WoW Women in Wellness I Susanna Twarog and Robina Verbeek, Co-founders & Co-CEOs of SOS
Susanna Twarog and Robina Verbeek are the Co-founders & Co-CEOs of SOS.
Susanna stepped into the tech sector in 2017 with no prior experience and has since secured seven global design patents for SOS. Under her leadership, SOS was nominated to the BeautyMatter FUTURE50 list of beauty businesses that matter now. In 2022, Susanna was announced as an Automatic Merchandiser Most Influential Women in Convenience Services award winner. Susanna is a Boston resident and graduate of Vanderbilt University where she studied economics. Susanna is passionate about barre and pilates and spends her free time with her 18-month-old son Sebastian and family.
After working on Wall Street for roughly 10 years, Robina ventured into the tech world with the mission of bringing smart vending machines and daily essentials to people on the go. She was recognized on the 2022 Automatic Merchandiser 40 Under 40 list and has co-led SOS to secure successful partnerships with teams across the MLB, NFL, and NHL, as well as commercial real estate and retail sectors. She’s helped SOS earn recognition as one of the Top 20 Emerging Brands in Retail by ICSC and as a Techstars portfolio company. Robina lives in San Francisco and is a graduate of Wellesley College where she studied sociology. Robina loves exploring the Bay area (her new home) and tapping into her creative side with painting.
SOS is transforming wellness on the go through a network of smart vending machines that deliver just-in-time necessities where and when you need them most. Each machine offers modern, premium health and wellness products from brands such as Rael, Megababe, First Aid Beauty, Drybar, and more. The company’s design-first hardware features a large, engaging touchscreen and serves as a visually rich advertising and marketing platform. SOS currently has more than 100 locations spread across Massachusetts, Florida and New York.
Tell us a bit about your background and your projects so far.
We spent the first decade of our careers on Wall Street, often traveling for work and constantly being met with disappointment when we could rarely find personal care products like tampons or dry shampoo. With no prior tech experience, we took it upon ourselves to create something that better met the needs of women on the go. SOS, our network of smart, high-tech wellness vending machines, has disrupted the outdated bathroom experience by providing elevated access to a universal need with an elevated solution. Since launching in January 2020, we’ve installed over 100 machines in some of the most iconic and highly trafficked locations in the country including Fenway Park & Rockefeller Center, onboarded top-tier, respected brands, and distributed thousands of free tampons to menstruating people.
How did you get into this industry? Has it been an easy industry to get into or have you had many challenges?
Having spent the first part of our careers in finance, we had to really dig deep and become students again in areas and verticals that we had no experience in, including working with industrial designers and patent lawyers to get the actual hardware developed.
Concurrent with the development of the hardware, which was way outside our comfort zone, we had to build a totally new network of industry leaders, real estate partners and CPG brands. We had a lot of networking and executive-level relationships under our belts but in a totally different industry.
Overall, nearly everything was a challenge when we started. We were open-minded and ready to learn a lot and managed to build integrated hardware products as non-technical founders and raise significant funding. Grit and perseverance helped us overcome many obstacles to get where we are today.
How long did it take you to be where you are now? What was the biggest obstacle?
Our ‘aha’ moment of our founding story happened in March 2017, then we officially launched in January 2020. The pandemic was definitely a huge obstacle we had to face at the earliest stages of our launch – real estate effectively shut down the first year we were in business.
That being said, the slowdown in commercial real estate gave us the ability to lean into feature development and fast-track features that have positioned our product to be that much stronger, one being contactless shopping. We were also able to pivot to a much more scalable contract manufacturer partner during that time.
On the brand side, we had the opportunity to stake a lot of equity with DTC and CPG brands we were working with because we connected them directly into the hospital network and delivered a significant number of products to frontline workers across period care, hair care, skincare and cosmetics. No one else was really able to get distribution and exposure with a very positive mission attached to it like that.
What are the challenges of being in the industry you are in?
