- P’sang is a condom startup that claims to be the first brand in Malaysia that will be utilising the buttercup packaging design.
- The products come in different flavours and they will release five products as their first series for the launch set on February 28.
From a radio deejay at My.FM to becoming a public figure and then starting his own social media marketing company, Jeff Chin is now the founder and CEO of an up-and-coming condom startup called P’sang.
P’sang was officially incorporated in July 2018 with the aim of disrupting the current condom market where there is a limited variety to choose from.
“We would say that there are limited varieties in the Malaysian market and the industry itself lacks of innovation,” explained Jeff.
Furthermore, Jeff added that the unpleasant experience of buying condoms is also a problem faced in the industry as one would get awkward stares at the counter while purchasing their “goods”. Hence with P’sang, he hopes to solve all these problems by utilising their online platform.
“So we have this online purchasing platform with detailed feature descriptions that people could read and choose their choice of condoms easily,” he added.
A Long Journey
It all started when Jeff paid a visit to a condom manufacturing plant where he was impressed by the advancement of technology and the speed of innovation in condoms.
“Imagine, thousands of flavours, textures, taste and creativity in the packaging,” said Jeff.
After that visit, Jeff was inspired to change the condom market in Malaysia and Southeast Asia to become more innovative. He wanted to show that condoms would not only serve and fulfill the basic needs of users but also bring in a totally new experience.
According to Jeff, the current situation of the market is dominated by the big players and they put most of their focus on innovative marketing campaigns rather than the product itself, which has caused the market to be boring and stale.
With the weird desire of wanting people to recognise him as the “P’sang King”, he set out to build a team and product that would be safe, yet fun and enjoyable.
Every Little Details Counts
The P’sang team began to create their product from scratch and started their research and development since 2017. Jeff is supported by Jenson Goh, who acts as the COO and Gary Oon who does the product development, research and supply chain management.
The launch of their products has actually been delayed twice as they wanted to ensure that the quality is top-notch and passes all the required tests.
“We are still optimising every small little detail because of the stringent manufacturing and product development process,” Jeff explained.
With a desire to create the best product out there, the team spent 13 months in R&D and will be officially launching the brand by the end of February this year.
Putting Their Money Where Their Mouths Are
To put their condoms to the test they do blind taste tests where the whole team is blindfolded and has to put samples of the products into their mouth for tasting.
“When we do the blind test, we have to cover our eyes and put all samples of the products in our mouth, then we need to be able to recognise every SKUs (Stock Keeping Unit) to make sure it meets every requirement,” he added.
P’sang has a selection of flavours like: Brazilian coffee, champagne, apple, whisky and up to hundreds of flavours, however, they will launch these selections from time to time.
For now P’sang has 5 series of products for their launch: Ori, Asian Fit, 1+1+1, Zer0, and Bubblegum.
Other than interesting flavours, P’sang also comes in different packaging compared to the condoms that you get nowadays in the market. They come in a buttercup packaging that is designed similarly like the butter you find in restaurants so that users won’t feel embarrassed if others see it.
“It is user-friendly, easier to open with just one single hand, and you’ll always get the correct side up when opened,” explained Jeff.
Blood, Sweat, Tears And More
All 3 co-founders have put in their blood, sweat and tears into the startup including their savings in the range of a few hundred thousands.
Even though the team has invested a huge amount of money into the business, they rather focus in providing value to their customers first and then only think about profits or revenue as they believe the latter will eventually come.
“It sounds like a gamble to risk it all, but this amount is far from enough to launch our desired range of products as the R&D is costly and the process is long,” said Jeff.
The P’sang team found out that it was a challenge itself to meet the Minimum Order Quantity of product manufacturing and the high cost of R&D.
The cost and time spent on R&D is huge as it’s a very niche industry, and they needed to learn and research all of it from scratch. According to Jeff, as P’sang is the first brand in Malaysia to use buttercup packaging, a high amount of capital investment goes into the material and testing of it to ensure the packaging is safe and fun for users.
However, things have been looking positive for P’sang as even before their product launch, they registered over 10,000 subscribers.
“Designing and fantasising the idea of a product is easy, but when it comes to production and passing all the tests plus packaging it’s really challenging, and I could say that we made it!” said Jeff.
- If you would like to find out more about P’sang, you can check out the website here and social media here.
Feature Image Credit: P’sang