Secrets to Building a Standout Brand in a Crowded Market – Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Hey there, entrepreneurs. My name is Sushant, and welcome to Treptalks. This is a show where I interview successful e-commerce entrepreneurs, business executives, and thought leaders, and ask them questions about their business stories, and also dive deep into some of the. Strategies and tactics that they have used to start to grow their businesses.

And today I’m really excited to welcome Eric Bandholz to the show. Eric is the founder of Beardbrand. Beardbrand is an American men’s grooming company based in Austin, Texas. It sells products for grooming, styling, and maintain, maintaining beards, hair, skin, and mustaches. And today I’m going to ask Eric a few questions about his entrepreneur journey.

And some of the study and the tactic that he has used to start to grow his business. Now, before we dive into this interview, if you enjoy this con content, please make sure to hit the like and subscribe button. And for more interviews like this, please visit trip talks.com. And with that, Eric, welcome and thank you so much for joining me today, treptalks

really, really appreciate your time.

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: What is going on man? How you doing?

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Doing well, doing well. And yeah, really, really excited to learn a little bit more about your story. Well, I hope to fill

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: your brain up with a nozzle full of information. We’ll see, uh, see if I can do that or not.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: All the beard product information.

So I was on your

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: Yeah, you, you gotta grow your beard out first. Huh? Actually, you know, I imagine you could probably grow a pretty gnarly beard.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Well, the thing is, I did try it out. I think, uh, last year I tried it out, but I think some people are more gifted in their beer department and than others. Like, I did have it, but I don’t know.

I didn’t, I didn’t completely feel it, so I, I decided to share it. So, but I’m, I’m interested. I was on your website and I was looking at the about page, and I read a little bit about your story, and I believe what was written was about 10 years or so ago. You were in like some job and you were unfulfilled, and then for, in one way or another, you decided to grow your beard and somehow got the idea.

So can you share a little bit about what were you doing before you started this business? What kind of motivated you and you know, why, why create a, like a grooming products company?

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: Yeah. I mean, that, that feels like such a, a long time ago, uh, we beardbrand launched and. 2012, but, you know, kind of the impetus was, or the idea, not that the, the, I guess the foundation was a little bit before that.

I used to be a financial advisor working at a mega bank, uh, wearing a suit and tie, shaving, shaving my face every day. And I always felt like that was kind of like putting on a mask for me. I, I felt like I. I enjoyed growing out facial hair, uh, and had grown it in previous jobs or in the weekend or whenever I traveled.

Um, kind of got frustrated with that job, ended up quitting that job, and when I quit my job, I, I started growing my beard out and it was in this journey of like growing my beard out long for the first time. Like this is, I think this is probably like. About the length. It was when I kind of got the idea for beard brands.

So it was a pretty, pretty big beard. I’ve had big and short beards. And anyways, I ended up, uh, going to an event where I started to meet other guys with facial hair who shared similar stories to me. See, I used to be called Duck Dynasty or ZZ Top and Grizzly Adams, and those are all really cool dudes. Um, but as I said, I used to be a financial advisor.

I’m kind of more of a. Uh, a white collar kind of guy. And historically, especially, you know, over a decade ago, uh, beards were not socially acceptable in those roles. And I created Beard Brand as a way to unite this community of men who didn’t fit the traditional stereotype of, of, uh, of beards men, and really give them the tools they needed to feel confident with growing their beard out.

Um. In any kind of environment, and that meant obviously products to, to help groom it, but also education. So we’ve produced, uh, you know, over a couple thousand videos on YouTube. We’ve got an extensive blog network or email marketing or email communications, probably some of the best, uh, you can find for a company of our size.

And, uh, yeah, we’re a bootstrap company, so I’ve got two business partners, a small team. We’ve kept it small. I value. Freedom, uh, over, I wanna say freedom over money. ’cause money is one of those things that help you get freedom, but, um, the, the reason I work isn’t to generate money, uh, or more money. It, it’s to generate more freedom.

So that’s kind of what’s driving me. And I think at a certain point, you know, I think rappers have talked about it before, is just more money, more problems. And, uh, there’s some problems that I’m not intentionally seeking out.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: I think, I think that’s great. It seems like, I mean, you have pursued a mission and I mean that’s, you know, part of it is pursuing freedom, but part of it, al also is, you know, kind of helping the, the men who do have beard and facial hair, you know, with better products.

Um, can you talk a little bit about your products? I mean, where did you start? I mean, it seems like you have a, a wide portfolio of products. Um, and how kind, how did kind of you, um. Created, uh, your product, assortment or portfolio?

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I’ve, uh, got some here. Here’s some, some of our utility oil.

This is, uh, our best seller. It’s uh, it’s like a beard oil on crack. It can work, uh, for your beard, for your face, for your hair, for your body, anywhere. Uh, we started off with the beard oil and it evolved into the utility oil, um, over time and we really. In the early days, we, we kind of didn’t know what type of products to produce.

