Beardbrand Lost Money In 2023 & 2024. Here's How Bandholz Fixed It. transcript

Eric Band Holtz is a known commodity in the DTOC space. He's been at it for a long time doing a lot of different stuff with Beard Brand with e-commerce conversations, his podcast, and I haven't had him on for a little while now, and it's time to come back in because Eric and Beard Brand, Eric has been public about some challenges in the business, but he's also been public about some things that have gone well more recently.

And I haven't heard all the details, and I don't know that we'll get to all the details, but I want to ask him about it. So Erica's on the show today to talk about where Beard Brand is at these days, how it's going, and then hopefully get into some stuff around building your business for freedom and what kind of outputs you're actually getting relative to the inputs you're putting into your business in terms of lifestyle and those kind of things.

You know, Eric, he's one of the more interesting and iconic classic thinkers in our space in my view. I really like talking about this stuff. Let's get into it with Eric Vanholds from Beard Brand right now. >> Eric, how's it going, man? Good to good to have you back on. What is going on, man? >> That was aggressive. >> Well, you know, that's how I roll. >> That's the That's the energy. >> I I was excited for this podcast.

I I told you before we hit record, I got a little surprise for you. I've never seen you uh without a hat on, so I figured since you're wearing a hat, I got to wear a hat. And uh you know, I'm rocking my alumni school, so anyone who gets offended, this is where I went to school. [Laughter] You gotta watch the video. >> I'm not even gonna talk Well, we won't even talk about it. You're going to have to tune in on YouTube to see what kind of hat I'm wearing. >> Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Well, I uh it's very different than where I went to school. That hat does not exist where I went to school. It's >> on the other end for my for my education in theology. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh man, that's great. Well, can I say something stupid about my hat? It's one of the dumbest It's one of the dumbest things about me. Uh, which is that like I've actually come to realize like what you said that I I'm always wearing a hat.

I've come to realize that like people associate me with wearing a hat in the space. And so now I feel like I have to. That >> Are you balding? >> Nope. No. Actually, that's a really funny. >> You're one of those like jerks that have a full head of hair. Full and lush. And you still wear a hat. >> Like bald people hate you. >> Yeah. Yeah. I'm 30 I'm 38 Lebanese and so I got a good Lebanese head of hair. So yeah. >> But I guess the other counterpoint is people like you help bald people have a claim that they actually have hair under their head. >> Yeah.

Permission for everyone to wear a hat. Yeah. So now I realize it's like I hate to say like it's been like part of my brand is to wear a hat. And it's like one of the douchiest things I can say about There you go. Um, yeah, I know we're all marketers here. Um, so, okay, listen, you talked about uh things were not going so good at Beard Brand there, but then you told me before the call you're more bullish than they've been.

Current state of Beard Brand go. >> Yeah. Current state current state of Beard Brand is we're meeting our expectations. Uh, however, I have low expectations. So the the the the the process is how to raise the expectations and hopefully the business will follow. But long story short for those who haven't been listening to my podcast uh or follow me on X, you know, in 2023 and 2024 between the two years, we lost nearly a million dollars of like literal cash.

Cash went out the business. Uh very stressful. Um, and and my mindset was figuring out how to put plug the holes in the boat. And uh, we finally got it to where I feel like we've plugged all those holes. Business is, you know, kind of doing as expected. And right now, the mindset is how do I get the wind back in the sales because we're just kind of sitting in the ocean right now, but I need a little wind behind us. >> What year did you start your brand?

We launched uh the brand in 2012 and then the started selling the products in 2013. >> Do you still have um emotional win in your sales after all that for the brand? Do you can you can you get excited about the future of beard brand? >> I mean yeah like we just uh >> you know grab these. We just launched these new uh well we could talk about this too because this is our fragrance >> and we went a different route. We've got the roller ball. >> I thought about this.

Yeah. >> And uh it's I'm excited for this. There's more fragrances we have in the pipeline. My I think what makes it easy for me, you know, being in the game for 13 years is um at this point my team I just enjoy them, you know. You know, it's kind of like uh um there's no anxiety showing up for work because I could just, you know, chat with any of my team members at any time about anything. And then I I there's still a lot of work to do.

Like when you have work and things to fix and things to do, um it gives you a reason to come in. And even if it's fixing things that used to be working that no longer are working, but you want to get working again, I don't know. I still kind of find that that energy for it. So, uh but it does go in waves. There there's certainly like problems that I'm not excited to solve. Like we got sued again. That was not a fun problem. uh you know manufacturing issues. >> You're saying that that wasn't like uh a business partner sued you for all your worth.

That was like a stupid >> I mean the annoying thing is you know knock on wood um we haven't really been sued for legitimate reasons in my opinion. So, the reasons we've been sued, the first one was the ADA troll website, which um we fought and they eventually dropped a prejudice. And then the the most recent one was a patent, what I believe to be a patent troll. They had a patent on something and uh in in regards to how to sort data and and how your reviews show up on your website.

