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madkind didn’t begin with a business plan.  

It began with a question. 

After decades working inside highly regulated environments – aviation, property management, unions – we believed in systems. These are industries supposedly built around safety, oversight, codes of conduct, and formal escalation. When serious issues arose, we followed the rules. We documented. We escalated internally and externally. We reported to regulators and governing bodies. We engaged oversight structures, then escalated to global governing bodies and government departments. We were an absolute pain in the arse. 

We did what the systems called for - what responsible people are told to do. 

Instead of resolution, a pattern emerged.  

Across different sectors and structures, the response was strikingly similar:  

• truth was inconvenient, so it was contained;  
• further escalation threatened the system itself, so processes were twisted to protect the system;  
• when we still persisted, we were isolated, sidelined, and blamed;  
• across five years, government bodies and international authorities, no allegation or piece of evidence was ever refuted; but  
• public-facing claims remained an external story. System actions proved the lie. 

The experience was devastating. Careers, identities, and financial security were under serious threat. 

The hardest part was not the conflict. It is the clarity that comes on the other side of the curtain. 

Once you see that these systems behave exactly as designed – always protecting themselves, burying inconvenient truth and failing to deliver the public facing promises they proudly promote, you can’t unsee it.

During COVID, while our careers were paused and uncertain, Yvonne began experimenting with formulation. It started as creativity and distraction. It slowly became something else: a space where good behaviour could be designed deliberately. 

Beauty was not chosen because it is virtuous. It isn’t. 

It is competitive, image-driven, and often reliant on urgency, insecurity, and manufactured need. It is a system with pressure baked in. 

By the time legal processes ended and the red pill had been well and truly swallowed in our former careers, we were already here – inside a similar industry – but with a hard-earned lesson: 

You cannot change something from within that is working exactly as designed. It’s not broken; it’s just a very big lie...  

The above is not meant as a pity party or to proclaim enlightenment. It’s to explain the pivot. The why. Why bang your head against a brick wall? Continuing to fight for safety no longer felt like courage in these circumstances. 

So we stopped fighting. We decided to build something better instead. 

That’s when the real question emerged: 

How do we build a system that behaves properly and cannot be corrupted? 

How do you build such a business? 

We began with research: what customers value, what frustrates them, what builds trust, what erodes it. 

We combined that with our lived experience. 

From that mix, we distilled principles – our do’s and don’ts. 

The madifesto was how we described it then. It’s become “our rules” [LINK] 

This isn’t branding. We define constraints. We set out promises we intend to keep and behaviours we refuse to adopt. We are encoding these promises into operating rules and processes. This ensures the business behaves consistently – especially under pressure, so that trust does not depend on personality, moral strength or lack of distraction. 

We took over two years to turn our ideas into a business and a brand. Our purpose is in our name – to Make A Difference.  

There’s a yin and yang to this. A night and day. We’re building the opposite of what we endured - and using kindness as a weapon. It feels ironic, symmetric and poetic, all at the same time. 

Our motto is we don’t do pretty quietly. Our website is quiet and calm (unless you turn the music on). We don’t see this as contradiction. 

Living up to principles is not about perfection. It is about structure. 

We design our website to be calm and usable. No pop-ups. No countdown timers. No pressure tactics. 

We focus on making products that justify their place – well-formulated, fairly priced, clearly explained. 

We keep ingredients, pricing, shipping, and policies visible and accessible. 

We aim for straightforward communication and realistic promises. 

None of this makes us exceptional. It just makes us deliberate. 

Ethical claims without evidence are meaningless. So we separate explanation from proof. When we make a claim, we link to supporting information. When something is unfinished, we document the roadmap. 

You can find our receipts here [LINK] and road map here [LINK] 

We separate loyalty from philanthropy. 

Our rewards programme exists to thank customers who choose to stay. It is designed to give value back directly, without manufacturing obligation or pressure to repurchase. Where possible, it encourages pay-it-forward behaviour and shared benefit rather than accumulation. [LINK] 

Giving back is a separate commitment. 

As the business grows, we commit to sharing at least 25% of net profits across people, planet, and pets – as a floor, not a ceiling. We intend to increase that proportion as the structure allows. [LINK] 

This remains a work in progress. 

We consider ingredients, environmental impact, sourcing, waste, and packaging in our decisions, and we know there is more to do – particularly around materials and vessels as better options become available. We commit to transparency and progress, not performance or false statements of perfection. 

If we get something wrong, we will correct it. If a better way becomes clear, we will take it. 

You do not need to believe any of this. 

You can judge us by how we behave, what we prioritise, what we refuse to do, and whether our words and actions remain aligned over time. 

That alignment – not claims – is our focus. 

Welcome to madkind.