Latest / eCommerce Podcast / Why I Rejected Subscriptions and Built a Thriving Social Commerce Brand | Founder Gareth Everard

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Why I Rejected Subscriptions and Built a Thriving Social Commerce Brand | Founder Gareth Everard · eCommerce Podcast

• 0:04
  Well, hello and welcome to the eCommerce Podcast with
• 0:07
  me, your host, Matt Edmundson.
• 0:09
  This is a show all about helping you deliver eCommerce wow.
• 0:13
  And to help us do just that.
• 0:15
  I am chatting.
• 0:17
  With Gareth Everard from Rockwell Razors.
• 0:21
  Uh, well it's a founder story today, which is great, and I'm really looking forward
• 0:24
  to digging into the whole razor thing.
• 0:27
  And it's not just about razors, is it?
• 0:28
  It's about his journey.
• 0:30
  About his story.
• 0:31
  I know a little bit 'cause I've got the notes and it's gonna be fascinating.
• 0:34
  So you're gonna wanna stay, uh, connected to, I'm definitely gonna want to grab
• 0:37
  your notebooks if you're running your own e-commerce business, because I'm
• 0:41
  hoping, and I'm expecting there's gonna be a lot of tips coming outta this one.
• 0:44
  No pressure Gareth.
• 0:46
  This is what we're expecting.
• 0:47
  Now before we get into it, if you haven't done so already, make
• 0:50
  sure you sign up to the newsletter at eCommerce Podcast dot net.
• 0:53
  We will send out to you every week just to show notes and stuff straight
• 0:56
  to your inbox so you don't even have to go onto the web to get them.
• 0:59
  I dunno if I'm promoting laziness by doing this, but hey, hey, hope.
• 1:02
  It builds the email list.
• 1:03
  Come join us.
• 1:04
  Uh, it'd just be great to connect with you.
• 1:06
  Great to get to know you.
• 1:07
  Uh, and why not come say, how's it?
• 1:09
  Now let's talk about this chap on the other end of the phone.
• 1:13
  Gareth Everett, the brains behind Rockwell Razors and the marketing force behind
• 1:18
  eco game changers like Lomi and Pella case with the BSC and environmental
• 1:23
  science from Western University.
• 1:26
  Uh, he's built a career turning big ideas into planet friendly products.
• 1:30
  Whether it's reinventing razors or leading eco-friendly innovations,
• 1:34
  Gareth's mission is simple.
• 1:36
  Make the world a greener, better place one product at a time.
• 1:40
  Gareth, listen, welcome to the show, man.
• 1:41
  I, I have been looking forward to this conversation 'cause I, for me, I, when
• 1:47
  I read that you were involved in, in Lo Me, am I pronouncing that right?
• 1:50
  Um, I instantly recognize what that was.
• 1:53
  Uh, you might wanna explain to the, the audience what that was.
• 1:56
  So let's get into that whole.
• 1:59
  Side of things at some point.
• 2:00
  But I'm very excited to have you here.
• 2:01
  Welcome to the show.
• 2:02
  Thank you for joining me.
• 2:03
  Thank you.
• 2:04
  London.
• 2:05
  Yes, all the way from London, um,
• 2:09
  in London.
• 2:10
  Um.
• 2:13
  But happy to talk to you about Lomi, about Rockwell.
• 2:16
  Just happy to be helpful.
• 2:17
  Where do you wanna start?
• 2:19
  Well just, just explain what Lomi is.
• 2:22
  Um, because I was intrigued by this, I never was intrigued enough
• 2:24
  to buy it, mainly because my wife didn't want me to buy it.
• 2:28
  Um, but I, I, I remember the products and I remember being super intrigued by it.
• 2:33
  Just explain what it is.
• 2:35
  So quick background for anyone listening.
• 2:37
  Like I started a number of eCommerce, um, businesses over the years.
• 2:42
  Um, but I largest one.
• 2:47
  Co-founding partners, and there's a brand called loi, uh, om i.com.
• 2:52
  And it's a, it's a home composter.
• 2:53
  So basically it's a countertop, composter, it's a device, a little bit bigger than
• 2:57
  a toaster, smaller than a microwave.
