00:00.530 –> 00:01.852
[SPEAKER_00]: We are not e-commerce experts.

00:02.152 –> 00:04.856
[SPEAKER_00]: We are three guys who had an idea about board skincare.

00:05.137 –> 00:10.604
[SPEAKER_00]: So, as we build this business, yeah, we’re starting to onboard more and more in-house talent.

00:10.945 –> 00:14.670
[SPEAKER_00]: I think a lot of founders fall into the trap of trying to do everything themselves.

00:15.191 –> 00:17.074
[SPEAKER_00]: If you get good agencies, they can be invaluable.

00:19.790 –> 00:22.173
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s the e-commerce master plan podcast.

00:22.734 –> 00:26.800
[SPEAKER_02]: Here to help you solve your marketing problems and grow your e-commerce business.

00:27.321 –> 00:35.172
[SPEAKER_02]: Cutting through the highly to bring you inspiration and advice from the e-commerce sector and beyond, here’s your host, Chloe Thomas.

00:38.465 –> 00:39.566
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello and welcome.

00:39.586 –> 00:40.628
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s great to have you here.

00:40.688 –> 00:44.973
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for hitting play and choosing to listen to this inspiring guest.

00:45.534 –> 00:58.189
[SPEAKER_01]: We are going into the world of men’s grooming and we are going to be talking to a CEO and co-founder of a fascinating men’s skin care business all focused on the bald head.

00:58.909 –> 01:22.523
[SPEAKER_01]: With the real purpose behind the business, amazing community, we’ll be getting into why they didn’t do a kickstarter and self-funded instead, we’ll be talking about their recent launch on Amazon, skew strategy, warehousing strategy, should you insource or outsource your marketing expertise loads of cool stuff and he’s also sharing some really interesting bits and pieces in the top tips too.

01:28.988 –> 01:30.930
[SPEAKER_01]: And now to introduce our special guest.

01:31.370 –> 01:35.293
[SPEAKER_01]: Tarek Kazimi is the co-founder and CEO at Bald Bro.

01:35.754 –> 01:39.017
[SPEAKER_01]: A British skincare brand championing Bald Confidence.

01:39.477 –> 01:47.083
[SPEAKER_01]: Founded in 2021, they did £3.5 million last year and are growing fast via their Shopify store and Amazon.

01:47.183 –> 01:48.104
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello Tarek.

01:48.785 –> 01:49.245
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, Glowy.

01:49.686 –> 01:52.128
[SPEAKER_01]: Very cool to have you here and what a story.

01:52.788 –> 01:53.209
[SPEAKER_01]: Love it.

01:53.729 –> 01:55.811
[SPEAKER_01]: How did you get started in e-commerce though?

01:56.528 –> 02:07.455
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, even before Bullbroke had a little bit of a background in e-commerce and operations, I had a startup in the golf that I started in 2012, and we slowly built that up.

02:08.075 –> 02:11.737
[SPEAKER_00]: And actually, Bullbroke came about more as a passion project.

02:12.017 –> 02:15.640
[SPEAKER_00]: I like many people shaved my head during over lockdown.

02:16.060 –> 02:19.102
[SPEAKER_00]: I finally got tired of that ball spot and decided to embrace it.

02:19.222 –> 02:20.843
[SPEAKER_00]: But it had been quite a journey.

02:21.823 –> 02:43.155
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone, a friend of mine, reached out, Richard was also a co-founder and said, friend of his Ben, the other co-founder, had had an idea to create a community that would just champion baldness push against the narrative that exists in society, that there’s something wrong with being bald or that you have to cure something when actually it’s a completely natural process.

02:43.575 –> 02:46.917
[SPEAKER_00]: And we just wanted to create a little corner of the internet that was positive and

02:47.657 –> 02:58.333
[SPEAKER_00]: We did have a, you know, I had an e-commerce background, we will have some sort of commercial background and we’d sort of seem that there wasn’t really any brands that dealt with Bulltaking care.

02:58.733 –> 03:03.260
[SPEAKER_00]: When you go bald, all the things they tell you are negative aren’t true, but there is one negative and that’s

03:04.261 –> 03:15.289
[SPEAKER_00]: You are more susceptible to sun damage, skin damage, bald guys, the seven times more likely to get skin cancer on their head, so there is a need for skin care and sun care, and there was no brand champion there.

03:15.349 –> 03:22.293
[SPEAKER_00]: So we had that sort of on the back burner, but initially it wasn’t even a commerce, it was an Instagram community that slowly grew into a commerce.

03:22.914 –> 03:24.435
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, so it all started on Instagram.

03:25.200 –> 03:33.205
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, just buildy.browbe, we used to put pictures of like Kelly Slater, Jason State them, some positive quotes.

03:33.265 –> 03:34.106
[SPEAKER_00]: We were so happy.

03:34.386 –> 03:37.888
[SPEAKER_00]: We just passed 50,000 followers, which for us is big.

03:38.168 –> 03:41.590
[SPEAKER_00]: But I remember celebrating 250 followers.

03:41.610 –> 03:45.353
[SPEAKER_00]: We didn’t have a brand, we didn’t have a product, but we had bull-browns to grandma.

03:45.753 –> 03:52.257
[SPEAKER_00]: Through that, we saw this community grow, and that really helped us in our e-commerce journey as well.

03:52.840 –> 03:58.944
[SPEAKER_01]: No, so at what point did you decide it was the time to go to monetize that community, I suppose?

04:00.085 –> 04:03.808
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it wasn’t really, we wanted to do a skincare brand, but we weren’t sure.

