PITCH & PEOPLE Folge 44: Bears with Benefits
What began as a side project between two agency managers developed into one of Germany’s best-known supplement brands within a few years. In the Pitch & People live talk at the Kinoliebe Festival, Marlena Hien explains why Bears with Benefits was never reliant on investor funding, why profitability was underestimated for a long time – and why the exit was still the right step in the end.
“We just wanted to try out if it works.”
In retrospect, Marlena Hien’s entry sounds almost incidental. In fact, this idea gave rise to a brand that today generates annual sales of around 60 million euros. Together with her co-founder Laurence Saunier, she founded Bears with Benefits in Munich in 2018 – initially alongside her full-time job.
The starting point was an everyday problem. For many people, taking dietary supplements was simply unpleasant. At the same time, during a trip to the US, the two founders discovered a trend that was practically unknown in Germany: functional vitamin gummy bears. Marlena Hien, who is active today as a speaker, investor, and mentor, recounts in the first live recording of Pitch & People in front of an audience at the Kinoliebe Festival in Munich:
“We saw that 40 percent of Germans have trouble swallowing pills. At the same time, a huge market for vitamin gummy bears had already developed in the US. So we thought: Why doesn’t this exist here yet?”
From Amazon directly into retail
Instead of planning an elaborate market entry, Hien and Saunier first tested their idea on Amazon. In their view, the platform offered the fastest access to customers, immediate feedback, and meaningful sales data.
Production initially took place via a contract manufacturer in China. Only when order volumes increased did the company switch to a German producer. At the time, the biggest uncertainty was not production, but the question of whether anyone would buy the product at all.
“The market isn’t waiting for your product. Our biggest fear was that we would be stuck with our first 3,000 jars.”
This worry quickly vanished. Bears with Benefits grew to become a bestseller in its category on Amazon. Shortly after, the startup won a beauty contest hosted by Douglas – including a listing in all German stores. Shortly thereafter, dm drugstores and other retailers followed.
Bootstrapping Instead of Millions in Funding
While many startups at the time were raising investor funds as quickly as possible, Hien and Saunier chose a different path. They financed the company entirely themselves and initially even kept their full-time jobs. It was only when Bears with Benefits was already generating seven-figure revenues that they focused entirely on the company.
However, this decision was not entirely voluntary:
“We weren’t taken seriously with our topic. We were two women, two mothers, had a pink product just for women, and were mostly sitting across from male investors. Despite profitable numbers, many lacked trust.”
It was particularly irritating, she noted, that profitability was hardly perceived as an advantage in the startup world back then.
“It was the peak of cheap money. Being profitable was suddenly not an asset at all anymore. It was all about how fast you could grow.”
Looking back, however, Hien considers this path a stroke of luck. The shift in interest rates put many heavily funded companies under pressure, while Bears with Benefits remained independent.
“A VC gives you money – and that money has to be spent. More staff, more infrastructure, more burn. We’ve seen many startups fail because of this. Today, I’m incredibly glad we didn’t take this path.”
Female founders have it tough
Another central topic of the conversation is the situation of female founders. Hien speaks openly about her experiences in investor meetings and the structural hurdles in fundraising.
From her perspective, it was not just the product that played a role, but also how the female founders themselves were perceived.
“Only two percent of venture capital goes to female founders. That is absurdly little. That is precisely why I invest primarily in women myself today.”
These experiences had a lasting impact on her view of the startup ecosystem and were one of the reasons she is involved as a business angel today.
Why the brand was more important than the product
Dietary supplements are not technologically revolutionary, Hien says herself. The real difference lies in brand building.
While many competitors opted for a classic pharmacy design, Bears with Benefits deliberately chose eye-catching colors, emotional communication, and a consistent focus on women.
The pink packaging, the bear as a brand mascot, and clear product promises generated a lot of attention, especially online.
At the same time, the company invested early in building trust – through experts, traditional media coverage, retail presence, and the founders themselves as the face of the brand.
“Brands are not created by logos, but through trust.”
The courage to internationalize
Another turning point was expanding abroad. Although Bears with Benefits was still relatively small, the team decided to take the step into Italy. The trigger was not a strategic master plan, but rather noticeable demand from the market. Italian influencers regularly requested products and generated initial attention.
The expansion initially cost money, but in the long run it developed into a crucial growth driver. Today, Bears with Benefits is larger in Italy than in its German home market. France, Switzerland, Spain, the Netherlands, as well as the UK and the US later followed, among others.
Marlena Hien and Laurence Saunier founded Bears with Benefits in Munich in 2018. The pair built the brand completely bootstrapped and sold the company to the French healthcare group HAWEA in 2022. Today, Marlena Hien is active as a business angel, particularly supporting female founders, and speaks about brand building, entrepreneurship, and bootstrapping.
The exit as the next step in development
After several years of strong growth, Bears with Benefits eventually became attractive to strategic buyers. Together with an M&A consultancy, the founders explored various options.
Ultimately, the decisive factor was not just the purchase price, but above all the perspective for the future development of the brand. In the French healthcare group HAWEA, Bears with Benefits found a partner that could support production, distribution, and further international growth.
After the sale, Marlena Hien and Laurence Saunier initially stayed on board as managing directors for several years before stepping back from operational business. For Hien, this step was emotionally more challenging than expected:
“You spend so much time focusing on the exit process that you don’t even think about what happens afterward. And suddenly the calendar is empty. Going from one hundred to zero – many founders struggle with that.”
Today, Marlena Hien sits on the board of Bears with Benefits, invests as a business angel particularly in female founders, and regularly speaks as an entrepreneur about brand building, bootstrapping, and entrepreneurship. Her own story shows that multi-billion-dollar markets can emerge beyond traditional VC success stories – sometimes everything starts with a simple question: Why does a dietary supplement actually have to look like a pharmacy product?
