Wellington-based skincare company Trilogy was set up from day one to be a global export business. Although it only opened its doors in 2003, by 2006 the company was already exporting to Australia, France, the UK, Canada, the US and Singapore.

In 2005 and 2006, skincare company Trilogy increased sales by a whopping 690 percent – making it the third fastest growing business on the 2006 Deloitte/Unlimited Fast 50 Index.

Trilogy’s leap from being a producer of natural skincare products for the domestic and Australian markets to becoming a global exporter happened relatively quickly and painlessly. The strategy that owners Sarah Gibbs and Catherine Wells adopted offers lessons for other New Zealand entrepreneurs wanting to take a good business idea to the next level.

Gibbs says that from day one Trilogy was set up to be a global export business. All the formulations for the skincare products were created to be compliant with regulatory requirements in key markets such as Europe, the US and Japan. An experienced (and expensive) design agency was hired to develop the branding and packaging, to ensure it would work with the target audience and in international markets.

And when the product was finally ready, it was launched simultaneously in Australia and New Zealand.

To help the company grow faster and reduce the need to build a big infrastructure, “We’ve learnt by experience that you’ve got to be very selective and not just work with someone because you are excited that they approached you. You’ve got to do a lot of research on potential distribution partners; I couldn’t overstate the importance of that.”

As for the advice she’d give another entrepreneur wanting to expand an export business – “be persistent and patient” and “do what you’re good at, and outsource the things you can’t do to consultants”.

Source: “Taking Great Ideas Further” by Frances Martin, Issue 20, bright, January/February 2007

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