My Two Cents On The Goop Netflix Series
/Goop, the wellness and lifestyle brand founded by Gwyneth Paltrow, launched a Netflix series on January 24. I have been a fan of Goop since I first heard of the website in 2014, so naturally I convinced Nick that we needed to have another date night consisting of sipping on scotch and watching our new favorite show. Well maybe my favorite show, but you get the point.
Paltrow launched Goop in 2008 as a weekly newsletter. In 2018, Goop raised a Series C funding round of $50 million from a combination of venture capital firms, placing the overall valuation of the company at $250 million.
As a brand, Goop is one of the companies that I look to for inspiration. The way Paltrow seamlessly integrates her passions, her lifestyle and perspective on life into the company is something that I admire as an entrepreneur. She has created her own magical world, something that many of us aspire to achieve. I believe creating your own world is one of the tenets of fulfillment for anyone who identifies as an artist/creator/entrepreneur and it is the best way to establish a blue ocean for your business. By building a loyal customer base around your unique voice, you completely eliminate the competition and create long-lasting success.
I also admire Goop’s commitment to pushing the culture forward. Granted, it is not lost on me that this company was started by a white, Western woman born with a silver spoon in her mouth and therefore “pushing the culture forward” in this case does include the nuanced fact that there are occasional tones of stolen privilege and appropriation. That will be a discussion for another article. For now, I’d like to focus on the culture -shifting conversations Goop is creating through their Netflix series, Goop Lab, and my two cents on what this means for their business.
The goop lab Series
goop lab by Gwenyth Paltrow is a six- episode series on Netflix. The official description on the streaming service site is “Leading with curiosity, Gwyneth Paltrow and her goop team look at psychedelics, energy work and other challenging wellness topics.” Each episode dives into a wellness related-topic, most considered to be taboo in mainstream culture.
For example, they have an episode entitled Understanding Sex and Female Pleasure. In the episode, they show a dozen or so women’s genitalia on screen and one woman having an orgasm with the assistance of a sex coach. In the psychedelics episode, they show Goop team members taking mushrooms and the effects of these drugs.
Regardless of your thoughts on these topics, the fact that a wellness company is exploring these areas is revolutionary. At the end of the day, Goop is about giving people access to information so that they can learn how to have agency over their wellbeing. This is my dream for Money & Mimosas - to provide you with financial information even if it seems woo- woo - so that you may have agency over your financial wellbeing and be able to choose your life’s experiences.
I love that Goop is fearless in the types of content they create and the topics they are willing to explore. I believe that this approach will continue to set them a part as a company, shift the wellness profession and give Goop a place in the history books as one the companies that elevated the culture.
My Two Cents On The Goop Netflix Series
I binge watched all six episodes. As I’ve mentioned, the content they are sharing is progressive and will shift the culture. From a business perspective, I believe it will deepen the loyalty of their current customer base and expand their base to folks who may not have previously known all that Goop has to offer. Specifically, the recent college graduate market and women who are going through a dramatic transition in their life such as a divorce, health scare or a big birthday.
For the naysayers of Goop, I believe this series will not convert them. Like all good content, it will truly speak to those who resonate with the message and it will turn off those who repel it. The vast majority of people who disliked Goop for one reason or another, will use this series as further evidence as to why Goop should not exist. It takes a specific mindset and approach to life to be open to this material, and the people who hate the Goop website will be mortified by the information coming to life on the TV screen. From a business perspective, this is ok. In fact, it’s great. When you speak to everyone, you speak to no one. And if your strong perspective repels certain people, then so be it. It means you are on the right track.
Beyond the consumers, the series will help the Goop brand attract more brand partnership deals. In addition to selling products, Goop also monetizes its content through brand partnerships. The exposure that Netflix brings to the company will exponentially increase the value of their content partnerships and therefore, their ability to generate huge returns.
If I were a business advisor to Goop, I would make more of a concerted effort to feature people of color as wellness experts and incorporate more African and Eastern wellness practices that are not commonly known in the States. This lack of diversity is preventing their brand from gaining credibility within certain multi-cultural groups and it limits the knowledge they are able to share with their readers.
Overtime, I believe the goop lab will prove to be an incredible marketing move by the Goop team. Their readership will grow, their brand partnerships will grow and their legitimacy within the wellness space will soon be respected by science-focused wellness gurus who write off Goop as “pseudo science”.
About Money & Mimosas: Money & Mimosas was started as a passion project by Danetha. A former NFL cheerleader turned entrepreneur, she started blogging as a way to combine all of her passions into a career. Money & Mimosas is now enjoyed by tens of thousands of readers in over forty countries with the same dream of achieving financial freedom without living frugally.
