Smirk®
Family salon to £15m DTC. Built on UGC, scaled on new product launches.
Family teeth whitening salon turned DTC brand. I left a senior dev seat to run growth as CMO. We hit £1.5m in year one and scaled to £4m/year, with £380k peak months in Q1.
Starting state.
Smirk started in 2014 as a family teeth-whitening salon, then called Smiles. Strong product, a real founder story, no growth engine. I came in as CMO to take it direct-to-consumer.
What we did.
The unlock was user-generated content. In 2015 most UK DTC brands were still buying polished studio creative. We bet acquisition on real customers filming real results, and were one of the first UK brands to scale that way. In a claim-sensitive category, UGC made the promise believable, not just cheaper to produce. Around that engine we built Meta-led acquisition and repeat-purchase mechanics to hold LTV, then fed two new-to-market launches, the Teeth Whitening Powder and the Ultrasonic Tooth Cleaner, into the audience UGC had already warmed.
User-generated content, run at scale.
UGC
UGC
UGC
UGC
“UGC was the engine. We weren't running it because it was trendy. We ran it because it converted.”
Joseph B. Kent
Outcome.
Year one, £1.5m. Then a £4m+ run rate across the UK and US, with £380k peak months in Q1 on new-year, new-me intent. £15m generated across the tenure.
- 01£1.5myear one revenue
- 02£4m+annual run rate, UK + US
- 03£380kpeak month, Q1