04:04.028 –> 04:11.073
[SPEAKER_00]: So we spent about, when we started the community, it took about two years to then launch a product.

04:11.673 –> 04:17.157
[SPEAKER_00]: One year of doing that thing and then another year of pure product testing, we didn’t want to just

04:17.677 –> 04:27.380
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of skincare brands and a lot of niches, what they do is they take an idea of brand a kind of an ethos, but they just stick that on took a pre-existing cosmetic product.

04:27.980 –> 04:35.702
[SPEAKER_00]: Whereas for bald guys, we really wanted to not just bring the same old skincare with a kind of bald twist to it.

04:36.102 –> 04:44.965
[SPEAKER_00]: We wanted to create a product specifically in the somecare realm that wasn’t shiny or greasy because a lot of good bald guys care about kind of shine on their heads and

04:45.325 –> 04:48.266
[SPEAKER_00]: So we wanted to make an SPF gel, so we had to develop it.

04:48.306 –> 04:56.670
[SPEAKER_00]: So it took about two years for us to launch our hero product, which is then, but again, let’s not over a state kind of how big that was.

04:56.730 –> 05:00.772
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a thousand units, self-financed in little plastic tubes.

05:00.872 –> 05:09.416
[SPEAKER_00]: And the consensus around the ball bro table at the time was, obviously no one’s ever going to buy this, but at least we have a lifetime supply of

05:15.393 –> 05:19.614
[SPEAKER_01]: How come you didn’t take the route of crowdfunding?

05:20.034 –> 05:29.678
[SPEAKER_01]: Given, you know, we get a lot of people on the podcast who’ve done the Kickstarter route and they’re evangelizing about how great is you build this community at the same time as you launch in the product, you get the funding at front.

05:30.058 –> 05:36.080
[SPEAKER_01]: You had the community, I would have thought, and you know, a potentially viral product.

05:36.140 –> 05:39.961
[SPEAKER_01]: I would have thought you’d be like perfect for that Kickstarter crowdfunding model.

05:39.981 –> 05:41.321
[SPEAKER_01]: So how come you chose not to?

05:41.681 –> 05:42.602
[SPEAKER_00]: Probably poor management.

05:45.747 –> 05:57.181
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we actually had an early warning story from a friend of friend who runs at the time a much bigger company like he, you know, quite established.

05:57.602 –> 06:02.427
[SPEAKER_00]: They’re just got a listing and same sprees and they’re done crowdfunding and they’d said look

06:03.048 –> 06:16.858
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s a huge amount of due diligence, a huge amount of legal, your investors aren’t getting the kind of rights that an ordinary shareholder might get, you know, with obviously horror stories like what happened with the broodogpunks and so on.

06:17.779 –> 06:27.987
[SPEAKER_00]: And actually to get traction on crowdfunding, you really need quite a stack of money being invested privately that then you tag you top up with

06:32.570 –> 06:49.778
[SPEAKER_00]: But we were lucky enough when we did our first pre-seed round that we managed to just through the three F’s, or, you know, for those who don’t know as I think friends, family and fools, managed to manage to raise what we were looking to get in our pre-seed.

06:50.258 –> 07:00.923
[SPEAKER_00]: So we didn’t need to, but as that community is grown, maybe if we can make sure it’s a fair deal for us and a fair deal for them, we might do it at some point in the future fundraising round.

07:01.503 –> 07:06.508
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s not something we’re totally against, but it’s also something that we decided against doing early stage.

07:06.868 –> 07:24.826
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, just, it does, I think it’s one of these things which you can, you can quite easily get sucked into the, oh, everyone who does this succeed mantra because it’s such a noisy process as people go, you know, go through it, but actually it’s not for everyone and it’s not always the right way to go down.

07:25.539 –> 07:31.063
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I just didn’t feel, it’s a few people have mentioned it, but it just never felt the right time for us to do it.

07:31.443 –> 07:44.452
[SPEAKER_00]: So, and again, if we can, again, there’s bad publicity around it now, but if there is a time where, you know, our community was 250 people then, how many of those were, you know, potentially investors, maybe none.

07:51.572 –> 07:51.912
[SPEAKER_01]: Got you.

07:52.152 –> 07:54.614
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, let’s talk about the business as it is today, then.

07:55.094 –> 07:59.297
[SPEAKER_01]: Where in the world are you based and where are you selling to?

07:59.337 –> 08:01.799
[SPEAKER_00]: We’re based in South Birmingham in Sturchley.

08:02.019 –> 08:08.303
[SPEAKER_00]: So near Bourneville and near the Cadbury Mondalese factory, we sell internationally.

08:08.404 –> 08:11.746
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, a predominant primary market is the UK.

08:12.246 –> 08:17.510
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s the only place where we do any big brand activations like non-digital advertising.

08:18.110 –> 08:27.797
[SPEAKER_00]: But we have had sales internationally and continue to do so, predominantly in the English speaking markets, a little bit in Europe, and then the, you know, the odd order here and there.

08:27.837 –> 08:32.320
[SPEAKER_00]: We, the Shopify store is open globally and we can fulfill globally.

08:32.340 –> 08:34.301
[SPEAKER_00]: So we do if, if the orders are there.

08:34.702 –> 08:35.002
[SPEAKER_01]: Nice.

08:35.282 –> 08:38.944
[SPEAKER_01]: And, um, obviously you’ve got the hero product, the SPF.

08:38.984 –> 08:41.046
[SPEAKER_01]: What does the product range look like these days?

08:41.086 –> 08:42.287
[SPEAKER_01]: How many skews are you up to?

