Celine Fierro is an entrepreneur and media professional hailing from Sweden and serves as the co-founder and CEO of OhCleo, an audio erotica app on a mission to encourage sexual health and well-being through education, inspiration and collaboration. Fierro envisions a liberated future where women (and everyone else!) are free to explore their sexuality, embrace their desires and exude their confidence both in and outside of the bedroom - where they feel empowered to improve their overall sexual health, free from judgment or criticism.

Can you tell our readers about your background?

I began my career in tech and media when I was 19 at a startup, which ended up being acquired by a large media group - I ended up working for the larger company while I continued my education in marketing and project management. After seven years, I started to miss the startup community and began working as a marketing manager for a last mile delivery service. In 2017, that company went public, which gave me the push I needed to venture out on my own because I still wanted to be part of the startup community. I decided to start working for myself and started a consulting business for a property company. 

My goal has always been to challenge old, change-resistant industries. I strive to break stigmas within the tech landscape, which probably stems from my immigrant father who moved to Sweden from Argentina. My father’s side of the family was always politically rebellious and growing up with parents from mixed cultures meant I learned how to swim against the tide early on.

What inspired you to start your business?

Initially, my idea was to create environmentally friendly and ecological sex toys. However, as I began researching ways to enhance the experience when using sex toys, I stumble upon the fascinating world of audio erotica. I didn't know it even existed, but when I started to listen to various audio tracks, I was hooked immediately! But as I continued to explore and research the current audio erotica landscape, I realized it was missing something truly key in the way we experience pleasure as women: high-quality, authentic storytelling. Although high-quality content existed in the space, those productions felt staged and inauthentic. From this realization, we started to create audio the way we wanted it to sound. Our friends, test users and investors agreed, so instead of creating hardware, we ended up focusing on audio erotica.

Where is your business based?

OhCleo! Is based out of Stockholm, Sweden.

How did you start your business?

As my career in tech progressed, I decided I wanted to work for myself and not just make other people's dreams come true. After a few years of different projects, I met with my now co-founder Anders Lövbrand - we complemented each other very well. We started to work in IT consulting for a couple of months until Anders complained and said it was too boring - he thought we needed to work on something fun and meaningful, and that was the start of OhCleo!  

What were the first steps you took?

When we decided to do audio erotica we created mockups of how we wanted the app to look. We wanted the sound to be authentic, so we started to look for performers that could both write and perform. We found a lot of singer-songwriters who were out of a job because of Covid, so we started to iterate content with them. We received an innovation loan from a state-backed fund called Almi. With this money, we invested in a developer to build the app and finance the first 12 tracks that we used as a starting point. 

What has been the most effective way of raising awareness for your business?

We are still trying and learning what works best for us and our brand in general. We believe that social media and traditional PR have been the most important channels to raise the awareness of OhCleo and our mission. Last fall, we launched a campaign on TikTok and Instagram around the silliness of big tech censoring female pleasure products and services, which went viral on the platforms.

 

What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?

Challenges come up all the time! Being an audio erotica company, we specifically see challenges externally as it relates to marketing. While our ads are not overly explicit, we often get flagged for inappropriate material. For broader context, censorship of advertising when it comes to promoting women’s sexual health and wellness, specifically across social media platforms like Facebook, is becoming more and more common throughout our industry, which makes promoting our brand difficult. It is almost impossible to talk about female pleasure on social media without ads being reported or taken down due to censorship. In a way, it discourages sex and topics around it. At the end of the day, we’re not selling sex - we’re selling ideas, stories and education, but not everyone understands.

 

How we’ve tried to overcome this hurdle is by flipping the narrative on its head and almost poking fun at the entire situation. We’ve come up with a social media campaign titled, “Let’s Not Talk About Sex,” and dubbed it the ad you’ll probably never see. For the campaign, we work closely with content creators on TikTok to create sly, non-explicit sexual innuendos to avoid censorship, and so far, it’s been working well. Not only is it bringing awareness to the issue of censorship in our industry, but it’s positioning OhCleo as a brand fighting the good fight in promoting sexual health and wellness.

