Member Article

Digital health start-up Sons, propel business to hit 10,000 subscribers by year end

Sons, a UK and Irish digital health start-up that treats male hair loss, launched in January this year having generated a £1.1m SEED investment, and is aiming to grow its UK share of the market to 10,000 retained customers by year end with addition of new categories. With investment coming from a range of angel investors, who have a track record in both pharmaceutical and consumer healthcare businesses as well as TV star Jamie Laing, after he trialled the product and found it worked. Sons has set its sights on expanding internationally and diversifying its offering, with a range of advice and treatments that focus on men’s health.

With over 2,000 customers to its name already, the business is making waves in offering affordable hair loss treatments, delivered direct to their customers door via a monthly subscription. Backed by medical experts, including Knut Moe, as its Medical Director, who has experience in hair loss working in leading hair restoration clinic HRBR. The offering from Sons is easy to understand and the treatment actually works. Sons deliver results in up to 94.1% of men and offer clinically proven effective treatments, compared to competitor brands and industry average of under 90%.

Currently in the UK 6.5 million suffer with male pattern baldness, and there seems to be countless advice or treatment that one can use for every stage of the process. For the two founders of Sons, Dr Adrian Gilbane and Will Kennedy, it was this minefield of advice and costly treatment options that led to a frank conversation one night, after a few pints in the pub. And so, Sons was born, as a way to help men by doing things a little differently. With recent celebrities, including Jimmy Carr and Jack Finch opening up about hair loss and transplants, male hair loss is no longer taboo. In the past year alone 60% of men in the UK have sought out hair loss options, showing significant room for growth in this market. With many new start-ups battling to be crowned the go to brand for men’s health in this rapidly growing market, predicted 22mn by 2025, the race is truly on to make impressions.

The Sons process is made to be straightforward and simple, after a free online consultation from a physician (which takes a matter of minutes) they create a tailored plan, after all, no two men are the same - so why should the treatment be? The products are then sent on a subscription basis in discreet packaging for ultimate ease. Sons have sourced, licensed and brought to market a combination of products that is proven to deliver the most effective results for male pattern hair and what’s more, it’s affordable - around half the price of a monthly gym membership.

Will Kennedy, Co-Founder of Sons says, “We feel the category is underserviced in terms of education and preventative treatments and these treatments are often overpriced. The SEED investment has allowed us to develop and obtain the pharmaceutical licenses for our products, set up the structure and launch the business at the end of December 19. We have a convenient and affordable model which has enabled thousands of men to start using our products over the past 7 months. The most exciting part is seeing the results our customers are experiencing in such a short period. We have used an online and B2B marketing strategy to drive initial growth which has been very effective and most recently have started a TV campaign that will run across C4, BT and Sky for the next couple of months. We are on track to service over 10,000 customers in 2020 and look forward to expanding into new categories and markets at the end of this year”.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Sons .