This week’s Founder Friday follows Kirsty Coates on building a brand while working full time and trusting a solution that worked overnight.
In 2019, Kirsty Coates was a new mother looking for something that did not exist. Her daughter Tilly had developed severe eczema, and the options available felt like a choice between two unsatisfying extremes: prescribed steroid creams on skin that was barely weeks old, or natural products that simply were not working. Neither felt right.
Her mother, an obstetrician and herbalist who had been quietly developing her own botanical formulations for decades, suggested something different. She offered Coates the formulations she had used within the family and her herbal dispensary for years, and encouraged her to take them to a lab to refine and test properly. Coates tried them with Tilly. “I honestly couldn’t believe the results,” she says. “Her skin improved overnight.”
That moment became the foundation of BEETL Skincare. “That was the moment I realised other families needed access to something gentle, natural and effective like this too. And that’s where BEETL began.”
Building from a real solution
“The biggest difference with BEETL is that it didn’t start as a commercial idea. It started as a solution.”
From the beginning, Coates was clear about what made BEETL different. The formulations came from decades of practical use within a medical and herbal context, and that origin gave the products a credibility that could not be manufactured. It was not a brand built around a trend or a gap identified on a spreadsheet. It was built around a problem she had lived, a solution that had already worked, and a conviction that other families deserved access to the same thing.
She was also deliberate about where BEETL sat in the market. Parents navigating baby skincare often feel forced to choose between products that are medical but harsh, or natural but ineffective. BEETL was built to occupy the space between those two options, offering something that did not ask families to compromise. Design was part of that positioning too. “Historically, baby skincare has often leaned very clinical or purely functional in appearance. I wanted BEETL to feel beautiful enough to sit proudly in a nursery while still delivering serious results. That balance matters to modern parents.”
Staying connected to families, she says, is also how BEETL innovates. “Innovation for us isn’t about launching large numbers of products quickly. Instead, it comes from staying closely connected to families and responding thoughtfully to what they actually need. That ongoing dialogue continues to shape how the brand evolves across both New Zealand and Australia.”
The early decisions that shaped everything
“Launching direct-to-consumer first allowed us to build a strong relationship with customers and understand exactly who they were, what they needed and how they were discovering the brand.”
Coates’ first strategic decision was to launch direct-to-consumer. It gave her direct access to customers, their feedback, their language, and their needs, before any retail complexity entered the picture. That early connection shaped everything from product development to messaging. It also gave her something more valuable than distribution: a deep understanding of the people the brand was built for.
She made a second decision that many consumer founders struggle with. She resisted the pressure to launch a large number of products quickly. A tight, high-performing core range, she believed, would build more trust and more sustainable growth than a sprawling catalogue that diluted what the brand stood for. That discipline has remained central to how BEETL operates. “That focus has helped the brand scale sustainably while maintaining clarity around what BEETL stands for.”
Retail, when it came, was treated as a complement to the direct relationship she had already built, not a replacement for it. “Expanding into stores across Australia and New Zealand has allowed more families to discover BEETL easily and confidently.” The brand’s retail footprint grew from five stores in 2022 to more than 350 across Australia and New Zealand today, with partnerships including Baby Bunting, The Memo, Farmers NZ, and most recently Priceline Australia nationwide.
The reality behind the brand
“There’s often a perception that building a brand is polished and curated, but the reality is much less visible. It’s long hours, constant problem-solving and learning as you go.”
The growth that BEETL achieved in its early years was built largely by Coates alone, alongside full-time work and the demands of raising young children. The reality of those years, she says, looked nothing like the polished brand that families were discovering on shelves and online. “It required a lot of resilience and belief in what the brand could become.”
Recognising when the business needed more than she could provide alone was one of the more important decisions she made. As BEETL gained traction and the opportunity to expand further across Australia became clear, she brought in a strategic co-owner, Tessa Black, in 2024 to support retail expansion, commercial growth, and performance marketing. The decision was not about stepping back but about stepping up to what the next phase required. “Bringing in the right strategic partner at that stage allowed the business to expand more confidently without losing focus on its purpose.”
One of the biggest lessons from that period, she says, is that sustainable growth comes not from moving fast but from staying clear. “Sustainable growth comes from staying close to your customers and being clear about what your brand stands for.”
What she would tell a founder starting out
“Start with a real problem. Businesses built around genuine need are much easier to sustain because the motivation behind them is stronger.”
Coates’ advice starts where BEETL started: with a real problem. “When you truly believe your product helps people, it carries you through the harder stages of growth.” That conviction, she says, is what separates founders who persist from those who do not. It is harder to give up on something that matters to people than on something that was always primarily a commercial calculation.
She is equally direct about the trap of waiting for the perfect plan. Clarity, in her experience, does not come from planning. It comes from doing. “Many people delay starting because they think they need the full plan mapped out in advance. In reality, clarity comes through action.” She also points to the importance of staying close to customers, understanding the numbers behind your business, and learning how acquisition works, how margins operate, and where growth is actually coming from.
Her final lesson is one of structure. “Growth often comes from recognising when to evolve your structure as a business. Bringing in the right support and partners at the right time can unlock opportunities that wouldn’t otherwise be possible.”
At its heart, BEETL remains what it was in 2019: a solution to a problem one mother could not solve any other way. “Today, the mission remains the same,” Coates says. “To make gentle, natural and effective skincare accessible to families across Australia, New Zealand and beyond.”
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