On meaning
- Paula Ironside
- 6 days ago
- 6 min read
How three wellness brands found their white space by seeing the market differently
I spent years in tech selling digital products with one-click efficiency. Launch, optimise, iterate, repeat. The work was fast, the metrics were clean, and the distance between me and the end user was... complete.
I never knew who bought what I built. I never heard how it landed. I just moved to the next campaign, the next product release, the next optimisation cycle.
And then I started working with founders in wellness and beauty.
Everything looks different here.
The difference I see
The founders I work with now see problems on a much deeper level.
They care, deeply, obsessively, sometimes to the point of exhaustion, about things that don't show up on a P&L. Whether their packaging is intentional. Whether their ingredients are clean. Whether their supply chain is ethical. Whether the community they're building feels seen, held, supported.
Most of them didn't start a brand because they saw a market opportunity. They started because they couldn't not start.
Because someone they loved struggled with a skin condition no dermatologist could fix. Because they were tired of products that claimed to be clean but weren't. Because they saw a community that needed movement, strength, and belonging, not another fitness trend.
This is meaning. Not as a buzzword. As the foundation.
And here's what I've learned: meaning is your competitive advantage. But only if you know how to see it clearly and use it strategically.
The problem most founders don't see
Here's the tension:
You know your brand has meaning. You feel it every day. You pour it into every decision, the packaging you redesigned three times, the supplier you spent months finding, the customer emails you answer personally, even though it doesn't scale.
But when you try to talk about it? It comes out sounding... generic.
"We care about quality." "We're committed to sustainability." "We believe in community."
These are all true. But they're also what every other brand says.
And the gap between what you feel about your brand and what you're able to say about it, that gap is costing you.
Because consumers don't buy meaning in the abstract. They buy meaning when it's specific, clear, and impossible to ignore.
The question that changes everything
Here's the question I ask every founder I work with:
What do you believe about this category that no one else is willing to say out loud?
Not what you care about. Not what you value. What you believe, on a level so specific it makes you a little nervous to say it.
Because that belief is where your white space lives.
A founder who says "I believe in clean beauty" is saying what everyone says.
But a founder who says "I believe the ingredient transparency movement has been co-opted by marketing, and most 'clean' brands are just as opaque as conventional ones", that's a belief.
A founder who says "I care about sustainability" is fine.
But a founder who says "I believe sustainability is meaningless unless we address the plastics crisis at the formulation stage, not just the packaging stage", that's a position.
That second version? That's the kind of clarity that makes people stop scrolling. Because it's specific. It's honest. It's theirs.
And that's what meaning actually looks like when it's clear enough to be commercial.
Real examples: brands that found their white space
Let me show you what this looks like in practice.
Haeckels (Now Dulcie.world). A skincare brand founded in 2012 in Margate, England, by Dom Bridges, a volunteer beach warden frustrated with how much seaweed washed up on local beaches unused.
Most brands would have positioned as "natural skincare" or "sustainable beauty." Generic. Crowded.
Instead, Haeckels built their entire brand around a hyper-specific belief: skincare should be made from the exact place you live, using ingredients most people consider waste.
They hand-harvest seaweed from Walpole Bay. They hold one of only two government licenses to harvest seaweed from the English coast. They operate from a converted casino in Margate and make everything in-house.
Their positioning isn't "clean beauty." It's "hyperlocal coastal stewardship."
That specificity is their moat. No other brand can credibly claim it.
OneSkin. Founded by four PhD scientists who spent five years testing over 900 peptides to find one that could reverse skin's biological age.
They could have launched as "science-backed anti-ageing." Reasonable. But saturated.
Instead, they positioned around a belief: most skincare treats symptoms, not causes. We're targeting cellular senescence, the root driver of ageing.
They don't call themselves a skincare brand. They call themselves a "longevity technology company."
Their proprietary OS-01 peptide is the first ingredient scientifically proven to reduce skin's biological age. They publish peer-reviewed research. They quantify results with their own MolClock technology.