So, it was kind of like a I don't know, a weird thing. So, us and BK Beauty and Tokovas, >> uh, we all got hit with the same lawsuit. >> Yeah. That kind of thing is just an energy suck. That's not a fun problem to solve. Yeah. That's not >> You're not You're not creating wealth. You're you're not bringing value to your customers. Like, you're you're just fighting to to not have money stolen from you. So, >> yeah. >> Part of the game, guys. >> Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. um is uh is is yeah I mean it sounds like you're motivated and it's one of the things that like lifestyle wise I don't want to I want to do I want to talk a lot about sort of how you plug the holes as much as you're willing to talk about and able to talk about and maybe you have some good episodes of your show to point people towards for this um because because you know um you've been doing a podcast for a long time and talk talk about a lot of the stuff but is um I I'm I am curious like you know you you mentioned this idea that like it's you like the people you work with and it's still fun to show up and solve problems.

And I think this is like an underrated thing about work in general, which is that it's like work is weirdly life-giving. Uh like it actually doesn't sound that awesome to sit on the beach all the time to me, you know? Like I mean it sounds nice for a few days, like for sure, but like uh but the idea of like doing things to solve problems is actually good and and humanizing and dignifying to to like my sense of self, you know?

And so like even when I think about my businesses, you know, like I have sort of two and one of them is still in the incubation stage. But uh but that it's like the goal I don't have any goal around like building for an exit so that I don't have to work. Like it's like well I'm assuming I'm going to keep working. Um I might take some time off if I had an exit, but like I I you know I have no intention of like that being the end goal.

And um anyway, what you're saying makes sense to me uh in terms of my experience with work. >> I I think uh I'll echo that. You know, work is a gift and I view work as a gift. Now, it's not always fun and you're not always working on the things that you you don't want to do. I think a lot of people who are driven to to u sell a business or feel the need to sell a business have built a business in a way that doesn't bring them joy.

They've hired the wrong people. Uh they have the wrong business partners. uh they've took on uh you know debts or equity partners that weren't the right move. So what happens is these operators and owners are literally tied to the business and there's this feeling of like we talk about freedom. You know all of the sudden when your business becomes handcuffs and locks you in place and gives you nothing. Absolutely. That's a a tough spot to be in and I can imagine how anybody would want to get out of that. >> Yeah.

Um okay, let's talk about let's talk about well gosh we should I I want to come back to that later. I want to talk about your business a little bit. Let's do that. Um what holes did you plug on and what can you talk about? You could talk about it big picture, you could talk about it detail, whatever you want, but like how do you what are the what are the big holes that got plugged? >> Yeah. So I mean you know long story short um the big We we made a lot of changes all at once.

So we we didn't really know what we broke because we did so many changes. Uh the big ones uh was that we lost target. Uh so to plug that hole, we relaunched on Amazon. Uh Amazon's done all right, but it's not done the level that I think it could do. It's not even doing what Target was doing. So there's opportunity there. Uh we had excess inventory that we unloaded and unfortunately it's like when you have too much inventory, not only did you pay to produce it, but you have to pay to destroy it.

It's just like this slap in the face. Uh so we cleared through like a lot of bad inventory. um we relaunched uh in these really cool aluminum bottles in larger sizes and the the thought process uh or the problem that we were trying to solve at the time was our manufacturers were kept on giving us higher and higherQS. So what we wanted to do is start winning on volume and to do that we justified lowering the price increasing the quantity and um that I think we ended up shooting ourselves in the foot because when we did that the people who are going to buy from us at a higher price u still bought from us at a lower price but oddly the people who saw the price drop uh in the packaging change they assumed that we we were watering down the products and the quality of the products even though the the formulations stay effective the >> same price price just inescapably signals value.

It just does. And so you h you know, you have to price for margin, but you have to price also for marketing. And you just I remember when I was working with Bamboo Earth skincare brand, uh you know, we had this cactus concentrate product that they still have still still top seller as far as I know. And you know, the margin is just out of this world on that on that product. And there's I've heard people sort of, you know, be upset about how, you know, the pink tax that kind of idea just like that women pay so much more for these things.

But the truth is, if we lowered the price on it, people would have to to to pass along more margin as an act of love for customers or something like that because we thought it was fair, customers would have thought it was worse. They just would have. And it's just like and there's just no there's just no escaping that the the price value signal. That's I mean, I wouldn't have necessarily predicted that for what you're saying, but it is interesting that the risk of the doing that came true.

You know, >> I I think there's, you know, if if if I was a better operator and I could, you know, run a business at like leaner margins or if I was willing to reformulate to maintain the margins and actually lower the price of the products, like maybe that could have worked out and we could have like hit larger scale and a larger audience. But at the end of the day, the things that we do well, you know, storytelling, photography, uh relationships, uh those are generally pretty expensive things to do.

And um you know, we should just lean into what we do well. And sell a higher product, sell a higher margin product. And and the mistake to answer your question is the finding the holes or plugging the holes was we had to find new manufacturers that could work with with smallerQs. And that was like the big change for us is like the the big lesson that we learned is quit changing our business for our manufacturers and find manufacturers that fit our business.

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Get testing sooner rather than later. start optimizing and start making every click on your website more profitable for your business with Intelligjs. Okay, I have a couple questions about that. First of all, so did you change the price back to to the original pricing? >> Yeah, so we have well because the the sizing is different and a lot of things are different. It's not like a one for one the exact same old price, but we did raise the pricing.

