Female Startup Club The ‘Hot Girls Have IBS’ billboard, buying Facebook groups & tips for building community with BelliWelli Founder Katie Wilson (part 1)
Today on the show we’re learning from Katie Wilson, founder of BelliWelli.
BelliWelli is a functional wellness brand that offers a healthy snack alternative, while also creating a movement around the very common but rarely talked about struggle of digestive health which affects over 70% of U.S. adults. Katie saw a gap in the $280 B functional food market and set out to create a treat that was made by gut sufferers, for gut sufferers, with the FIRST gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan, and certified low-FODMAP bar being born.
What I love about this story, is the serendipity of it all. The wildly successful billboard and merch you've probably spotted across your socials were a happy accident. It all came about because Kati knew from day one the uphill battle that she was going to have normalizing the conversation around gut issues. Many people along the way echoed "no-one is ever going to buy a food product for IBS". The billboard, "Hot Girls have IBS" came from the TikTok trends. The magic lies in the way IBS and hot girls is such a polarising thing, but it doesn't have to be. People went crazy for it. There was a line of people taking selfies at the infamous billboard. BelliWelli started selling the merch based on this, and to this day they can’t keep it in stock.
This episode is so much fun, Katie is a marketing genius and shares so many learnings around how she built her communities, and grassroots initiatives to get the word out there about the brand, and the billboard that went viral.
If you love this episode as much as I did recording it, remember to screenshot and share on IG to help other ears find us!
LINKS WE MENTION:
BelliWelli's Instagram
Katie's Instagram
Female Startup Club's Instagram
Doone's Instagram
Doone's TikTok
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