Introduction
In this insightful interview, we sit down with Gamal Codner, founder of Fresh Heritage, who managed to build his beard oil business from $0 to $60,000 a month in just 90 days. Gamal shares his journey of creating grooming products specifically for African-American men and men with multi-ethnic hair who have unique hair needs. His story is a testament to the power of identifying a specific market need, leveraging paid advertising, and building authentic relationships with customers.
Founder Success Story QnA
Can you introduce yourself and your background?
I am a Jamaican-born entrepreneur, now for about 10 years, about 8 years fully. I did a couple of things in corporate sales for a few years back, just really hated what I was doing even though I was well compensated. I just desired to learn a skill and from a long time ago I’ve been really big on just investing in the knowledge of others instead of just learning the hard way, speeding up my learning curve. Time is our most valuable asset, so I just got some mentors in the digital marketing space and had an agency for a while helping other brands grow online through paid social. I did that enough and about four years ago I decided to launch my own brand. It’s a family-owned brand, my wife and I run it daily, and we sell grooming products to African-American men, men with multi-ethnic care that have unique hair needs.
Were you working purely with e-commerce brands in your agency?
This was like 2014 when we started, so at that time, 2013 actually, e-commerce I think wasn’t that big and it’s really an early market. We did a couple of things, but towards the end I had the most success and had the most fun with the e-commerce brands I represented. So that’s what made me want to go into the e-commerce route to do my own thing versus some of the other brands. The good thing was that I got a bird’s-eye view of a whole lot of industries using paid ads, and I saw kind of the trends of e-commerce, and so I knew that’s something I kind of wanted to go into.
Did you always have experience with paid ads?
That was a skill I thought could take me away from corporate America, and I was right. So in the first two years of trying to do a side business, I made about eight thousand dollars, and in the first 90 days of having a mentor that taught me how to do paid ads properly, I made 107k, so big difference. That’s the thing that eventually took me away from corporate America, and this is the thing that has been able to allow me to feed my family every month. I learned that skill first and I offered it as a service to other people, but I realized that paid ads is a great way to leverage what you’re doing, but there are other ways to leverage what you’re doing too.
Why did you choose beard oils specifically?
One of the things with paid ads is people are like, man, these ads aren’t working, and usually when the ads aren’t working, it has nothing to do with the ads, it’s really about the lack of product market fit or the lack of, hey, does this product serve a need or solve a pain point. So I have this concept called the three Ps: person, pain, and promise. It’s essentially what specific person does your product benefit and can improve their lives, and what specific pain point in that specific person is your product go after, and what promise can you make that person about that specific pain. So I bring all that up to say beard oil, in that concept, because although it seems very general, it’s like a very basic need, I figured out that as a man of color, it was very hard for me to find products for myself because most products on the market had like general products. Large brands have alcohol content in the ingredient list, and that is absolutely horrible for people with hair like mine. So that was one side of the battle. The other side was that the products that have historically been made for African-American people, a recent study showed one in every 12 products out of like over a thousand products reviewed had highly hazardous products in the contents. So I was in this place where either I got things that were bad for my hair or not made for my hair type, or if I went to the things that were made for my hair type, I risked putting my body in danger. I found myself using female products because there are products made for female African-Americans who were like the right mix, and I was like, man, why am I using all these pink bottles in my grooming? There needs to be something that spoke more closely to me. So that’s kind of where my three Ps evolved from: I can help men of color with beards with my hair needs, solve the pain point of having to choose between things that aren’t made for them or things that are made for them that are potentially dangerous or things that are made for women. I can help them with their grooming needs.
When did you first launch Fresh Heritage?
We officially launched May of 2017. It took me a couple months before that to finally get the idea off the ground. In 2016, I just spent some time with a tech startup, we raised some money in Silicon Valley and stuff, and it shut down, didn’t work well, but I learned so much from tech startups and how they think about things. This is where I got this concept of three Ps from, how they think about using technology to solve a problem. So I just kind of had this problem that I overlooked, and I’m like, what if I can use something less than technology to but still solve a problem for people. So it took me a couple months because I knew nothing about manufacturing. I found that with tech, people have strong skill sets and they usually find other people in other areas. So if you’re like good with development and coding, you may find someone who’s good at fundraising or UX/UI. I use that same concept. I was good at marketing, I had this problem, I had to find someone who’s fortunately a biochemist, an African-American biochemist with a massive beard who’s solving this problem for himself for a few years just on a personal level. I borrowed a lot of his research and advice. Actually in 2016, to celebrate what we were doing, my brothers and I took a trip to Morocco, and during that time we just learned about our heritage. We took some stuff back from them, so we were actually part of the reason this brand is really cool and unique is that all our ingredients are founded on those traditions that we discovered. All of our products have ingredients that are inspired by African or Caribbean diaspora, and so we kind of pay homage and tradition to all of our heritage in a modern twist way. That guy was able to help bring the actual product market fit to life, and I just built a team and took about six months to bring it to life.