Uh, we tried a lot of different things. We, we even sold like suspenders at a period of time. We sold dot bags. We sold, uh, wallets. We, we even sold olive oil at one point in our business. And, you know, one of the lessons that I’ve learned in business is like a business is never easy. But some things are easier than others.

And when you sell a product that, uh, or you develop a product and offer it to your customers and it moves off the shelf at an easier rate, that’s a sign of, of kind of like a direction to go. And for us, like our customers, we’re co constantly telling us that. Grooming products were what we wanted, uh, to develop.

So we developed, uh, a full line of, uh, products for, you know, your beard, your hair, your body. So if you’re a dude out there, uh. You can pretty much use our products. It, it doesn’t matter if you have a beard or not. Obviously, we’re pro beard and we’ve got a lot of products for beards, but the utility nature of our products allow people, you know, the, the wash is gonna work on your head hair, it’s gonna work on your beard hair, it’s gonna work on your body hair.

It’s a, you know, a great wash. So, uh, go to beard brand.com. You can kind of see our full line. But we try to, in developing our products, we try to be innovative and, and do things that haven’t been done before. I. I personally don’t, I know there’s a lot of strategies in how you can develop products. I personally don’t get excited to, you know, see what’s trending on Amazon.

You know, do some data analysis, figure out what’s wrong with those products, and, you know, make some minor tweaks to it and then just offer it for me. It’s, you know, beard brand and, and the products we develop are an extension of the things that we need, uh, or, or. I need, uh, especially, uh, and the team needs and trying to develop products that I would want to use on a regular basis and develop ’em in a way that is innovative and unique.

And, uh, for instance, we were the first company to put. Uh, clay in our, in the sea salt spray to mimic the sand that you’d get when you go to the beach, uh, swimming in the ocean. No one had done that before. We’re the first company to come out with a beard softener and use that term, um, the utility bar and using the, the utility name and that that nomenclature is novel, uh, as well when we came out with it.

So, you know, I, I get excited for creating new things and. Unfortunately it’s, it’s a hard thing because sometimes you can be too early to the market. You know, sometimes the market just doesn’t have an interest in it. Uh, and you miss, miss the mark on the product. Um, but for me it’s like, that’s just a much more enjoyable problem to solve.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah. And that’s interesting, right? I think you mentioned from a business point of view, um. Where, you know, when the products start flying off the shelf, that’s an indication that you’ve kind of hit the mark. Right. And I think that’s a very good definition of product market fit as well. It’s, I think I read somewhere in the past where, you know, I.

The moment when you hit the product market fit is where it, it feels effortless, right? Like you are not, you know, running after the customer and promoting a product and it just, it just, you know, uh, starts working. When you started out with this company, was it, were there, like, was there, what did this category exist at that time?

Like a beard or grooming products kind of a thing, or was this kind of an idea that you. Brought into the market.

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: Yeah. So we were not the first company to develop a beard oil. Be clear with that. But I do feel like Beard Brand had a major part in developing, um, the idea of a beard care company. I. Uh, beard care grooming products.

Uh, we were on Shark Tank back in 2012 where we pitched the Sharks. I think that was the first time a lot of people in America got exposure to the idea of products developed specifically for your beard. And, uh, you know, the, the company Beard brand was built around, uh, beard grooming. So, um, if we didn’t create it, uh, I’m, there might be some other people out there who, who could.

State claim to being the, the absolute first to beard care. But I would say we, in the early days, had a very notable impact, uh, on the marketplace. I, I remember getting some orders from like Tom Ford and Jack Black and, uh, our competitors, uh, who were clearly doing their market research to develop products to come out with

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: from Tom Ford.

Well, I mean that, that, that is, that is a compliment. That’s probably the ultimate compliment. Um,

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: I

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: mean,

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: if

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: you were not the first, and I should

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: be clear, like Tom Ford Beauty, the company, not Tom Ford. The, the individual stuff.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Oh, okay. Okay. I mean, even if you were not the first, I think you probably, I mean, your brand is, I think quite, um, quite visible.

So I think you, you definitely probably had a much bigger impact on this category from just from the branding and visibility perspective. Um, did you plan it that way, like. When you started out, were you more of the branding guy? Were you more of the product guy? Like how, kind of, how did you kind of approach launching this business, uh, into the market?

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: Yeah, so going all the way back then, like Beard brand as I said earlier, is, is generally to a certain degree, an extension of myself and, and the things that I find joy and uh, so obviously I enjoy having a beard and caring for a beard and developing products. Uh, I’ve been involved in the product development.

Uh, the big thing that beard brand does differently than a lot of our, well, I, I can’t speak for all of our competitors. There’s, uh, thousands of ’em literally, but, uh, we do fragrance for really well, and we tell the story of the fragrance really well. And, and I, I would say that I’m probably better than average at developing a story and then developing a fragrance that, that matches that story.

Um. And then, you know, like for me, I, I did like, I’m a self-taught graphic artist, uh, you know, played around in Photoshop and Illustrator and InDesign and, and my youth and, you know, kind of leveraged my own skills to develop our own website and develop like the, uh, I illustrated our beard logo. Um, of course the, the name Beard Brand bought the domain beard brand.com and.