08:43.007 –> 08:53.773
[SPEAKER_00]: We have five skews, so I mean, not to get too salesy, but the here a product is cynical, Bull Bradale, which is a mattifying gel that’s a moisturizer with SPF.

08:53.793 –> 08:57.915
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was this real, like, does what it says on the tin moment.

08:58.536 –> 09:11.043
[SPEAKER_00]: It really did bring something new to the skincare market and from that we built a waterproof SPF 50 version, a anti-aging night moisturizer to do sort of Bull Bradale, sort of, protect in the day, repair at night,

09:12.363 –> 09:15.884
[SPEAKER_00]: the other thing that all guys do habitually relate to skincare is shave.

09:16.284 –> 09:39.730
[SPEAKER_00]: So there’s a lot of good shave creams on the market, but not very many pre-shave, expolating scrubs or off-shave bumps, so we did a scrub and a balm duo, so I mean I shaved at least twice three times a week with a full-head wet shave, so it’s a product that we felt we were happy that it brought something high quality to the market that would be appreciated by the current

09:41.145 –> 09:44.207
[SPEAKER_01]: Can I say kind of all elements of bald skincare covered?

09:45.028 –> 09:48.651
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, which I’m not to, obviously, it’s been the quietest successful brand.

09:48.971 –> 09:52.614
[SPEAKER_00]: But we are trying not to over-diversify the skewer engine.

09:52.634 –> 09:53.374
[SPEAKER_00]: There are pressures.

09:53.514 –> 09:56.437
[SPEAKER_00]: You need different size of different sense, different skews.

09:56.497 –> 10:01.821
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think we’re trying to keep that only what’s really necessary.

10:01.881 –> 10:04.683
[SPEAKER_00]: What’s really pertinent to bald people.

10:05.323 –> 10:09.787
[SPEAKER_00]: I really want to do a head and body wash, because I’m tired of seeing shampoo or shower gel.

10:11.007 –> 10:37.396
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like shampoo is very baldist, so I wouldn’t mind a product that’s specifically for washing for bald guys their head and body, but I don’t know right now what the difference between that and shower gel would be apart from the name, so if we figure that out and actually bring something that’s useful to bald guys we will, but yeah the five skews are there, they’re the baseline, the core of the range now, but we will potentially add a couple here

10:38.922 –> 10:44.268
[SPEAKER_01]: I think often people fall into the trap of adding a skewer and adding a skewer and adding a skewer.

10:44.388 –> 10:49.054
[SPEAKER_01]: And every time you add one, it adds a lot more complexity to the business, doesn’t it?

10:49.094 –> 10:56.102
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think I often think the wisest of those who kind of actively constrain the addition of new skewers.

10:56.523 –> 10:58.345
[SPEAKER_01]: If that makes sense, it seems like that’s what you’re doing.

10:59.057 –> 11:10.064
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, 100% I mean, look, the packaging, for example, every new skew might be different size, then you’ve got to divide the best of eye packaging, you look at what do your customers actually want.

11:10.184 –> 11:17.209
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s very easy to say, oh, like they want this and that’s do this and we need to have a 12 skincare range of 12 products.

11:17.589 –> 11:18.410
[SPEAKER_00]: But the reality is,

11:19.670 –> 11:26.578
[SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, if you look at your sales data, it’s better to have five skews that sell broadly to your customers.

11:26.598 –> 11:35.349
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you’re not there yet, then maybe concentrate on bringing up that spread rather than trying to dilute your range.

11:35.389 –> 11:36.891
[SPEAKER_00]: Because then you’re going to the stock.

11:36.971 –> 11:37.271
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to

11:38.172 –> 11:42.018
[SPEAKER_00]: order the amount of capital that has to invest in stock and so on.

11:42.038 –> 11:43.380
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think you’re very right in that.

11:44.001 –> 11:50.490
[SPEAKER_00]: But conversely, you do want to build a OV, you want to build variance, you want to try different segments of your potential cost in the base.

11:50.791 –> 11:54.136
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s more of an art rather than a science at him.

11:54.727 –> 11:58.693
[SPEAKER_01]: And how do you manage the split between Shopify and Amazon?

11:59.173 –> 12:04.501
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I know some people will only put one or two products on Amazon and they’ll do the rest of their own website, they’ll put everything there.

12:05.082 –> 12:08.867
[SPEAKER_01]: What, how do you balance the needs of those two hungry sales channels?

12:09.789 –> 12:19.194
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, we only launched Amazon last November, so it’s relatively new for us, although it’s really, I mean, it’s already representing a third of UK sales.

12:19.835 –> 12:24.958
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s grown very, very quickly, and we’ve only put,

12:26.264 –> 12:34.769
[SPEAKER_00]: the so what we’ve got all our skews are on there but what there are are some of our bundles and upsellers and re-packs and so on.

12:34.789 –> 12:54.280
[SPEAKER_00]: So for the full boardbroke experience you would have to order from our website but if you’re just looking for you know we appreciate the people on prying people like that service even though we often make stay delivery at sometimes is you know if you order after 3pm you’re getting at the day after it’s such a so people like to shop and Amazon so we want to make sure with present there but we also

12:55.220 –> 13:00.305
[SPEAKER_00]: in order to cut down a bit of the complexity, some of the upsells and bundles we keep just website only.

13:00.745 –> 13:05.550
[SPEAKER_01]: Just keep it as that simple straightforward sales channel without the whizzes and bangs.

13:06.110 –> 13:06.971
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we’re trying to.

