Hand sanitization is a well-publicized cause around the world. Large consumer companies are spending huge amounts of money advertising in this space, and creating new hand sanitizers every other time. Startups are not left out. This week we catch up with Andrea Lisbona, Founder of Touchland, a company that can arguably be termed as the world’s first internet connected hand sanitizer.
She is passionate about her company and in a past interview with the Huffington Post, has mentioned how her father inspired her to solve the world’s problems by pursuing entrepreneurship. Growing up she watched her father work on the business he launched at 25 years of age, struggling with it and pushing on the idea. Carrying this into her life, she launched her hand sanitizer company after she tested several sanitizers and could not help but notice their poor design, lack of technology, and consumption of too much water. Such problems led her to start working on the Touchland products. Touchland KUB, KUB Premium and the hand-held KUB2Go are now on Kickstarter in a campaign to raise funds ($40,000) and send the product out to more people around the world. Catch our chat with Andrea Lisbona who has now been using Pressfarm since the start of her Kickstarter Campaign:
About Touchland
To understand what Touchland is all about and how interconnected it is, it pays to hear from the founder. “Touchland Kub is the world’s first smart hand sanitizer built for every home and business. It provides an efficient and easy way to keep your hands clean, helps you save water, and monitors your hand hygiene routine and water savings. It’s also an innovative solution for businesses to effectively manage, refill and buy batteries to ensure the device is always operative,” She says. “Touchland KUB is connected through Wi-Fi to the Touchland app on the user’s mobile phone.”
Is this “needed” or “nice to have”?
Innovations today might have the misconstrued idea that their products are needful rather than nice to have. In terms of cleanliness, one of the misconceptons in the industry is that hand sanitizers are not very necessary. However, Andrea disagrees with this. Maybe rightfully so. “ Touchland is not only a beautiful solution. Rather, Touchland combines design, technology and the most pleasing formulation to turn hand hygiene into something you need to have. Something you want to do, not something you have to do.”
She continues, “We are creating the hand sanitizers that will make you want to sanitize your hands every single day. We want to make hand hygiene attractive to your eyes but most importantly something that you enjoy. When we asked people why they did not use hand sanitizers on a daily basis, most of them said: “I don’t like the feeling it leaves in my hands, too sticky or too wet” or “dispensers are empty most of the time and no one is refilling them.” Touchland wants both of these issues to go away to make it easier for people to do this very hygienically needful action all the time.”
Client base
While most companies in this niche target the end-user, the common man, there are companies targeting a varieties of businesses, homes, and institutions.
“Touchland is a brand that covers all segments. We are targeting B2C and B2B companies, women, men and children; wherever there are people interacting our solutions make sense,” says Andrea. “Our dispenser KUB can be sold not only at home but also in other businesses like hotels, restaurants, offices, cruises, gyms, airports, hospitals, etc. The portable solution Kub2go Power Mist is the perfect handheld device for everyone to bring with them as they go around their duties since it fits in the user’s pockets or handbag.”
There is not a single place where people would never want to wash their hands after any interaction. For children, the need is more urgent. Children are always playing and touching pets, while adults can really control the amount of times they come in contact with dirt. Children just want to play while running around with home-trained dogs that are friendly to them.
The KUB Dispenser
“We tested KUB dispenser in homes of families with children and dogs. We also did a test in an apartment of young couples and in offices, everyone loved how easy and pleasant it was to keep your hands clean. The fact that you could monitor from the app how many gallons of water you are using, and in return, saving, since our sanitizer uses very little amounts of water, was something each of our early testers really liked,” remarks the founder.
Speaking about the hand-held sanitizer, she continued, “For the portable solution Kub2go Power Mist, people went crazy with the first samples. We gave samples to people from all ages and genres. It was not only an upgrade on the design but also on the application and the effect on the hands. They said “It’s almost addictive.” We were very excited that they could say that about hand sanitizers.”
Changing the industry
With the stickiness of the existing solutions in the market that leave your hands with a near alcoholic smell, Touchland is sure there is a problem.
“Did you know that the simplest way to take care of your health is good hand hygiene?” asks the Touchland founder. “That being said, the industry of hand sanitizers has been full of sticky or wet solutions with a terrible design lacking technology for many years. Why does such a key product pushing for a healthier society have to be so plain?”
“Touchland has set out to change the hand sanitizer industry forever. We are creating at-home and portable solutions that will make people’s lives easier and safer.”
What Touchland customers should know
When developing such products, it is always better to come clear of what the product is made from, and how it comes into place. Andrea Lisbona is very intentional about clearing the air on this.
“We are innovating in many different scopes: our formula is not gel or foam, it’s aqueous. At first, people are surprised because they are used to gel or foam hand sanitizers, but we decided to formulate an aqueous sanitizer because we wanted to eliminate all the annoying sides of hand sanitizers that I mentioned earlier.”
She continues, “We have created an aqueous moisturizing hand sanitizer that contains high quality natural ingredients such as Aloe Vera and essential oils. Additionally, we have used alcohol denat as the main ingredient to guarantee that formulation kills 99.99% of germs. The result is sanitized, moisturized, soft, fresh & scented hands.”
Future plans
2018 is fast approaching and most startups are rethinking strategies. Touchland has not been left behind. “We are very ambitious. We want to continue creating solutions that make people’s lives easier and safer by taking care of the environment”. She goes on, “We already have many more products to release in the coming years that will continue revolutionizing the industry. We are currently on Kickstarter to start our pre-orders for all the new hand sanitizer products.”
Moments of note
There are no journeys without funny or undesirable moments.
Andrea Lisbona concludes by telling us hers, “I started Touchland when I was 24 years old. So it’s been a challenge going to investment forums or trade shows because many times people would ask me: “can I talk to your boss?” It was an awkward situation telling them that the CEO was actually in front of them. It’s been a very inspiring and learning adventure. As a female founder, the journey is full of ups and downs, but I would do it all over again.”