2 sessions inside Boa
Dylan Mullan
Founder, Happy Skin Co
Dylan Mullan started Happy Skin Co, an at-home IPL laser hair removal brand, at 24 after dropping out of uni and working in corporate. The bootstrapped business did $1 million in its first three months, over $10 million in year one and $25 million across its first two years. He now hosts the Life, Money and Love podcast and mentors around 100 ecommerce businesses.
The sessions
What Dylan teaches
Screen every product against a five-point criteria list
Dylan asks: does it solve a problem or is it genuinely unique, is there demand, is it saturated, can content be easily created and shipped to creators, and are competitor reviews positive. The final test is whether you can add products later to lift average order value and lifetime value. A product does not have to solve a problem, the viral light-up ducky lamps were just a unique take on something people already owned.
From Dylan Mullan: product selection and organic content for ecom →Use Page Transparency and Google Trends to prove demand
Dylan does not chase being first to market, he looks for recent competitors already selling. Go to a competitor's Facebook page, click Page Transparency, and if an ad has been running over three months it is a strong signal it is profitable, because nobody leaves a losing ad on. Cross-check with Google Trends (above 50 or clearly trending up) and main keyword volume over 10,000.
From Dylan Mullan: product selection and organic content for ecom →Two quick tests for whether a product is already saturated
First, check how long the competitors have existed. If a brand and its hero product have been around more than three years, the product is likely saturated. Second, walk into Big W, Kmart or Officeworks. If they have a home brand version on shelf, Dylan guarantees it is saturated.
From Dylan Mullan: product selection and organic content for ecom →Find products on TikTok, filtered to the last three months
Dylan searches category terms like "beauty DIY" and "beauty tools" on TikTok, then filters by most recent. TikTok Creative Center lets you filter by engagement and shares. The paid tool Sell Account goes more granular. Always filter to the last three months, because you want what is starting to go viral now, not what won last year.
From Dylan Mullan: product selection and organic content for ecom →Test demand with a Photoshopped product and a $20 a day Google ad
Anaita Sarkar validated Hero Packaging before manufacturing anything. She built a single landing page with a Photoshopped image of a compostable mailer, three fields (shipping address, email, business name) and the offer "do you want a free compostable mailer?". She spent $20 a day on Google Ads targeting searches like sustainable packaging, compostable packaging, eco packaging and green packaging. She hoped for 20 to 30 signups and got 1,000 in seven days.
From Creating and selling products customers can't get enough of →Free samples only count as proof when people come back and pay
Sarkar's husband pushed back on the 1,000 signups because free is not a business. The samples cost about $7 each, so it was a real spend. She waited one to two months to see how many of those 1,000 would place a paid order. About 70 per cent did, giving her 700 paying customers and genuine evidence of demand.
From Creating and selling products customers can't get enough of →Take a service people already pay for and turn it into a DIY product
Dylan Mullan modelled Happy Skin Co on HiSmile and Bondi Sands, both of which took something you used to book in for (dentist teeth whitening, spray tan) and made it a home product. Laser hair removal fitted the same pattern: expensive, inconvenient, painful, and strangers in your business. The technology already existed with Braun and Philips on the bottom shelf of shaver shops, but nobody had marketed it on social media.
From Creating and selling products customers can't get enough of →Interview hundreds of real customers before you launch
Mullan and his co-founder asked roughly 200 to 400 women about their laser hair removal experience, using the gym he worked at in Western Sydney and anyone else in their lives. They found about 95 per cent were doing it or had done it. The complaints (cost, booking, pain, embarrassment) became the product brief and the marketing angles.
From Creating and selling products customers can't get enough of →
Watch the full sessioninside Boa.
Session notes are free. The recordings, the live advisories and the founders in the room are for members.