How Girls Get Off Started; A Chat With The Founders, Jo & Viv

You're listening to the Girls Get Off podcast, an R18 podcast in all things female pleasure. Think girl talk, but real girl talk, where we chat all things masty, self loving, sex, orgasms and more. Nothing is off limits, which means you get all the secrets even our guests BFFs don't know. We're on a mission to make talking about getting off as fun as actually doing it. Ready to join the Mastination? Let's get into it. 

Welcome to the Girls Get Off podcast. Thanks for listening. So stoked. to be starting this. I know. A long time coming. We're gonna kick things off with a bit of an intro episode, a little bit of a background with Girls Get Off, how we got started, maybe some funny events that have happened over the past year, cause it is coming up to our first birthday. I know, next month, a few weeks away, hey. I know, but I suppose we should kick things off by covering off a little bit about our backgrounds, Jo. So for reference, this is Viv's voice. And Jo's voice. Yeah. I think. I've got the biggest cackle in this podcast, but that's okay. Awesome. All right, kick into it, Jo. Okay. A bit about me. All right. I'm like, I'm like the mum of the family because we're totally GGO family here. I'm definitely the mum of the group. Uh, 37. But Jo doesn't look 37. That's the thing. I've got two kids, a 14 year old and a four year old. Before Girls Get Off started, I was in e-commerce and making cookies. Had a cookie business, Hello and Cookie. Before that I've had many other roles that I was never any good at. We won't get into the banking story, never hire me for a bank job. And yeah, so kinda just, I guess, the e-commerce thing led us to here. Yeah, and then we met through, when I was, for the last however many years, I've been doing social media management and teaching people to grow their social media accounts after growing a different business for the sportswear. And so when I was working with Ace the Grand, that's how we kind of met, wasn't it? Because I think we were. shooting content for you or something way back in the day. But before that, well I'm 26, I've got no kids, and before that I was actually working in a deer co-products factory, so I've got a food science degree and that is so not relevant to what we're doing now. But that's okay, it's all for a reason and it's funny how your decisions and your path kind of lead you to the right place when you're focused on going somewhere cool. So it's been really good. Yeah, yeah. definitely feel like we've hit our groove. I know, and I get asked all the time about everyone, yeah, how did you start? How did you meet Joe? And I think that we must have had conversations at the start about how we wanted to work together, right? Because we had a different kind of idea and then we sort of led on to this one. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, I don't know. We didn't even have much discussion about it, but we did know that we wanted to start something together. I think it's- Good pairing. Yeah, we're kind of like polar opposites in what we like and stuff. And it works so well together. It's a really good match. But yeah, I guess this started GGO. How did it? March 2020. I know. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just started. So in- Yeah, just after the big lockdown, you know, so maybe it was April. Yeah. Yeah, so like during that lockdown anyway, Viv came around on her bike for a couple of drinks on the driveway. Socially distanced. Yeah, definitely. Anyway, so yeah, I think I had written article recently. So, yeah, I'd written some article that sex toy business was one of the fastest growing industries in the world, especially with all the lockdowns and COVID stuff that was happening at the time. And that just got a conversation started basically, didn't it? And we started to discuss that there's nothing, like at the time there's a few out now, but at the time there was just nothing in the market that was kind of. well tastefully branded. It was all the only way to buy sex toys was if you go into the CD sex shop, which nobody likes to do. Like we still park at that back door, I think. I know the one here has a back door and you walk straight into a six swing. As soon as you go on the six swing and then it's just all downhill from there. Yeah. Completely. So that was kind of like. the only option other than buying online, and you go online and there's like 574 products for her, and you're like, where the hell do I start? It's priced between like $20 and $400, and you have no idea. So yeah, plus all the ads that go along with that made it a seating experience as well. And I think like, once we started talking about this, it sort of makes you open your eyes and realise that like, yeah, you're right, you know, like, If you want to go to and buy from a sex shop, that's great. But if you think about like, you know, us as women, we like to buy nice things, have like a nice customer experience, especially when it's something to do with self care. And there was nothing that was really focused. And as a broader picture, like with our purpose at Girls Get Off to normalize female pleasure, like that just wasn't being addressed. When you walk in and like, if you just want to get a little bullet vibrator and you're walking straight into a sex swing at a sex shop, you're like, whoa, this is not the place for me, you know? It doesn't make you feel comfortable? No, and you know how many people out there that just because of that have never experimented with sex toys and anything, just because the whole experience around it was not pleasant? I know, and I think when we were doing that, we were doing some research a while ago and we clicked on those toys for her and