So design’s been an important part of, of who I am. I, I enjoy design as well and, uh, we bootstrapped in the early days, so that meant I had to do more time intensive things than cash intensive things. So I spent a lot of time on social media. That’s where we developed our YouTube channel. Back then, we also had a Tumblr account.

Uh, spent a lot of time on Reddit, really just telling our story and. In the early days, like growing Beard brand was less about like, Hey, you know, here’s the business and we’re gonna build it this way. And it was more about, Hey, let’s do something and see how it goes. And if it doesn’t go well, that’s fine.

We will, we’ll wrap it up and focus our energies on other projects. Um, but if it does have legs, we’ll pursue that. And then as we saw, the business had more and more legs. We started to invest more energy and resources into it. My business partner came on, uh, board full time. We started hiring employees and, you know, took it to, um, the limits that we felt comfortable with.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: You mentioned that you have, uh, bootstrapped it and um, I believe you also mentioned you have three partners or, or so, um, two

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: partners.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Two partners. What was the initial investment and then what, what have been other investments and at what point did you kind of get to the realization that, you know, you are seeing something different, like in terms of growth?

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: Yeah, so our initial investment was $30 into a Shopify, um, plan, uh, subscription, I guess. And then. We actually were able to, to, we retailed a, uh, another company’s product to begin with. So we came to an agreement with them and, uh, our first orders came in before we received the product, uh, because we were quoted in a New York Times article.

So we wanted to get the website up, uh, before. So I hadn’t even received the products. Uh, certain orders started coming in and then that partner started shipping for us. So technically we were kind of a cash flow positive from the get go. Um, and then my business partners, uh, because it was like my idea, uh, they chipped in some money.

Uh, you know, total between the three of us, we’ve got less than $10,000, uh, into the business. And, uh. Yeah, it was just like if we made a dollar, we put it in and then I would say right around like $25,000 a month. It, it kind of felt like it could be real at the time. So my, my wife became pregnant with our first child within days of when Beardbrand launched.

In fact, I think it was about two weeks after Beardbrand launched. So I had a. Nine month runway where I had to show the viability of the business, or it was likely I needed to go back to mm uh, working for the man to, to support the family. So, um, each month was kind of like better than the last, I think by June or July we were hitting about 20 5K.

And then, uh, I think by October, November, I think by November of that year, that same year we hit 83 K. And that’s when we had like our first hire and, uh. I could, I could start working on it more and then eventually I, I would draw a salary out of it, I think, in the next year or something like that. But yeah, it was a fun, it was a fun, uh, ride that first year is certainly, I felt like a God’s gift to entrepreneurship.

And I think course a lot of that is, is timing and luck with that, that product market fit, where you have the right product, the right messaging to the right audience at the right time. Uh, which which is. You know, honestly speaking, having seen a lot of businesses over the years is, is really like, uh, what do they say?

Catching a genie in a bottle? Is that what they say?

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: For sure. Yeah. I mean, timing, timing. Lightning in a

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: bottle. Li lightning in a bottle.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah. Yeah. Um, I think there’s, you know, there’s always some. Some ma matter of luck Oh, yeah. In, in anything. Um, how do you, I mean, your company is an American company. Do you manufacture your products in the United States, or is it, uh, outsourced?

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: Yeah, so we, uh, all of our grooming products, which, uh, the oils, the balms, the pace, the sea salt sprays, all those are, uh, manufactured, uh, with contract manufacturers and. America, we will source, uh, like our bottles and our pumps from China. And then we do have, uh, products like these, uh, acetate combs that will be produced in Switzerland, um, or in Europe.

And, uh, like our brushes developed in, uh, Europe as well. And then we have some scissors that we produce in, uh, Taiwan. So, uh, most of the stuff that we move is, is manufactured here in America.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Um, who, um, in terms of competition, obviously as you said, you know, now you have hundreds of com competitors, right?

I I’m sure once, once something work, you know, everybody wants to get a piece of it. Um, is it, do you find that, uh, you’ve already carved your place in the market or do you, like, do you still see, are seeing growth year over year or are you finding it more and more difficult where, you know. More competitors are coming up with similar products and they’re kind of taking some share of the market.

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: Yeah, I mean, uh, certainly like if we were the only company in this space, we would be a much larger company. But competition is inevitable. I think the success and the growth of our company isn’t limited by our competition. I think it’s limited by our. Execution as an organization and the things that we do.

So I try not to spend too much time outside the, the business, thinking about outside of the business. ’cause at the end of the day, I can’t control what our con competitors do. I do need to be aware of it to, to make sure that we’re not just, you know, uh, not sharing compelling. Value propositions to our audience.

But, um, but we’ve, we’ve actually had a tough past couple years. Uh, it’s not been up to the right, which has, uh, made it more challenging and especially after being in a business so long, you wouldn’t expect it to hit, um, that laid into the business. But, but we hit it, uh, probably about 30 months ago. It’s, it’s been a, a real slog that we’ve been trying to get through it and, uh, there’s a lot of things that I can attribute to it, but.

