In 2016 David Gaylord was a Shopify worker on the lookout for a facet hustle. Then he got here up with a cool concept: skincare lotions for hair elimination alongside bikini traces. The enterprise identify was even funkier: Bushbalm.
Quick ahead to 2023, and Bushbalm is booming, promoting lotions and trimmers on to hundreds of shoppers and wholesale to Ulta Magnificence and three,000 waxing salons. It spends a whopping $200,000 per 30 days on Fb adverts.
In our current dialog, I requested Gaylord about gross sales channels, advertising, and, sure, the identify. The audio for your entire dialogue is embedded under. 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 deal with 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 fashionable.
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 corresponding to 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 concept. It took us 4 years to achieve traction. We didn’t stop our jobs till 2021. We have been solely bootstrapped and stay that approach in the present day.
Throughout the 4 years, we spent little or no on advertising. We did an Etsy present, which was good for speaking to of us and studying what they needed to say about us. After we spoke about “pubic oil,” they stated, “That’s disgusting.” We tried “bush oil,” and so they didn’t like that both. We acquired extra into skincare and requested questions like, “Do you get waxed? You in all probability have irritation.” They usually’d say, “Yeah, completely.” In order that’s the place we targeted the enterprise. In 2020 and 2021, we pushed exhausting on Fb adverts. Within the final two years, we’ve leaned away from that. However we nonetheless spend not less than $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 have been like, “You’re not employed.” A whole lot of of us we discuss to understand that we’re blunt. The model is sort of in your face with our TikTok channel. Typically, one in 100 individuals will say, “That’s gross.” The opposite 99% say, “Why is it gross? Everyone has these considerations.” So, I believe the identify’s fairly highly effective long-term.
Bandholz: You’re exploring brick and mortar, organising your individual 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 enormous 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 individuals use them. We’ve been extra keen on the content material facet. We don’t do a lot on YouTube. We do lots of TikTok and Instagram, however having an in-store house is one thing we’re attempting 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 fashion as CVS, Walgreens, Goal, and Walmart. 5 years in the past, the taboo was so sturdy 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 best way for the taboo to go away.
Bandholz: Stroll us by your content material manufacturing.
Gaylord: We now have a number of of us 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 great. 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, lots of it’s sourced from content material producers. The most effective factor we’ve finished is ask photographers to subsidize photograph shoots. They get photographs, and we get photographs. All the things works out. Acquiring movies that approach is difficult, but it surely works for images.
We’ll purchase content material from of us. Communication fashion, character, and leisure are so essential. It’s extra intriguing to observe alongside an individual’s journey as an alternative of, for example, the artwork of doing a leg wax. That sort of video is likely to be fascinating, however constructing a personality or persona to develop a model does higher.
The iOS and Fb privateness adjustments have been a straightforward hurdle for us. We’ve acquired 3,000 wholesale accounts, with one salesperson and one account supervisor. So it’s a super-efficient lead and really automated. Of us are keen to seek out one thing that works. There aren’t any distributors for it both. So it’s very area of interest. The U.S. has 10 occasions 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 nicely.
Bandholz: Do you are concerned about promoting attribution and monitoring?
Gaylord: On the wholesale facet, it’s exhausting 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 realizing in the event that they’re working.
Bandholz: The place can individuals assist you?
Gaylord: Our web site is Bushbalm.com. We’re on Amazon and Ulta. I’m on LinkedIn.