How important was the founder story to your brand?
In a busy, highly competitive marketplace, you usually don’t have to be better than your competition, but you do have to be different. You have to give people a reason to try you because we’re oftentimes competing for that first sale. If you have a good product and they try it, you’ll continue to have great customers. Like one of our highest lifetime value customers has bought from us 46 times over the past two years, and we have dozens, hundreds, thousands of people who have bought more than once. So that part speaks for itself, but how do we get that person to try us out for the first time? Oftentimes if we’re small, nimble with a very small budget, it’s the founder story or the brand story. It’s about what uniqueness about myself or our journey or our founder’s story that resonates with that 3P, the person, pain, and promise. Having an honest founder’s story and a background to let people know that hey, I have the same problem that you had, and here’s all the depths of details we went to solve this problem for ourselves, and now we have made this solution available for you, really helps connect with people on the front end. We knew once they tried our product, they would just continue to rock with us and build a really good community.
Did you have success before joining the Foundr course?
I knew the importance of building a team from some of my experiences in my previous startup. Also, I think early on in this interview I talked about I understood the benefits of having great self-awareness, realizing what I’m good at and what I’m not good at. I had some success coming out the gate. I built a great team, built up a good idea, I thought it was good, great product market fit. I started small, started local. We had a local launch and collected, I gathered a lot of the local influencers and thought leaders and got a lot of press and just local inertia around there. So we built up a lot of good momentum, but then I ran into other issues. I knew nothing about influencers, I didn’t have very little knowledge on how to like the operation side of running a business. So we jump out the gate, we make a lot of sales, but oh crap, now I have to actually figure out a way to fulfill these orders. So it was just a lot of other learnings that I needed, and so I was looking for more solutions to the things that I knew nothing about, and I think that’s when I came across you guys.
What tools did you take from the Start and Scale course?
Influencers are definitely one. Just being a part of a community of other people on the journey was super helpful. I’ve connected with some really dope individuals in the first 90 days of the course that I still connect with now. We all know that I won like one of the fastest growing brands in the course, and I got a chance to meet the guys at Foundr and Gretta and some other people I still keep in touch with everyone that I met on that trip. So just like that’s essentially priceless. One of the things was influencers, connections, and then just overall store management, just like what apps I need, how to hire people, how to reach out to people. Just a lot of things I just knew marketing, I was very strong at marketing, and this taught me how to be a CEO of a brand. So just a lot of things that you can’t even put your finger on, but just helpful, just having someone to reach out to, having someone to be on the same journey with you, just updates with new apps or how to fulfill orders, just like random stuff.
How did your revenue change after taking the course?
I can’t remember the specific numbers, it’s been for four years, but I think I went from like zero to like very little, maybe 10k total revenue to like 16k a month in 90 days. Part of the reason that I was very successful with that was because I knew paid ads, my concept of leverage, using paid ads to do something that’s working really well. The thing that I was looking for when I came in the course was influencers. I kind of realized and understood the value proposition, what the value profits for influencers, how to manage them. I linked up with a local influencer who fit the bill, and I knew what I needed to persuade and convince people who were on the fence about my product because I did the surveys which they talked about early on in the course, so I understood what my customers’ pain points were and what they were hesitant on with doing business with me. I got it to work at a local level, and I just put a lot of ads behind it. Our first influencer video that we took, just like regular user-generated content on an iPhone, ended up getting a couple million views in our first year, and that one iPhone video over the years has contributed to over a half a million dollars in revenue.
Have you continued using user-generated content in your ads?