Uh and then we have been working towards the other mistake we made is we we put our products in bigger packaging. So, we're we're still in the process of rolling out more realistic uh packaging sizes. Like our our guy our customers would buy two or three bottles and they'd have two years worth of inventory. So, that kills reorder rate. >> Yeah. Uh yeah. I It's funny too. I think you tell me if you think this is true.

I have a question about your manufacturing thing too, but um you know, you you mentioned that we were going to be competitors here in a little bit or whatever. Uh because well you showed your um cologne the um the for people who don't know right I'm starting a cologne e-commerce business as well and you and I you you I think tweeted publicly about it which was really >> yeah I told you all the all the challenges. >> It was super helpful.

It was it was it was one of those moments of like people just don't understand how I try to tell my friends who don't work in e-commerce like how great the people are in this industry by and large. Uh because it was just like you are you got plenty to do, you know? You don't need to go tell me how to all the things you've learned from 10 years of blood, sweat, and tears. Like I it's like but you did. And it's just a very kind thing to do. >> I think it's a huge market.

So, and I think like >> men's cologne >> is actually like a lower barrier to entry than like beard oil or skin care or shampoo and >> like >> and and also that's why I was so willing to talk publicly about my finan my financial design for the business and what the company is and some of that because I'm not worried about some like I you know the the big designers are selling the bulk of the stuff. They they don't care.

So, if if more if more beard brands if you guys develop a really successful cologne line and it's got a different delivery mechanism than a spray bottle, it's a win for me as far as I'm concerned. It opens up more potential customers to a different way of doing cologne. Um anyway, uh why was I saying all that? Um you know, the funny thing is you said opens up now you're starting to use like fragrance lingo. So like now that >> like our you know I talk about like growing all the time because of your growth you know so like your language is invertently going to start using these kind of things as you speak. >> Yeah.

Um oh I remember I was going to say um I think a lot of the re repeat rate in a category like that is actually not refill. It's um people getting new scents and things like that. You know it's essentially like adding to their collection. It's almost like a more enthusiast purchase um and and exploring kind of purchase. And I'm curious if you'll experience that with your cologne line and and you know, maybe not so much with beard oil, but like Yeah. >> No, I mean like there's a reason why we have seven fragrances right now.

So, and even that >> of the beard of the beard oil >> of all of our products like we're >> Okay. Yeah. And granted, like we're going through phases. So, we we we actually had our customers vote. We did some We do a lot of limited edition fragrances as well, which is a lot of fun for our customers. And uh we let them vote on the four most recent limited edition ones which one they wanted to make a permanent addition to our uh product.

So we're going to be rolling that out this holiday season and uh that will be added to our we call it our obsidian line or black line. Uh so it's uh exciting to raw this and the customers love it. Like I I think I overco complicated the business to a certain degree. I probably should have just had beard oil and you know a thousand different fragrances or a bunch of limited edition stuff uh rather than try to do the whole like men's grooming thing because like it's so much easier for us to just roll out a new fragrance. >> So why not do it?

Why not do that now? Why not change the business to do that? >> I don't know. >> You just said it was a good idea. Go do it. Well, there's a lot of things I thought were a good idea to be a good idea. >> And uh I think one of speaking of like the the holes that we did, one of them was we killed three fragrances back in the day, you know, uh to to kind of hit those MLQs and uh that upset a lot of customers who, you know, while some customers like to try different ones, some of them are like this is my fragrance and the minute it was gone, you know, Beard Brand was dead to them.

So, uh, there's a bit of risk of that where you get some customers who are like, I am the beard brand deodorant guy and once the deodorant's gone, then, you know, I'm gone. And it's like, well, we already produce it. We already manufacture it. We already have manufacturers that, you know, produce it in the way we need to produce it. So, we're not tying up um, you know, any, you know, there's always a little bit of brand energy and stuff, but we're talking about like nine products here at Beard Brand.

We're not talking about a 100,000 products or a thousand products. >> Yeah, that makes sense. So, so you you ended up bringing them back? >> No. >> Oh, you didn't? Yeah. >> So, we we launched new ones. Uh, so we're just trying to create uh new ones. The new one is a Norse winter, which we'll be launching. It's got this Scandinav Scandinavian vibe uh to it. So, u our customers dig that one. And then we'll do another black line.

So, our black line, we killed kind of more of like a It's funny like in doing this for 12 years, we learned a lot on how to develop fragrances. And the first fragrances we developed were literally just kind of in my kitchen playing around with uh different ingredients. And then, you know, we've we've leveled it up where I think our competitive advantage in the marketplace is our ability to develop incredible fragrances.

And um I think that's >> who does that for you now? Is that is that still internal? You guys have a fragrance that is like contract? >> Yeah. We we develop the concept uh the concept uh of what we're going for and how uh what the notes are going to be and then uh I used to kind of like roll up my sleeves and do it but we'll work with a perfumer uh maybe multiple perfumemers depending on how successful they are and and getting close to our vision.

