Today we’d like to introduce you to George Simonyan.
Hi George, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Growing up, I was a curious kid who talked a lot and loved to get involved. I was also into oil painting and creating artwork. Hence, as I moved out for college, I fell in love with science and ended up choosing to apply to dental school. The way I viewed dentistry was the perfect cross-section between art and science. Furthermore, I could work with people every day and build personal connections with my future patients, all while helping improve their oral health. As I pursued more research throughout dental school, I found myself constantly listening to podcasts, reading more books and articles, and browsing the web trying to continuously improve my knowledge of the field. One day, I came across an article highlighting the beneficial effects of CBD Hemp Oil for overall oral health. At that time, I knew about Cannabidiol (“CBD”) and its benefits including treating inflammation, pain relief, and others but didn’t know that this translated to oral health benefits.
After consulting with a few colleagues and professionals in the dental field, entrepreneurs in the field of holistic and CBD wellness, and over a year’s worth of research, planning, and hard work — OraBliss was born! Our founding team includes myself (George Simonyan), a 4th-year dental student at USC’s Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry, (2) Tadeh Gharib, a CPA with three years’ experience at an elite accounting firm (USC ‘17, go Trojans), and (3) Sipan Beglaryan, a former investment banker /finance professional who graduated summa cum laude from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. At OraBliss, we believe the merger of CBD and oral care is inevitable and should be embraced! Quite frankly, we believe that it is the “it” factor when it comes to inclusion in your oral care regimen. OraBliss was created to explore ways CBD could best be applied to oral hygiene products in order to maximize health benefits and to educate people about oral health and its importance in living a healthy and balanced life.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
We’ve definitely had a lot of ups and downs in our journey so far. The CBD industry seems to be one of the toughest industries out there with lots of competition and tons of regulations that are constantly changing. One area that has been a struggle has been digital marketing. As some of you may know, the marketing of CBD products across social media platforms and Google is extremely regulated, so even getting a simple ad approved is nearly impossible. Since a lot of marketing efforts and engagement in today’s world is through the world wide web and social media platforms, this was something that was tough to get a grip on in the beginning. We’re proud to say that we’ve been able to work around this by using authentic marketing through influencers and word of mouth in order to gain organic exposure across our brand and products.
Also, a lot of banks are skeptical of opening up bank accounts for CBD-infused products, so we’ve gone through a lot of hardship to be able to find a bank that will support us and believe in our product; I remember going on months with our team just contacting banks and getting nonstop rejections. Luckily, we were accepted into Square’s early access CBD program and found a small local bank that believed in us and our vision. With our team, we approach struggles as a way to grow ourselves and our brand, so we’re grateful to have made it this far and are prepared for the challenges ahead. Every day we are learning more and more about the industry and finding ways we can improve our brand!
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
At OraBliss, we take pride in being 100% transparent in all that we do. We are proud to be one of the first CBD-infused oral care brands on the market, and we’re making sure to do it with a purpose. All of our ingredients are all-natural, and our products are free of any artificial additives and flavoring. The general consumer usually purchases their toothpaste and mouthwash without glancing at the ingredients label. What would surprise them is that some of the ingredients that are included in most big-name brands have been shown to have potentially harmful effects on the human body. These include silica (plastic), sodium lauryl sulfate (detergent), triclosan, titanium dioxide (artificial additive to make toothpaste color white), and many others. Now ask yourself, should we be applying these potentially harmful compounds to our teeth every single day? We make sure to use ingredients that are simple and clean and get the job done without putting your oral and systemic health at risk.
In the spirit of being transparent and honest with our customers, we’ve gone ahead and included a complete list of our ingredients along with their respective descriptions on our website. Furthermore, I’m extremely proud of our motto at OraBliss which is to do what we can to improve the lives around us. That is why we’ve vowed to donate an oral care kit with each purchase to communities in need. We have actually partnered with a number of non-profit dental organizations that will help us distribute these oral care kits to local and international dental clinics. As an avid volunteer and participant in many local and international mission trips myself, I’ve seen how underserved communities struggle with having access to a simple dental check-up and often cannot afford common oral care items such as toothbrushes and toothpaste. Therefore, we have made it our goal to give back and help these communities in need.
What are your plans for the future?
Overall, our plans for the future are to continue growing our brand by educating our customers about the benefits of CBD for their oral health. Because it’s still a new market, many customers do not know or understand how CBD works, let alone in their oral regime. We’re therefore speaking with a few dentists and hoping to do a Q&A session that dives into the specifics of CBD in oral health. We hope this will help generate some positive buzz by spreading awareness of this extremely new industry. In addition, we are also looking to expand our product line to give our customers more choices that cater to their oral health. We already have some ideas in mind but we’re always open to suggestions so feel free to reach out to us at contact@orablisscbd.com. Thank you!
Contact Info:
- Email: contact@orablisscbd.com
- Website: orablisscbd.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/orablisscbd
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/orablisscares