Not, unfortunately, not one thing that I can pinpoint on it, but, um, I think the opportunity for us, if we can execute it, is, uh, nearly limitless now, you know, some of those executions might take, um, risks that we’re not willing to do, whether that being, you know, leveraging capital, leveraging outside funding, uh, you know, bringing on additional partners, things like that.

Not really quite ready for that kind of stuff. And, and maybe that does limit our growth, but it’s something that I’m okay with as well.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: But would you do that for like creating new products or like just more for marketing purposes, like bringing new capital?

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: No, no. I mean, so we self-fund everything. If we’ve got cash, then we’ll develop a new product, uh, or we will spend it on marketing.

And if we don’t have cash, then we’ve figured out a way to tighten up our belt and get more cash.

Okay. Um, I don’t, I

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: don’t like loans. Uh, we don’t have any debt. I don’t like running a business that way. It is hard for me to sleep at night with, uh, I mean, we’ll use credit cards because it’s, uh, functionally an easy way to, to buy things.

But we don’t keep a balance. We pay it off. Uh, so we don’t have any line of credits, anything like that.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: I mean, in terms of like growth, I think when you think about growth, like is it primarily going to come from like going after new products or new markets or like new categories? Like do you, uh, are you thinking about like, when you think from like, um, business perspective and growth, do you think about like going after new markets or new categories or really just.

Um, doubling down on the products that you already have and just, you know, maybe finding the audience that’s not using your products and going after them. Like how, how do you think about growth?

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: I mean, to, to answer your question, I think of it all of those ways. Um, strategically, depending on where we’re at in the business, it may have been different ways.

Um, in the early days when we only had like one or two SKUs. The focus was on developing more products to have a fuller product line. So if we did bring someone on board, uh, we could drive up that, that, you know, lifetime value and, uh, the average order value and things like that. But as our line has gotten more extensive, um, that will cover pretty much all your, your core grooming and styling needs.

Um, our focus has been more on like, how can we add a new channel? Uh, to the company and, and grow through those new channels. And there’s, there’s a ton of channels that we haven’t yet gone to that, you know, will give us opportunity for growth. So,

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: so I do see that you think of it both

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: ways.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: In terms of your channels, I’m, I’m assuming like of course your website is a big channel and then I’m sure you’re on Amazon and some of those channels.

I also see that you are. In some retail, uh, you have retail presence. Um, are you on like any big, uh, big in, in big store, um, chain stores within the US also?

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: Yeah, so that’s a sensitive, uh, subject. My friend Target dropped us a couple years ago, uh, in 2022, and, uh, we were in all their stores, uh, and selling quite well in those stores.

Uh, however, uh, they moved a different direction with, uh, how they’re sourcing or, or what companies they’re choosing to work from. And, uh, unfortunately we didn’t, we didn’t make that cut, so, um, that was kind of like one of the catalysts of us, like re uh, resizing our company when we lost that retailer. I do think that’s, uh, eventually that’s gonna be a, a major channel for us.

Uh, is retail. However, our products tend to be on the higher price point, which don’t really work for a lot of major retailers. Um, so it’s not something that, um, at the end of the day I am kind of like, okay, with Beard Brand being a, a niche company, where we, we serve our customers who tend to be. Uh, successful individuals who care about quality ingredients, who care about the products they have, and they also value grooming and have beards like those are our customers.

Um, your typical dude is, is probably not going to be drawn in to the value proposition that. Beard Brain does. You know, the amount of money that we invest into our ingredients and to our fragrances and into our packaging, uh, most guys really don’t care for that. Um, the market’s actually quite small for men’s grooming.

If you’re listening to this and you’re considering getting into men’s grooming, um, I would probably recommend a different category. It’s been really hard and, uh, my peers, uh, also share that sentiment. So. Women’s beauty, I think that market’s a little bit bigger.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Okay.

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: Wow. Very interesting.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Um. I, I would, I would assume, like when you started out, when you started out 10, 15 years ago, um, e-commerce looked different and e and marketing was different, online marketing.

Um, what ha what have you seen in your experience, how has kind of digital marketing, online marketing evolved, um, as you’ve grown over the years and. Are you leveraging different channels? Are you doing pay ads? Are you leveraging TikTok and other, other places like in terms of customer acquisition and so forth?

Can you talk a little bit about your marketing, how it has evolved and what’s working now?

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: Yeah. A lot has changed over the years. Uh, we’ve leaned heavily because we’re bootstrap, we’ve leaned heavily on what we call organic and within the organic category is going to be. Social media posts, there’s gonna be blog articles, um, email marketing, and uh, also like YouTube, long form content.

Uh, and then in the early days we, we did a fair bit of like PR outreach, um, that was our primary, primary growth channels in the early days. And, and frankly probably the things that we still do the best, um, we’ve branched out into. Facebook ads, which, you know, have gotten considerably harder over the years.

