The working of the human body is no less than an engineering marvel. The heart, head, and growth of muscles has its own way of working. While a balanced diet with proper care ensures our body’s overall health. There are certain ways that contribute towards loss of our natural growth, and hair is one of them. The hair loss problem is solved by certain oils, pills, and other treatments but not much-trusted options.
Understanding this problem, Anders Reckendorff found an effective natural way to prevent hair-loss, one that does not involve the risk of pills or medical topical treatments. Anders is the CEO and Co-founder at Scandinavian Biolabs, providing functional hair-care products that you can trust to work with your body and not against it.
In his role of supporting scientists, we at Insights Care interviewed Anders Reckendorff to know the core formula of how Scandinavian Biolabs is the best solution for hair loss.
Below are the highlights of the interview:
Can you tell us about yourself and your background and expertise as a Co-founder and CEO?
Overall, I am passionate about creating products that are both good for you and scientifically tested for efficacy – something that is rare in the cosmetics industry. As a CEO, I support a team of passionate specialists with the focus on delivering the best possible functional ingredients.
On the work side, I am a lawyer, turned consultant, turned scale-up CEO within the health & wellness space with Scandinavian Biolabs, starting with solving early-stage hair loss.
My dream is to support our fantastic team members in helping Scandinavian Biolabs be a prominent face in the industry and deliver functional hair-care products that are acclaimed worldwide – even though we have already reached more than 80.000 customers, we know we can help many more and are always working to earn the chance to help new people.
Acknowledging that it takes a lot of courage to accept and address any hair-related issues for individuals, as it can impact your confidence, we are here to offer both realistic and light-hearted advice without making anyone feel uncomfortable.
But why Scandinavian Biolabs? After graduating law school, I spent quite a few years in management consulting at Kearney, especially working within consumer goods across strategy, category management and procurement across groceries, fashion, and many other sectors. Here, I fell in love with the tangibility of physical products, and how you can make 100.000’s of people happier or healthier every day through creating something truly great.
How does your experience in FMCG, strategy, and operational excellence contribute to the overall vision and growth of the company?
From working with large corporates and within the FMCG sector, you start to know what great looks like, and what is important on a very holistic level, not just with specific issues – especially when it comes to operations and processes.
By having spent some time in the sector, you also know what we should aim for and look like in a few years, which is something that guides many of our decisions – something might seem high-effort with very low impact in the short-term, but by having spent time with other companies, you understand that it will lead to real value-creation, even though it might seem like high-effort in the moment.
However, I have also learned that conventional thinking from the FMCG world rarely works in challenger brands when it comes to sales – you need to be open to non-linear thinking that can kick-start growth in new ways. You can’t just do what the established companies are doing, as they already have a ton of brand equity. This is something I constantly need to remind myself of, and you need to challenge your linear thinking constantly or you will forever be trailing behind.
As a former Management Consultant from A. T. Kearney, how has your experience shaped his leadership style and approach to leading high-performing teams and complex projects?
I learned a ton in consulting – data, finance, strategy and problem-solving – that I use every day in Scandinavian Biolabs to help guide our decision-making.
This also applies to project management. In consulting and working with people on the C-suite level early in your career, you learn how to break down issues into the most important data-point or decision that truly matters.
However, the tail-end of this is also going from working in a project-oriented setting, with people extremely similar to yourself and with similar backgrounds, towards being an effective leader – not just an effective manager. I was aware of this before we started growing our team in Scandinavian Biolabs. However, truly leading a set of passionate people towards a shared vision requires something different than managing.
While clarity between a team and solving is still really important, you sometimes have to embrace the complexity of the issues you are facing with a mindset of not being able to break it down – where it can truly only be solved by having unnatural great human relations in a team, and having a team that can withstand pressure in situations that are extremely uncertain and don’t have any logical solution (or you don’t have the time/resources to find it). Such situations happen every day in challenger brands, but very rarely in consulting projects.
On the leadership side, I always try to lead with trust, but expect a very high-level of communication, structure, and ownership among our team-members.
Could you provide some insights into the company’s focus on using naturally derived and vegan ingredients, and how does this align with the company’s values and goals?
Scandinavian Biolabs was founded in 2020 in Copenhagen, Denmark. One of the founders was Niels, our now COO. A young man in his early 20s who had to face the difficult reality of losing his hair.
Niels was determined to find a solution to his hair-loss that was effective and drug-free. He didn’t want to take the risk of using pills or medical topical treatments that could have disastrous side effects. This concern motivated him to search for an alternative solution, leading to the creation of Scandinavian Biolabs.
Looking back at this mission, focusing on harnessing the natural power of ingredients and enhancing it by science is the core of our mission in providing functional hair-care products that you can trust to work with your body and not against it.
Can you elaborate on how the company ensures full transparency in terms of production and ingredient sourcing?
We prioritize clinical transparency in our functional products. We strive to ensure that our customers understand the ingredients that each of our products have, and how they work to help them. This is also why we have carried out a 150 day clinical testing of our core product – while many solutions offer experienced-based surveys of their customers, we took the extra step to secure that our Bio-Pilixin® Serum was scientifically evaluated through real tests, by real doctors, and not only through perceived consumer effect.
We want to make sure our customers are confident that they are making an informed decision when it comes to their hair care. We also make sure to provide our customers with a holistic and transparent approach to hair care. We want to provide them with a path to successful and healthy hair that is tailored to their individual needs and expectations – and that they are guided every step of the way.
For us, transparency is a lot about expectations – we straight up tell you what we can and cannot do for you. Like how we can reduce hair loss and promote stronger, thicker hair, but not turn you into Jared Leto. We’re scientists, not magicians.
In terms of production and sourcing, we are always striving to do the best possible we can, without sacrificing efficacy. All our core products are produced in Denmark to ensure that we can always check batches of product and ensure that working conditions are best-in-class.
Can you give us some examples of the innovative use of plant-based ingredients in the company’s products, and how does this differentiate the brand from competitors in the market?
As a non-medicated formula, Bio-Pilixin® does not include any ingredients known to change your body’s metabolism or to have hormone-disrupting effects – this is a core-differentiator for us.
In our core-formula, we differentiate from others by not only relying on tsting individual ingredients, but also the cocktail-effect of the formula. Among our 12 active ingredients, working together to strengthen, soothe, revitalise and repair your hair, we use Capilia Longa, Niacinamide and Vanillyl Butyl Ether.
What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs looking to make a positive impact in their respective fields?
Don’t just chase the next opportunity for the sake of achieving it – do it because it makes you feel good.
Don’t do what is expected of you from others, not in your personal life, in your career or in business decisions.
Please give us a few testimonials from your clients and awards or recognition that accurately highlight your achievements in the corporate niche.
We only work as a team in Scandinavian Biolabs, and my role is to support our fantastic team members to do their best – all achievements we make are ours as a team, and not a single individual.
What we have done in less than three years – helped more than 80.000 customers all over Europe through our products – is a fantastic journey to be part of, and I think that speaks for itself.
