In 2016, David Gaylord was a Shopify employee looking for a side hustle. Then he had a brilliant idea: treatment lotions for hair removal along the bikini line. The company name was funkier: Bushbalm.
Fast forward to 2023, and Bushbalm is booming, selling lotions and trimmers directly to thousands of consumers and wholesale to Ulta Beauty and 3,000 hair removal salons. He spends a whopping $200,000 per month on Facebook ads.
During our recent conversation, I asked Gaylord about sales channels, marketing and, yes, the name. The full audio of our discussion is embedded below. The transcript is edited for clarity and length.
Eric Bandholz: Tell us what you do.
David Gaylord: I am the co-founder and CEO of Bushbalm. We focus on bikini line skin care – below the belt products for ingrown hairs in case of razor burn. We also have a mower there. Our core business is skincare, whether it’s oils, exfoliants or serums. We have a hydrogel mask called The Vajacial, which is very popular.
We launched our business in 2016. Before, I worked in my family business in Canada selling hardwood floors. When I was in college, my father wanted to try e-commerce. I thought it was ridiculous. But I did as he said and looked at platforms like BigCommerce and Magento. We chose Shopify because it was Canadian.
Four years later, I graduated from college and got a job at Shopify. From there, my partners and I started Bushbalm as a brilliant idea. It took us four years to gain traction. We didn’t leave our jobs until 2021. We were fully bootstrapped and remain so today.
During these four years, we spent very little on marketing. We did a show on Etsy, which was good for talking to people and learning what they wanted to say about us. When we talked about “pubic oil,” they said, “It’s disgusting.” We tried “bush oil” and they didn’t like that either. We looked more at skin care and asked questions like, “Do you get waxed?” You are probably irritated. And they were like, “Yeah, totally.” » So that’s where we focused our activity. In 2020 and 2021, we placed a heavy emphasis on Facebook ads. Over the last two years we have moved away from it. But we still spend at least $200,000 a month on Facebook.
Bandholz: Are you having a lot of friction with the Bushbalm name?
Lord Gay: We interviewed someone for a job here who said, “I think you should change the name.” And we were like, “You’re not hired. » Many people we speak to appreciate our candor. The brand is a little opposite with our TikTok channel. Sometimes one in a hundred people will say, “That’s disgusting.” The other 99% say, “Why is this disgusting?” Everyone has these concerns. The name is quite powerful in the long run.
Bandholz: You explore brick and mortar by creating your own living rooms.
Lord Gay: We go about 50% direct to consumer, and 25% comes from wholesale to about 3,000 hair removal salons. We are also present at Ulta Beauty, the distribution giant, and on Amazon.
We are looking to double down on our own physical store hair removal salons. We’re not here to build 100 salons and be a huge chain. In a studio we will learn about products and how people use them. We were more enthusiastic about the content side. We don’t do much on YouTube. We do a lot of TikTok and Instagram, but having an in-store space is something we’re trying to figure out.
We have an excellent path to long-term wholesale growth. Ulta Beauty was the first domino to fall. They are great. The nice thing about Ulta is the shaving section we’re in, which is basically the same style as CVS, Walgreens, Target, and Walmart. Five years ago, the taboo was so strong that no one would be around us because of that name. Now everyone’s like, yeah, that’s cool, you guys are awesome. I think Manscaped, for male hygiene, paved the way for the taboo to disappear.
Bandholz: Tell us about your content production.
Lord Gay: We have a few people on our team who link to hair removal salons and film content, or we will pay salons for a photo and video shoot. Usually 80% of things don’t work, but 20% are great. We are looking to evolve. The need for content today is insane. This is the hardest part of Facebook ads.
We have hired a part-time in-house esthetician, a skin care professional. This has been a wonderful addition. She helps us with the content. Otherwise, much of it comes from content producers. The best thing we did was ask photographers to subsidize photo shoots. They take photos and we receive photos. It’s all arranged. Getting video this way is difficult, but it works for photography.
We will buy content from people. Communication style, personality and entertainment are very important. It’s more fascinating to follow a person’s journey than, for example, the art of doing a leg wax. This type of video can be interesting, but creating a character or personality to build a brand is more effective.
The privacy changes on iOS and Facebook were an easy hurdle for us. We have 3,000 wholesale accounts, with a salesperson and an account manager. This is a super effective and highly automated lead. People are eager to find something that works. There are also no distributors for this product – it is a very specialized product. The United States has 10 times more hair and nail salons than Starbucks stores. I think that’s 330,000 salons, which is mind-blowing.
Three years ago, direct-to-consumer sales accounted for about 95% of the business; now it’s 50%. So we are growing a lot more in this professional channel. And Ulta is doing well.
Bandholz: Are you worried about ad attribution and tracking?
Lord Gay: On the wholesale side, it’s difficult because when we advertise on Facebook for our Ulta business, we don’t get sales data for a week – every Monday at 8:00 a.m. So we could be running Facebook ads about a new launch at Ulta without knowing it. if they work.
Bandholz: Where can people support you?
Lord Gay: Our website is Bushbalm.com. We are on Amazon and Ulta. I’m on it LinkedIn.