It appears apparent in hindsight: People with tattoos have distinctive skincare wants. However go away it to a few new school graduates to see what nobody else did and launch a direct-to-consumer skincare firm for that viewers.
That was in 2019, when Drew Fallon joined two of his Miami College (Ohio) buddies who had created a aspect hustle known as Mad Rabbit. “We had one product, one social web site, and one promoting channel,” Fallon informed me.
Two years later, the corporate hit $3 million in annual gross sales — nonetheless as a aspect hustle. That’s when the three founders left their full-time jobs to be, as Fallon places it, the final word in tattoos.
He and I not too long ago mentioned the rise of Mad Rabbit. Your complete audio of our dialog is embedded beneath. The transcript is edited for readability and size.
Eric Bandholz: Give us a fast rundown of your organization.
Drew Fallon: Mad Rabbit is the primary direct-to-consumer tattoo skincare firm. Our merchandise assist people’ tattoo ink keep vibrant and contemporary for so long as attainable. We offer options to mass-produced merchandise which might be typically dangerous to tattooed pores and skin.
We launched as a aspect hustle in 2019, the identical yr my two co-founders and I graduated from Miami College in Ohio. All of us had full-time jobs for about two years after graduating. Throughout that point, we went from zero to $3 million in income with one product, one social web site, and one promoting channel.
Within the winter of 2021, we determined to do that full-time. The three of us are actually 25. We’re early in our tattoo journeys, and so is our main buyer. Many are 25 to 30 years outdated with solely a few tattoos. However tattoos might be addictive. Folks get one, and so they are likely to get extra.
Bandholz: How do you attain $3 million as a aspect hustle?
Fallon: For one, my co-founder Selom nailed Instagram adverts, which was our solely paid promotion. He did an unimaginable job. Our first Google Advert got here in 2021, the identical yr as our first Amazon sale.
But it surely primarily got here right down to giving individuals one thing that didn’t exist.
Bandholz: You went from a way of life model to hyper-growth.
Fallon: We have been worthwhile solely with out the wage expense of three staff. By late 2020, we had simply completed filming on Shark Tank. We didn’t know if it was going to air. We have been within the technique of closing a $500,000 cope with Mark Cuban. He’s now our largest investor, having participated in subsequent financing rounds.
We launched our soothing gel in January 2021. It bought effectively. Then we created a sunscreen in March, which went berserk. We bought 10,000 models in every week. At that time, we stated, “It is a particular alternative. We now have two choices. We will hold coasting, or we are able to pursue essentially the most of what this might develop into.” We went with the latter.
We’re constructing a model to be the final word in tattoos — approach past skincare. However constructing a model is pricey. It requires loads of funding. We determined to go for it and confronted little or no competitors.
Bandholz: I assume most of your clients are girls.
Fallon: Sure. That’s appropriate — about 55% feminine. Initially we had extra male clients, however our feminine viewers grew as we launched extra merchandise. Ladies have a tendency to purchase extra skincare items. We’re going by means of a model refresh now to de-emphasize the masculine vibe. We’re switching to white packaging, too.
The tattoo tradition is various. My 18-year-old sister has three tattoos. Harley Davidson riders have many tattoos. Cooks are into tattoos, as are athletes.
Talking to every phase is a chance we haven’t cracked. We method everybody as in the event that they have been the identical. However we’re hiring individuals with segmentation expertise to construct totally different buying cadences.
For instance, a feminine would possibly purchase the balm and take a look at the sunscreen two months later. However a male would possible buy sunscreen first after which strive the physique wash.
Bandholz: You talked about Fb Adverts. How did Mad Rabbit react to the iOS 14.5 monitoring?
Fallon: In April 2021, about 85% of our advertising spend was on Instagram. When iOS hit that Could, it was just like the practice got here off the rails. We didn’t know what was taking place. Our gross sales mirrored not solely the iOS change however the provide chain scarcity.
Quick ahead to 2022. We’re spending extra money on social than ever however at higher advertising effectivity ratios. Plus we did two huge pivots.
First, we did an equity-for-services cope with Inked, a web-based journal. They’ve about 60 million followers throughout their social media channels. They completely and aggressively promoted our model, merchandise, and content material throughout these channels in change for proudly owning a part of our firm. That exploded the highest of the funnel for us.
The second factor was TikTok. We now have TikTok movies within the final six months with over 20 million views and 400,000 followers. They too have generated a large top-of-funnel impact.
With hundreds of thousands of views from TikTok and Inked, our Fb Adverts began working once more. We scaled Fb in January 2022, and we’ve been rising month-over-month since then.
Fb now drives a whole lot of our gross sales, as evidenced by our attribution modeling. We take day by day promoting by channel and day by day gross sales on our web site and Amazon and do a easy linear regression in Excel. We will discern that Fb remains to be driving a ton of our gross sales, together with Amazon.
Bandholz: The place can individuals observe and assist you?
Fallon: Try our web site and Amazon retailer, or observe Mad Rabbit on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Fb, Pinterest, or YouTube. I’m on Twitter and LinkedIn.
