Waltz 7 – Redesigning the Spa@Home Experience
During this year’s Tyrollean Wellness Congress in June in Innsbruck/Austria, I had a chance to meet and get to know Waltz 7 better.
Waltz 7 is a company from Vienna, with – so I find – a super innovative product in the Spa & Wellness Market, that is redesigning the spa@home experience.
Their aim is to provide every person with an opportunity during every day to enjoy a short moment of pause&relax and recharge the batteries. This way ‘wellness’ does not need to be related to a large effort, such as booking a wellness getaway weekend, but can be enjoyed at home or even in a hotel room.
Absolutely worth having a long conversation with co-founder and GM Thomas Gruener. His great and detailed answers and visionary personality made the interview super fun and the outcome so worth reading. Enjoy!
Thomas, how was the idea of the shower tabs born?
As a busy consultant with lots of travelling and long working hours, I spent quiet some time in hotels. The Hotel Spas were often closed by the time I got back to the hotel. Above, I don’t like bathtubs or they were not existing. For me, the best way to relax hence is to take a long hot shower. However I did not like the overbearing and artificially scented shower gels that are usually provided in hotels.
Hence I missed the wellbeing aspect in the shower. I am South Tyrollean and love the Sauna for example. With its aromatherapeutic aspects and relaxing atmosphere.
So one day I had the idea of sprinkling a few drops of Swiss Stone Pine Essential Oil on the shower cubicle floor. This way and together with the hot water and shower steam, I kind of created my own little Sauna Infusion with a beautiful scent.
This was the initial idea. Of course, the liquid oil went down the drain very fast and the moment was gone. So I thought that it must be possible to press high quality essential oils into tabs or capsules.
On a merry evening in one of Vienna’s famous ‘Heurigen’ (for all of you who have no clue what this means: it is a small and casual place typically run by the wine farmer’s family, where you enjoy the lovely local wine and homemade food in a social atmosphere.) together with my alumni also called Thomas, we discussed my idea.
It is about relaxation
The basic theme was that there are hundreds of bathing salts and products for the bath tub out there which work mainly through their scent. So it is about relaxation, scent and well-feeling.
But why is there no equivalent shower product, when most people prefer showers, or take showers more often than full baths? And is this not particularly applicable to hotels, where showers replace bath tubs almost all together more and more?
We did our research and realised that there is a market out there. We found blog articles where such products were discussed in lengths, and also YouTube videos for DIY recipes.
(c) Waltz7
How do the tabs work?
Our aim from the very beginning was to make this a super easy-to-use product, much like a bath salt.
In our case: you open the water faucet in the shower, place the tab on the floor away from the drain and step in the shower.
Super easy and works in every single shower.
The tab gently dissolves and releases its lovely scent from natural essential oils. This is an entirely olfactory sensation, which is part of our USP: there is no perfuming of the skin or hair at all!
Our tabs have a predetermined breaking point for different duration of shower experiences.
Half a tab runs for about 3 to 4 minutes, while the full tab lasts about 6 to 8 or even 10 minutes. It depends where you place the tab on the floor, right into the jet of water or more to the side.
There is no residues when finished and our customers confirm that this is a great alternative to overly scented shower gels, which are currently highly promoted to create spa@home wellness experiences.
Our range includes a variety of different scents, such as the Swiss Stone Pine – one that is very popular in hotels – or energising mint, inspiring lemongrass and more. Each aroma has their specific aromatherapeutic effect, such as relaxation, uplifting etc. and our customers can thus choose the one that suits their very individual need best.
I, for example, love the mint tab in the morning which wakes me up and provides me with energy throughout the day.
What does the brand name Walt 7 stand for?
Waltz 7 relates to our location Vienna with its famous Viennese Waltz. And to cloud no 7 on which you feel after using our tabs.
Thomas, what is the company’s Vision, and do you have other products planned?
Our quantitative goal is to be market leader for shower tabs in the German speaking countries (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) by end of 2019. This is for all our distribution channels hospitality, online shop and most important retail.
We are currently working on a successor product developed from our shower tab, with which we will be entering the wellness market directly. This is very exited and we expect to be ready by beginning or latest mid of 2018. It means redesigning the spa@home experience!
Who is interested in the Shower Tabs?
As mentioned before, our tabs are available through 3 distribution channels
– in our online shop
– in 4and 5* hotellerie, about 30 hotels so far
– retail stores such as Douglas Austria in about 48 outlets, in Germany at Pieper with 70 outlets, and soon to come drug store Interio in Austria
Waltz 7 has a strong social media community on Instagram with almost 3000 active users and followers.
We also receive requests almost daily from lifestyle & wellness blogger (even from Japan!), which have written over 200 posts about Waltz 7 so far.
Customer feedback is important to us. We encourage this with monthly activities. We always look into our customer’s feedback and how we can accommodate their needs.
Great for Hotellerie and Private
The good news is, that our tabs are suitable for both, private use and also for the hotellerie. These are two different approaches. We actually started offering our tabs to hotels first, actually to a cruise line. Hotels use our tabs as give away to the guest, typically on check in. This works great for welcoming the guest, breaking the ice and providing the little extra relaxation.
In hotels, water consumption is an issue, hence we are busy designing a tab that can dissolve faster.
(c) Waltz7
About us
Thomas & Thomas have known each other since their studies in economy since 2009.
Thomas Gruener is from South Tyrol and has studied in Vienna und Texas. During his work for PWC in Merger&Acquisition as Senior Consultant, he had to travel a lot.
He says about himself: ‘I am said to be the visionary and sales person at Waltz7. As managing director I am responsible for project management, sales, and strategic development’.
My personal motivation for leaving the service industry: I believe that every consultant secretly has a dream … to envision himself standing on a balustrade like Henry Ford looking down to watch his products on the conveyer belt… This has always been my ambition.’
Thomas Schloss was born in Vienna and studied in Vienna and Hawaii. Before Waltz7 he worked as notary. Thomas is the pragmatic managing director, responsible for operations, HR and product development. His entire family is in the service industry, yet he has always had a keen interest in manufacturing. His motivation is to create something that noone else has ever done before.