one of the toys was called a ballistic dong. I was like, why would I, it's like someone who'd never bought a sex toy before. think that the ballistic dong was the toy for me. I was like, you know, like that is intimidating. Yeah, yeah. I think we had some great research days. The one that stands out for me must have been, we're having some wines and on, yeah, on this sex toy store online and this festing glove came up. I clicked on fetish clothing. I thought I'm gonna give it a go. Let's have an explore here. And there's this, I wish we could show you like the hand gesture they were doing to like One was like a fist and the other was like if you put, try to put like the tips of your fingers all together, like touch them all together. Yeah it was hilarious and it's this black leather fisting glove that kind of goes right down to nearly your elbow. Yeah. And Again, if you're into that, awesome. But if you've never had a sexual before or you've never, you know, you're just trying to kind of explore, dip your toes in the water. There's absolutely no way that a fisting glove makes me feel like buying any other normal toy, you know, like that's so far from a beginner's level. Yeah, exactly. And these things were sold out, so they're obviously. They were sold out. They're obviously popular. Plenty of reviews. But yeah, there's definitely a big gap in the market for something not intimidating that's, you know, a nice, a starting point but even an advance, just a nicer buying experience really. I think we saw the trend of the SP2 and when you look at that product, in my opinion, I was like there's nothing visually appealing about this. Yeah, it doesn't look like a vibrator but it doesn't actually look that cute or that fancy and actually the only reason people are buying this is because their friends have told them it's good. There's no one actively marketing and going like, as you would any other product and say, this is the toy for you, this is really cool, this is normal, this is fun. And that's where we kind of found the gap for girls get off because people were just, and people want to talk about this stuff. Like you see the growth of some of the sexual health and wellness Facebook groups and they're just taking off, like people asking anonymous questions, like people wanted to have this conversation. Yeah, for sure. I mean. everybody remembers that sealed section of the Cosmopolitan magazine growing up and that was the best part of the magazine. It actually was, wasn't it? Yeah, and so there's still that need for, you know, the truth and people telling the truth and opening up and discussion, yeah. And that's where our Sunday Confessions stemmed from, isn't it? Yeah. I remember reading that sealed section and there was like, us like a doctor. Yeah, the Dolly Doctor. The Dolly Doctor, yeah. Was there a Confessions one or something or what else was in there? Yeah, there was a little, like there was a new, gosh, I was reading that like, ages ago compared to you. Um, yeah, no, they were definitely like, you wrote in, people wrote in and like told them their little secrets and stuff, so funny. It's been a great ride. And I mean, it wasn't, you know, we've mentioned the Fisting Love, which was, it was just so interesting looking at all the random stuff. But I mean, amongst that, there was certainly some product testing and we'll do a podcast episode on vibrator theft, because at one stage my vibrators all got stolen. And then like another time, I was ordering like some samples and I just clicked like. And then it just didn't ask me for my shipping details and I was like Why what and then I realized it had auto filled my parents address So anyway, I had these had these vibrators show up at my parents house And my mum was like, I just got this video from my dad and my mum was first I got a text from dad saying package here for you and I was like, oh sweet I zoomed in and I could see that said remote control and I was like, oh great We're safe and then my must have been like, oh what a video but I picked it up and was like Vivian, there's a very suspicious package here for you. It feels like a bent sausage. That was so funny. So it was all a bit of a ride to get here, but we got there in the end. It probably took us about a year to plan and get everything sorted, didn't it? Yeah, yeah, like nearly just on a year, hey. Now it's crazy that it's kind of two years since we've started talking about it. Everybody that's supporting what we're doing is just... amazing, I think it's been the most fun community to build. So cool that you guys are coming along for the ride. So what have been some of your highlights, Viv? Well, highlights, yeah, I guess like, there was certainly a time, you know, part of our advertising, we've tried to do a lot of different things and I remember sending out our first sort of press releases, like bang, we're kind of here and that just went so wrong. Like we got the PR. Nobody. Yeah, no one cared, eh? And then B, we got the lady who was doing some press for us, shout out to Bridget, she got her email banned because she had things like sex toys. Masturbation. Yeah, masturbation all through this press release. It started bouncing from everyone's inboxes and landing in spam, so we damaged her email address till they- I think TVNZ. Till they could reverse it, eh? Holy. So press has been really difficult for us because it's still quite prudy here. But with that being said, when we did get in Women's Day, that was awesome because it wasn't just like, you know, getting some press, it was more like, we know everyone wants to have this conversation, so it was a little bit of an achievement to get past that media gatekeeper and finally get traditional press talking about female pleasure. Yeah, for