Andrea Lisbona grew up in Barcelona, Spain in a family of entrepreneurs. She knew she wanted to proceed the family tradition and start her own business, but she wasn’t sure where to start. Ultimately, it began looking for a product category that was ripe for transformation but was not in a space with too much competition.
Ultimately, she decided on hand sanitizer. This happened in 2014, and Lisbona believed that hand sanitizer could turn out to be more of an on a regular basis product, like skincare – if only it looked and smelled higher. “Nobody looks forward to hand sanitizer,” he says. “This was mainly done in the healthcare space.”
So she and her husband launched a range of hand sanitizers in Barcelona, but struggled to establish the brand in the European market. “We knew we had a good idea, but to really make it work, we had to leave our families and cross the Atlantic to the United States,” he says. “That’s what we did in 2018.”
They moved to Miami with their hand sanitizer company, Touchlandwhich, mockingly, was doing well until the pandemic when suddenly everyone wanted hand sanitizer. Supply chains collapsed as all types of corporations tried to make the most of the situation.
“Everyone thinks Touchland is a Covid success story – nothing could be less true,” he says.
But through all the chaos, Touchland stuck to Lisbon’s vision of constructing hand sanitizers in a way that individuals would want to use them every day. By 2021, Touchland already had a small presence in Sephora stores. Quarterly sales were ok that Sephora gave Touchland more room. They currently have 163 plugs at Sephora, with 1,000 expected next 12 months, and also work with retail chains Ulta Beauty, Target and Kohl’s. This 12 months, Touchland expects to sell nearly 20 million bottles of hand sanitizer. Revenues next 12 months are expected to be greater than $100 million. All this made Lisbon a finalist in our Entrepreneur 2024 list of 20 modern leaders.
What made big retailers like Sephora consider that Touchland hand sanitizers would sell?
Sephora noticed that our products were selling three times greater than skincare brands, even in the small spaces they gave us, so they step by step gave us more room. Within two years we took over the cap stores.
Two years isn’t long. How did you overcome the challenges of scaling the operation so quickly?
As of 2021, we are experiencing triple-digit growth 12 months over 12 months. No one thought a company producing hand sanitizers could do this. For us, this implies being surrounded by best-in-class partners. They should be great professionals and even higher people. When you grow so fast, you’ll be able to’t do it alone.
How have your relationships with these partners evolved?
It’s about clarity and planning, not about doing greater than you’ll be able to do. As a brand, we will be anywhere, but we have responsibilities and obligations to our partners. First, we glance at our obligations to partners. When they forecast a brand, they never know how good it should be. We have all the time exceeded expectations. It was about being a good partner.
Have you given up some opportunities to place Touchland products on more shelves?
Yes, we did it and it is very hard to say no. For example, we had the opportunity to launch internationally with multiple Sephora stores and we said no, we’ll start with one market, which is the United States. It can be great to be all over the place, but it is important to start in one market and work your way up. We began from one country and will step by step expand. It’s a very difficult thing, but I think if you wish to build a brand that might be around in 20 or 30 years, it isn’t going to occur overnight.’
How did you make sure you had enough strategic partnerships to grow the way you wanted?
When a supplier has too much business for us, they assist us qualify one other supplier for more business. Diversification is best for everyone.
Has your growth in retail stores – brand awareness – also helped you grow online?
Yes. We have 170 million organic views on TikTok and Instagram and a total following of 720,000. We’ve also grown on Amazon and in many places.
The magic is that we have never had to pay anyone to talk about the brand. Celebrities, micro-influencers, it was purely organic. I think this shows the quality of the product.