There are plenty of natural and luxury grooming products out there for women. But the market for similar men’s products isn’t nearly as robust.
Enter Brickell Men’s Products. The company started because of a lack of natural skin care options and has started to offer more and more grooming options without all the chemicals found in most other men’s products. Read more about Brickell Men’s Products below in this week’s Small Business Spotlight.
What the Business Does
Sells natural grooming products for men.
Josh Meyer, CEO of Brickell Men’s Products told Small Business Trends, “We sell luxury, natural skin care and grooming products for men — skin care, shaving, hair care, and body products. We are only 2 years old and you can find our products in Bloomingdale’s, boutique retailers, barbershops, salons, and some of the world’s top spas.”
Business Niche
Being transparent about ingredients.
Meyer says, “We actually use natural and organic ingredients in our products, in an industry where most companies say they do, but only use trace amounts. We put on the bottle the natural and organic content of our products.”
How the Business Got Started
After a personal realization.
Meyer had a girlfriend who “buffed out” a forehead wrinkle of his in an image they took together, which made him realize he should probably take care of his skin better. Being allergic to gluten and dairy, he scrutinized product labels of skin care products and found that they were filled with toxic chemicals. Then he reached out to his best friend and business partner, Matt Bolduc and told him there looked like an opportunity to start a natural men’s skin care line.
Biggest Win
Getting into Men’s Journal a few months after launching.
Meyer says, “This gave our business legitimacy and helped us get into other major men’s magazines as well (GQ, Men’s Health, etc). I cold called editors for over a month and finally one got back to me. She said she had a story that one of our products would fit into and needed the product overnighted for testing/a photo shoot. Getting into Men’s Journal helped us get wholesale accounts, bring traffic to our site and really launch our business.”
Biggest Risk
Starting a business with no experience in the industry.
Meyer explains, “We both had no experience in selling physical products or in the grooming/beauty industry. If it had gone wrong, we would have lost about $15,000 each. The end result of the risk is a business that generates over $2.5MM a year in only 2 years time.”
How They’d Spend an Extra $100,000
Invest more in sales and marketing.
Meyer says, “Specifically Facebook ads and wholesale relationships. We have discovered the few key drivers of our business growth and would love more money to devote to them.”
Biggest Mistake
Almost missing a big opportunity.
Meyer says, “We almost missed our first big opportunity to get major press (Men’s Journal) because Matt was trying to be cheap and didn’t pay the extra $50 to overnight some product to an editor, causing us to miss their deadline. However, she was nice enough to delay the photo shoot a day for us.”
Favorite Team Lunch
Local delivery.
Meyer explains, “Matt’s brother owns a restaurant delivery service (we share office/warehouse space with them), so we delivery from all kinds of amazing restaurants in Portland, ME (a top foodie city).”
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Images: Brickell Men’s Products; Top Image — Josh Meyer and Matt Bolduc
This article, “Spotlight: Brickell Men’s Products Offers Natural Grooming Options” was first published on Small Business Trends