13:07.692 –> 13:19.703
[SPEAKER_00]: We have been prevented in the subscription option on Amazon, probably, you know, maybe we’ll use Amazon warehousing to distribute in Europe if we go, you know, if we take that route recently, there’s a three-year-old charge for shipping from the UK to

13:21.205 –> 13:25.972
[SPEAKER_00]: It would be useful to leverage that if you say we’re stocked stocked in Amazon Germany.

13:26.392 –> 13:35.926
[SPEAKER_00]: So we’re open, we’re flexible, and maybe at some point Amazon will mirror completely what we do online, but still really new, so we’re just going slow and steady.

13:36.608 –> 13:38.430
[SPEAKER_01]: Slow and steady, but it’s already a third of sales.

13:39.231 –> 13:46.779
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, slow and steady, but in the tactics or strategy, but in sales, yeah, absolutely unbelievable.

13:46.939 –> 13:47.159
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

13:47.440 –> 13:51.664
[SPEAKER_00]: But you can say, I think some people exclusively shop on Amazon.

13:52.004 –> 13:53.726
[SPEAKER_00]: And it has a built-in trust.

13:53.746 –> 13:56.689
[SPEAKER_00]: There’s a brand like us that are defining a category.

13:57.350 –> 14:06.937
[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of people, especially were selling to, you know, guys 40 plus a lot of the time, they might be from a generation who’s not that comfortable just seeing an Instagram ad and buying from a random website.

14:07.177 –> 14:08.278
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, is it a scam?

14:08.298 –> 14:08.898
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it fraud?

14:09.038 –> 14:10.199
[SPEAKER_00]: Because a lot of that exists.

14:10.239 –> 14:15.143
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, at least if it’s on Amazon, it’s reviewed on Amazon, you can trust that to a certain extent.

14:15.819 –> 14:18.782
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and there are people who would just be Amazon customers.

14:18.802 –> 14:22.266
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you want to sell to them, you’ve got to have product in the right place.

14:22.767 –> 14:27.112
[SPEAKER_01]: So you mentioned that you’ve got, I think, two co-founders Richard and Ben, so right here.

14:27.693 –> 14:28.233
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, correct.

14:28.373 –> 14:30.035
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it still just the three of you?

14:30.316 –> 14:32.098
[SPEAKER_01]: And if not, how many are you?

14:32.238 –> 14:33.960
[SPEAKER_01]: And how do you divvy up all the work?

14:34.854 –> 14:51.281
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, so no, it was still a small team, I mean, we’ve grown a lot in the last, since 2024, it’s really been of a crazy upward journey as far as revenue and traction, and still, obviously, a long way to go.

14:51.582 –> 15:00.886
[SPEAKER_00]: The three co-founders, so Richard runs the warehouse in Birmingham, Ben is the creative director, and is really responsible for everything to do with the visual image.

15:01.566 –> 15:10.953
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a CMO who, you know, plans and runs and manages agencies are related to performance and an out-of-home marketing.

15:11.434 –> 15:16.458
[SPEAKER_00]: We have Jake Nassie, formerly of Lad Bible, who is our bald head of social media.

15:16.978 –> 15:21.282
[SPEAKER_00]: So he’s, he’s absolutely doing an amazing job of

15:21.902 –> 15:23.383
[SPEAKER_00]: building our organic socials.

15:23.563 –> 15:38.830
[SPEAKER_00]: So we have millions of views on our organic socials, which for a you know, skin care brand is unusual, but it’s because we talk about the subject of baldness and Jake specifically talks to that subject and it’s not just there being like, I look, you know, this is a matter of fine moisturizer, that’s perfect.

15:38.850 –> 15:43.992
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s actually asking people, what do they think of hair loss, what do they think of being bald, asking for other people’s perspective?

15:44.512 –> 15:46.253
[SPEAKER_00]: So that’s the core team.

15:46.293 –> 15:51.355
[SPEAKER_00]: We have also have Head of Custom Service Nikki, a chair, a fractional CFO.

15:51.415 –> 16:05.202
[SPEAKER_00]: So we’re starting to broaden out the core team, as well as and agency support in things like CRM, creative, performance buying, ER, we have PR, and we have CROs.

16:05.242 –> 16:05.462
[SPEAKER_00]: Well,

16:06.062 –> 16:09.388
[SPEAKER_00]: So, and where we are affiliates, and now I’m boarding TikTok shop.

16:09.568 –> 16:15.658
[SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah, there’s a whole ecosystem around Bulbro, and that the core team is still a very solid unit.

16:16.239 –> 16:25.986
[SPEAKER_01]: So many brands and founders go through that to the liberation of what, especially on the marketing and all those bits you just outlined in the conventional optimization, all that side of things.

16:26.426 –> 16:27.547
[SPEAKER_01]: What do we do in-house?

16:27.607 –> 16:31.089
[SPEAKER_01]: What do we do outsourced to agencies or freelancers?

16:31.449 –> 16:36.573
[SPEAKER_01]: Seems like you’re very pro outsourcing to the expert in each area.

16:37.373 –> 16:38.554
[SPEAKER_01]: What is that, your rationality?

16:38.614 –> 16:39.495
[SPEAKER_01]: I have my accident.

16:39.515 –> 16:41.036
[SPEAKER_01]: Has that been a goal from the beginning?

16:41.796 –> 16:43.818
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we are not in common with experts.

16:44.538 –> 16:47.259
[SPEAKER_00]: We are three guys who had an idea about board skincare.

16:47.520 –> 16:51.922
[SPEAKER_00]: So why would I know how do I know how to hire a CRO guy?

