Mariya Nurislamova, Founder of Scentbird at the Female Founders Conference

TL;DR

Scentbird founder Maria Nurislamova recounts the company's path from a passion for fragrance to a subscription service, including a year of building without customer input, failed monetization models (discovery kits, try-before-you-buy with 30% fraud), and a pivotal call with Michael Seibel that led to the rental/subscription model.

Key insights

• The founder and co-founders spent a year reading books about building an MVP but never talked to a single customer.
• The original business model (a fragrance recommender) could not be monetized because people won't pay for recommendations.
• A discovery kit model led customers to buy the kit but not the full-size bottle, yielding only $9 per hundred customers.