Trish Carroll of Placenta TLC
22nd March 2021
Launching a business can be daunting and exciting in equal measures. For our Women Who Launch March candidate, we hear from Trish Carroll, co-founder of Placenta TLC
THE ELEVATOR PITCH
Our service transforms your placenta into capsules to aid recovery after the birth of your baby.
THE OPERATION
Placenta TLC was founded by placenta encapsulation specialists, Lisa Cotter and myself (Trish Carroll) in 2018 and is based in Midleton in East Cork. The company dispels preconceived ideas about the use of the placenta after giving birth, and turns the placenta into tiny capsules that new mothers can reap the benefits from.
Offering a nationwide service, Placenta TLC is the only placenta encapsulation service in the country that has purpose-built, stand-alone lab units to process placentas for encapsulation.
Our customer levels are increasing so we do see ourselves taking on staff in the coming year and we envisage moving to a bigger location in the next few years.
THE FINANCIALS
At the start we invested into our business with our own personal funds. Although this was scary at the time we totally believed in our product and our ability to make our business work.
TARGET MARKET
Our target market is pregnant women, and also couples who plan to have a baby in the future.
HOW HAVE YOU HAD TO ADJUST YOUR WAY OF WORKING IN THE LAST YEAR?
The last year has been challenging for so many businesses, but our business has not suffered too much thankfully. Home schooling and working has been a challenge to everybody; that goes without saying. We have adapted our pick up policy and this is due to hospital restrictions – the dads only get a few hours with their newborn baby so we have adapted our pick up policy to ensure we do not interfere with this precious time. We collect after the birth partners have left the hospital, usually from their home.
HAS IT ALL BEEN CHALLENGING OR ARE THERE ‘SILVER LININGS’?
Oh for sure there has been a silver lining… due to lockdown we have had a baby boom in terms of people using our service!
BIGGEST ‘WIN’ TO DATE
We deal with so many wonderful clients but being big fans of rugby, the biggest win is counting Jean-Marie and CJ Stander and Debbie and Peter Stringer as clients of ours last year. We were very excited about meeting both these dads.
ARE YOU SOCIAL WHEN IT COMES TO MEDIA?
Our brand is very important to us and we invest a lot of time in continuing to help it grow. Social media plays a huge part in our business, Instagram being the biggest driver for us. We estimate that 80 percent of our client base comes directly from Instagram. We do invest a lot of time into our page and showcase our business, placenta encapsulation benefits, testimonials etc. through the platform. We would advise any consumer based business starting off to invest and get help in this area as it’s so important in the world of business today.
IF YOU HAD A BLANK CHEQUE
If I had a blank cheque the first thing I would invest in is a big advertising campaign. Some women still don’t know that this service is available to them, yet every woman should know the benefits of placenta encapsulation; and it should be covered on their maternity insurance package. So listen up VHI and LAYA! I would also invest in bigger premises and lastly take on more staff.
BEST BUSINESS ADVICE
Feel the fear and do it anyway!
(Pictured L-r: Lisa Cotter and Trish Carroll, co-founders of Placenta TLC)