sure. And again, like, there was such a demand for it, obviously, like the spike we saw. in just people going to our website that were 65 plus was on par with the like 35 year old age group. Yeah. Like for a couple of weeks there after that magazine went out and it's just, it's just another eye opening moment that this is really needed. People really want to. And since then we've had to be normalised. Three memorable and only because they've told us their age. 70 year old reviews. Like we may have had more, we just don't know their age, because they haven't told us. But we've had reviews being like, I'm 70, one lady said her soulmate had died, like however many years earlier. I was like, oh my gosh. That was so heartbreaking, but she's like, there's plenty of life left in me now. Yeah, glad she replaced her soulmate with a Missy Minnie. Oh my gosh, unreplaceable. Unreplaceable. But that was pretty amazing. So, and it just goes to show that like, Yeah, I mean, how else would we reach that audience if we weren't? I don't know how many seven year olds are on Instagram. There must be a small portion, but. I'm not sure if, yeah, they'd be following us though, would they? No. It'd be more their family, I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah, and I think for me, one of the highlights has been just that we've created something that allows us to push these boundaries. Like, we know that our female pleasure needs to be normalised and that's our mission. And because we can't do paid ads or, you know, having so much trouble with PR and stuff like that, we've really pushed the boundaries on, you know, billboards and our advertising, which is just, I don't think I ever realised at the start just how much fun this would be. It's so funny, eh? We did push the boundaries too far once and get our account banned. Taken down, disappeared. Just after we hit the 50K mark, like the day after, like we were celebrating 50K and then in the morning it was gone. Yeah. I know. And we pushed the boundaries with those, that heart candy, I was trying to buy that first time too and I sent a list of you could buy these custom. Like the old school love hearts with little like sayings on them. Yeah and so I found a place that would do custom ones for us. I'm like cool, sent through a list of like 12 different phrases I wanted on there and I got an email back saying, Hi Jo, can you please choose less vulgar options? And she's like these ones will not be suitable. Penal question mark. I can't remember what else she had. The anal question mark was the one that stood out to me. I know, I know, it was so funny. I thought that was gonna be so funny. I was like, Jennifer. I think Jennifer didn't like it. I think I kinda scarred Jennifer, but that's okay. They were probably used to these beautiful, I love you, James, or like. I know. They're actually sitting behind me. We haven't used them for anything yet, but we've just, to be honest, I just eat them when I feel like lolies. They're not actually that nice. Horny AF, treat yourself, let's fuck. Clit is lit. There's quite the selection there. But Anil and Kusumark didn't make the cut. No, and there were five others. So like she did kind of push the boundaries a bit for us, which is good. Yeah. Maybe, I think it was a bit of a shock, maybe that first email, because I swear for the years they've been in business, they only get like these beautiful like little love panties. And speaking of chatting with suppliers, one of my... Ultimate highlights would be, so it literally took us, how long did it take us to come up with our email? Like a stupid amount of time. So long that we held off, it was like holding us up in what we could actually do because we didn't have the business email address yet. Anyway, we decided on jellyleagues at girlsgetoff.co.nz so if you wanna contact us, that's how. And it took us that long, but the funny part is that when Jo had to ring up a supplier to get some lollies, We wanted like pussy lollies, so we got all these like cats. She's like, can I have 500? Oh no, you wanted a thousand. Yeah, I wanted a thousand cats. You're gonna be like, I want a thousand of those cat lollies. Again, the guy who you were calling had probably never heard that. He's like- Middle-aged. Yeah. Yeah, he's- He had to weigh out a few of them and figure out how many was in a bag. It was very funny. He must have thought I was a cat lady. I think his name was Nigel or something. And then I listened as Joe spout, said, you know, what are your contact details? Joe's last name is Cummins, so Joe Cummins, at jell and then she, he's like, what? And she had to spell out each individual letter, and then at the end, he just laughed on the phone. It was so funny. I'm surprised some of that stuff gets delivered, because you'd think that they would think they were being pranked. I know, I know. I think I was just born to do this with my last name. Oh my god, it's so funny. Yeah funny though because that guy emailed me back about two months later and he was like we just got in these new candies and it kind of looked like a bit of a um a little bit of a vag but a vulva a little bit of a vulva yeah and they must so it must have been like a highlight of his year oh definitely well he wouldn't get orders like that all the time it's pretty funny I think our giveaways and our lockdown was probably something that sort of catapulted our growth. I know that often, I'll get asked, oh, how did you grow so much? And aside from us hustling in the background, because there's no shortage of that. Yeah, when lockdown happened, I think because we had the previous experience from what we were doing prior to this, as soon as the second lockdown was announced, last August or September, we were just on