So um yeah, there's a lot of back and forth and it's a slow process unfortunately. I'd love to just go up to a perfumery and just be like, "No, we're off this bit, you know, let's tweak it here. Let's go there." >> Yeah. >> Um >> Yeah. >> Yeah. My biggest fear in my starting my business probably is that our perfume will be our fragrances will be bad and we won't know it because we're not good enough at it yet. Um which I think is is very possible.

So, we'll we'll find out, but got to launch and and get feedback, but we'll find out. um is uh >> I I think I think there you know as you you mentioned in your post give you some more advice but fragrance is subjective. >> So it's not a bad or good thing but it's like what would be bad is your ability to describe it and create that experience to be able to resonate and connect with the right intended audience who is going to be drawn to that type of experience.

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Um, I have this like fear, and this might just be because of my personal psychological shortcomings. Um, of just like putting uh putting this out there and then having a bunch of people responded like you idiots. I can't believe you thought you would sell this to us, you know? And I I don't really think that's going to happen. Like we've we've we've sampled a bunch of stuff and and had a lot of people smell it and nobody's had that reaction so far. >> But you wear it. >> But yeah. >> Yeah, definitely.

Yeah. I I I wear those and other and other companies. I should buy some beer branded and see how it and changes because because I I'm trying to get a sense of all the different ones. So, I don't just wear ours right now. But yeah, >> I I'll tell you like a great fragrance in my opinion >> is one where you wear it >> um and you can't >> you can't wait to to start the next day because you're like, I just can't wait to put on that fragrance.

And then when you wear a lot of different ones, you almost get addicted to it. You're like, oh man, like I I need a hit of that. like just come on >> and give me a good >> Yeah. >> So that's in my opinion like there's a lot of things that smell nice >> and they're pleasant but they're not like you're just not like oh give me that give me that note >> give me that note. >> Yeah. Yeah. Um is uh Okay. So let's do any more holes you plug because then I have another question about one of the ones that you plugged.

But uh but any other holes that that got plugged for you? I mean there there were some like major operational changes. My my business partner had another baby and we agreed to let her step down and focus on that. So I took over operations as well. So I've been doing ops and marketing. Um I I wouldn't really call that a whole but it's kind of a change. >> That's a big deal though. Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. So it's it's you know it's been challenging uh you know wearing so many different hats.

I don't know how solo founders do it. at least, you know, we still have our regular calls. >> Um, >> yeah. >> And then I don't know, you'll have to I I literally did like a half an hour podcast where I rambled about all the things that were broken with the business. So, >> I'll link it. I'll link that out so you can get more of them there. Um, I don't know if you are willing to talk about this or if you did talk about it there, I haven't listened.

If so, um, is uh the the one that I saw publicly that you posted about was a growing number of subscribers. Um, you had post you had tweeted about that at one point. And this actually the thing that caught my eye to invite you back on is I was curious to hear about that. Can you tell me about that process a little bit? Did you identify this as an area of focus? If so, how did you identify it and then what did you do about it to grow that?

Like what, you know, you mentioned sort of a renewed focus on it, but you didn't say much more about it. I'm just curious if you talk more about what went into the decision and then also the execution. Yeah, I think there's, you know, so for reference, if if you follow me on X, I posted we we broke the the 10K uh subscription mark, which uh was pretty pleased with and the peak of our business, like we never got over um I don't know like 2 or 3,000 subscriptions.

Uh and it was never an active focus for us. I I I do have conflicting views on subscriptions. I think like you know if a great product um and good email communications and a seamless buying experience um is probably like 95% as good as a good subscription service. And then when you factor in like the the the lack of margin that you have to give up to incentivize subscriptions then you know you could probably even argue subscriptions aren't necessary.

Like so I think there's a lot of hype is like oh I got to do subscriptions. Well our best years ever we weren't really doing subscriptions so we just had people coming back and buying us. But there is something nice to know about you know those Monday it's literally like paydays. So like the 15th of the month the first of the month or the end of the month uh we'll see like big jumps in our subscription orders as people just kind of like readjust their uh reorder rate.

So what we did is um we've been working with Recharge and Recharge rolled out a add to cart widget that I think was an incredible improvement over the one they had before and that widget uh really allowed us to make that buy box more compelling in my opinion. Um are you on our website now? Do we pre-select? I I I don't know. I think we pre-seelelect for the subscription right now. Um, but we kind of tested like pre-selected and not pre-selected.

But I think we we are like super clear and there's like another kind of like acknowledgement that they're subscribing because the thing that I don't want to do is get a bunch of people to subscribe and then cancel or be upset or angry. So I think it's a pretty transparent experience. They might have to pick the um reorder rate. That's what it is. So, it's like pre-selected and then do you want it every, you know, month, three months or five months or whatever? >> I got it up here.

That's a nice Yeah, there's there's a there's a cologne. Um, yeah, really really clearly subscribing. >> I think it's I think it's really good. >> So, so my my my support team doesn't say anything about, you know, people being upset or miscribing. I think it's pretty clear in there. And and that widget's been nice. So >> I I heard somebody put subscriptions this way to me once in a way that I thought was compelling, which is like it's like the reason subscriptions work is just the simple matter of changing the default.

