I believe men are becoming increasingly conscious of their appearance and it’s quite evident on GV as well. Working out, getting in shape is only L1 problem, personal care goes beyond working out. But there are two problems when men want to start personal care (skin,hair, body)
Lack of knowledge. Where to start? How to start? Which products to use? What is Vitamin C? WTF is a hyaluronic acid?
If #1 is sorted, then the second problem is laziness. I spoke to 220+ men and 70% spend only spend or want to spend 10-20 mins/day on personal care.
I plan to solve this by,
Content. Becoming an education first brand. Best example is Ditto Insurance, they’re more of an advisor than a Insurance selling company. A good example in D2C space is The Whole Truth. I want to educate men about personal care. I want to build a brand that men turn to when starting their personal care journey.
Innovative products & Functionality. Men would benefit a lot from serum but they don’t use it primarily because the hassle of using a dropper, rubbing it on your face is too much. We’ll innovate how these products are made. Easy to use.
I’ve dropped a full-time job offer to build this right out of college. Borrowed 10L from F&F. Registered the company and on-boarded a few kickass people to create content. Hope all goes well. I’ll keep sharing the progress here :)
Best of luck. I don't care about the market or the product you might sell, but love the energy. People buy from people who are 'realistic' and passionate about what they sell.
Thanks Man. I’ve always tried to build something while in college but failed :/
Hopefully this will work out. I am truly passionate about building a Men’s personal care brand and I know 8/10 Men will start taking their apperance seriously in the future.
It's never a failure, it's a tactical retreat at best and strategic pivot at worst. You keep learning and keep building and that's the only thing that matters.
The skincare routine is common for men and women. Nykaa and Nykaa Man already have the products you need.
CTSMS -
Cleanse: Scrub and clean your road tar like skin.
Tone: Apply a liquid toner or spray after cleansing and exfoliating.
Serum: Apply a few drops of serum to your fingertips and gently massage it into your pavement until it's absorbed.
Moisturizer: Apply a pea-sized amount of moisturizer to your pavement and rub it in using circular motions until it's absorbed.
Sunscreen: If you’re going out in the sun.
Now repeat CTSMS.
Btw Minimalist is capturing this persona, it is my brand of choice. Would love to try your products whenever you are ready. All the best to you
The idea is not to get affected by your looks not more. Anything with sole purpose of increasing aesthetics is shallow and people infatuated with it need to look inwards.
Starting a D2C brand is extremely easy in todays world. Successfully executing a D2C business in today's market and that too for men and that too grooming - You are trying something extremely difficult.
The only suggestion would be "pls don't be another copy paste brand". If you don't have anything unique to offer then don't start. Pls spend on R&D. Don't bring US or korea products to India. We need indian solution to indian problem.
Anyone with some funds can start D2C business. Identify product, get a manufacturer, on-boarding marketing agency and it's done. But this won't give you sales. Be unique, solve genuine problem.
I’m betting on the future, there seems to be early signs of men getting serious about their personal care. Consumption is increasing. Fitness, Healthy Foods, The market overall is growing. The problem here I feel is lack of education, unlike women, men don’t care about the ingredients in their product and neither do they understand it. They want to KNOW what problem is x product going to solve + how can it be done with minimal effort possible. We are innovating on “product application”, one example is Roll-On Serum. I’ve lived the D2C journey once, launched a clothing brand and failed. Hence focusing on Distribution this time.
Your target audience is mainly gen z if your product is serum kind. Gen z male population is extremely small as of now. Be mindful of paying capacity.
I will again advice to spend time on identifying genuine problem and spend money on R&D.
Update to this — https://share.gvine.app/uhA3u5ZEizgE6vMD7
TLDR — Dropped job offers and started a D2C personal-care brand for men right out of college. Spent 6 months on R&D, onboarded a dermatologist, scaled Instagram to 14K. A lot of...
Any new age consumer / D2C brands that you are fond of? Looking for inspiration on how to build a brand