16:52.642 –> 16:55.424
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I don’t know what good CRO looks like.

16:55.464 –> 16:57.745
[SPEAKER_00]: I don’t know what good format’s buying looks like.

16:57.765 –> 16:58.886
[SPEAKER_00]: I don’t know what could PR looks like.

16:58.926 –> 17:07.210
[SPEAKER_00]: So as we build this business, yeah, we’re starting to onboard more and more in-house talent to complement the agency support.

17:07.310 –> 17:07.971
[SPEAKER_00]: But these guys

17:08.971 –> 17:14.175
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I think a lot of founders fall into the trap of trying to do everything themselves.

17:14.755 –> 17:31.426
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, agencies are not, you know, we’ve had plenty of not-so-great agencies that we’ve had to get rid of, and that’s also important to make, you know, make the cut them quick, because you can get kind of stuck with mediocre agencies for a long time, and I think that can hold you back a lot.

17:32.086 –> 17:36.209
[SPEAKER_00]: But we also trying to get, if you get good agencies, they can be invaluable.

17:37.343 –> 17:38.364
[SPEAKER_01]: I like your take on that.

17:38.624 –> 17:42.648
[SPEAKER_01]: We’re not experts in the come as how we know how to hire the perfect CRO person.

17:43.426 –> 18:01.060
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, what do we, I mean, I don’t know, well, how would I, I wouldn’t, I haven’t, making us chat TV to write an interview question, but it’s sort of, we understood that we needed, I mean, CRO, for example, we fell into it, we wanted to do a website rebuild and actually we realized the website was convulting really well, but maybe we could just optimize a few things, but be testing at the same time.

18:01.161 –> 18:09.868
[SPEAKER_00]: So that made sense to us rationally, but we wouldn’t know, you know, if we hired someone in the house, we wouldn’t really know how to quality can check them.

18:10.028 –> 18:10.568
[SPEAKER_00]: And also,

18:11.724 –> 18:15.427
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you’re scrappy, fast-growing startup.

18:16.228 –> 18:22.633
[SPEAKER_00]: You don’t want to be getting into big long-term contracts with potentially with people that are difficult to get rid of if they don’t work out either.

18:23.213 –> 18:37.325
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there is that flexibility to it isn’t it’s like, let’s wait until something has shown itself to be so core that we need somebody owning it completely in-house, but in the meantime, let’s keep ourselves that flexibility to be able to dip in and out of channels and experts.

18:38.190 –> 18:39.711
[SPEAKER_00]: 100% and things like creative.

18:39.731 –> 18:42.631
[SPEAKER_00]: So we have a creative agency that I’ve created of strategists, creative.

18:42.952 –> 18:52.315
[SPEAKER_00]: So the perfect situation there is, we might even hire a creative strategist to work with their creative strategists because in commerce, creative, and decent, so important.

18:52.775 –> 18:55.976
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s not like, okay, we hire a creative strategist to get rid of theirs.

18:56.436 –> 19:02.438
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s just more to then manage that relationship, slowly on board, maybe more talent in house, but still have that capacity.

19:03.018 –> 19:15.962
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, to turn out with metter and endrometer and the amount of creative required, it’s good to have that engine room that’s, you know, already been built by someone else, the agency found to support us, so we don’t have to build ourselves.

19:16.528 –> 19:26.690
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the other kind of obvious thing from your team structure is you’ve got the warehousing in-house, which is another big, should we shouldn’t wish, should we, shouldn’t we?

19:27.511 –> 19:29.051
[SPEAKER_00]: That was always definitely we should.

19:29.071 –> 19:36.853
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it’s like a lazy idea that you shouldn’t do things yourself of why wouldn’t you have your own warehouse, why wouldn’t you couldn’t quality control?

19:37.113 –> 19:43.154
[SPEAKER_00]: If you’re using a 3PL and you’re not manufacturing, where are you storing anything, how are you making sure that that process runs smoothly?

19:46.535 –> 20:02.191
[SPEAKER_00]: But at the end of the day, that’s still another company with loads of clients that are not going to, that if you know logistics, right, there’s a track that’s turning up, oh, it’s it came at seven a.m. Well, if it’s your warehouse, you’ll solve that problem with a 3 p.m., you might not.

20:02.311 –> 20:08.156
[SPEAKER_00]: So, and also on dispatch, we put things like handwritten notes, stickers in first orders.

20:08.797 –> 20:14.859
[SPEAKER_00]: There’s a whole load of picks that you’d be then charged for to create that quality in a 3PL, as well as the storage.

20:15.619 –> 20:17.679
[SPEAKER_00]: And we just prefer to do it ourselves.

20:18.019 –> 20:21.961
[SPEAKER_00]: And it gives us an opportunity to really be a Birmingham company.

20:22.261 –> 20:23.541
[SPEAKER_00]: We’re that’s where we were founded.

20:23.981 –> 20:26.282
[SPEAKER_00]: That’s where two of the co-founders are born and bred.

20:26.682 –> 20:31.583
[SPEAKER_00]: We hire local Birmingham guys in our warehouse, so we’re actually contributing to that economy.

20:32.143 –> 20:36.724
[SPEAKER_00]: And we do it all in all Chica, then the best 3PL quote that I’ve been given,

20:38.785 –> 20:46.452
[SPEAKER_00]: and we don’t, we just do it across, so for us, and I think that’s within the UK, that’s infinitely scalable.

20:47.133 –> 20:56.182
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, we may use 3Piles in US or Germany or wherever we use Amazon for filming in other markets, but I don’t ever see a world where we don’t have our own warehouse.