Are you defaulting to buying or you defaulting to not buying? Again, defaulting defaults are really powerful. The famous example of this, of course, is like defaulting people into their 401k contributions. uh you know the person retains 100% of the freedom to make the decisions that they want to but the reduction of friction in the process is a big has a big impact on people's actual behaviors and it's a nudge right so uh I think I think that's uh very clearly uh the reason it works if it works the challenge with subscriptions in a business like beard brand is that the product lasts really different amounts of times for people depending on how much they use it and so you're going to get I have too much of it I have not enough of it all those kinds things.

Um, and I'm actually really compelled as one potential solution to that um, by the idea of membership for some for some brands where it's a similar concept where you get the savings, but it allows and and you're defaulted into the repurchase, but it allows you to to do that on your own timeline. Um, I' I've got one brand that's done that recently uh, where they if you had a membership focus or membership approach um, and has been really good for them.

It's been better for them than subscription uh, bec and it's for the same reason. that you're constantly running out or not having enough because of the delivery timeline. And this is an underrated thing about the reason the supplements are such a good business um is that it is the perfect DTOC business in a lot of ways, but one of those ways is that it is perfect for subscription because if it is like take one pill every 30 days.

Well, you know exactly when you need your next one. And so subscription is the perfect mechanism for it and if the product works and provides value to the customer and I believe lots of them do, lots of what companies do. You know, I know it's it's easy to make nonsense up, but but I think lots of them are good. And so that that mechanism where it's delivered to your door, which is also what DTOC is, at the exact right timeline for a discount, etc., is just perfect for the for the whole model of DTOC.

And so anyway, so I think that's part of the way to think through what subscription the value it brings is to like try to answer the question to yourself, how much does my business fit into something like that framework? Does it actually do a thing where it's like really regularly reusable and is really helpful? It's actually a great It's actually really nice if you're subscribed to a supplement that you don't have to go to the store and get it.

It's great that it shows up at your door at exactly the right time you do it. It's like a modern convenience, you know. Um, and I think there's there's this a question like to sort of evaluate for most businesses, which is do we have something like that in our business? And if you have something sort of like that, but you have a usage problem, you should consider membership instead of subscription because there's potentially a way to do that without having quite so much churn, etc. >> Yeah.

And and to be fair to u you know recharge as a provider uh we use SMS messaging that's really effective. So basically it's gone out hey you know we're sending out some products next week how you doing you need to pause it skip it you know press a letter and then it's like you know pause and then it's like all right for how long tell us the number of weeks and then they just hit three and then it it does it. So, you know, having that really good communication between email and SMS can effectively eliminate any kind of churn issues and I think we've, you know, we've resolved that with that that good communication. >> Yeah.

Um, yeah, that's great. Okay. So, so you've grown subscription. Um, you've you've defaulted people in. Um, I see I see what you're saying about drawbacks, but yeah, it is nice. um is um >> yeah the other drawback is people no longer go to your website so there's less of a chance to get like new products in front of their face uh once they are on a subscription so they may >> you know yeah you're really reliance on like outbound mechanisms like SMS and email and and ads yeah um is uh is what you're describing is interesting to me because it's a bunch of little things all adding up as opposed to you guys did this one weird trick that that you know double that solved be your brand's problems you know and uh yeah it would be um and it is funny though because I think a lot of e-commerce you know you should think in terms of asymmetric bets like there's this there's these questions about what can work um you know when I look at your new cologn like that looks like something that could be that for you or it could really be a product that that meaningfully impacts the business in a new way because that's that's like a newer product line for you right?

Yeah. So, the the cologne I'm real bullish on. The other one is our u our deodorant. We have a utility deodorant that doesn't leave stains. You can spray it right on your shirt, white shirt, black shirt, u all natural or aluminum free. And uh you can also spray it like in your shoes, on your body, anywhere in your body. So, it's got a lot of unique features. The downside is u I don't know the price point's a little more aggressive in deodorants.

Uh so you know maybe we we play around even going higher in price or something like that. It's a pretty expensive product to manufacture too. So um we haven't seen the same kind of traction that surprisingly we've seen with our our cologne. Uh so it'll be interesting to see if I think that could be a seven figure product in itself or deodorant. Uh it's just a matter of figuring out how to get it. If I was if uh if you allowed me to be an equity investor in beard brand, but I only got to invest in one product line.

When I look at your guys' products, I would I would bet on the cologne. I guess that's obvious because I'm starting a cologne business, so that probably already says that, but like uh but I I there's a lot of reasons I think it's good. And I I like your roller ball applicator, too. I think that's really cool. Um you've done it in a clever way. Um is uh any um Okay, we did enough of those. I actually wanted to go back to the um shopping new manufacturers.

How did you do that? What did you do to go find a new manufacturer? >> I just bitched about it on a podcast and one of the listeners hit me up and he's like, "Hey, I got a manufacturing company. You want to come here?" >> It's literally >> That's really really funny. So, >> so I do think there is a, you know, building publicly does provide a lot of value. I know a lot of people get scared to share things and get become a little tight lit, but the more you're you're transparent out there, the more help comes your way.