The white space they own? Skin longevity backed by cellular biology.
That's not just differentiation. It's a category they defined.
Seed to Skin. Created by Jeanette Thottrup and cosmetologist Anna Buonocore on a 300-acre biodynamic farm in Tuscany at Borgo Santo Pietro, a 12th-century estate.
They could have positioned as "luxury natural skincare." Fine. But forgettable.
Instead, they built around this belief: The beauty industry forces you to choose between all-natural or high-tech science. We're the first to combine both through Green Molecular Science.
They grow their own botanicals on certified organic land. They wild-forage from sea and forest. They built an on-site laboratory where they hand-craft formulations in small batches using advanced molecular delivery systems.
The white space? Biodynamic luxury meets molecular precision.
It's a positioning so specific, no one else can touch it.
What these brands have in common
None of them invented a new category. They just saw the market differently.
Haeckels saw waste where others saw inconvenience
OneSkin saw cellular ageing, where others saw wrinkles
Seed to Skin saw a false choice where others saw industry norms
And then they had the clarity and conviction to build their entire brand around that belief.
That's white space. Not a gap in the market. A territory you claim because you're the only one who sees it clearly enough to own it.
How to find your own belief
Here's a simple exercise to surface it:
Step 1: Write down the moment you decided to start.
Not the business case. The moment. The conversation, the frustration, the realisation that made you think: "I have to do something about this."
Step 2: Ask yourself: What did I see that no one else was seeing?
Not what problem you solved. What did you notice that others were missing? What assumption in the category made you angry or frustrated?
Step 3: Turn that into a belief statement.
"I believe [the thing others miss] because [the deeper truth you see]."
Example:
"I believe skincare should address hormonal health, not just surface symptoms, because most skin issues are metabolic, and no one's talking about that."
"I believe fitness for older adults has been patronising for too long, because strength and community are what keep people healthy, not gentle stretching."
That belief? That's your white space. That's what differentiates you.
And when you can say it clearly, everything else becomes easier.
The tension between meaning and scale
I know what you're thinking: "This sounds nice, but I'm trying to survive. I need sales, not philosophy."
I get it. And here's the hard truth: meaning alone won't save you.
You still need distribution. You still need pricing that works. You still need a product people actually want to buy.
But here's the other truth: tactics without meaning won't save you either.
I've watched founders chase every growth hack, every viral trend, every new platform, and burn out because none of it compounds. Because without a clear belief anchoring it all, every campaign starts from zero.
Meaning isn't a luxury. It's the thing that makes everything else more efficient.
When your positioning is clear, your marketing writes itself. When your belief is strong, your community builds itself. When your story is true, your customers sell for you.
That's not romanticism. That's how brands actually scale without losing what made them matter in the first place.
A question for you
So here's what I want you to sit with:
If your brand disappeared tomorrow, what would be missing from the world?
Not your product. Not your service.
What belief would no longer have a voice? What conversation would stop happening? What would your customer lose that they can't get anywhere else?
If you can't answer that in one clear sentence, you haven't found your white space yet.
But if you can? If you know exactly what you stand for and why it matters?
Then you have everything you need to build a brand that doesn't just compete, it resonates.
And resonance is what lasts.
xx P
P.S. If you're struggling to articulate what makes your brand different, or if you know there's something there but you can't quite see it clearly, that's exactly the work I do. Reply to this and let's talk
Hi I'm Paula, founder of H&F, and I work with wellness and beauty founders in a creative partnership that sits somewhere between strategy, storytelling, and art direction. It’s not consulting in the traditional sense, and it’s not built for speed. It’s for founders who are thinking in years, not launches, and who care as much about coherence as they do about growth.
If this way of building resonates, you can learn more about how I work here.
And if you’d rather stay in the conversation, Hunter & Florence is where these ideas continue, through monthly founder conversations and reflections on building brands that refuse to be forgettable. Subscribe to stay up to date.
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