• 2:59
  Um, you pop open the lid, put in your food scraps, push a button, and it turns,
• 3:03
  uh, your food scraps overnight into, um, something very akin to compost.
• 3:08
  And that, that's it.
• 3:09
  So we launched it in 2021, um, and within two years had done over a hundred
• 3:15
  million in revenue, uh, profitably.
• 3:17
  So it was just this unbelievable kind of adventure.
• 3:20
  I gotta be like the co-founding CMO of, um, yeah, it was, it was, it was great.
• 3:26
  No doubt.
• 3:27
  I mean, it, it, I, it, it sounds like, I mean, it's one of those products
• 3:30
  which actually you kind of go, this is incredible 'cause from memory,
• 3:33
  correct me if I'm wrong, Garris, but you could throw anything in there,
• 3:37
  chicken bones and all kinds of stuff.
• 3:38
  If I got that role was at a certain things.
• 3:41
  Yeah, I mean, anything other than big, you're probably gonna start getting
• 3:44
  into some trouble with, but like, uh,
• 3:47
  reasonable smaller chicken and Okay.
• 3:50
  It was, it was incredible.
• 3:51
  Yeah.
• 3:52
  get involved in that?
• 3:53
  I mean, it's did, was it just a want ad in the paper or was
• 3:56
  it just people that you knew?
• 3:57
  No.
• 3:58
  Okay, so to get back a, um, all.
• 4:07
  I had started a kind of side hustle with a friend of mine and he was, he
• 4:14
  had figured out how to sharpen wey, Todd style, like straight razors, you
• 4:17
  know, those old timey straight razors.
• 4:20
  And we were trying to buy them from a state sales in London, Ontario.
• 4:24
  Um, that's the, the, the smaller London in Canada.
• 4:27
  Um, and then we were selling them on our Shopify store and.
• 4:36
  And those retailers said.
• 4:40
  We put these razors in the, in the window at the, kind of like men's goods stores.
• 4:45
  We put these razors in the window, but no one buys them 'cause
• 4:48
  they're too hard to shave with.
• 4:49
  Um, people buy, people always end up buying these double-edged safety razors.
• 4:54
  Um, and so that's kind of how we were put onto double-edged safety razors.
• 4:57
  And I started looking into the product more and realized there were these
• 5:00
  razors that were very easy to shave with.
• 5:02
  Um.
• 5:04
  Mm.
• 5:05
  Like very plastic, full cartridge razors, you know, like Gillette
• 5:09
  Shake, all the ones that we're kind of familiar with Wilkinson in the uk.
• 5:13
  Um, those have plastic on the cartridges and, um, double-edged safety razors
• 5:18
  just use a recyclable, um, single blade.
• 5:21
  And so we're like, okay, if we can.
• 5:23
  cool, aren't they?
• 5:23
  I
• 5:24
  And they look kind of cool.
• 5:25
  Um, so we figured out a way to make the double-edged safety razor, uh,
• 5:29
  adjustable so that no matter if you have like sensitive skin or kind of
• 5:32
  more thick, curly, coarse facial hair, like what I need to shave down here,
• 5:36
  um, then, uh, then there's kind of like the Rockwell setting for you.
• 5:42
  So we, um, had.
• 5:45
  Had some initial prototypes made, took it to Kickstarter, and then it
• 5:48
  kind of unexpectedly made $150,000 in a month, uh, which back in 2014
• 5:54
  was quite a large Kickstarter.
• 5:56
  Um, and so while all of my fellow environmental science graduates were
• 6:00
  going to work in the, um, Canadian oil sands, which is, uh, what, what you
• 6:05
  do with your, with your environmental degree in Canada, you go work in.
• 6:14
  Then years later, by 2018, it was kind of like stable.
• 6:19
  All the debt that we had taken on to start the business was paid off and were
• 6:22
  able to get a management team into place.
• 6:24
  Um, so I had a strong kind of stable company, um, with a management team
• 6:29
  that gave me the freedom to go kind of explore other, other interests.
• 6:33
  And so since.
• 6:37
  Different eCommerce businesses.
• 6:38
  Uh, one was called Keto, uh, K-E-Y-T-O.
• 6:41
  It's a keto diet breathalyzer.
• 6:43
  Um, and we had some really fantastic VCs involved with that.