Uh, we, we probably should have in hindsight, you know, we probably should have put more resources to that, uh, years ago. And, and Amazon too. Uh, we didn’t really go onto Amazon until we lost Target and we moved the, the offering from. Our a target to, to Amazon. So, um, I think that was maybe a missed opportunity for us, uh, not building on on Amazon like we could have or should have.

And then, uh, you know, we, we tried to stay focused, so we narrowed it down to our online acquisition, just purely being meta. We, we dipped our toes in with X and TikTok, TikTok shops for a period of time, didn’t have a lot of success with those. And then, uh. You know, we’ve kind of had like on again, off again, relationship with Google Ads.

So, um, we’ve been off off with Google Ads for a period of time and now that we have a firmer grasp on our meta advertising, we’re looking at bringing Google ads, uh, back, back online.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. What does your team look like right now?

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: Well, I’m six foot five white with a big beard. Um, are you, are you

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: really six foot five?

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: Yeah. Yeah, I’m a really, wow, okay. No, but we’re, we’re pretty small. We got about, uh, 10 team members and we’re distributed, uh, well, I guess globally we’re dis, we’re distributed globally. Um, a few of those are part-time. Team members, but we try to keep the important things to us in house, which is gonna be our, our direction, our copywriting, our um, website management, and then, uh, our customer service.

And then, um, operations of course, and, uh, YouTube content creation. All that’s done in house. And then we’ll work with partners for, uh. Various things like whether it be like email low management or um, Amazon management. Um, those are our major firms that we work with.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. Um. In terms of, I mean, you, you did mention Shark Tank, uh, previously.

Um, was that at the earlier stages of your business? What was your experience like? Did you, uh, I’m assuming you didn’t get, you didn’t take the funding. Um, can you share a little bit about your Shark Tank experience?

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: Yeah. We, we aired on Shark Tank, uh, on Halloween, October 31st, 2014. So we were. Uh, when I recorded, we were about 18 months into the business, and then when we aired it was about what, what is that, 20, 21 months, something like that.

And, um, you know, it, it was geez, man, 11 years ago. So I would imagine how things go on Shark Tank are, are probably a little bit different. Is is the show still on? I, I don’t, I don’t watch the show, so I

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: think, I think it’s still on. Yeah. But it was.

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: I, I think it was great, you know, it was a great experience.

You, you do a lot of preparation. You work on your pitch, and then you get in there and you negotiate with, uh, great entrepreneurs and you hope that you tell a story in a way that resonates with, uh, the producers, that they want to share the story, and then you hope that they edit it in a way that, you know, portrays it, the experience fairly.

Um. Of course there’s always gonna be my perception of it and the camera’s perception of it, and the producers. But I, I felt like my time in there was a fairly accurate representation. ’cause they’re, they’re cutting 45 minutes or an hour down to, to six minutes. So they’re, they’ve gotta cut a lot from it.

Uh, so I did feel like they, uh, did a pretty good job of, of that. And unfortunately for me, or, uh. Oddly to me, like none of ’em saw a market for people growing beard. So I think they, uh, missed the boat on that one. Hmm. Uh, so we didn’t even get an offer to turn down. Uh, however, you know, I left the show they were, and they put it in the edit as well, that, uh, they were kind and, uh, spoke highly of, of, uh, beard brand and, and what we’re building.

So it was a good experience.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Okay, awesome. Um, in terms of your fulfillment and shipping strategy, can you talk a little bit about, you know, how you warehouse your products and like, do you ship from a single warehouse? Do you u utilize uh, third party logistics? Uh, can you talk a little bit about your fulfillment and shipping?

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: Yeah, yeah. Uh, talking of, uh, our partners, we do partner with a, a third party logistics of three pl. They’re located here in the Austin area. Um, and we’ve worked with a variety of three pls over the years. I, I never, I think the one downside of e-commerce and shipping is that if you do plan to do that in-house and your goals are freedom shipping is one of the few things that.

Can be limiting because you get an order and you gotta send it out. So to me, as someone who’s driven to freedom, the idea of working with a third party was, was always pretty important to us. Um, we’ve gone through a few different partners over the years and most of ’em have been great and then neither, like we outgrew them or, uh, our business changed and, um, we had different needs.

Um. So we, our, our current partner, we’ve been with him for, I don’t know, I guess about a half a year now. Uh, and they’ve been a great partner for us, really hands on more of a, like a boutique, a small company. He, he only has a co a handful of clients so we can wrap up our orders in a way that. Meets our expectations and standards.

You know, it’s a little more kind of like a white glove experience that our customers are gonna get versus, you know, maybe one of these major fulfillment partners where they just throw something in a box without mm-hmm. You know, the, the same kind of care and consideration that, that we need as a higher end retailer.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Does, does the customer in this, uh, category have any expectations around like, speed, like, you know, the, the, the need the product, like one or two days, uh, you know, after they place the order or something? Like, have you, have you, um, I. Is there anything like, I mean, because to me it doesn’t seem like this is a product where the customer would care if they are receiving it the next day or something.

