Introduce your business and tell us your story: How did you decide on what to sell, and how did you source your products?
I was extremely excited when I started growing facial hair, but I quickly discovered that grooming was a very messy and time consuming task. I figured there had to be something out there that could make things easier, but there wasn't.
One day, after few glasses of wine, the idea hit me!
I got my sketchbook out and started drawing the initial concept. Then i started cutting, gluing and stapling any random material I could find to form the concept I had in my mind. It was hideous, but it worked!
How did you earn your first sales? Which channels are now generating the most traffic and sales for you?
We have a unique connection with our online community and have been able to create compelling, emotion-filled, and share-worthy content. Through this method we have been able to acquire customers by word of mouth.
Our largest distribution channel is direct-to-consumer through our website. We have a lot of interest from wholesale and distributors worldwide, but we wanted to first focus on organically growing our online channel. We’re confident we can add a business model to help strategically break into the wholesale and distributor channels.
Tell us about the back-end of your business. What tools and apps do you use to run your store? How do you handle shipping and fulfillment?
ShipStation, StoreMapper, Sales Motivator, Supple Wholesale, and more. We use ShipStation to process orders and fulfill them in house.
What are your top recommendations for new store owners?
First and foremost, you really need to focus on developing the message and brand experience you want to create for your customers. Once you develop your core brand identity you need to create a storefront online. The first thing I would recommend is getting a trial version of Shopify. From a brand developer background we quickly learned the value Shopify brought to the table. You can then begin to build out your store as you go, minimizing investment risk.