• 6:46
  It did really well until, um, COVID hit and then people just didn't care
• 6:51
  about the keto diet quite as much.
• 6:52
  Uh, and, and at that time I had already, I knew, um, map.
• 7:01
  Um, I guess some, some product ideas, some different ideas around like
• 7:04
  a startup studio for eco-friendly products that we talked about.
• 7:07
  So when Covid hit, we said, you know, this is the right time
• 7:11
  to start that startup studio.
• 7:12
  So we, we used the community that they had built at Pela case and used that as a
• 7:18
  platform to try launching other products.
• 7:21
  And then LMI was the fourth out.
• 7:23
  Four different attempts at launching a startup.
• 7:27
  We, we did.
• 7:28
  Um, and it was by far the most successful.
• 7:29
  So I ended up spending a number of years after that kind as the
• 7:33
  co-founder CMO of Lomi, while tending to some CMO duties at Pela case.
• 7:39
  So that was like a crazy couple of years, basically from 2021 to
• 7:43
  2023, um, just about two years.
• 7:46
  And then I said, you know, this great, I've had a fantastic time kind of
• 7:50
  learning startup studio, uh, building.
• 7:53
  Within, within the infrastructure I built with Matt and Brad at Peel Case.
• 7:57
  And it was time to go kind of do my own startup studio on my own.
• 8:01
  So that's what I, that's what I've been doing since then.
• 8:03
  Um, and then interestingly, a part of that, bringing this all full circle,
• 8:07
  uh, Rockwell is still doing fantastic to today, so it's kind of part of that, part
• 8:12
  of that startup studio, if you would.
• 8:14
  Um, yeah.
• 8:15
  so, so are you still, I, I, there's so much there, Gary.
• 8:19
  Yeah.
• 8:20
  I'm just trying to figure out where to start.
• 8:21
  So the, you are still involved with Rockwell.
• 8:24
  Are you still involved with, um, Lomi and the, the phone case, or are
• 8:29
  Not, like, not in the day-to-day operations, but you know, still,
• 8:32
  um, still like a, a proud supporter and shareholder, so to speak.
• 8:36
  Um, yeah.
• 8:38
  Fantastic fan.
• 8:39
  Wait.
• 8:40
  You sure know how to stay busy.
• 8:41
  I mean, running three quite significant e-com businesses.
• 8:44
  Uh, most people only ever dream of really running one.
• 8:47
  You've done three.
• 8:48
  So
• 8:49
  Yeah.
• 8:49
  well
• 8:50
  it, it did definitely lead to a bit of burnout in, um, towards the end
• 8:54
  of the two years with Lomi and PK.
• 8:56
  So there are certainly points when there's the realization that it's,
• 8:59
  it's an appropriate time to, to take a step back.
• 9:01
  Um, but really proud of kind of all the, what's been accomplished.
• 9:05
  And we've built some companies that I think are doing genuinely
• 9:09
  really good things in the world, reducing plastic usage, um, and
• 9:12
  diverting waste from landfill.
• 9:14
  So that's, that's exciting to.
• 9:16
  No, I, and I, I appreciate that.
• 9:18
  And I think, um, Rockwell raises, uh, I mean, I don't, uh, I don't really shave,
• 9:23
  as you can tell, but I, I remember, um, actually I used to live in a place a,
• 9:29
  a town called Rockwell fully enough.
• 9:31
  Uh,
• 9:32
  Okay.
• 9:32
  I, I lived in the States and I was, I was, I was visiting some friends a couple
• 9:36
  years ago, um, and they showed me, uh.
• 9:40
  These sort of double-edged razors that you
• 9:43
  Yep.
• 9:43
  you are talking about?
• 9:44
  Because I'd not seen them.
• 9:44
  I thought, you know, my granddad used them kind of years ago and
• 9:47
  then they sort of disappeared and.
• 9:49
  and I got very excited, uh, when I saw them, uh, back out.
• 9:53
  And I, I really love the products and I thought, fantastic.
• 9:56
  It's both the way you've done it, I think, um, is, is is a good mixture of sort of
• 10:02
  modern and nostalgia and of, I I, maybe I'm of a certain age, I don't know, but
• 10:07
  I, when I look at the products you've got on that website, I instantly think of, you
• 10:14
  know, like my grandfather that sort of.