I’ve tried different things throughout the years, and everything kind of ebbs and flows. It’s like people don’t want to be sold to, they just want to buy. It’s one of those things where in general marketing, when everyone zigs, you should zag, because if everyone’s doing a certain type of thing, people are aware that this is what’s happening. Right now there seems to be a swing back to more natural user-generated content because people are so aware of them being sold to, like everything’s in 4K and just looking highly professional. The concept of influencers and people being paid to say stuff is just very well known. We still utilize influencers to get our message across. 90% of our influencers we use are actual customers. That was important to us too, to get people who actually really believe in the product. Sometimes it may be like, oh, that guy we see him on your website, and we’re like, yeah, he’s a real customer who happens to also authentically like our products. We just found that that worked best for us recently, just continuing to do really raw, unedited iPhone type quality stuff, catching natural reactions to people who genuinely like our products, not as much for paid people. The only benefit is with paid people is that rookies, people who are not used to being on camera, they get so nervous and they start saying crap that isn’t true or they have a whole lot of ums and maybes. It’s a little bit of a time commitment to get there, and they get nervous, they need to have haircuts, they’re just not ready. So sometimes if we work with someone who’s used to being on camera and clearly in the pain points, that helps a little bit better, but if we do use that, we try not to have it be overly produced and still have that user-generated feel.
How have you managed to scale with influencers?
Starting off, one of the lessons I found is that it is much better to start local and to have fewer super fans and just people who really buy into what the brand is doing versus just trying to swing for the bat and just having people all over spread out. I’ll explain for a few reasons. Early on, it’s like building momentum, and so it’s much easier to manage just locally. If I highlight a list, it helps if you’re in a large city. I launched the brand in Atlanta, which there are a lot of my target demo in the city, but any major city can do this. Build a list of 50 people locally, and you actually go and try to meet them in real life, reach out to them, ask me for coffee, bring them over. We would have like pool parties and just really cool social things for just 10, 20 people, or we’d sponsor drinks on us for just a happy hour social. We’ll partner with the local bar, have 50 guys come through, and we just built authentic relationships and bonds with us so that we actually understood our customers. Then when we did have an ask, it was like they were doing it for a friend. We had a very important conversation with anyone, which is our why and our founder’s story, why we started this. So we almost had like walking billboards when any of these people had someone who was an ideal customer, they had a relationship with the founder, knew what we’re about, knew that we were people of high integrity, knew what our brand’s mission was, and knew that we were serving a bigger purpose. So we got a lot of our influencers who were really just ended up being friends, and a lot of people we worked with in year one, we still turned to to get stuff from in year four just because of the investment that we put in early on.
How did social events help grow the brand before COVID?
I always thought that was a key differentiator in how we were able to do things. You know, when everyone’s digging, you should zag. I noticed the trend of everything being online, so much so that people would be in the same space and all communicating on their phone. I was just like, hey, let’s just get to know people. We partnered with other local businesses who had the same mission statement and had the same common purpose, and we had the best events. The type of users who bought our product like partners at law firms, just go-getters, trailblazers. We just created an environment where we would just have them in and say, hey, we don’t have any products here to sell, this is not about that. This is the fact that we have such dope people in our community, and we want to share and foster collaboration with other people who are supporting us. We want this to be our way of supporting you, so here’s a free networking event, meet cool people, have a free drink on us. It really helped a lot. Those are the kind of things that allowed people to buy multiple times with us because they were bought into what we’re trying to do, like the bigger picture. It also did grow revenue because the only thing that we would capture is the user-generated content. We got a chance to meet customers, some customers would drive two and a half hours away to come and meet us and just participate. We got a chance to get content from them or reviews, and it just really helped funnel through our emails, our ads, and some of the other things. So it was a tool that kept on giving.
How did COVID impact your business?
At the start of COVID, we kind of made a decision that it was a lot of uncertainty, and if we were going to go through this, we wanted it to be a fast death. We didn’t want to have like a long drawn out debt. We were like, all right, we can BS this thing, keep it slow, and see how we end up in six months, or we can just fail fast. We just really increased our advertising spend, increased the products that we launched. We launched more products last year than we ever had and launch additional products we’ve been sitting on. We did that. In addition to that, I moved, sold the house, relocated the business, had a baby. Last year was just a crazy year for us, but it turned out good. The bet worked, by the way. We ended up not failing fast and ended up seeing some significant growth in the midst of all that other stuff.
How did you approach product diversification?