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: I mean, there’s always gonna be situations where people have a higher urgency to receive the product quickly. Maybe they’re traveling, they’re going out of town. Um. We do ship on Amazon, so in theory, they could get those products pretty quickly. I would say my recommendation to most e-commerce brands out there, especially those trying to build on their own website or through a platform like Shopify, is that the, the, the demands for a customer to be getting everything the next day or within a couple days is probably, you know.

Higher. You think it’s higher than it actually is? I think the customers have a lot of tolerance to wait for the right product when they are being intentional with what they’re buying. So if it’s a commodity item like toilet paper or Kleenexes or something like that, yeah, they want it tomorrow because they could just get that from A two B.

But if it’s something that is going to be. More tailored to their needs. So, um, something that really speaks to them from a niche perspective, they’re going to wait, uh, for that product because they want that product, and that product’s gonna bring more value to their lives. So I, as an entrepreneur, wouldn’t recommend that, uh, operators get too concerned with how quickly the packages arrive to their customers.

With that being said, we do strive to ship things out. Very rapidly, like within 24 hours. Um, we’re on Shopify. Shopify has a thing called Shop Promise that has metrics with, uh, how many orders go out with tracking information. How many orders go out within, you know, 24 hours. How many orders get received within five days.

And, uh. What the cost of the, the shipping is. Do you have affordable shipping? And for us, we, we, we check all those boxes so that, uh, Shopify can display the shop promise, uh, badge icon on their stores. And our customers know they can get it pretty quickly.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. What have you learned about your customers?

Obviously you said that you know, that this is a specific kind of a audience who is focused on their, you know, I guess Baird beard grooming, and obviously your value proposition is around fragrances and things like this. Have you learned anything interesting about your, um, audience, your customers, uh, that kind of surprised you or, um.

Was interesting.

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: Yeah, I mean, I think, um, I, I’ve got a pretty good relationship with our customers because we have our YouTube channel. We’ll see the comments. We do live streams, so we’ll see our customers in there pretty regularly. We also developed our own private community called The Alliance, which is built on discourse, uh, forum software, and I’m in there all the time chatting with them, seeing their faces, seeing what they look like.

You know, kind of learning their, their core values. At the end of the day, I think they’re drawn to Beard Graham because of what we stand for and, and our core values, freedom, hunger, and trust, and, and how we, you know, strive to, uh. You know, inspire people to become better versions of themselves. And, uh, so they tend to be like that.

They, they tend to be, uh, self investment focused. They tend to be a little bit older. Um, and, and maybe they were late into growing their first beard. Um, so they are very much like that urban professional we call urban beards. Um. And, uh, frankly, in my opinion, uh, they’re quite bad asses. Like, I could hang out with my customers all day long.

I can’t imagine having a business and selling to customers you, you don’t really connect with or resonate with. Uh, we put on like in-person events from time to time and, uh, we hang out, we do calls together and, uh, they’re damn good looking too because they’ve been, uh, watching our videos and staying on top of, uh.

There’s the style and grooming routine. Also, we have our barbershop, so I’ll see ’em come in there, uh, as well. But, you know, at the end of the day, like, um, you know, like fragrance is subjective, so I’ll, I will never be able to make a fragrance that is universally love by everyone, you know. So what I try to do is, you know, portray it as accurately as possible so that, uh, our customers can self-select to the fragrance that they feel like they’re gonna resonate with.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. Um, I mean, I I, it would be interesting if in the future there, there’s a technology that allows people to like, smell the fragrance through the computer. I think that’ll be quite, quite interesting. Um,

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: I mean, we, we choose to use natural ingredients that I think have. More complex notes to ’em than anything that technology would ever allow you to do.

And, and subsequently what we try to do is just really make it clear. If you don’t like it, we’ll get you your money back. Like there’s, there’s gonna be no loss to you. So we know it’s subjective and, uh, because of that, we’re, we’re happy to facilitate any kind of exchanges or re returns.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: That’s a pretty, pretty good value proposition, I think in the e-commerce world.

I mean, if, if you say, you know, if you don’t like it, you know, we’ll give you your money back. I think that that’s, I think that’s a pretty good value proposition. Um,

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: yeah, I mean, like I think pretty much everyone does that though, so it’s not as unique. Uh, I mean maybe the cheap, cheap guys, uh, on, on Amazon can’t or won’t do that, but.

Most, most companies, this seem to be very, in my opinion, probably are pretty customer forward. Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know. I, I don’t buy as many things as maybe I should.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: I know you mentioned freedom a few times, and I know that, um, the people who are entrepreneurially minded, I think pretty much everybody wants more freedom.

Whether they, whether they, you’d be

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: surprised by that. I, I don’t think that’s the case. Really? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, uh, if, if the government lockdowns of the past, what, four years ago was any indication, there are plenty of people who are very, very fine with being locked up and just being quote unquote safe.

