Inside Hismile, the $1 billion Gold Coast business loved by celebs including Kim Kardashian and Conor McGregor

A Gold Coast business famous for endorsements by celebrities is on the verge of a major milestone. This is the inside story of their success.

These best friends have a billion reasons to smile.

Nine years after Alex Tomic and Nik Mirkovic founded oral care company Hismile, the start-up is nearing unicorn status, with turnover on track to hit $1 billion this financial year.

And the magic of this business, whose revenue is up almost fourfold from $300 million last year, is that it’s transforming not just smiles, but the city itself.

Touring Hismile’s Burleigh headquarters, located in the former SurfStitch building, is a glimpse into what the Gold Coast could be.

With its beachside setting and funky fit-out, its desks filled with bright, young workers and trendy products, its hi-tech laboratories and departments from research and development to creative and marketing, plus massive warehouses stretching down the block, this feels like a future where the city is a global player.

Which is exactly what Hismile is.

While Tomic and Mirkovic started with just $20,000 and a plan to whiten teeth without the cost and potential pain from professional dental treatments, it’s not just about teeth whitening anymore.

Their mission is to make Hismile one of the world’s biggest oral care companies, with products ranging from flavoured toothpaste to tooth tattoos to professional products for dentists and a range of whitening products, from teeth strips to gel pens.

And Colgate, worth around $US60 billion, is watching closely.

HiSmile bosses Alex Tomic and Nik Mirkovic at work at their Burleigh headquarters. Picture: Glenn Hampson.

While once a digital-only business, with just a tiny Gold Coast Highway shopfront in Mermaid Beach, Hismile products are currently available at more than 20,000 retail sites, from Coles in Australia to Boots in Britain and Walmart in the US – and that number is set to double over the next 12 months.

But as for Tomic and Mirkovic, they might be playing with the big boys of business, but they’re still Gold Coast guys at heart … even if they don’t surf.

Both the sons of mothers who worked at Sea World theme park, Tomic attended Pacific Pines State High and Mirkovic was a Marymount College graduate (class of 2012).

Sure, the Australian Financial Review last year estimated their individual worth at $125 million each, and they both now have beautiful Gold Coast homes and indulge in plenty of international travel, but for Tomic, 30, and Mirkovic, 29, business is pleasure.

Besides, neither pretends to be part of a playboy lifestyle, both are happily married and Tomic is the father of two.

For this pair, who in 2017 became the youngest ever to debut on the AFR’s Young Rich List, it’s not about living large, but thinking large.

“We do travel a lot for business, and we try to combine holidays with that, but work is not ‘work’ for us. We do this because we love it,” said Mirkovic.

“It’s not about getting rich and retiring young, it’s about the challenge of growing bigger and better. It’s great to make money but that’s almost a bonus, not the focus. Not on a personal level, anyway.”

As homegrown Gold Coasters, both said neither they nor the business would leave the city.

In fact, they said Hismile benefited from its regional location, while also reflecting its roots.

Tomic said the relative youth of the city suited the demographic of both their customers and employees.

“Even the way we operate, we are here every day watching the needle move in real time, is not necessarily the way you would do it in Sydney or Melbourne,” he said.

“We move fast and we’re nimble, we don’t rely on quarterly reports – we already know what they’re going to say because we’re on the ground. Being based on the Gold Coast means you’re not tied down to traditions and conservative conformity. You’re meant to do it differently here.

“It also means we have access to a great demographic when we’re hiring. This city is full of young, educated people who are highly driven and entrepreneurial, that’s the spirit we seek.

“When you look at some of the people we have in top positions, they might be considered too young or fresh in another city, but here they fit our organisational style. It excites us to see a new generation kicking goals and succeeding in this city.

“We love that it’s not just marketing or IT jobs that we offer but all different departments – legal, accounting, science, R & D, creatives.”

HiSmile bosses Nik Mirkovic and Alex Tomic at work at their Burleigh office. Picture: Glenn Hampson.

The Gold Coast was also the perfect place to launch a product that suited selfies.

Launching Hismile in 2014, just four years after the birth of Instagram, Tomic and Mirkovic were one of the first companies to benefit from what we now call influencers.

But the idea was first born after Tomic dropped out of a commerce and international business degree, saying six months was enough to realise he wanted to work in the real world, while Mirkovic, recently returned from travelling overseas, felt the same.

Noticing all of their friends were investing in pricey tooth whitening but complaining of soreness and sensitivity, they set out to find a cheaper, pain-free solution.

At just 19 and 20 years old, the pair blithely called up chemists and pharmacists without fearing their questions might sound stupid, a naïveté that allowed them to learn the answer that would be key to their product – the peroxide-free formulation PAP+.

“We didn’t have the budget to market this product, but we thought it was so unique and so different in how it worked,” said Mirkovic.

“We gave it to our friends and they posted it on Instagram and then it just started taking off.

“At that time, people weren’t being paid to post or paid to promote, so people were just sharing it.”

Before long, celebrities like Conor McGregor and Kim Kardashian, along with everyday influencers – many from the GC – were showcasing their Hismiles.

As the brand continued to grow, about four years ago Tomic and Mirkovic decided to double down on Hismile and expand its focus from whitening products to the total oral care industry. With a turnover then of about $50 million, they invested more than $12 million … and down in the Hismile lab, those results can clearly be seen.

The brand has already released a range of incredibly popular flavoured toothpastes, from watermelon to vanilla to grape to coconut to red velvet, but there are even more delicious concoctions about to be revealed.

Kim Kardashian. (Photo by Joy Malone/Getty Images)

Conor McGregor. (Photo by Rich Fury/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)

And while the packaging and taste-tests might be a content-maker’s dream, Tomic said the flavoured pastes, with a fluoride+ formula that supports healthier gums, have also been a comfort to parents across the globe.

“We recently partnered with Autism Spectrum Australia for their Run for Autism campaign at Sydney Airport because some of the best feedback we’ve received is that our flavoured toothpastes can really help people with sensory needs,” said Tomic.

“That’s part of the reason we’re so excited about this journey. Oral care is an industry where nothing new had really been done for a long time, we love being the new guys who are doing it differently.

“We know Colgate has been watching what we do and we’re not going to be the only ones in this lane, but really that’s a compliment to what we’ve achieved.”

And Hismile is only just beginning its expansion. With a current workforce of about 100, Mirkovic said that was expected to double.

He said the Burleigh base had room for more than 400 but, despite its relatively rapid growth, they were careful not to grow too fast too soon.

“It might look overwhelming when you see the scope of it for the first time,” said Mirkovic, standing in the middle of a cavernous warehouse with forklifts whizzing between sky-high shelves packed full of boxed Hismile products.

“But for us, it’s all been organic. From the very start with that first $20,000, we’ve only invested what we’ve earned, despite offers of outside capital.

“We don’t want to skip the learning, we don’t want shortcuts.”

Looking around at the Hismile headquarters and the entirety of its Burleigh operations, from the in-house cafe and fully equipped gym to its open auditorium and engaging environment, no part of this business blueprint should be bypassed.

Instead, the Hismile story should be used as a road map to success … a billion times over.

Originally published as Inside Hismile, the $1 billion Gold Coast business loved by celebs including Kim Kardashian and Conor McGregor