Best Startup
I am Jennifer Mo, a nutritional expert and brand founder of Pura Collagen – https://puracollagen.co.uk/
We provide the very best collagen supplements, created by a team of experts in fitness, nutrition and anatomy and all backed by science, with multiple clinically approved trials taken place in Europe.
I identified that no other brand was producing targeted collagen for specific results and that’s how Pura Collagen was born. The brand vision is to provide people with access to affordable nutrition and wellbeing supplements, that will enhance their health and wellbeing.
Tell us about yourself?
My background in sports nutrition industry has spanned over 27 years.
I have experience in performance nutrition, anatomy and genetics including advising professionals to leading athletes to Navy SEALS. Additionally, I have worked with government ministries to ensure health products meet legislative requirements and has a great understanding of the health industry across USA, South East Asia, and Europe.
Wellness has always been a personal and professional love of mine and launching a brand that contributes to this felt like a natural step.
If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
When it comes to your team, I stand by always ‘staying in your lane’. Different team members have different expertise so trusting what they have to say and do is key.
My business partner and I are very good at very different things which means we complement each other effectively. Needless to say, this is also good for great team harmony and mutual respect – essential for any new business to thrive.
What problem does your business solve?
We provide a one stop solution for fitness and wellbeing. Pura products offer bespoke formulas that target specific areas of the body at an affordable price.
Health can sometimes come at an extra cost, and I believe that access to nutritious supplements should be for all. We wanted our customers to have a product that fitted seamlessly into their lifestyles and budget.
Incorporating Pura Collagen in your daily life costs less than buying a daily coffee. I had always had the idea of launching a product in this sector, but it took time to know exactly when that might be. It took a personal, pivotal moment in my life to make the moves to do it.
What is the inspiration behind your business?
Back as a teenager when I was training as an athlete, I suffered from an injury.
When you are hurt and not operating to your full capacity you have restrictions, and it can affect you mentally as well as physically. I found that I could not do the things I could normally do; everything had to be planned around and it was such a task.
To aid healing and regain strength, I started trying numerous supplements including collagen. The results really spoke for themselves and aside feeling the positive effects, I wanted to understand the science behind what these supplements were doing to my body.
Being out of action gave me time to research and look further into the benefits of collagen. It was the combination of moving to London and lockdown that was the catalyst for launching Pura Collagen.
Previously, I would rely on regular trips to the US to stock up on my key supplements (including collagen) but lockdown brought travel to a head and I could not find something affective.
I wanted a blend that provided specific targeting of areas of the body that are affected by injury, but that also supported ageing to the body (joints and muscles) and to the skin. I decided to find the solution myself.
What is your magic sauce?
We identified that no other brand was producing targeted collagen for specific results, and that’s how Pura Collagen was born.
We have a team of experts who have spent a long time researching to develop the best.
What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?
We are so excited for the future. Whilst we are a brand that is in its infancy, we have had so much positive response from both customers and our industry peers.
We wish to continue to help give people a helping hand to lead their optimum life. We have plans for more flavours with specific contributions to areas or life moments such as menopause.
Currently, we are present via our online store and in some of the most influential health and wellness stockists, but we intend to broaden our stockist presence and aim to be available in every high street across the nation and beyond.
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?
Funds. I had never fund raised and in order to bring your concept and vision to life, you need that investment.
Originally, I had plans for launching 30 products, but after a lot of time continually checking the figures, this got reduced to 2 which are our hero products Glow+ and Flex+. I had to strip back on my initial plans and sometimes the reality of that, can be a shock, so managing my expectations was key.
I knew that I wanted the product to be high quality, so the end result was well worth it. To achieve what we have now, led me down many paths and a lot of big decisions to make.
This was tricky at times, when you have a pre-conceived vision of how your plan will roll out and you have to make changes. But it was valuable learning, and I understood the value of taking risks and trusting the decisions made, because we had carefully considered every option.
There was extremely detailed and strategic planning in developing the product. I was making products that I (and others I knew) would use daily.
We had a team of happy ‘Purafiers’ and they were having incredible results. I knew that we were on to something that would yield customer and ultimately commercial success.
On top of everything, launching during some very challenging times across the globe, right in the middle of the pandemic and newly installed Brexit regulation, was a testing and intense time.
All prior knowledge of how to transact, ship, procure and generally keep the momentum going turned everything upside down and we had to rapidly make changes to manoeuvre around this.
I reminded myself that with limitations, creative results can and do happen, and they did. My team continually regrouped, learned, and came up with new avenues to head in the right direction.
We had the courage to fail because we did not want to be beaten by the setbacks. We adapted to this new environment and fully supported each other.
To add to that we were committed to push the boundaries of supplementation outer packaging, make it plastic free, informative and easy to shop and use.
How do people get involved/buy into your vision?
In just two years our vision has developed into a growing successful omni channel business with multiple products that are sold at some of the UK’s most respected health and beauty stores.
We are already incredibly proud of the success. Our vision now is expansion and growth. We want to have more products available to aid various life stages and help provide additional solutions to wellness. We also want our products to be available worldwide.
We have already expanded out of the UK but expansion into Europe and America is our biggest focus. It is a very exciting time. Watch this space…