the phone like, it's happening tomorrow. this is gonna be huge for us. Last lockdown, engagement was massive. People don't act fast enough, let's just go huge. And I sent my, I was in Queenstown, I was locked in Queenstown, and I rang my sister, cause you were at home with kids, hey, I rang my sister. I was like, Julia, you need to go to the supermarket? As soon as you finish work? And I needed to go crazy on the lollies. Pink vibe, drop them at Jo's house. Yeah, it was good, but it was just all good. I don't think we've ever worked that hard. No, it was through the night, like every spare second, I was just working, hey. Especially in the second half of it, like we did the second nine nights in Albert Town, because our accommodation finished, and like the friends that I was with were like, oh, what the hell? I would literally wake up and work, and then like after dinner, and like they would cook for me. and then after dinner I would just play like a couple of hands of cards and then I'd be on my phone in between. And then I'd be like. They were actually so great though, hey. They were so great. But I didn't even realise we'd been there for 10 days. Wow. I was just like, it wasn't until a month that I was like, oh my God. Meanwhile, the friends that I was with, one of them was on Tinder, like doing that Tinder passport, like flying everywhere trying to Tinder people and the other one was doing data entry. So they were bored out of their mind. What's Tinder passport? I think you can like. Well, I think he'd clocked whatever area and you can like pick up your location. So instead of doing your radius, you can pick it up and move it. Oh my gosh. And I think last, didn't they like last lockdown they gave it to free for everyone or something? I don't know, I didn't use it. Oh my gosh babe. But anyway, so that was, yeah, they were just having like, it was so hard for them because they were so bored. Like, Joe tindering and he was watching Netflix and I was just so busy, I didn't even notice. Didn't even notice. Yeah, no. I remember enjoying that first lockdown that we had back in 2020. And you know, it was just like, I hadn't had a break in so long. And it was so nice, me and the kids just biking around the empty streets and stuff. Yeah, that was a big shock to the system. The lockdown comes and you've got kids at home and working 24 seven. I know. But it was so worth it. And we reached so many people. And then our account got banned. Yeah. And then we got it back luckily. Oh God, that was stressful. So anyway, on that account banning thing, then we, Viv had a brilliant idea to do a GGO burner account. So you should be following the burner as well. GGO.burner. Anyway, so any explicit stuff, we just whack on there. And because we don't mind if we lose a burner account, we've got number one, two, and three. Yeah, and then I guess aside from that, like definitely a highlight for me has been the uncensored. group, the Facebook group. So if you're not a part of Girls Get Off Unsensitive, man, that is the Facebook group to be in. It's only for girls, so I know there'll be some guys listening, but sorry, you missed out on this one. But it is just like, because everyone has the option to ask anonymous questions, and if you don't have that feature, you can DM one of our admins, and they'll post on your behalf. But man, the questions that come through. I mean, you always know that people have stuff going on behind the scenes, but I think it's been a real opener to go. A, there's a lot of things happening in people's lives that you don't know about, and then to be the place where they obviously, some of these things are really personal and they don't have anyone else to talk to or places to ask. So it's quite a privilege, I think, that we can facilitate that space where they can ask those questions, and then we get the people in the group are super supportive. Yeah, I woke up this morning, actually, and I read I read someone's post on there and as I was reading it, I was like, oh, I hope nobody's like gonna be mean on here or anything and like just scrolling down and you know how you can just see like the different likes that people have done? Like the care hug, there was the heart and I was just like, yay, I love this group. Like, and it was so supportive and cause it was one of those ones that you think, oh my gosh, if it was on like, notice board or something, like people would have just gone ruthless. I know. And so, and like, and that's one side of it. And then the other side is that people see it in the funniest things, like the one recently about this girl who was like, look, I'm saying my parents, my boyfriend's like in between houses, we don't have anywhere to have sex, so I need best sex positions for a fucking Suzuki Swift. All these people were like. were just so funny and then people were actually saying the positions and how to have sex in a Suzuki Swift. It was so funny. I know, it's so great. So there's a whole mix in there, but no, it's very cool. Such a cool space and yeah, that's grown really fast as well, but if you're not in there, highly recommend. You definitely need that in your Facebook newsfeed. What else do you go on Facebook for? I know, not much, not people's statuses. Anyway, I have an issue with people who write statuses. Probably wraps us up there then. Yeah. Can't wait for you guys to continue to join us on this podcast journey. Feel free to leave us a rating, a review. We'll pick the funniest ones every week. We'll give away a free Missy Mini. Most creative. Yeah, most creative. Yep. So those really help us out a lot. And as mentioned, if you're not already part of the Girls Get Off Uncensored Facebook group, come over there or Girls Get Off on Instagram. How exciting? Amazing.