Yeah. I think most people, in fact, I would say most people do not seek out freedom.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Hmm. Interesting. I mean, but, uh, but people who are entrepreneurially oriented, I think their, their primary, uh. Impulse is freedom. Um, yeah,

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: I would agree with that statement.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah. How, what have you been able to do as you know, being a business owner, an entrepreneur, um, how has it kind of changed your life where, you know, how have you achieved that freedom in your life?

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: Yeah. So to me, um, life is about doing the things that you want to do. With the people that you want to do ’em with, when you want to do that, obviously in, in that regard, if you’re gonna be with people, there’s always gonna be like a give and take. Like what my wife and my kids want may not be what I want.

So there’s always you, you’re never gonna have like ultimate freedom, you know? That’s a, that’s a false god. Um, so what it means in application is, you know, our, our team is remote, so I get to work anywhere and everywhere. Um, we’ve made decisions that allow us to, to kind of work, uh, remotely and then also we can work asynchronously.

Um, so we’re able to, we do have some daily meetings, but I’m not keeping track of everyone’s time card to see when they’re clocking and clocking out. Uh, so our team has a lot of autonomy with, with how they do their, their day and how they operate and they, you know, when they get in their flow state and when they’re most efficient.

And then for me also, like outside of work, uh, my family and I, we go to Denmark ev as many times as we could, or pretty much every summer we will be going back This summer it’ll be our sixth time and, uh, a number of years and, and just kind of, we’ll, we’ll spend a month over there and work remotely. And we find that really rewarding and I’ve been able to travel the world, uh, meet people all around, go to conferences.

Uh, go on men’s retreats, things like that. Those are pretty important to me and be as much as possible, be involved in my, my children’s lives as they grow up and recognize that one day they’re, they’re gonna be out of this house and we will get a lot quieter.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Hmm. In terms of your, the future vision for your business, do you ever think about an exit strategy or like.

Do you, I mean, is this kind of your life’s work? Do you want just want to, uh, continue growing and pursuing it?

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: Yeah. I mean, o of course you, you can’t be in business without asking yourself that question so that you know how to answer it. Obviously, I’ve been doing this for, uh, what, 12 or 13 years now? Um, and there’s been.

You know, if, if I wanted to grow and sell it, I, I probably would’ve done it by now. Um, I do strive to, uh, build a business where I enjoy the journey, and I feel like if you build a business where you enjoy the journey, the the needs of selling the business. Are much lower. It’s not to say that I won’t ever sell, but uh, ’cause I can’t predict the future.

However, if I’m doing my job right, I’m enjoying the business. I’m enjoying the things we’re working on. Uh, the business is healthy and paying, uh, the bills, uh, excuse me. Um. So that’s the goal. You know, I think the goal is to, to maintain the business. It is, as I’ve said a few times in this episode, partly an extension of myself.

So I get to work on things I enjoy, and then if there’s someone at the company I don’t enjoy working with, you know, I have the power to make that change. Or if there’s something about the company I don’t like. Working on, uh, I have that power to, to make the change. And sometimes you, you can’t make the change and you just have to suffer for a period of times.

You know, like, uh, you just have to suffer until things get right again. Or like, for instance, we got sued a couple years ago and we had the lawsuit, and it’s not like I could. Uh, we had to go through the process and, uh, you know, these things just take time. So sometimes that’s part of owning a business and, and knowing the, the trade-offs that you get with owning a business versus working for a man.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Well, that’s, I mean. Being sued is never a pleasant experience, I guess. Um, so that, that, I’ll, I’ll ask you the next question, which, um, you know, in every entrepreneur’s journey there’s always failures, mistakes learn, you know, mistakes made, lessons learned. Um, what has been like, uh, one or two big things in your entrepreneur journey where, which was either a failure or mistake or, you know, lesson learned for you?

Um, what was. Your lesson, what did you learn? What can other entrepreneurs learn from your mistakes?

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: Yeah, I mean, uh, I, I’ve got my own podcast called E-Commerce Conversations, and I did a solo episode where I talked about my, uh. My challenging year, it was a 30 minute episode, so I’ll try not to, to, to give you a 30 minute version of, of all the mistakes that I’ve made, which, uh, are, are certainly more than that.

I think I would say that the, the, the biggest mistake I made in the early days was our hiring process, uh, in developing a, a proper hiring process built around the idea of traction, which is basically setting the expectation. You’re going to do a reference check. At every step of the interview process.

And then at the end of the interview process, you actually do a reference check, uh, really helps screen out, uh, kind of like the, the c and d, uh, candidates and leaves you with, uh, B and ASS to choose from. And that’s been, uh, a great experience for us. Like our youngest tenured employee right now is about five years.

So we really haven’t had that same burden of hiring, um, like we did in the past. And then, uh. You know, from there, it’s like strategic decisions that you make in the business that sometimes you get right or wrong, you know, you just kind of miss the mark. So I, I don’t really call those, like, I would say they’re, they’re, they’re wins even though they’re losses.