• 10:17
  man's man generation.
• 10:18
  I dunno if I'm allowed to say things like that, but Do you know what I mean?
• 10:20
  That's the kind of imagery I have in my head.
• 10:23
  I dunno if that's intentional, but it, it, it's, it sort of makes me
• 10:27
  go down that in my, in my thinking.
• 10:30
  Well, we're trying to kind of leave it, if that's, if you see those kind
• 10:33
  of, uh, I guess these old timey sorts of razors, you know, they, they've
• 10:38
  appeared in films like James Bond films.
• 10:40
  They've been in a number of those.
• 10:41
  They featured in Mad Men.
• 10:43
  I think that actually, it's interesting, you, me, everything
• 10:45
  you just did, 'cause I think that.
• 10:46
  Those features in media were kind of a big part of what sparked a resurgence
• 10:50
  of interest in, um, safety razor shaving kind around the early 2010s.
• 10:56
  Um, and so that's probably, that interest is likely part of the reason that the
• 11:00
  initial crowdfunding campaign for the, for our first product did like, well, um.
• 11:06
  And yeah.
• 11:08
  Beyond that, I think there are, there are lots of safety razors
• 11:11
  and safety razor brands out there.
• 11:13
  Um, but I think the, there is this perception that they're harder
• 11:18
  to use than cartridge razors.
• 11:20
  And we can get into why in a second.
• 11:21
  It's actually really a marketing thing that the, the big companies
• 11:26
  did over many, many decades.
• 11:28
  Um.
• 11:33
  Quant, easier to use, um, and appropriate for sensitive skin than that.
• 11:38
  Um, then that just will make it a little bit more approachable.
• 11:41
  And I think that's.
• 11:46
  Yeah.
• 11:47
  And I imagine, um, customers to your business are quite,
• 11:51
  quite a big part in that sense.
• 11:53
  A little bit.
• 11:54
  Um, so interestingly, not like the idea is that you're buying a really high quality
• 11:59
  tool once, and we sell razor blades.
• 12:03
  Um, but they're not, they're not, um.
• 12:06
  We're not the only people that you can buy those razor blades from.
• 12:08
  They're not proprietary.
• 12:10
  They're not proprietary.
• 12:11
  That's, I think that's a big part of it.
• 12:12
  We make very good blades, so people often do gravitate towards ours,
• 12:15
  but I'm not, um, I'm not losing my mind over, like dreaming of all the
• 12:20
  profits I'm making out of every.
• 12:22
  $10, $12 order of like a reorder of our hundred pack of blades.
• 12:27
  We sell them for like just over 10 cents each.
• 12:29
  So they're not, it's not a huge profit center for us.
• 12:31
  Um, but where I guess we do see repeat orders are someone will often buy one
• 12:36
  razor and then will not infrequently see that same customer come back
• 12:40
  and buy like two or three, um, and.
• 12:44
  Sending surveys to customers, we've, we've learned that those are
• 12:47
  indicators of, of gifting purchases.
• 12:49
  So someone will kind of discover Rockwell, so to speak, and then begin
• 12:53
  gifting it to other people in their life.
• 12:55
  So have you guys, um, have you guys then, I should, I've not
• 13:00
  really, 'cause I don't, I've not really bought one of your products.
• 13:03
  I should probably go buy one.
• 13:04
  But the, do you guys, have you guys stayed away from the subscription model,
• 13:08
  um, you know, like the Harry's and the Dollar Shave Club or, or have you
• 13:13
  of done that with like the blades and found something interesting in there?
• 13:17
  Or it is it just one time purchases really.
• 13:20
  No, we've kept away from the subscription.
• 13:22
  I mean, okay, so this is, maybe this is take believe in a way
• 13:29
  subscriptions for eCommerce.
• 13:32
  You see them pop up a lot.
• 13:33
  You might agree with me.
• 13:34
  You see them pop up on a lot of brands necessarily have and
• 13:39
  Mm-hmm.
• 13:42
  capital.
• 13:44
  Um, of, of eCommerce and consumer goods over, I'd say kind of the last
• 13:49
  10 years, up until about two years ago, people were really looking for
• 13:53
  eCommerce, broadly speaking, um, to sort of fit the same economics that consumer
• 13:59
  SaaS, consumer software as a service.