Um and then you know like the common things just like continuously just searching on Google trying to go to trade shows look at list you know kind of the usual things that you do. >> Yeah. Um I uh I am convinced I've said this a lot of times that supply chains are the most underoptimized part of most e-commerce businesses still. Uh people just haven't shopped it really seriously and they haven't got about it. But as you experience like it just makes a tremendous impact on your business.

And it can be all kinds of things. can be unit costs, but it can also be MOQs, which is like a huge deal for tying up your cash and your ability to serve your customer and um and all that. I've talked a lot about, you know, for the business I'm building, doing it with my my a sponsor on the show, Move Supply Chain, that is like building the Philippines and helps you go do this. Um, and and just like this part of the reason I'm like actually really bullish on that company and tell them that all the time.

And like I those are friends of mine uh who are like at this point who I have real relationship with. And one of the things I always try to tell them is like I think if you guys can just break through people's um people's just busy and whatever else about this and sort of become a known commodity in the space, it's going to be good because because people are so underoptimized here. They just it there's it's just there's very low hanging fruit.

It's like when I look at a meta ad account that like a person has been running with six months of experience and it has no idea what they're doing. That's like what I feel like a lot of supply chains are like I can make big swings very fast. You know >> when's the last time you got three quotes from different manufacturers. >> So yeah, this is this is exactly right. what I told what I said publicly in for the business I'm building is they sourced 60 product uh packaging manufacturers reached out to 45 you know narrowed it to 15 and got you know it was like I just guarantee you most people have not gotten gotten five like it's just yeah and so and that's that's the thing that I always say is like there's there's like really big opportunity there when when you do this right I have another um brand that I'm friends with who's like oh yeah I finally shot manufacturers and I'm going to cut my cogs in half and it's like well that's like that's going to revolutionize your business it's like it's really hard to overstate how much of an impact that's going to have, you know.

So, um yeah, there's just huge wins to be had there. I'm glad to hear that you guys were able to see that. Um okay. Um let me just give you one more chance to say anything else you want to say about things that have been good and then and then in six months or a year, let's come back and revisit and hear um hear about how it's going about moving from uh plugged holes to real real forward progress. Uh is there any any other last stuff that you think is helpful for people to hear about?

I I we will link to your episode that has I think 34 of these uh in it. Uh and so go check that out. The link is in the show notes to hear Eric talk more about all these things. But any other little previews you want to give people? >> Yeah, I mean um some sometimes things are like always kind of like uh two steps forward, one step back. So it doesn't feel like it's a a home run. We've we've tinkered around with like AI ad creation, which I'm kind of bullish on.

I feel like we've got a pretty unique angle and perspective on it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. uh is a lot of our you know winning ads have been AI based and we're we're doing a my recommendation right now u towards the end of 2025 based on the technology out here is I think if you're using AI to replace things that are like normal like if I could just get a normal actor in a normal studio in a normal product shot I think those are going to lose because people can still tell their AI and they just get angry about it.

But if you go like completely unhinged creativitywise and you unleash yourself from the constraints of reality, then I think there's a lot of opportunity in AI. So one of our performing best performing ads is uh a unicorn vomiting. Um which is one of our product names is unicorn vomit. And uh clearly it's AI. We're not trying to mask the idea. I mean I can't hire a unicorn. like they they literally don't exist. And then to get a a unicorn to vomit rainbows would be even harder.

So, you know, it is, you know, it's not the the highest production uh process, but it's worked well for us and it's converted. So, we're going to continue, you know, testing those kind of stories where things can be a little surreal. uh babies talking, you know, uh animals talking, stuff like that, and see if we might be able to to get a little more engagement in those ads and get them to convert. >> Yeah. The reason I said really like that is because I think of you as the brand guy.

And so, uh I when I think of when I hear people talk about AI, they're sometimes talking about the thing that you just said and I think there's more awareness of that all the time that that's the best use of AI and creative right now. Uh what I think um uh yeah anyway I and so I what I when you say that >> 2023 in 2023 I had to throw away a lot of a lot of my strongly held beliefs you know. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Part part of keeping the the business going is just like well you know we got to do what we got to do.

So >> yeah. Well and I think what you're talking about is exactly the right use of AI and creative. I think it's it's at least one of them. I think it's it's really good. Um okay great. Then I want to move over to a different thing which is uh you have been you have been public about two things. Uh one of them is that uh is that beard brand has struggled over the last couple years. Another one is that you are um that you are building for freedom.

That that's the thing you want is freedom and that that's the way you've designed your life. So I I have I think I think you and I have actually some similar ideas about about the place work holds in our lives and the value of money and not and the limitations of money and some of those things. Uh so I I won't put my put my ideas on you or assume too much about what you believe about these things because we really haven't talked that deeply about them.

But I do think there's an interesting question here which is like in fact is it possible that by not building a bigger business more aggressively earlier you actually cost yourself freedom like essentially is there a way in which by more aggressively uh and I don't even know if this was possible but if you could have sort of grinded harder or done something crazier earlier on could you have could you have not experienced those challenges uh that you've had over the last couple years because those in my experience those kinds of challenges tend to eat up your freedom.