Like if, if we get the, you know. Packaging wrong or the sizing wrong, or the website design wrong. You know, at the end of the day, the right thing was taking the risk and trying to figure out a way to improve the business. And, you know, maybe it does step us back a little bit, but the way we grow at Beard Brand historically has kind of been two steps forward, one step back.

Uh, and, and we’ve been doing that, you know, for, for 13 years. And, and, and I’m, I’m perfectly content with that, uh, because. Without a little bit of risk. I think eventually you may grow, grow, grow, grow, and then you hit this wall where you’ll never be able to grow because you never exercise that muscle of taking risk and doing something differently, and then you just begin that slow decline down.

So yeah, I don’t know. There you go. Two mistakes.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. Of the mini. Uh, no, that that was, that was great. Um, now I’m going to move on to our rapid fire segment. In this segment I’m going to ask you a few quick questions and you have to answer them maybe in a couple of words or a sentence or so. So the first one is one book recommendation for entrepreneurs and why.

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: Hmm. I always recommend the book Eat People. I don’t read a lot, uh, but it was basically an idea of how to stay lean as you grow, grow a business. Innovative product. Andy Kessler. Andy Kessler is the author.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Andy Kes. Andy Kessler Eat people. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a cannibal book. Okay. An innovative product or idea in the current e-commerce retail or tech landscape that you feel excited about?

Well,

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: I mean obviously Beard Brand is, uh, quite innovative products in the the beard care space in the e-commerce. But products that, uh, we use, um. I’m a board advisor to judge, judge me their review software. I think they’re a great little company. Another like inexpensive tool that we use is gonna be grapevine for post-purchase surveys.

There’s a lot more, but we will keep it short.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Okay. A business or productivity tool or software that you would recommend or a productivity tip?

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: Yeah. I’ve been using gr. A lot lately, which is, uh, X’s AI platform. Uh, I find it, it is, you know, mostly good.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah, I, you know, I, I keep like grok open in one window and then chat GPT, and then I have the Google’s Gemini.

And I find, you know, sometimes I test, I find grok to be good in some things, whereas chat, GPT is good in other things. So I think they’re all growing. I think they’re still, AI is still in its early phase. I think there’s, uh, there’s more to come. Um, this is gonna

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: be, uh, the future is bright.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah, a startup or business in another, uh, you know, not your business, another startup or business in e-commerce, retail or tech that you think is currently doing great things?

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: Um,

I would say there’s a company called Breeze. Uh, I pronounce Abre, BREZ. Uh, they, they’re in the cannabis, uh, drinking. Space and I’ve seen them do well and they’re one of the brands that I’ve seen, you know, adjacent people who aren’t in my little circle buy the product. So whenever that happens pretty regularly, uh, I would, I would assume that they’re, they’re making waves.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So you drink this drink and you feel a little bit elevated?

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They, they also have like, um, like a mushroom infused one as well. Okay. Like a neurotropic. So it is not necessarily all, not necessarily that all their products are about, you know, uh, alcohol replacement. Okay.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Uh, a peer entrepreneur or business person whom you look up to or someone who inspires you.

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: Hmm. I’ve got a lot of people who I look up to. Um, probably the most direct person that I wish I could be or wish I could build a business like is Tobias Van Schneider of Sim Police and My Mind and Carbon Made. He’s a brilliant entrepreneur, beautiful design, beautiful taste. Very thoughtful individual and uh, a generally just awesome dude.

So,

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: awesome. Final question, best business advice that you have ever received or you would give to other entrepreneurs?

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: Yeah, so, uh, this little sign, you can’t read it here, that says hater’s gonna hate. I think, uh, as an entrepreneur, you’re gonna get a lot of people who tell you your ideas are dumb. They don’t get it.

They don’t understand it. Sometimes you just gotta think about this fat little guy walking around thinking to himself that haters are going to hate. And you do your own thing as you build your business because nobody’s gonna understand your vision like you are. And, uh, hopefully you can convince people to get on board with your vision, but you don’t have to convince everyone.

So you can just tell ’em, Hey, there’s gonna hate keep on moving.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. I mean, that’s, that’s a, that’s a great, uh, advice I think these days. I mean, I think that that’s people’s general nature, right? So you’ll, you’ll come across all sorts of people. Well, Eric, thank you so much again for sharing your story, for sharing your business, uh, advice, lessons, failures.

Um, if anybody wants to check out your products, what’s the best way to do that?

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: Yeah. Uh, head over to beardbrand.com. Uh, at worst you need to be subscribed to our newsletter to see how amazing our copywriting and our email flows are. And at best, you need to get yourself a couple hundred dollars worth of Beardbrand products.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. By the way. Um, do you, do you get a lot of conversions from your e email copy?

Eric Bandholz of BeardBrand: I mean, a lot is such a tangible thing, but email drives a significant portion of our revenue. Yes.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. Well, uh, Eric, thank you so much again for your time, for, for sharing, uh, your story. Really, really appreciate it and wish you and beer brand all the very best.

Thanks for having me on.