• 14:01
  Fits.
• 14:02
  Fits.
• 14:02
  And so they're looking for lifetime value calculations and um, and payback
• 14:08
  period calculations and, and all like how, like how long do you keep your
• 14:14
  cohorts around and lifetime value?
• 14:16
  I think it's great.
• 14:17
  Every brand you wanna end up having lifetime value, but I
• 14:19
  don't think that subscription is.
• 14:23
  Um, and I think it was asked of a lot brands to incorporate when in
• 14:32
  paper, uh, cleanings.
• 14:34
  A couple other things if you're a forgetful person, but, um,
• 14:37
  there's not a lot things.
• 14:39
  Physical product things, I think in a consumer's general life that were
• 14:42
  like, I could not live without a subscription to this physical product.
• 14:46
  Um, so anyways, long-winded answer on why we kept away from it.
• 14:49
  I just don't think it's a value add for the consumer.
• 14:52
  I think that you can be more successful as a brand, having respect to meet
• 14:57
  customers where they're at, and meeting customers where they're at
• 14:59
  often means make a great product.
• 15:02
  And then serve them with opportunities to share that product with with
• 15:07
  others when the opportunity arises, or if they love our blades.
• 15:10
  I'd love enough blades to last a couple years, and then that's
• 15:16
  a fantastic second order to.
• 15:19
  Yeah, it's interesting you say this because, I mean, this,
• 15:21
  the default model, isn't it?
• 15:23
  Is you, you, you, you sell something and then you sell
• 15:26
  something on subscription as well.
• 15:27
  You know, it's that kind of, and, and the, the idea being I, I suppose
• 15:32
  the Gillette model, you know, you buy the razor and then you buy the
• 15:34
  cartridges, um, on an ongoing basis.
• 15:37
  To give us that ongoing income.
• 15:39
  And you do see it, you see it on so many e-commerce sites, you know, you
• 15:43
  buy this widget over here and you can buy this thing for the widget on a
• 15:47
  monthly standing order if you want to.
• 15:49
  And some brands like you say, it makes sense.
• 15:51
  Some brands I. You kind of do feel like, well, you've added this 'cause
• 15:55
  it's, it's maybe a default model.
• 15:57
  I find it really fascinating where a product like yours, which probably
• 16:01
  historically would fit slot into that model somehow quite easily,
• 16:06
  you've intentionally avoided it, which I, I think is, mean, hats
• 16:10
  off to you, sir, for doing that.
• 16:13
  I, yeah, I think there's just benefit to meeting customers where they're at.
• 16:17
  If we.
• 16:19
  Aggressive upsells to subscriptions.
• 16:21
  There's some amount of customers who would've been considering purchasing
• 16:24
  from Rockwell, um, who would've benefited from using Rockwell, either
• 16:29
  on environmental level or at like, literally just helping with sensitive
• 16:32
  skin or irritate skin irritation problems.
• 16:35
  Um, 'cause that's what Rockwell's really good at solving is, is skin
• 16:38
  irritation, um, from conventional, multi.
• 16:43
  These guys are trying uneasy about that.
• 16:47
  Know what percent customers
• 16:53
  traffic.
• 16:58
  Relevant and relevant information and making the brand and product feel
• 17:04
  approachable to a consumer rather than exclusively focusing on like, what's the
• 17:08
  12 month, 24 month, 36 month LTV, focus on making it a first order profitable brand.
• 17:14
  And then explore other ways that we can serve the customer,
• 17:17
  um, but not rely on, oh.
• 17:27
  You know, subscription that they'll be hooked into, and
• 17:29
  then we'll make our money back.
• 17:30
  It just, that's never set right with me.
• 17:32
  Oh, fantastic.
• 17:33
  I I, it is, it is quite refreshing to hear, if I'm honest with you.
• 17:36
  The, um, not that I have an issue with the subscription model at all,
• 17:39
  No, I, it makes a lot of sense for a lot of businesses.
• 17:42
  I know people who, who've done really well with it, um, and, and
• 17:45
  have served customers really well.
• 17:46
  It's just, it, it's a question of like, is that authentic to your brand or not?
• 17:49
  Um, and for me it just wasn't.