They they tend to be kind of consuming. So anyway, I think you get the point of what I'm asking. Um yeah, say what you want about that. >> No, I mean I think we we've built a pretty good company. You know, Beard Brand is a bootstrap company. We we we made money every year uh except for 23 and 24. We we'll make money again in 25. So like we've been taking chips off the table, you know, we've been in business 13 years for uh you know, 11 of those of those 12.

So we put a little bit back into it the past couple years um through our you know, the savings that we had. And uh you know, like the reality is my house is paid for, so I got no mortgage. Uh my cars are paid for, so I got no uh what do they call those? Car loans. Um, you know, I'm able to put my kids in the school that I strongly believe in, which is a, uh, entrepreneurial project-based school. Um, we go to Denmark every summer for five weeks.

I'm taking my daughter to Tokyo here, uh, in less than a month. Uh, just the two of us. We're going to fly out there. And, uh, I I mean, I get a row in the morning. I get to lift weights when I want. Like, I I don't know. Like, and maybe this is one of my problems is like, I don't know what else there is to to have in life. You know, my wife and I will be celebrating our 20th anniversary uh in May of next year. I'm going to try to take her to Norway.

Never been to Norway. So, like I don't know, there's a lot of things that I'm excited about. And and the trade-off is, you know, sometimes the business isn't doing what it wants and and maybe I could put more time into it, but I'm kind of just okay. like I'm okay that it takes an extra week uh or an extra couple weeks or an extra month. Sometimes things take really long time that I know if we really grinded on it. Um but there's that trade-off of like grinding.

Uh you get stressed, you get anxious, you gain weight or you lose weight, you lose your hair. Um you know, you lose relationships, you get divorced. Uh your friends, not your friends, but your your your kids don't have that time with you. So, I mean, it's like what what's the point of the business if if you're giving up all that stuff? So, I'm I'm more of the fan of like having a lot of burners glow dimly than, you know, one glowing really really hot. >> Yeah, that's a fantastic answer.

Uh, and I asked that question partly just to interrogate an idea, not necessarily because I believe the question that I asked. I think what you're saying is right and maybe tell me if you think this is right. I'm I'm interpreting your situation a little bit here, but there was actually there might have even been a higher death risk of the business if you had grinded harder earlier because you'd have pushed it harder than it could go and uh and if you had actually killed the business completely like essentially you were able to sustain two years of loss precisely because you had grown comfortably before it sounds like in a way where you had some savings you could dip into and you had some ability to sustain you know the fow period you know um and that that's my sense of it and that means that when the hard times came which they inevitably do for every business I think um you were okay >> yeah I mean so the reality is like there was a period of time early in the the the business that we wanted to take over the world you know we flew to Australia we were trying to figure out how to distribute to Australia we had a fulfillment center in uh Belfast and Ireland Northern Ireland um my business partner and I were, you know, we were very close to not being on speaking terms.

Like, uh, I wanted to put as much into the business as possible and see it grow and, you know, she felt like she was working without compensation and, you know, so like there's a lot of conflict between us and it was not fun. like I had many like uncomfortable nights of sleep and and we came to terms we're like let's just make money and then let it go where it goes and if it only goes to a million-doll company then that's fine we can make it work and if it goes bigger then cool and and what we found is like when that was our strategy kind of like a profit profit first strategy then uh you know of course the business got profitable and then our stress went down and the company also grew you know because we were allocating our resources more efficiently to the things that the business uh really should be spending money on.

And I think one of the challenges is like if you live, you know, paycheck to paycheck with your business is like, you know, a lot of times you're putting money into things that you don't needed to to do because you want to grow so quickly. And um you know that you're literally throwing money away that you could be saving. And and for us, it's nice. We don't have any debt in the business. I don't have any debt personally.

Um, I don't know all my business partners relationship, but we all kind of like think the same and and operate the same way. So, like when the business hit hard times and I had to take a uh haircut on my salary from the the company, like uh to help the company move forward, like I've been able to live off, you know, my personal savings and and that's just kind of a nice, you know, it's not nice that I have to do that.

I don't enjoy doing that. But the fact that I can do that means that the business can survive. And sometimes part of business isn't growing. Part of business is surviving. Living to see another day and and being in the game, you know. >> Yeah. >> Whether or not the game's going your way. >> Yep. It's really good. I mean, I'm in the stage of things. It's part of the reason I wanted to have you on. I'm in the stage of things where, you know, I brought Patrick Kadoo into my business uh as a COO, business partner.

Um I'll have him back on soon. We'll talk more about that, but we we talked about that some you know Patrick quite well and um you know we we we had this conversation at his house a few weeks ago where we're talking about like okay well we're doing EOS like what's our 10 year goal what's our three-year goal you know and I I'm still not quite ready to share those things publicly but it has brought up this question of like am I trying to create an exit but to me the answer to that question is actually nested into a different question which is like what's the meaning of life you know like what am I trying to accomplish uh and and uh I I have a little suspicion right now that the a lot of the reason people struggle with some of these things in businesses is because they don't have a very strong answer to the meaning of life question or to like what they're trying to do.