I’m a big fan of less is more, and don’t let great be the enemy of good. For about at least over a year, I only sold one single product. People were so surprised, but I just wanted to be known for the best thing. I can safely say that the comments that we get from our product, we worked on it, we reiterated, we changed that thing maybe five or six times, and we confidently have the best beard oil for men of color, by far. People leave comments all the time like, I’ve literally tried 20 other things, and once I found your product, I no longer need to search, this is the best thing I’ve ever had. We just wanted to get good at one thing and then earn that trust and then launch traditional products based on customer feedback. Most of our customers are busy, and men generally don’t spend as much time taking care of themselves, so we wanted to create as few products as possible that can serve the most variety of customers. We have African-American men with a bunch of different hair textures, a bunch of different hair lengths, so we just really created three products that could groom your hair on your head, on your beard, if it’s short, if it’s long, if it’s curly, if it’s straight, if it’s dry, if it’s moist. Those are our first products: the beard oil, conditioner, and shampoo. Then we launched some supplements as well to help men. There are two types of customers: people who want to grow a beard and people who already have a beard and want to maintain it better. The supplements are more for people who are just starting off and don’t want to go through the ugly phase of having a really patchy beard. They can take our products and kind of speed up that process and get to a desirable, glamorous beard in a shorter amount of time.
Do you have subscription services for repeat customers?
About 41% of our revenue comes from people who have bought before. We’re really big on just serving the hell out of our customers, managing what we have instead of trying to just focus on trying to get new, new, new and mismanaging the current people. That guy that I talked about who’s ordered from us 46 times in two years, he is on subscription. We do intentional things to keep people on our subscription program. The number one thing is we don’t call it subscription, we call it a membership. Subscription has a negative connotation, and from our research, our demographic like being a part of membership societies, membership has this additional benefits connotation. So we redesigned our membership program to just design it in a way that would be appealing and serve the needs of our customers. But really the biggest thing to grow repeat business is just having a good freaking product. If you have a product, you don’t really need to convince people to buy more of it, you just need to make it convenient for them to be able to get more when they want it. Our biggest learning is if you want to grow your membership program, have a really good product that serves a problem and just make it convenient for people to keep that very convenient product that solves a big pain point for them in their house.
How do you test new products before launching?
I have this idea concept called the ugly baby syndrome. If I had an ugly baby, I would have no idea if my baby was ugly because people who are acts would recognize the relationship I have with my baby, not want to hurt my feelings. Most people are decent people. Same thing happens with your business. When you have a business, you’re usually talking to your significant others about your idea, you’re investing time, energy, money, and they don’t want to tell you it’s a bad idea, but that’s what you need to hear. Unlike a real baby, you can do something about your business. Them coddling you and not letting you know it’s a piece of crap, the sooner they do that, the better, the sooner you can make those changes and find success. When I launch products early on, I want to know what’s wrong with it, I want to know how bad it is, why it sucks, and I make those improvements before I scale to the masses. That’s also why it’s important to have a solid list of people who really believe in the brand that you can send the crappy stuff to and get honest feedback from them. When tech companies do it, they launch, Apple launches a new thing, the phone without the button or the earpods without the cords, their super users go and use it, they get feedback, they make updates. That’s why they don’t launch an iOS 14 update all at once, they launch it to certain people, call it an alpha test, make the changes, fix the bugs, and then by the time the rest of the world gets it, we’re on a couple of versions of modifications. I think e-commerce brands should do the same when they’re launching products and learn to sell a little later in the process, just look for product validation and improvements early on.
What are your future goals for Fresh Heritage?
Fortunately, we have surpassed a lot of the goals I originally said for it. I think the next goal on our roadmap is to actually exit the brand. We were intentional early on that we want to build something that we can get to a certain level, and now I think we’re at the point where as an entrepreneur, just being honest with what you’re good at and what you’re not good at, I know that the brand has potential to reach other places, and my skill sets are probably not the best skill sets to take it to that next level. I think the next big milestone for us would be to find someone who can take what we’ve built and take it into the dream brand that we think this has the potential to be. I think that’ll be a pretty cool experience to go through and find a potential good fit and good home for the brand to hit newer heights.
What advice would you give to someone on the fence about starting a business?
