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What’s up guys, first I want to say a huge thankyou for all your support since we launched a month ago. It has been absolutely mad, but in a great way, products have been flying out all over the world, from Australia, to the USA & Canada, all across Europe, Russia and the Middle East!
The feedback I’ve received so far has been nothing short of impeccable! I’m the kind of guy who relishes bad feedback more than the good, because I want to constantly improve and up my game. I’m strangely disappointed that I haven’t had any bad feedback yet, apart from one bit from Rusty saying he wants stickers… of course he does lol.
I set out on this journey 1 year ago when I started experimenting with making my own beard oils. I did the usual, watched a few YouTube tutorials and started to order a few products to try out and find out what I liked. So, I slowly bought different carrier oils, essential oils, butters, and wax’s and cook up some experiments in my kitchen in London. I used these products on myself every day and nook notes of what I like, what I need to change etc, and started to figure out what Beard Tings was going to look like.
I then joined an ambassador program for a large beard brand to dip my toes into the beard industry, this turned out to be both great and awful at the same time. I learned some great lessons on how not to market a product and how not to treat your customers. It was a poorly run company full of negativity.
I quickly realised that being an ambassador for a brand like that was not for me, it was cheesy and cringeworthy! A bunch of grown ass men dressing up and cosplaying as Vikings... no thank you, I’d rather live in the real world. So, I decided to leave the ambassador program and do my own thing. I started to review other products and I met two likeminded guys from the UK who had had enough of the program and wanted to do their own thing, Dan (@docks_bearded_reviews) & Sean @trinitybeards).
We hit it off straight away and decided to join as a trio and start reviewing beard products together, and Bearded Bear reviews was born! We started off buying products from small batch companies to review, and after a while companies started to approach us and send us out products for free, and after that we even started to get paid to do reviews, which was incredible for us! BBR grew quick and we stood out from the crowd with some fun and entertaining podcasts, posts and reviews. Later after much success we then took on a 3rd member, Jamie (@beardy_and_the_mini_beast) and we bacame a Quad.
As time went on, I started to send samples of my scents and oils out for feedback. I sent them to some close friends in the community and the feedback wasn’t bad, still with a lot of areas of improvement needed. It was great to get as much feedback as I possibly could, so by the time I was ready to launch, I knew they would be top quality!
I wanted my products to really stand out from the crowd, so I put loads of time and effort into the research and development of some awesome packaging. This took months! Endless emails and contacting suppliers and factories halfway round the world, having to learn how to design 3D bottles in CAD and constantly add or remove parts of the design… they must hate me! But the final product really does look awesome, and I’m not shy to say I think it’s the best looking beard product packaging on the market!
The packaging took 2 months to arrive in the UK, every day I was just waiting by the window like an excited kid waiting for Santa Claus! Everything was ready to go, my cosmetic safety testing was done, the scent profiles were banging, I had all the raw materials, and I was just waiting on the packaging to launch, and it managed to arrive on Black Friday!! What were the chances! I had to act quick and get all the products up on the website and start cooking up the first batches!
It was a busy weekend, non-stop cooking and getting products and orders ready! Big shout out to my mate William and my Mum (legend!) for giving me a hand with all the production and prep! The orders in the first week were flying! Thankyou all so much for your support and your feedback so far. I’m super happy with how everything has gone so far!
There’s so much more to come from Beard Tings! We’re about to launch out Aloe Vera based Beard Cleanser!! Keep an eye out for this product drop! We’re also going to be releasing our full scent range in beard butters, aimed for Summer 2021! Also, we’ve got a load of other products in the pipeline currently being developed!
Thank you all once again!
Stay Safe, Stay Bearded, and Peace Out!!
Andy