How do you stay focused?

It's easy to be focused when doing something you love with amazing and smart people and with a mission you truly believe can have a positive impact on people's lives. But aside from that, I try to stick to my routines, work out regularly and eat healthy.    

How do you differentiate your business from the competition?

OhCleo! is on a mission to encourage sexual health and well-being through education, inspiration and collaboration with the goal of destigmatizing female pleasure. Breaking stigmas and old structures are always something I have been fascinated with and have worked on throughout my career. I think the stigma around female pleasure and sexual health has a huge impact on our physical and mental well-being. When we can increase women’s sexual confidence, we not only increase our pleasure (the earlier the better!), but we also prevent sexual discomfort that many women are conditioned to tolerate due to performative, and sometimes violent, depictions of sex.

What has been your most effective marketing strategy to grow your business?

We are still in a testing phase, but we believe that viral content in social media, together with PR and organic growth via referrals, is the most effective and sustainable way to grow a start-up. 

What's your best piece of advice for aspiring and new entrepreneurs?

The advice I’d love to give aspiring entrepreneurs is to hyper-focus on one thing at a time - it’s the most effective way to move forward at a fast pace. In that same vein, keep in mind that things are better done than perfect - I read this a long time ago, but it's always a good reminder for an entrepreneur. I tend to want to perfect things before launching, for example, a product feature, which is so silly because it's better to release it to see what works and what can be improved. Also, have patience - things always take more time than expected. And lastly, never disregard advice you don’t understand.

What's your favorite app, blog, and book? Why?

Besides OhCleo, my favorite app is Spotify. I use it every day to listen to music and podcasts. I don’t have a favorite blog, but I listen a lot right now to David Sinclair and his podcast “Lifespan.”' He is a Harvard professor, and his research is around longevity, which I find very fascinating. He is very pedagogical when it comes to the research around food/exercise/habits and longevity. Unfortunately, he hasn’t mentioned a lot around sex and erotica in his research, but hopefully, we’ll get there soon. My favorite books are “Seat of the Soul” by Gary Zukav and “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho - both are packed with wisdom that is always actual. 

What's your favorite business tool or resource? Why?

YouTube because it’s easy to digest. Lately, we have been going through content from Y Combinator that gives great information for start-ups in our phase.  

Who is your business role model? Why?

My colleague and partner Anders Lövbrand is one of my business role models because he is very smart and empathetic. I also think that Simon Sinek has a lot of great ideas around building inspiring cultures and teams that I admire.  

How do you balance work and life?

I plan my weeks and take time to work out and meet family and friends. When doing something that is enjoyable, I sometimes don't feel that I work because I enjoy doing it, like listening through tracks and the app. I think in general; Swedes are better in work-life balance - it is regulated, and we know we don't get the best out of ourselves and people if we don't have it. We also try to mix fun and work by working out together and having dinner together after work.  

What’s your favorite way to decompress?

The ways I like to decompress are through meditation and ayahuasca.   

What do you have planned for the next six months?

Our goal for OhCleo in 2022 is to launch on a broader scale by increasing marketing efforts and growing the number of users on our platform. We are still new in this field and need to grow both our market share and the market itself by destigmatizing female arousal and pleasure and making self-exploration part of our overall health routine. We plan to reach new customers online, primarily. We are working now with influencers and sex educators who we believe align with our brand to get the word out, as well as traditional PR and marketing efforts.

Overall, people want and expect personalized, curated content. The ongoing pandemic has taught us how to connect in new ways, and I foresee more apps like ours taking advantage of technology such as Apple’s SharePlay. Another legacy of the pandemic is the desire to learn more about ourselves and our partners - and what better way to do that than through shared fantasies?

How can our readers connect with you?

I am active on LinkedIn, and readers can follow our brand online at @ohcleo on Instagram.