Like the way you just answered that question was very much like listen here's all the things that I have and that are good. What more is there in life? You actually use that phrase, you know. Um I think that's a really good way to answer the question which is like these are things I care about. my wife and my relationship with her 20 year anniversary my relationship with my kids being really good getting to be physically healthy in a place that I want to be in and do things that are physical exertion that I enjoy uh work on a business with people I like I think that's interesting and I think what it allows you to do this is actually a way I've conceptualized this for myself I don't know if I don't know if you ever thought explicitly in terms of this framework I'd be curious if you did is like is it possible to build a business from a place of content of contentment instead from a place of discontent because I think like a lot of the times the people are building towards something because they are not happy with the way things are now.

But could you actually build a great business out of a place of of joy and contentment with the way things are now? Um and that actually becomes the launching pad for what you want your business to do. Um and I mean obviously the answer to some degree must be yes, right? You can't be the case that you have to be discontented to be a good entrepreneur. Um, but that's like the way I've started to kind of think about this question is like I don't if whatever my goals are, I don't want them to come from a place of lack.

I want them to come from a place of like joy and contentment and then let that create potential the gift of work like like you described earlier, you know, to to do the things I want, which is a which is a joy and a privilege of like I have enough so I can do that, you know, I don't I'm not scrging to feed my family or anything. And so I recognize there's plenty of people who who simply don't have that option in life.

And I I'm sympathetic to that, you know, but at least for where I'm at, that's the way I've conceptualized it. >> Yeah. I mean, Mondays are are like my favorite day uh because I get to work, you know, and I get five days of of work coming up and and weekends can be tough for me actually. So I do enjoy work. I enjoy um you know if you're not in the game yet uh I want to remind you entrepreneurship is simply a series of identifying problems prioritizing those problems and solving those problems and it never ends.

So if you don't like that, do not become an entrepreneur. Yeah. >> You know, like that is your job. And I enjoy that. Like I I enjoy discovering ways that I can fix things and then, >> you know, setting up the processes to fix it. And then work for me, it's more working with team members who are better at executing than I am because I I'm kind of flighty. Uh move on to the next thing. But um you know, when when I do that is it's just a lot of fun.

And you know, I've I've intentionally thought about along the the the ways the perspective that I have when it comes to building this business is how do I build a business that I can pass on to my my kids or my grandkids? And then when you think in that kind of time frame, like this is a I'm 44 years old, you know, let's say I can go God willing live to 80 years old. So I've got what 30 36 years. So I'm building a 36 year business.

So, how am I going to enjoy doing this for 36? >> Yeah. >> I'm only going to enjoy it if I'm working on the projects I want to work on >> with the people who I want to work with >> when I want to work on them. So, like those are the three things that I think about is like who am I working with, when am I working, and what am I working on? >> Yeah. Yeah. I love that. That's awesome. Um, any last stuff before we hang up?

Uh, what what any any big burning entrepreneurial thoughts? Do you have any This is something I like to ask people who are in the e-commerce space. Um any uh any just like things you're hot on right now on your DTOC business? Things that are ideas that you're excited about, tactics, strategies. >> Well, >> what's what's top of mind for you right now? >> Well, so you know, I had a phone call with another entrepreneurial friend, and I know some people are out there are still suffering. >> Um you know, we got sued recently in that there there's nothing fun in that.

I got a a DM from someone who's also getting sued. And for the people who are suffering, I I just want to send a reminder out there that the the phase you are in, it will end. It is not permanent. The the the the darkness that you are experiencing, you are going to figure out a way through it. Um maybe it is bankruptcy, you know, maybe it is shutting the business down, maybe it is getting a job for somebody else, you know, uh maybe it is, you know, feeling like u you're a failure to your your your family.

Um but but that's not a a a permanent thing because like you are going to move forward. It is not the end of the road. There are ways out of everything. And I've talked to people who have gone through bankruptcy and I've talked to people who had, you know, six and seven figure uh losses uh and debt and just obligations that they had to work through. I've talked to people who are now bed bound, you know, for the rest of their life and they're they're finding, you know, new joys and new creativities that they didn't know who used to have a sevenf figureure business and now are literally living in a nursing home and and finding love in that.

So the the life is tricky, man, and woman men and women out there. Uh but it does end. And the other sad thing is it does end. So like we're going to get old. You know, our kids aren't going to talk like kids anymore. They're going to start talking like adults. They're not going to want to sit on your lap anymore. U you're not going to be able to hold them anymore. So enjoy it while you can. >> I think that's a that's that nicely summarizes why I'm trying to build from a place of contentment is like I don't Yeah.

Uh, I've I've mentioned this anecdote before, but uh the the quarterback Kirk Cousins, I've heard I don't know if this is actually true, but I've heard that he counts birthdays backwards. Like he starts he does his birthdays like >> on the assumption of when he'll die. And so it's like he counts down instead of counts up. Uh and as as a like annual reminder, I don't know, maybe he counts up too. I'm sure he knows how old he is, but uh he like he you know, as an as a as a regular reminder that like that's that he wants to live in light of that.

I think it's I think it's good. I think it's a good practice. Um all right, man. Well, we've we've covered all the big stuff. We've covered subscription. We've covered the inevitability of death and a lot of things in between. Wouldn't be a conversation with Eric Van Holtz without hitting a couple of those big topics all at once. I appreciate it. Thanks for your time. >> Thanks for having me on. [Music]