On the 1st of June Man Beard Co. hit it’s 1 Year mark. We started our very first month selling a whopping $87 worth of beard oil. While we aren’t breaking the bank in 12 months we are very proud of how we have grown over this time. We have gone from a brand that hardly anyone knew, to actually selling in 5 different countries, and having our first feature in a large publication!
When doing the research for the article this week I honestly had something else in mind to talk about, and I will still talk about that in a later post. Today though I wanted to reflect on how Man Beard, or for that matter any other small batch company, will be able to stand the test of time. I feel like every day there is a new beard oil company coming to market, and every day another one leaves. The landscape from the day we launched is different, companies came into the market pushing their product and then like that their Instagram feed died, or links to their website go to nowhere.
Did these companies fail, or did they just give up after a month of bad sales? Could they not stand out in an already crowded market? I am always looking at the beard oil market the way I look at my other passion, craft beer. Craft brewing was one of the fastest growing industries in the world just a few short years ago. On average a new brewery was opening every 12 hours. It seemed like guys were brewing beer in their garage with their dog one day, and then the next day had a multi million dollar company.
But that was just how it looked. If you really looked at these companies that were exploding, they weren’t really “exploding”. Most of the “new” craft breweries had been in their local market for several years, and were grinding away, putting in blood sweat and tears for YEARS before they were barely noticed on a national scale. And the ones that weren’t willing to do the work we never even heard about.
I believe the same holds true of the beard care industry. There are a lot of us out there that put in a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to make our product the best we think it can be. I know we at MBC put in two years of R&D before we even brought our product as it's known today to market. 100s of sample bottles filled with various oils, and scent combinations. This is the stuff you don’t see on Instagram and Facebook. This is the product of the 12, 13, 14 hour days that it takes to build a business and a brand. We didn’t just see an oil out there, run down to the local big box store and grab some ingredients and throw them together. We research the best ingredients that we could find and then searched again and again to find them at the lowest cost.
We pour money into making our brand known, advertising, social media, our bad ass affiliates, and at the end of the day we hope we just break even. This is the cost of not just running a beard oil company, but any company. We looked at companies we wanted to be like, and worked hard to be on their same level. We built our brand, established our culture, and stuck to it. We had several bad months before we had our first good one, then a few more bad ones. We have tried markets, pop up shows, given up weekends, and time away with family. We don’t say all of this to elicit sympathy, but to show the level of dedication we have at Man Beard to make sure that we do last.
So the answer to the first question posed? Will small batch beard oils stand the test of time. We believe that they most certainly will, but it is up to you guys, and the business owners themselves. It’s up to you guys to continue to support the companies that you love, telling friends, family and anyone who will listen about why you love them. It’s up to us as the business owners to provide the best quality product that we can produce. To push each other to be better, and continue to grow our brands.