2 sessions inside Boa
Sally Obermeder
Co-founder, SWIISH
Sally Obermeder is the co-founder of wellness brand SWIISH, which she started while being treated for stage 3 breast cancer diagnosed the day before she gave birth. SWIISH began as content only (recipes and blogs) and did not launch products until about four years in, with products on sale since 2016. Sally still runs her own Instagram and the SWIISH broadcast channel personally.
The sessions
What Sally teaches
Gift your entire first production run before you spend on ads
Priscilla gave away all 500 units of Bangn Body's first shipment to anyone who would take it, and did not run Meta or Facebook ads for over 12 months. The logic was recognition: by the time ads ran, she wanted roughly one in ten people to already know the brand so the ad worked harder. Naked Sundays did the same, running no paid media for the first two or three years and relying on seeding, press and events.
From Three beauty and wellness founders on getting product into hands →Test whether a manufacturer will say yes by calling until number 13
Samantha Brett had no manufacturing background. She Googled every sunscreen manufacturer and called them all, working on the assumption that twelve nos get you to a yes on the thirteenth. She then repeated the process with bottle manufacturers across China, India and elsewhere until she found one that could build a bespoke mister that would not spray into eyes. That bottle is now the reason the product ranks number one on Amazon US and Ulta US.
From Three beauty and wellness founders on getting product into hands →Recognise that a media profile does not convert to sales
Sally Obermeder is blunt that a following does not mean add to cart. People already have a box they put you in, and if you push a product at them they get annoyed. Because SWIISH started with smoothies rather than a product, the habit was show and share rather than sell, and that removed the selling pressure from the content. Consistency over the long game builds the tribe, not the profile.
From Three beauty and wellness founders on getting product into hands →Split Instagram and TikTok into front of house and backstage
Priscilla's framing: Instagram is your real estate and the front of the curtain, whether that is polished to justify your price point or deliberately scrappy. TikTok is behind the curtain, meet the team, meet the process, mistakes and all. Use Instagram Stories for personal connection with a sprinkle of TikTok energy, and let TikTok carry the raw material.
From Three beauty and wellness founders on getting product into hands →Use "show and share" instead of telling and selling
Sally's rule for the SWIISH team is "we don't tell and we don't sell". When they launched green powders nobody knew what they were, so every post explained what the product is, why they made it, why they chose that ingredient and not another, and how she personally uses it. People can then ask questions in the comments. Her reasoning: everyone is smart enough to decide for themselves, and when a customer chooses you, they stay.
From Sally Obermeder: show and share your way to a loyal community →Withhold one thing on socials so people cross over to your database
Sally treats social platforms as a database she does not own. So she shows and shares generously on social, then deliberately holds one thing back for the EDM: "this week there are 5 recipes for how you can use super greens", or a 21-day smoothie challenge. The lead magnet cost SWIISH a lot to make and cost the customer nothing, but the customer has to come through Shopify and leave an email to get it.
From Sally Obermeder: show and share your way to a loyal community →Give value five times before you ask for the email
Sally warns against opening with a free guide. "Give value, give value, give value, give value, give value. Then here there's even more value." Lead with the freebie and it reads as intense and suspicious, because people assume you want their email and their phone number. Accept that some people will take the free guide and leave, and that is fine.
From Sally Obermeder: show and share your way to a loyal community →Track shares and saves, not likes
Sally thinks likes are the wrong metric because people like all kinds of things casually. Saves mean the content is valuable enough to return to. Shares mean someone sent it to their sister, husband or a teammate. Those two signals tell you you have tapped into something people actually want more of.
From Sally Obermeder: show and share your way to a loyal community →
Watch the full sessioninside Boa.
Session notes are free. The recordings, the live advisories and the founders in the room are for members.