How beauty brand Tronque is cracking the US market

When clean beauty brand Tronque officially launched in November 2021, its scar treatment concentrate quickly gained a reputation as a miracle cream. Less than two years later, Tronque’s lineup of bodycare products have made it into premium US retailers like Neiman Marcus, Blue Mercury and Saks Fifth Avenue, making the Auckland-based startup one of the only Kiwi brands to grace the retailers’ shelves. 

Tronque is now one of Blue Mercury’s number-one skincare brands; its Vitamin C body oil sold out in stores and online within its first three weeks. The brand has also managed to outsell celebrity skincare brands like Brad Pitt’s Le Domaine and Pharell’s Humanrace – lines that launched at Neiman Marcus at the same time as Tronque, according to the company.  

Tronque’s success against big names might be because the startup isn’t some rich celebrity’s half-baked attempt to diversify revenue streams and capitalise on their brand; Tronque is the brainchild of CEO and founder Tanne Snowden, and the fruit of her attempts to solve her own skincare problems. 

Caffeine sat down with Snowden to discuss why her origin story has been such a driver of success for Tronque, how using New Zealand ingredients can be a differentiator on a global scale and why you should take that 3am meeting. 

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Be the customer

“Buyers can really tell if you’re passionate about it, if you know the brand and if you know every single detail rather than someone who just works for a company and hopes they can get a contract,” says Snowden.

Being the target customer doesn’t hurt, either.

Snowden founded Tronque out of her own desire to reduce scars on her pelvis after an endometriosis surgery and being unable to find a product that would work. Around the same time, she learned that many cosmetics contain endocrine disruptors, which can worsen endometriosis symptoms. 

“I was so scared of what to use on my body afterwards because the skin of your body is your largest organ, and it was very much non-negotiable what I put on topically after that,” she says.

Rather than wait for someone else to devise a solution, Snowden created her own. As she recovered from surgery, she began mixing ingredients she had researched in her kitchen and experimenting on her own scars. Eventually, she came up with a formula that “erased the scars completely”.

Snowden gave the concoction to friends and family, who began requesting more until she realised she was onto something. 

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Tout local ingredients and manufacturing standards

Snowden says one of Tronque’s drivers of success has been the company’s reliance on New Zealand ingredients. About 80 percent of Tronque ingredients are derived locally, something that Snowden says carries clout overseas. 

“We choose ingredients for their efficacy, but it just so happens that New Zealand has some of the most incredible ingredients available on the market, and they’re science-backed by clinical trials,” she says. “We have, for example, this rare New Zealand red seaweed which acts like a matrix on the skin when it’s first used topically, so it pumps up all the hydration to the top of your skin cells so you can get that instant benefit.”

Tronque’s US retailers see the use of New Zealand ingredients as a major differentiator for a global brand, says Snowden. They also appreciate that all of its products are produced locally in Auckland, given New Zealand’s high manufacturing standards. 

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Hold out for investors offering more than money

So far, Tronque has been 100 percent bootstrapped, but Snowden has begun thinking about raising funds. Specifically, Tronque hopes to raise $4 to $5 million to keep the ball rolling on US expansion, continue to grow in the region, and put funding into marketing, PR and hiring staff. 

The startup has begun conversations with venture capitalists and other investors, and has even had “quite a few offers”. Snowden is willing to wait for the right fit. 

“It’s like a marriage,” says Snowden. “You just have to make sure you are choosing the right partner for you. Someone who understands the brand, understands where you want to take the brand and the business … what else can they offer apart from money? Do they have the right resources? The right connections? Do they completely understand where you want to go, or do they just want to break up the company and create a cookie-cutter version of another brand?”

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Take the 3am phone call

Snowden notes that founders going global should be prepared for the hard work of waking up early to take calls with partners abroad.

“Most of last year, I woke up anywhere from 3am to 5am for meetings,” she says. “I would never change the time if one of the buyers or someone in the head office scheduled a meeting. I’d just go with it instead of saying, ‘Oh, that’s actually in the middle of our night. Do you mind changing it?’”

Snowden says when buyers realised the time difference meant she was completely disrupting her sleep schedule, they had even more respect for her putting in the mahi and wanting to close the deal badly enough. 

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Hire an attorney early to handle contracts

When it comes to selling products, having someone on the team who can understand commercial aspects like contracts has been a huge boon to Tronque. Rather than waste time and resources in fields she wasn’t an expert in, Snowden paid for a high-quality attorney and for insurance early on to make sure all those “ABCs were in place whilst moving into a really large market”.

“We knew if we had that under wraps, then as soon as the contracts came in from the actual retailers, we would be prepared and could move forward quite quickly in that respect,” she says.