• 17:52
  So how did you, how did you go about finding what was authentic to your brand?
• 17:57
  I mean, you did the Kickstarter thing and, and quickly rifling
• 18:03
  through the memory banks of
• 18:04
  Yeah,
• 18:05
  head, 2014, Kickstarter was quite a new thing.
• 18:09
  pretty new.
• 18:10
  yeah, it was, it was.
• 18:12
  I'm, I'm just intrigued.
• 18:14
  How did you, how did you.
• 18:16
  How did you find, or how have you found this, this voice of your customer?
• 18:21
  Yeah, it took I, it took time.
• 18:23
  I think we had to, over time learn more about who was drawn to the product itself.
• 18:29
  I thought.
• 18:32
  A very eco minded kind of customer.
• 18:34
  And I think that's because I was projecting a little bit of my own
• 18:37
  interests and values onto what I, I was idealizing the customer
• 18:40
  that would be drawn to Rockwell.
• 18:42
  Um, and I think there's always been an undercurrent of the
• 18:46
  customer that understands, hey.
• 18:48
  This razor doesn't have any plastic in it.
• 18:49
  It doesn't use any plastic, um, in the blades.
• 18:52
  So therefore we're, we're not sending a bunch of blades in plastic into landfill.
• 18:57
  Um, that can all be recycled.
• 18:58
  But the initial traction for Rockwell was more with what I'm gonna call
• 19:03
  like a buy it for life type crack.
• 19:05
  'cause we made this, our first product was this stainless steel
• 19:08
  razor and it genuinely indestructible.
• 19:11
  Um.
• 19:14
  Don't come after me lawyers, I'm sure it's destruct if you really try.
• 19:18
  Um, but like, no, no conventional, reasonable attempts to, uh, to
• 19:23
  damage it really seem to leave much of a mark, um, just because it's
• 19:27
  made out solid stainless steel.
• 19:29
  Um, which is different than, than kind of the plastic stuff that
• 19:32
  we're just used to throwing away.
• 19:36
  A of, not necessarily an environmental perspective, but
• 19:39
  there's different demographic people who are high quality stuff buy for
• 19:46
  beautiful, high quality things.
• 19:48
  In my um, and time, uh.
• 19:52
  That customers continued to exist and be interested.
• 19:56
  Um, and we begin to, we began to see a couple of those
• 19:58
  like, oh, I wanna buy this.
• 19:59
  It's cool And Manly Saw Bond, I saw it on something I kind of associate
• 20:04
  with conventional manliness.
• 20:06
  Um, and then we've seen like most.
• 20:10
  I guess the, the fastest growing customer segment is the, uh, skincare segment.
• 20:14
  So, uh, men and women are, are always, are looking more and more
• 20:19
  ways to, to take care of their skin.
• 20:21
  I think there's been, especially for men and kind of an uptick in, in taking care
• 20:24
  of, of skin just a part as a part of like a general health and wellness routine.
• 20:29
  Um, and a single blade to shave with, uh, that doesn't involve any of the kind goop.
• 20:37
  Kind of coat the, uh, the cartridge blades with, that's just better for your skin.
• 20:43
  Like, you don't have all those blades pulling at your, at your hairs.
• 20:46
  Um, you just have a single blade, all metal, no plastics
• 20:50
  or chemicals or anything like that, um, on the razor itself.
• 20:53
  So I think that's really spoken to customers as they become kind of
• 20:56
  more health and wellness conscious.
• 20:58
  Um, so that's been the 10 year evolution of certainly the main
• 21:02
  customer groups that I've noticed.
• 21:06
  And is it a case of, uh, as I'm, I'm sitting here thinking about
• 21:09
  it, when I sort of first got back
• 21:13
  Okay.
• 21:14
  form of shaving, I suppose all of a sudden shaving became less
• 21:18
  about something that I had to do.
• 21:21
  Quickly in front of a mirror between, you know, shower and a
• 21:26
  cup of tea and rushing out the door to be in a bit more of a ceremony.
• 21:31
  And I, I, I noticed this actually when I, I stopped throwing on the Gillette.
• 21:37
  Stuff and just destroy I, I I, all of a sudden I invested in a wooden bowl with
• 21:43
  soap and a brush, and I sort of, the whole thing became the old fashioned way.