Right now, one of the biggest challenges we’re facing is scaling our operations as we work to grow the network significantly throughout this next year. Even with the best-in-class team we have in place, logistics, fulfilling our customer experience expectations and upholding standards of operational excellence is an omnipresent challenge.
What are your biggest achievements to date?
The biggest sense of pride we have comes from impacting people's lives in the spaces where we operate and making these products available to people who need them. We get consistently exceptional customer feedback about the period care and overall delightful experience we provide from people who’ve experienced our products in an arena or at the office. Our NPS (Net Promoter Score) is in the mid-70s, which is considered exceptional, and if you take some of the most respected brands of all time into consideration, it’s a world-class score.
We’re also proud to have beaten the odds as female founders and inventors. We’ve come a long way since our days on the trading floor but know that success stories of women in the venture capital world are few and far between. In 2021, just 2.4% of venture investments were in female-founded companies, and there is a dismal number of VCs being run by women. With the growth of SOS, we hope to inspire women to invest and people to invest in more women.
What are the projects you are currently working on?
We are laser-focused on leaning into sports entertainment as those spaces really align with the amenity we’ve built, so expect to see more of us there. We’re also focusing on how our product complements the current retail and commerce media trends.
Is the #WomenInTech movement important to you and if yes, why?
Absolutely! We believe that if it’s good for women, it’s good for everyone. We feel strongly that helping women succeed everywhere, especially in male-dominated fields, will create a better future.
What will be the key trends in your industry in the next five years and where do you see them heading?
We’re seeing a growing demand from retailers and brands to introduce high-value, targeted engagement to their customers everywhere they go. By expanding media opportunities in-store via retail media networks, retailers are building more opportunities for brands to connect with their customers, collect data, and drive conversion. SOS has capitalized on these trends, combining high-value media with convenient, elevated customer-driven product discovery and is seeing growing demand for distribution within retail, sports, entertainment, and transit locations nationwide.
Modern consumers are not only extremely tech-savvy but also looking for more convenience and less contact in their shopping experiences. The rise of unattended retail, a concept also driven by labor scarcity, allows consumers to sample and buy products on their own time, and on their own terms. Smart vending machines like SOS are creating one-of-a-kind physical experiences for consumers and giving retailers the ability to engage with guests where, when and how they want to connect. By addressing a real need, SOS machines not only solve a problem but also introduce unique ways to surprise and delight customers – whether that be through product discovery or interactive media.
Clean and sustainable beauty is poised to be huge and is already generating massive traction. We want to work closely with the industry to increase sustainability and transparency and be a steward of brands that are making a difference.
In real estate, the workplace is being reimagined and property managers are rethinking how to serve the needs of people in their spaces. That includes the implementation of more inclusive and thoughtful design and putting health and wellness at the forefront.
What is the most important piece of advice you could give to anyone who wants to start a career in this industry?
Our biggest piece of advice for entrepreneurs is to make sure that if you've committed to starting a company or making a career change, you're really passionate about the business that you're building. It really does take passion and belief in yourself to make the effort all worth it.
Who are three inspirational women in your respective industry you admire?
1. Ju Rhyu, who’s a brand partner and founder of Hero Cosmetics. We love working with her and what she’s been able to accomplish for her company is inspiring.
2. Thayer Lavielle, who’s an advisor to SOS that launched The Collective, Wasserman’s business focus on women in sports. We admire her for recognizing and addressing the fact that there are major gaps in the way female athletes are represented in the sports entertainment space.
3. Linda Wells, Senior Advisor to SOS and founder and former Editor in Chief of Allure Magazine, who has helped to pioneer how we think, write, and talk about beauty as a category.
Find out more about SOS on their website.
Follow SOS on Instagram.
If you want to share your story with us and be featured on our WoW Women blog, get in touch.
This interview was conducted by Marija Butkovic, Digital Marketing and PR strategist, founder, and CEO of Women of Wearables. She regularly writes and speaks on topics of wearable tech, fashion tech, IoT, entrepreneurship, and diversity. Follow Marija on Twitter @MarijaButkovic and read her stories for Forbes here.