Theo Ikosidekas was on top of the ecom world in 2020, it may have been COVID times but his skincare business BodyBlendz was booming after Kim Kardashian posted one of his products on her Instagram story.
The company, which was founded in 2014 when influencer marketing was brand new, had already began mixing it up with other celebrities, but not to the influence of Kardashian.
“It created quite a stir, as you can imagine, in not only the mainstream press, but traffic to the site, brand awareness. It was such a great gateway for the brand,” Theo told Neos Kosmos.
“One minute you’re looking at your phone and then you see a mentioned by Kim Kardashian, you nearly fall over. It’s not every day something like that happens.
“We’ve never had or experienced such magnitude of someone as big as her posting the brand, so it was quite an achievement in the sense that if Kim wants to post the brand, we must be doing something right.”
Months later Theo’s world was flipped upside down.
He had caught COVID and symptoms became worse to the point he ended up in the ICU and was told by doctors he was going into a medically-induced coma.
He ended up being in a coma for 15 days, but it wasn’t known how long it was going to be.
Back then, Theo pretty much ran BodyBlendz on his own, with some help.
So at around three and four in the morning he had to start messaging everyone because no one had access to his passwords for phones, banking and all needed to run the business.
“I didn’t know what the health of the business will be or know what the health of myself will be,” Theo said.
“It was such a scary time and doing all this in a manner of an hour before you’re put to sleep, it’s incredible what your mind can do in a matter of stress or think of these sorts of things before you’re about to be put to sleep indefinitely.”
This was during lockdowns, so no one was allowed to visit him, so it became a stressful ordeal for him and his family.
“I’m a person that’s fearful of hospitals so my worst nightmare came to life, going to hospital all alone. No one could come, don’t know when you’re waking up, it was just horrific.”
Then it was the road to recovery, including having to learn to walk again.
Theo was also finding it hard to remain in hospital, often calling his parents that he wants to go home, but they were also hearing information from doctors about how long he needs to remain there.
After returning to his business, Theo realised he can’t do everything himself.
Today he has his cousin and brother-in-law who are also both Greek helping out and he has expanded his team to more than 10 people working at a given time.
“It taught me that I can’t do everything and having them on board has been really an amazing support system and everyone does what they need to do and it’s allowed the company to grow.”
BodyBlendz has come a long way from its humble beginnings in 2014. At first Theo had someone from Greece on a work visa mixing coffee, salt, sugar for their core coffee scrub range in an old reception centre.
Now it’s growing exponentially overseas in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, the whole Gulf region.
With the world opening up again after the pandemic, while BodyBlendz has been able to expand, Theo himself has been able to get away.
“Last year was the first time after COVID I could travel to Greece, so I was there for two months and my sister actually got married in Thessaloniki.”
“I’m from a small village in Kandila on my dad’s side, my mum’s side her father was born in Alexandria, but they’re also from Greece.
“I love the Greek heritage, love to get there every year. There’s literally no place on Earth like Greece. When you’re there, you feel amazing. You feel inspired.”
