Hi Eric, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I use to be a financial advisor at a megabank. They always wanted you to look and act a certain way – a way that I didn’t connect with. So I stopped working there and grew out my beard. After growing my beard out, people would call me ZZ Top, Duck Dynasty, and Grizzly Adams. These are all cool dudes, but they don’t represent me either. I ended up attending an event where I met other bearded guys like me and I realized there was a whole community of people who didn’t fit the tradition stereotype of a bearded dude.
I ended up describing those people as “Urban Beardsmen” and built Beardbrand to give them the tools they needed to be confident with themselves. We’re an entirely bootstrapped company and have grown through hard work, serving our customers, and great products. I have two great business partners, Lindsey Reinders and Jeremy McGee and a team of about 15 people in Austin, TX. As we’ve grown, we’ve worked to build more support for our customers and that has lead us to launching a barbershop this summer.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It’s never easy building a business; you’ll always have something to work on. The best problems to solve are how to keep up with growth and the worst to solve are internal conflicts with your business partners or employees. Like all other businesses, we’ve had to face all of these. Beardbrand is my first successful business and I’ve had to learn how to become a better leader, create an environment of success, and stay true to our core values. With all that being said, we’ve been lucky to have grown through our own profits and haven’t had to take on debt or outside investment money. Perhaps it means we’ve grown slower than others, but it allows us to focus on our customers.
As you know, we’re big fans of Beardbrand. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Beardbrand is a men’s grooming company that has built a complete product offering to end scent confusion. Scent Confusion is what happens when guys will use different products for their hair, body, and beard and it creates a weird aroma of fragrance notes. At Beardbrand, we’ve developed all staple grooming products in matching fragrances so you can end scent confusion and have a cohesive fragrance as you take on the day. Not only did we end it, but we’ve created six different fragrances in two price points to give guys the option to finding the fragrance they love. In addition to this solution, we make damn good products. We have a philosophy to not launch a product unless we believe it is best in class. Subsequently, you can grab anything off the shelf and feel confident it’s better than anything you’ve used before. We back this up with our thorough education on our YouTube channel, email newsletter, blog, and personal stylists. Shoot, send us over a photo of yourself and we’ll give you tips on how to best trim your beard/hair, what clothes to wear, and how to use the right products.
Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
We’re a very transparent company, so I would be surprised if loyal fans didn’t know all the details about us. That being said, we put out a ton of content so it’s hard to consume it all. With that being said, I think most people don’t realize how thorough and comprehensive our email content is. We’ve developed very specific information to be delivered based on the products you’ve ordered. It includes detailed information, videos, and guidance to make sure you have the best experience with our goods.
Contact Info:
- Address: Beardbrand Barbershop 1003 52nd St Austin, TX 78751
- Email: support@beardbrand.com
- Website: https://www.beardbrand.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beardbrand
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/beardbrand
- Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/beardbrand
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/beardbrand
Image Credits
Shaina Golay
