William Detry and his sidekick Victor Boels perfectly represent this new generation of entrepreneurs: curious, jack-of-all-trades, and eager to give meaning to their projects. After launching ShareMyPark, a parking space rental solution developed during their final year dissertations, in August 2018 they launched Compliment, a food supplement startup. We spoke to William Detry about his company's current situation, as well as the dietary supplement sector as a whole.
"We worked on ShareMyPark for 2 years, then sold it in March 2018 to an Irish company, Parkbnb, active in shared parking. After the sale, we continued to transition and develop the Belgian market. It was a slightly trickier period: going from being the founder of the structure to an employee was less motivating."
During this transition, William is feeling a lot of stress and sleeping badly. He tries to solve the problem with drugstore products, such as dietary supplements and herbal anti-stress products, in an uninformed way.
"In August 2018, my father suffered a TIA (vascular accident), mainly linked to vitamin D and coenzyme q10 deficiencies. This TIA could have been avoided if he had been properly supplemented. Something clicked and I realized the need for preventive and controlled supplementation.
Faced with this highly opaque sector, obstacles abound and credible information is hard to come by. Not being experts on the subject, the duo approached Gilles Gernaey, the former president of Foodsup (the Belgian food supplement federation), who has since become a partner in charge of contacts with laboratories.
"We've noticed that dietary supplements are everywhere, in supermarkets, online, at your pharmacist's, but without any guidance. Once you've heard the words "vitamin D" or "magnesium", it's hard to find your way around the dosages, dosages, personalized needs and so on. There's also the problem of the user following the program, who often lacks discipline after the first month."
Transparency and user experience were therefore the pillars of Compliment's creation. With a system of lifestyle questionnaires, followed by a call from a nutritionist to refine the user's profile, Compliment aims to establish a relationship of trust. Thanks to the fact that all the supplements are combined in a single daily sachet, making them easier for the user to take, there are no more 5 different boxes gathering dust in the kitchen!
"We wanted an effective product because we had seen so many lies on the market between multivitamins, false promises of weight loss, hair or nail fortification... Our desire is to offer a well identified product, easy to adapt and adopted for our consumer. For over 6 months, we carried out research to find the right formula and the right ingredients. Gilles has drawn up a quality charter that our laboratories are obliged to respect. Dosage is also very important, with microdosing to ensure that the active zones are never reached. Our aim was to ensure that every supplement was effective.
This attention to detail doesn't stop at the simple composition of a good product, and the emphasis is also placed on feedback and monthly monitoring by a nutritionist, with a telephone contact to provide a clear picture of the customer's needs as well as their feelings about their current use. With the 1-month or 3-month subscription formula, customers can also upgrade their supplements according to their needs, while always being accompanied by a member of the team.
"We were surprised when we launched, we had thought of the concept as if we were the end users, and we saw that it was a predominantly female market. 70 to 80% of customers are women. Consumers between the ages of 20 and 30 weren't the right target: they're looking for an instant effect, a magic pill, and often don't have the discipline to take their supplements day by day, or even to commit to a longer-term approach than a two-week course, and will end up disappointed with the results. After the age of 30, we're seeing a better response to our offer, with users remaining subscribers and evolving the cures according to the seasons, with a more marked observation of positive effects."
More than ever, people are becoming aware of the importance of a strong immune system all year round. However, convincing customers in a market saturated with promises remains a challenge.
"The first message we need to get across is " you certainly need a dietary supplement.It's already a complicated message to get across to the public who aren't aware of these issues.
The second message is " my product is more qualitative than others." Again, it's not easy to explain that the magnesium bought in pharmacies is magnesium oxide, which is not bioavailable and has a poor absorption rate, and that magnesium glycerophosphate, for example, should be preferred. You quickly lose your interlocutor.
Compliment favors partnerships with nutritionists and carefully selects its influencers. William Detry insists on a strong bond of trust.
"Being as ethical as possible is a real brand value. We take great pride in the fact that our products are made in Belgium and that our development is based on short circuits. We could reduce our costs by looking for a foreign partner for bagging, but we preferred to work with a local organization, Travie, which promotes the integration of disabled people. We work with long-term laboratories that share our values when it comes to sourcing ingredients. We all need to have confidence in each other, in order to deliver a product in which the customer can also have confidence."