If you’re considering joining this course or any info product in general, it’s important that you set realistic expectations. Your outcome may not be as good or the same as mine or some of the other testimonials, but understand that we have access to the same information that you’re going to have access to. That is absolutely true. We didn’t get this certain information that you’re not going to get access to. If you believe in yourself and want to go on this journey and you’re serious about it, you should always bet on yourself. By investing in this course or any course for that matter, you’re not investing in Gretta and you better make you a millionaire, you’re investing that if you get access to the same information that we have access to, that you do the work to get the results. I am very confident that you will learn stuff that you don’t know, and the things that you learn will get you in a better place. There’s a big difference between people who are teaching theory about e-commerce versus someone who’s actually lived it. From all the investing that I’ve done, this is an amazing community of real people who are leading you who actually are in their business each day building it. You’re learning from people’s real experience, it’s not in theory, it makes a difference. So much so that I’ve actually bought multiple products from Foundr. If starting scale isn’t the one for you, they have other things that are amazing courses. I think starting scale is an amazing foundation for people to start and take you from idea phase to generating revenue fairly quickly. I believe so much in what I’ve learned that I’ve actually given you money multiple times, so that should be a testament to just the quality of the information I received and just have been loved and felt a part and supported in this community. Stop thinking and just do it. If you believe in yourself, stop talking and hit the button and buy it.
Gamal Codner Business Stats
Gamal Codner built Fresh Heritage from scratch into a thriving beard oil business that generates substantial monthly revenue. His journey showcases the power of identifying a specific market need and executing a targeted strategy. Below are some key statistics and achievements from his business journey.
- Reached $60,000 monthly revenue in just 90 days
- Now surpassing $1 million in monthly revenue
- 41% of revenue comes from repeat customers
- Highest lifetime value customer has purchased 46 times in two years
- Over 2,700 positive customer reviews
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Monthly Revenue (Starting) | $0 |
| Monthly Revenue (90 Days) | $60,000 |
| Current Monthly Revenue | $1,000,000+ |
| Repeat Customer Rate | 41% |
| Year Started | 2017 |
Gamal Codner Method
Gamal’s success with Fresh Heritage didn’t happen by accident. He followed a specific method that focused on solving a real problem for a specific audience. Here’s a breakdown of his approach to building a successful beard oil business.
- Identified a specific problem: lack of quality grooming products for men of color
- Applied the “Three Ps” framework: Person, Pain, and Promise
- Started local with in-person events to build authentic relationships
- Leveraged paid ads with user-generated content for authentic marketing
- Focused on product excellence before expanding the product line
- Built a community of loyal customers who became brand ambassadors
Gamal Codner Tools
Gamal utilized a variety of tools and platforms to build and scale Fresh Heritage. His tech stack focused on marketing automation, e-commerce functionality, and customer relationship management to create a seamless experience for both his team and customers.
- Shopify – E-commerce platform to manage online store and sales
- Paid advertising platforms – Facebook and Instagram ads for targeted customer acquisition
- Email marketing system – For customer retention and product launches
- Analytics tools – To track customer behavior and campaign performance
- Influencer management platform – To streamline collaborations with brand ambassadors
Key Notes
Throughout our conversation with Gamal, several key insights emerged that can help aspiring entrepreneurs. These notes capture the essence of his approach to building a successful e-commerce business in a competitive market.
- Solve a specific problem for a specific person rather than trying to appeal to everyone
- Invest in knowledge and mentorship to accelerate your learning curve
- Build authentic relationships with customers before asking for sales
- Focus on creating an excellent product before expanding your product line
- Use user-generated content for more authentic marketing
- Don’t be afraid to fail fast and learn from your mistakes
- Build a brand, not just a business, with a long-term vision
Get Started in Just 5 Steps
Inspired by Gamal’s journey? Here’s how you can start your own successful beard oil business following the key principles that made Fresh Heritage a success. These steps will guide you from idea to launch.
- Identify a specific problem in the market that you’re passionate about solving
- Research your target audience thoroughly to understand their pain points
- Develop a minimum viable product and get feedback from real customers
- Build authentic relationships with your first 50 customers locally
- Leverage paid advertising with user-generated content to scale your reach
Conclusion
Gamal Codner’s journey from $0 to $60,000 a month with Fresh Heritage demonstrates the power of identifying a specific market need and executing a focused strategy. By targeting men of color who struggled to find quality grooming products, Gamal built not just a business but a community of loyal customers. His emphasis on product excellence, authentic marketing, and customer relationships provides a blueprint for aspiring entrepreneurs looking to make their mark in the e-commerce space. Whether you’re interested in the beard oil business specifically or e-commerce in general, Gamal’s insights offer valuable lessons on building a sustainable and successful brand.