20:57.177 –> 20:59.299
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I didn’t think we could all hear the passion.

20:59.359 –> 21:16.677
[SPEAKER_01]: By that’s, I think we’d all be very surprised if we hear that you’ve outsourced your UK fulfilment in the near future, which got me thinking, I would assume you’re not a particularly seasonal business, not like a women’s skincare business, picks up an awful lot at peak, but do you have a peak,

21:17.538 –> 21:33.089
[SPEAKER_00]: We do, I mean, the two predominant skews are sun related, so from, let’s say, April to August, you do have what we consider peak sun, but then we’re also because we’re a premium skincare brand that makes the perfect gift for bald guys.

21:33.469 –> 21:36.311
[SPEAKER_00]: We then see a secondary peak in November, December.

21:36.331 –> 21:37.052
[SPEAKER_00]: So the only

21:37.852 –> 21:50.641
[SPEAKER_00]: Let’s say required to months would be Jan Feb, March, and maybe September, October, which I think in general commerce is normally the quiet amongst any way, but then with things like the shave range that’s a habitual evergreen.

21:50.801 –> 21:58.627
[SPEAKER_00]: So you might see a spike at Christmas if it’s being gifted, but we hope to see that be more of a steady move throughout the year.

21:58.967 –> 22:06.193
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, so the in-house warehouse becomes a bit easier to manage once you’ve got if you’ve got a relatively even throughout the year sales profile.

22:07.212 –> 22:11.955
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, there’s support, so you have the core team in the warehouse, but you go to get contractual support.

22:11.995 –> 22:17.137
[SPEAKER_00]: So you know, guys that come in do more hours and peak and do less outside of peak as well.

22:18.318 –> 22:31.045
[SPEAKER_00]: And I’m quite passionate about it because I do see it as the heart and soul of of of our company that it’s a tangible physical thing that’s there that has our office, has our stock, has our guys, it’s a but you know, it’s

22:31.900 –> 22:40.609
[SPEAKER_00]: regional, it’s a Birmingham company, it’s all there and real as opposed to, you know, because we have, we are scattered as far as management’s concerned agencies.

22:40.949 –> 22:45.995
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s really nice to have this sort of heart of the company, which I think is why we’re also fond of having it.

22:46.763 –> 22:47.763
[SPEAKER_01]: I make so much sense.

22:47.783 –> 22:58.806
[SPEAKER_01]: So what, to be because got you excited about the coming months and year at the business, what’s coming up that’s got you eager?

22:59.086 –> 23:02.167
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m excited or scared.

23:04.007 –> 23:04.447
[SPEAKER_00]: I don’t know.

23:05.047 –> 23:08.768
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the journey itself has been really, really exciting.

23:09.108 –> 23:16.070
[SPEAKER_00]: The fact that it’s gone from just three guys with an idea that we cared about, that we are

23:17.030 –> 23:23.572
[SPEAKER_00]: This was, you know, I think a lot of e-commerce or brands are joining of heads where someone says, how can we make money?

23:24.072 –> 23:29.513
[SPEAKER_00]: Whereas actually a lot of this was how can we’ve gone through this journey of hair loss that was horrible.

23:29.673 –> 23:32.554
[SPEAKER_00]: We hated losing out hair, but we liked being bald.

23:32.694 –> 23:34.394
[SPEAKER_00]: So why did we hate losing out hair?

23:35.055 –> 23:37.075
[SPEAKER_00]: And so this was all about, you know,

23:37.195 –> 23:40.197
[SPEAKER_00]: this all originated in shortening that journey for other guys.

23:40.417 –> 23:42.198
[SPEAKER_00]: So saying, okay, can we do that?

23:42.278 –> 23:43.458
[SPEAKER_00]: And we are doing that.

23:43.478 –> 23:46.940
[SPEAKER_00]: So not only by building the business, by building the socials.

23:47.040 –> 24:00.107
[SPEAKER_00]: And so a lot of the feedback and reviews we get is that finally a someone who’s all that the only ads they’ve seen around Helloss have been negative or they’ve been worried about losing their hair, seeing us and said, you know,

24:01.468 –> 24:03.810
[SPEAKER_00]: time to do it, time to brave the shave, I’m going to be a bullbroke.

24:04.210 –> 24:21.982
[SPEAKER_00]: So all the interactions with customers and so on that have been through that journey, really excite us, the fact that it’s growing so much so we’re getting more well-known, things like bald fest excite us, so I don’t know if it’s in your notes, but last year we did free beer for the bald at a warehouse in Birmingham.

24:22.362 –> 24:26.785
[SPEAKER_00]: So we just set an email to anyone in Birmingham that was on our list obviously and said,

24:27.265 –> 24:32.406
[SPEAKER_00]: We’re doing free beer, if you’re bald, are they brewery near our warehouse with a free curry?

24:32.826 –> 24:35.467
[SPEAKER_00]: And like 30 or 40 guys turned up and it was incredible.

24:35.827 –> 24:37.867
[SPEAKER_00]: We said, okay, that’s something to build on.

24:38.007 –> 24:40.408
[SPEAKER_00]: This year we did bald fest in Soho.

24:40.988 –> 24:45.989
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, we got sponsored, the beer sponsor was siren brewers, so they gave us the cows and pines.

24:46.489 –> 24:51.470
[SPEAKER_00]: And we had a thousand bald guys turn up over the day to a pub in Soho for a free beer.

24:51.870 –> 24:54.891
[SPEAKER_00]: We got coverage and good morning Britain and the times to telegraph.