• 21:48
  Do you know what I mean?
• 21:48
  It, it, uh, and I, I sort of got sucked into it a little bit and I, and I remember
• 21:53
  standing there one morning in front of the mirror going, well, this isn't this
• 21:55
  interesting that I've, I've actually created space in my day to do this now.
• 22:00
  Like this is some kind of ceremony versus some kind of inconvenience.
• 22:06
  It sounds like, um.
• 22:14
  Experience and, uh, turned it into something that's
• 22:17
  slightly meditative for you.
• 22:18
  And I'm just extrapolating that based on your use of the word ritual.
• 22:22
  Um, and I, I would say that that's extremely common.
• 22:25
  Um, there's actually like a Reddit community called Wicked Edge that
• 22:28
  is collectors of double-edged safety raises that, um, that'd
• 22:32
  very, we've been very fortunate.
• 22:42
  Brush soap, um, bowl stand and razor, uh, that they're using that morning.
• 22:48
  They, they, they'll have a different kind of collection of different
• 22:50
  soaps, much like some men and some women will have a collection of
• 22:54
  different colognes or perfumes.
• 22:56
  Um, everyone kind of finds their, their little rituals and their little what,
• 23:00
  what is kind of their quiet moment to themselves during the day, and
• 23:06
  myself included.
• 23:09
  Shaving.
• 23:10
  I don't do it.
• 23:10
  I'll do it.
• 23:11
  But like once a week kind of on, on Sundays, I had to shave my head as well.
• 23:14
  Um, so I shave my, shave my neck, shave the beard, shave my head, all
• 23:19
  with kind of a, a double-edged safety razor and very high quality soap.
• 23:23
  We make, we make a soap as well.
• 23:24
  Uh, and a brush and a bowl and all this stuff you just mentioned.
• 23:28
  So that's, I think, um.
• 23:29
  I mean, it's the whole thing, isn't it?
• 23:31
  Exactly.
• 23:37
  Mm-hmm.
• 23:40
  So it it, and I mean, it's fascinating, Gareth and I, and I'm, I'm intrigued
• 23:45
  when back on it now, sort of 10, 10 years later, I suppose just over
• 23:50
  10 years, isn't it now, uh, when it got launched on Kickstarter, um.
• 23:55
  What are, what are maybe the, the sort of the top one or two lessons you've
• 23:58
  learned as, as an e-comm entrepreneur that you, maybe you'd wanna share with
• 24:04
  others or maybe that you're just, if you could go back in time and tell
• 24:06
  yourself this is what you would say.
• 24:11
  Yeah, it's a great question.
• 24:12
  So I think over the years I've learned that there's, there's a million different
• 24:17
  things all the time in e-commerce that it feels like you can be doing.
• 24:20
  There's so many different apps to be thinking about.
• 24:23
  So many different, you've got, you've got email, you have your SMS, you
• 24:27
  have conversion rate optimization.
• 24:29
  You've got.
• 24:31
  That you need to be thinking about, you need to be thinking
• 24:32
  about delivery experiences.
• 24:34
  There's just, there's so many different little bits and bobs, um, and I
• 24:38
  definitely used to be the person who just like cycles through all the different
• 24:41
  inboxes you've gotta be covering.
• 24:43
  Oh my God, customer service, then jump into this.
• 24:45
  And it's inherently unfocused just because you're trying to wrap your arms
• 24:48
  around all the different things that you could be doing and not necessarily
• 24:52
  thinking about what you should be doing.
• 24:54
  Or even better.
• 24:57
  So that you don't.
• 25:01
  And I think over time, the biggest lesson has been that I can, I can
• 25:05
  really understand what needs my focus and attention based on, uh,
• 25:11
  assessing a business based on, on what I call the four levers of e-commerce.
• 25:14
  So I'll always look at four main things, which is like your
• 25:17
  average order value slash offer.
• 25:19
  So are you present, are you giving, uh, customers a.
• 25:24
  Elegant way to purchase the product.
• 25:26
  It clearly makes sense, um, to the customer.
• 25:29
  So that's why we have starter kits on Rock Lake.
• 25:32
  The Rockwell website is almost entirely optimized to starter kit to give you
• 25:36
  everything that you'd need to have that ritual shave right outta the gates.
