Mia Wagner and Jan Lehrmann apparently lost faith that erotic subscription boxes could be a good business. But now L’amourbox has turned three years of losses into a boom.
It’s been three years since Kristoffer Hjerrild presented his company L’amourbox to the investors in The Lion’s Den. Yet his erotic subscription concept was recently brought up in the programme again – but this time as an example of how difficult it is to make money from subscription boxes.
“As Mia mentioned, we were investors together with Kristoffer in Lamourbox, and he was also a very resourceful man like you. (…) He had a challenge: the more subscribers he got, the more dropped out every month,” Jan Lehrmann said in episode six of the current season.
Together with Mia Wagner, he had invested DKK 1.2 million for 25 percent of L’amourbox. But the partnership only lasted a year and a half before the lions had to be bought out – apparently because they lost faith in the company’s ability to make money. But now, after three years of downturn, the founder has shown that it can.
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On the brink of bankruptcy
After the Lions’ exit, L’amourbox had to go back to square one, laying off more staff in 2021. According to the founder, the company was on the brink of bankruptcy during the period, with every month pure survival after three years of losses.
“It was a big disappointment and it was definitely not fun after investing a lot of money in 2019 and 2020, but it was the right decision to find ourselves again,” says Kristoffer Hjerrild and continues, “It was extremely stressful and I remember thinking: This is not fun anymore. When I got to that point, I decided we needed to slow down and get back in the engine room and improve the concept before we hit the gas again.”
New start in Stockholm
So Kristoffer Hjerrild decided to move to Stockholm and assemble a new team and slowly build the concept anew. And with the rebirth, the company has managed to make a profit every month since July 2021, resulting in the first ever profit in the 2021 accounts.
“It’s been hardcore optimising the concept every month, but I’m incredibly happy that we’ve managed to turn the company around from -700,000 DKK to 285,000 DKK in one year, and I think we can continue the positive development,” says Kristoffer Hjerrild.
In the new form, he believes that L’amourbox has found the recipe that will lead to a profit of one million next financial year, when he also expects to open the concept in two more countries.
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The post Lions left startup shortly after investment: now ‘box’ has become a profit business appeared first on startupmafia.eu.