24:56.051 –> 25:05.842
[SPEAKER_00]: When the video, the flyer was shared 23,000 times and the summary videos, it was seen over a million times on TikTok.

25:05.922 –> 25:11.968
[SPEAKER_00]: So being able to do really fun things like that exactly, seeing our community grow, seeing that bald.

25:12.809 –> 25:17.591
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you call anything, call it automatically isn’t cool, but China, there is this move.

25:17.891 –> 25:26.494
[SPEAKER_00]: What we’re trying to do is bring into an acceptance of baldness to so that the guys that go through it no longer dread it or feel that something bad is happening to them.

25:26.774 –> 25:33.396
[SPEAKER_00]: So the more and more bullbrokers as a commercial entity, the more and more that we have that effect on society, it’s really exciting.

25:33.577 –> 25:37.518
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s broadly, I’m excited about what bullbrokers doing and where we’re going.

25:40.789 –> 25:45.631
[SPEAKER_02]: The Ecommerce Masterplan is supporting by some of the greatest companies in the Ecommerce sector.

25:45.751 –> 25:55.895
[SPEAKER_02]: Here’s a reminder of who they are.

25:58.556 –> 26:04.858
[SPEAKER_01]: I love this section because it gives me and I’ll list some really quick ideas for taking our business to the next level to wreak are you ready for the top tips?

26:05.459 –> 26:06.219
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, okay.

26:06.671 –> 26:14.306
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, the book top tip, if everyone is listening to this podcast, agreed to take Friday off and read a book to make their business better, which book would you recommend?

26:15.443 –> 26:21.485
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s interesting because I try and read business books or listen to business audio books and I never finish them.

26:21.985 –> 26:30.468
[SPEAKER_00]: So the one book recently that I did finish was something called the consolidation of philosophy by Alan DeBottom, and it’s just for a layman philosopher.

26:30.488 –> 26:39.351
[SPEAKER_00]: He just picks and chooses some historical philosophical figures and talks about their views on happiness or their views on love or their views on friendship.

26:40.884 –> 26:52.076
[SPEAKER_00]: at a really core level, those are the things that really matter in life and I think it’s important to make your business better that you are balanced in the other side of your life and I found that book really enlightening for that.

26:52.096 –> 27:00.705
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s not really a business book recommendation, but it’s something that’s definitely, I think, made me more balanced and hopefully a better manager in business.

27:01.317 –> 27:06.882
[SPEAKER_01]: I’m going to have to look that one up because philosophy is something I always fail to get into.

27:07.702 –> 27:13.727
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, end up thinking I want to read it, fail to read it, that that sounds quite approachable.

27:13.807 –> 27:15.589
[SPEAKER_00]: This is not like one of Plato’s dialogues.

27:15.609 –> 27:21.213
[SPEAKER_00]: This is, I mean, even those are quite fun, but this is really just very approachable philosophy.

27:21.613 –> 27:22.134
[SPEAKER_01]: Marvelous.

27:22.594 –> 27:28.139
[SPEAKER_01]: The traffic top tip, which marketing method do you either prize above all others or think doesn’t get the press it deserves?

27:29.179 –> 27:47.971
[SPEAKER_00]: I think, and this, I have to give a guy, I’ll see I’m going to shout out here, traditional above the line brand marketing in out of home, TV, radio, you know, all these e-commerce founders, it’s all matter, it’s all there, it’s all YouTube, all with top of funnel.

27:48.731 –> 28:01.308
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the problem with matter is you are just another binary piece of information in their core in their ecosystem basically feeding off the crumbs that they give you.

28:01.769 –> 28:04.372
[SPEAKER_00]: Whereas, you know, for immediate, you can negotiate.

28:04.392 –> 28:05.794
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you can get deals.

28:05.874 –> 28:06.114
[SPEAKER_00]: You can

28:06.755 –> 28:10.920
[SPEAKER_00]: have amazing deals that get amazing CPMs that you wouldn’t even dream of at matter.

28:11.120 –> 28:17.507
[SPEAKER_00]: And although traditional media might be in some levels declining, it’s still much more trusted.

28:17.627 –> 28:27.158
[SPEAKER_00]: So for us, what we’ve had a lot of fun experimenting with is those more traditional things that actually, if you’re spending 5-10 grand a day on matter,

28:28.019 –> 28:32.188
[SPEAKER_00]: If you zoom out, they’re still quite affordable to do some of those things.

28:32.829 –> 28:38.300
[SPEAKER_00]: If you have a little bit extra, not an or not looking for an immediate return, but actually looking to build your brand longer turn.

28:38.972 –> 28:41.113
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I have a big love for that type of advertising.

28:41.154 –> 28:46.917
[SPEAKER_01]: I’m gonna have to say, and it’s, it’s, and like, you say, you can actually negotiate with a human being.

28:47.138 –> 28:51.461
[SPEAKER_01]: There’s not, it’s not just a blue screen, but you get stuck.

28:51.581 –> 28:51.941
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.

28:51.961 –> 29:03.049
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, you know, there’s inventory that you might get inventory offers, they haven’t sold it, it’s a peer, and you can actually get really fast growing brands that have a little bit of budget.

29:03.289 –> 29:04.189
[SPEAKER_00]: You can get really good deals.

29:04.610 –> 29:04.810
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

29:05.775 –> 29:08.736
[SPEAKER_01]: excellent like excellent top tip and tool top tip.

29:08.816 –> 29:17.520
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe a collaboration tool, a social media plug-in, a phone app or just a way of working, is there a cool little tool you use that makes you in your team at more efficient day to day.

