Pura Collagen on success amid Brexit, pandemic

07-Nov-2022 - Last updated on 07-Nov-2022 at 16:27 GMT

Just as the UK entered a new trading relationship with the EU, the economy was thrown another curveball with the pandemic. But with a little strategic foresight and a lot of humor, Jennifer Mo is taking the situation in stride.

Although the route to recovery and growth will be different for every business and every sector, each will require a combination of strategic foresight and built-in agility.

Jennifer Mo co-founded Pura Collagen amid a pandemic. While the pandemic proved to be a real negative for most businesses and people personally, Mo said it actually ended up being beneficial for her start-up.

“From a conception standpoint, it [the pandemic] gave me time and clarity to really form the brand that I wanted to form. I wasn't jumping on a plane, I wasn't having to meet anyone face to face. So I really sat and took that time and focused very much on what our proposition was going to be. And then coming out on the other side of it, traditionally in retail it takes a long time to get into brick and mortar, it takes a long time to launch, and we saw that the retailers were really hungry for self-care. They knew that the everyday consumer was not going to risk their health anymore. They were looking after themselves. They were really conscious of what they were putting into their bodies, so we got listings very quickly.”

However, the Start-Up Star winner said doing business in the midst of Brexit has been much more challenging.

“Every way that we would execute business was gone. Our ability to have cross-border retail and be able to operate in one area was gone. I'm now a year and a half in commercially and I still can't ship my product outside of the UK to customers in Ireland where we already have listings,” Mo said.

Pura Collagen has its two flagship products, Flex and Glow, along with Sleep and Protect. Mo has some other formulations in the works as well.

“Pura will never launch anything that isn't near and dear to myself specifically. So you won't see us doing any kind of big heavy lifting stuff,” said Mo. “It's all about what Jen wants at the moment. And so I am very much designing products for me and then I just get really excited that they have a wider appeal to the general public.”