural Science was incorporated as a limited company.
Miss A'Bear's approach to sales could not have been simpler. She took the Yellow Pages, rang all the health food shops and chemists in the UK and asked if they would like to try the new product. The couple were astounded by the response. "Around 3,000 took us up on it, and we still have many of those customers today," says Mr Hopkins.
They had set the ball rolling with just £400 on a credit card loan, and their sales had kept them afloat for the first six months. Then, just as it became clear that they would need considerably further funding if they were to expand to meet demand, they were approached by a business angel, Peter Palmer, who put £60,000 into the company as well as devoting much of his time, energy and advice to the young firm.
In spite of a growing list of independent stockists, a big stumbling block to the expansion the couple craved was their inability to break into the major chains, Boots and Lloyds Pharmacy. Mr Palmer introduced them to Food Brokers, the UK's leading grocery and pharmaceutical products distributor, which helped them get behind the closed doors.
Nevertheless, the Boots listing took more than a year to agree, as the product was put through a raft of tests to prove its safety and efficacy. Doing business with the big boys, though, requires considerable investment and a further £250,000 was injected into the company by a second business angel last year. Turnover is £500,000 and there are six staff.
Mr Hopkins and Miss A'Bear have no doubts where they are going from here. They are looking to raise between £500,000 and £1.5m to fund the clinical trials needed to make Nice'n Clear a fully prescribable product, and also to finance a television advertising campaign that should help increase their market share from its present 5pc to their target of 15pc to 20pc.
They are now in talks with a view to establishing a partnership with a large natural products company that has a distribution network worldwide. Mr Hopkins says: "One way or another we want to be a global head-lice lotion. We want to be everywhere."
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