Beardbrand

Beardbrand is an American men's grooming company based in Austin, Texas. It sells products for grooming, styling, and maintaining of beards, hair, skin, and mustaches. In 2014, Beardbrand founder and CEO Eric Bandholz appeared on an episode of the reality television series Shark Tank.[1]

Beardbrand
TypePrivate
IndustryMen's grooming
Founded2012
FounderEric Bandholz (CEO)
Lindsey Reinders
Jeremy McGee
Headquarters
Austin, Texas
,
U.S.
Area served
Worldwide
Products
Websitewww.beardbrand.com

Company history

Prior to founding Beardbrand, Eric Bandholz worked as a financial advisor at Merrill Lynch in Spokane, Washington. Bandholz disapproved of the company's "no facial hair" policy and decided to leave in favor of starting a beard grooming company.[2] In 2011, he attended a Startup Weekend event in Spokane where he met Lindsey Reinders and Jeremy McGee.[3] The three would go on to launch Beardbrand in Spokane[4] in early 2012 along with a complementary Tumblr blog, YouTube channel, and an online magazine called Urban Beardsman (a term, Bandholz coined).[3][5][6]

Bandholz, Reinders, and McGee started with an initial financial capital of $8,000.[7] None of them kept any profits from sales in the first 10 months of the company in an effort to keep it afloat.[2] In January 2013, Bandholz was featured as a "beard expert" in an article for The New York Times.[8] After the article was published, Beardbrand began aggressively marketing itself across several platforms like YouTube, Tumblr, and Reddit, and it also launched its online store.[2]

The company relocated to Austin, Texas in 2014.[9] On October 31, 2014, Bandholz appeared on an episode of ABC's Shark Tank in an effort to accrue more funding for Beardbrand. Bandholz asked for $400,000 in exchange for 15% of the company.[2] After Bandholz gave his pitch, all five "sharks" (Mark Cuban, Robert Herjavec, Lori Greiner, Kevin O'Leary, and Daymond John) declined to accept his deal.[10]

Since their beginning in 2012, Beardbrand's YouTube channel has been an important part of the marketing of their company. As of March 1, 2019, the company has more than 1,000,000 subscribers on their YouTube channel. Their channel includes videos that include information about beards, grooming tips, barbershop videos and other videos related to maintaining a beard. A lot of Beardbrand's publicity has come from their YouTube channel, and the channel has introduced many that have become familiar faces related to the company, including: Eric Bandholz, Carlos Costa, Greg Berzinsky, Jeff Buoncristiano and Jack Milocco.

References
  1. Gallagher, Jacob (12 April 2016). "Is the Beard Trend Over?". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 7 August 2017.
  2. Raymundo, Oscar (29 December 2014). "This Entrepreneur Turned His Beard Into a Brand". Inc. Magazine. Retrieved 7 August 2017.
  3. Pofeldt, Elaine (27 September 2014). "'Urban Beardsman' Power Startup's Growth". Forbes. Retrieved 7 August 2017.
  4. Ocker, Kenny (30 July 2013). "Spokane startup Beardbrand focuses on men's style". The Spokesman-Review. Retrieved 7 August 2017.
  5. Patel, Sujan (19 November 2016). "10 Lessons You Can Learn from 10 E-commerce Success Stories". Forbes. Retrieved 7 August 2017.
  6. Gallagher, Caitlin (31 October 2014). "'Shark Tank's Beardbrand Products Are Available Now for Everything from Simple 'Staches to Majestic Beards". Bustle. Retrieved 7 August 2017.
  7. Brunner, Rob (13 November 2014). "Can A $200 Beard-Growing Kit Make You Cool? We Gave It A Try". Fast Company. Retrieved 7 August 2017.
  8. Boncompagni, Tatiana (30 January 2013). "The Taming of the Beard". The New York Times. Retrieved 7 August 2017.
  9. Swiatecki, Chad (29 October 2014). "Trip to ABC's 'Shark Tank' looms for Austin startup Beardbrand". Austin Business Journal. Retrieved 7 August 2017.
  10. Swiatecki, Chad (3 November 2014). "BeardBrand sees sales spike despite no bites from Shark Tank investors". Austin Business Journal. Retrieved 7 August 2017.
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