29:18.358 –> 29:24.962
[SPEAKER_00]: This is really new one for me, but I’ve just got something called granola, which I plug in to Claude.

29:25.522 –> 29:32.126
[SPEAKER_00]: So it basically takes all my meeting notes and summarizes them and makes action points, so I don’t have to.

29:32.746 –> 29:38.229
[SPEAKER_00]: So I’m a little bit behind on this AI journey, which was certainly not fully AI integrated.

29:38.269 –> 29:39.430
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m trying to figure out if I

29:40.330 –> 29:55.543
[SPEAKER_00]: I don’t want to just do it for AI sake, but actually find useful ways it either real deficiency in the business or speeds up processes, but with that it is actually really useful because you don’t, you know that something smarter than you was listening and taking notes.

29:56.364 –> 29:57.425
[SPEAKER_01]: It is always nice.

29:58.806 –> 30:03.710
[SPEAKER_01]: The carbon top tip, what’s your favourite way to reduce the carbon footprint of an e-commerce store?

30:04.535 –> 30:05.055
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s stuff one.

30:05.376 –> 30:08.057
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, for us, it’s the packaging we use.

30:08.077 –> 30:10.679
[SPEAKER_00]: We’re trying to use as few plastics as possible.

30:10.779 –> 30:13.961
[SPEAKER_00]: So our tubes are made of infinitely recyclable aluminium.

30:14.301 –> 30:16.483
[SPEAKER_00]: All our packaging is infinitely recyclable.

30:16.523 –> 30:20.265
[SPEAKER_00]: So that’s been something that’s been quite important to us.

30:20.285 –> 30:23.547
[SPEAKER_00]: We didn’t want to just create, you know, you have this really successful company.

30:23.567 –> 30:27.470
[SPEAKER_00]: And something you’ve created, 10 million plastic tubes that are in landfill.

30:27.590 –> 30:32.393
[SPEAKER_00]: So that’s not something we wanted to do, but it’s still, there is a footprint.

30:33.974 –> 30:53.442
[SPEAKER_00]: trying to localize production, of packaging, localize production, of manufacturing general, and it’s a difficult one, you know, an aluminium tube in China costs a third of what it does in the UK, and including shipping, but then you weigh up everything and try and make the choice that’s right for your business, but also that’s right for the environment.

30:54.242 –> 30:54.922
[SPEAKER_01]: Nicely put.

30:55.582 –> 31:00.104
[SPEAKER_01]: Tariq, before we say goodbye, could you please let the listeners know where they can find you,

31:03.162 –> 31:15.613
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, so the best place to buy bull bros just for our website, that’s BLDBRO.com, we’re also available on Amazon and I think I mentioned it earlier where I’m TikTok and Instagram, BLD.BRO.

31:16.394 –> 31:17.815
[SPEAKER_01]: Simple as that, everybody.

31:17.895 –> 31:20.618
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much being on the Compass Masterman podcast.

31:20.638 –> 31:22.820
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s been fascinating chatting to you about your business.

31:23.160 –> 31:24.361
[SPEAKER_01]: So thanks for sharing so much with us.

31:24.381 –> 31:25.302
[SPEAKER_01]: We really appreciate it.

31:25.922 –> 31:26.623
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for having me.

31:32.338 –> 31:39.223
[SPEAKER_01]: interesting his book was a philosophical one where I feel like most of our interview was kind of about the philosophy of running an e-commerce business.

31:40.004 –> 31:58.238
[SPEAKER_01]: But fascinating insights in there, you know, the way they’re building that community and doing things that are kind of purely for the community, but in order to hit their purpose and grow the brand as well and then those Amazon stats is mad, launched November last year and already

32:00.380 –> 32:04.802
[SPEAKER_01]: So if anyone tells you there’s no space you left on Amazon, they’re wrong, clearly, clearly wrong.

32:05.502 –> 32:12.686
[SPEAKER_01]: And get your hands on our notes in this episode, including those top tips and the links to what we talked about by heading over to ecommercemasterplanned.com.

32:13.186 –> 32:23.531
[SPEAKER_01]: You can also use our direct episode short links, just put ECMP.info forward slash the number of this episode into the URL bar and you’ll be redirected straight to the right page of the site.

32:24.151 –> 32:27.053
[SPEAKER_01]: When you get there, you can also add yourself to our email list.

32:27.093 –> 32:31.075
[SPEAKER_01]: So you don’t miss out on any of the other things I share to help you improve your business.

32:31.596 –> 32:36.919
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you liked this episode, why not check out bit of a random one this, bear with me?

32:37.419 –> 32:45.604
[SPEAKER_01]: Episode 341 with Matt from Backblade, which is another niche men’s grooming success story.

32:45.644 –> 32:48.566
[SPEAKER_01]: They create shivers specifically for shaving ones back.

32:49.126 –> 32:50.407
[SPEAKER_01]: So that’s episode 341.

32:52.308 –> 33:03.615
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you want to hear more about Shopify success stories, then head to ECMP.info for us to Shopify to find all our episodes with Shopify pound founders and there’s plenty of them.

33:04.175 –> 33:08.698
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Vittunian, to this and every episode that you do of the e-commerce master plan podcast.

33:09.078 –> 33:18.424
[SPEAKER_01]: I bring you a new interview every week because I want to inspire and help e-commerce business owners to succeed and thrive with their businesses, including encouraging businesses and consumers

33:20.765 –> 33:26.770
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you just know someone this show can help, please tell them to listen to the e-commerce Master Plan podcast.

33:26.810 –> 33:29.912
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope you have a great week and don’t forget to keep optimizing.