In 2016 David Gaylord was a Shopify worker on the lookout for a aspect hustle. Then he got here up with a cool thought: skincare lotions for hair removing alongside bikini traces. The enterprise identify was funkier: Bushbalm.
Quick ahead to 2023, and Bushbalm is booming, promoting lotions and trimmers on to 1000’s of customers and wholesale to Ulta Magnificence and three,000 waxing salons. It spends a whopping $200,000 per 30 days on Fb adverts.
In our latest dialog, I requested Gaylord about gross sales channels, advertising, and, sure, the identify. Your entire audio of our dialogue is embedded beneath. The transcript is edited for readability and size.
Eric Bandholz: Inform us what you do.
David Gaylord: I’m the co-founder and CEO of Bushbalm. We give attention to bikini line skincare — below-the-belt merchandise for ingrown hairs for razor burn. We even have a trimmer for down there. Our main enterprise is skincare, whether or not oils, exfoliants, or serums. We now have a hydrogel masks referred to as The Vajacial, which is sort of widespread.
We launched in 2016. Earlier than, I labored in my household enterprise in Canada promoting hardwood flooring. After I was in college, my dad needed to strive ecommerce. I believed it was ridiculous. However I did what he stated and checked out platforms reminiscent of BigCommerce and Magento. We selected Shopify as a result of it was Canadian.
4 years later, I graduated from college and acquired a job at Shopify. From there, my companions and I began Bushbalm as a cool thought. It took us 4 years to realize traction. We didn’t give up our jobs till 2021. We had been completely bootstrapped and stay that method as we speak.
In the course of the 4 years, we spent little or no on advertising. We did an Etsy present, which was good for speaking to people and studying what they needed to say about us. Once we spoke about “pubic oil,” they stated, “That’s disgusting.” We tried “bush oil,” they usually didn’t like that both. We acquired extra into skincare and requested questions like, “Do you get waxed? You in all probability have irritation.” And so they’d say, “Yeah, completely.” In order that’s the place we centered the enterprise. In 2020 and 2021, we pushed laborious on Fb adverts. Within the final two years, we’ve leaned away from that. However we nonetheless spend at the least $200,000 on Fb month-to-month.
Bandholz: Do you get a lot friction with the identify of Bushbalm?
Gaylord: We interviewed somebody for a job right here who stated, “I believe you guys ought to change the identify. And we had been like, “You’re not employed.” Quite a lot of people we speak to understand that we’re blunt. The model is type of in your face with our TikTok channel. Typically, one in 100 folks will say, “That’s gross.” The opposite 99% say, “Why is it gross? Everyone has these considerations.” The identify’s fairly highly effective long-term.
Bandholz: You’re exploring brick and mortar, organising your personal salons.
Gaylord: We’re about 50% direct-to-consumer, after which 25% is wholesale from promoting to about 3,000 waxing salons. We’re additionally in Ulta Magnificence, the large retailer, and Amazon.
We’re trying to double down in our personal physical-store waxing salons. We’re not right here to construct 100 salons and be an enormous chain. In a studio, we’ll study extra concerning the merchandise and the way folks use them. We’ve been extra keen on the content material aspect. We don’t do a lot on YouTube. We do quite a lot of TikTok and Instagram, however having an in-store house is one thing we’re making an attempt to determine.
We now have a wonderful path to long-term wholesale development. Ulta Magnificence was the primary domino to fall. They’re superior. What’s good about Ulta is the shave part we’re in, which is mainly the identical model as CVS, Walgreens, Goal, and Walmart. 5 years in the past, the taboo was so robust that nobody can be round us due to the identify. Now everybody’s like, yeah, that’s cool, you guys are funky. I believe Manscaped, for male hygiene, paved the way in which for the taboo to go away.
Bandholz: Stroll us by way of your content material manufacturing.
Gaylord: We now have a couple of people on our group who join with waxing salons and movie content material, or we’ll pay the salons for a photograph and video shoot. Often, 80% of the stuff doesn’t work, however 20% is superb. We’re trying to scale. The necessity for content material these days is insane. It’s the toughest a part of Fb adverts.
We employed a part-time in-house aesthetician, a skincare professional. That has been an incredible addition. She helps us with content material. In any other case, quite a lot of it’s sourced from content material producers. The very best factor we’ve carried out is ask photographers to subsidize photograph shoots. They get pictures, and we get pictures. All the pieces works out. Obtaining videos that method is difficult, nevertheless it works for images.
We’ll purchase content material from people. Communication model, character, and leisure are so vital. It’s extra intriguing to comply with alongside an individual’s journey as an alternative of, for example, the artwork of doing a leg wax. That kind of video may be fascinating, however constructing a personality or persona to develop a model does higher.
The iOS and Facebook privacy changes had been a simple hurdle for us. We’ve acquired 3,000 wholesale accounts, with one salesperson and one account supervisor. It’s a super-efficient lead and really automated. Of us are keen to seek out one thing that works. There are not any distributors for it both — it’s very area of interest. The U.S. has 10 instances extra waxing and nail salons than Starbucks shops. I believe it’s 330,000 salons, which is mind-blowing.
Direct-to-consumer was about 95% of the enterprise three years in the past; now it’s 50%. So we’re rising far more on this skilled channel. And Ulta is doing effectively.
Bandholz: Do you are worried about promoting attribution and monitoring?
Gaylord: On the wholesale aspect, it’s laborious as a result of once we promote on Fb for our Ulta enterprise, we don’t get gross sales information for per week — each Monday at 8:00 a.m. So we may run Fb adverts on a brand new launch at Ulta with out figuring out in the event that they’re working.
Bandholz: The place can folks help you?
Gaylord: Our web site is Bushbalm.com. We’re on Amazon and Ulta. I’m on LinkedIn.