• 25:40
  Um, so that's me thinking about offer leading into a OV.
• 25:44
  Um, so you want that average order value to be producing enough.
• 25:48
  Room that you can drive traffic to the site.
• 25:51
  We'll come back in a moment because conversion, so I've got this strong A
• 25:57
  that's got strong gross margin coming out.
• 26:00
  It.
• 26:02
  It's different for every brand, but let's say on average more than 2.5%
• 26:06
  of the traffic that comes into my site, I actually know how much I can
• 26:10
  pay, not just per acquisition, which is what most people have to like live
• 26:14
  and die on their e-commerce business.
• 26:15
  Thinking about, uh, what ROAS can I afford?
• 26:17
  But I can actually start looking at what can I pay for traffic?
• 26:20
  Um, 'cause I know.
• 26:22
  What percent of that traffic converts.
• 26:24
  And every time that they convert, I know exactly how much gross margin
• 26:28
  that's driving to the business.
• 26:29
  So I can calculate what's called contribution margin.
• 26:31
  Contribution margin.
• 26:32
  As long as you're generating more, more, the more contribution margin than
• 26:37
  it costs to actually run the business outside of all your variable costs and
• 26:40
  your costs, um, then you're in good shape.
• 26:43
  And so then fourth, you can just look at lifetime value, um, extension.
• 26:50
  The initial, the initial acquisition, that is a, those are gross margin dollars
• 26:54
  that you're gathering without needing to spend market additional marketing dollars.
• 26:59
  Um, so I can kind of lay out the business at any point and say, Hey, which of
• 27:03
  these things do we need to work on?
• 27:04
  And then just focus on that instead of, um, needing to think about
• 27:09
  every, everything under the sun all the time and saying, oh my
• 27:11
  God, we've optimize everything at.
• 27:13
  Mm. It's interesting listening to you talk.
• 27:16
  I, as, as I do, I'm, I'm reminded of a, a, I dunno where I heard it.
• 27:22
  I, whether it's on a podcast or something, talking about Elon Musk and how, um,
• 27:27
  his whole thing in business, he's quite unique in how he does it, is like he goes
• 27:32
  to the, I don't know, Tesla, whichever one he is particularly interested in.
• 27:35
  He goes, right, what's the biggest problem, uh, that we face at the moment?
• 27:38
  If we solve it, it's gonna have the biggest.
• 27:41
  know, bang freaks book on our business, or it's kinda the biggest impact.
• 27:44
  understands what that problem is and he just works solely on that problem.
• 27:48
  Uh, which think is, is is quite an interesting to do it.
• 27:52
  And he brings in people to help him understand what the problem
• 27:55
  is, and then I guess, encourages people to think outside the box.
• 27:59
  I don't know.
• 27:59
  I've not worked for Mr. Musk.
• 28:01
  Um.
• 28:02
  But I listening to you talk, I'm kind of reminded of that, that you seem to have
• 28:08
  gone from this trying to have an eye on everything to understanding actually
• 28:11
  what's the most important thing for me to work on in my business at the moment, in
• 28:15
  the context of your fall leave framework.
• 28:18
  Let's go do that.
• 28:19
  I dunno if I've oversimplified it, but in essence that's what I'm hearing.
• 28:23
  Yeah, well, I would say I'm definitely a far cry from, um, dear Mr. Dear Mr.
• 28:27
  Musk, um, on both an ideological and a just general commercial capacity level.
• 28:33
  Um, but I'm, that's fine.
• 28:35
  Um, uh, but I think my, my system as it were, comes more from a recognition that.
• 28:44
  If I give myself the opportunity to run myself ragged,
• 28:47
  I apparently will happily do that.
• 28:49
  Um, so these are almost guard rails put in place, um, after
• 28:53
  a couple hard won lessons.
• 28:55
  Um, that, uh, yeah, that unless you're kind of focusing on.
• 29:01
  The main thing, um, then you'll focus on a whole bunch of different things
• 29:06
  and actually very little will get done, but you'll be completely exhausted.
• 29:09
  Um, and that really doesn't help anybody.
• 29:11
  Um, so it makes me less of a good husband, son, business partner, everything.
• 29:16
  So energy management has actually become, um.
• 29:21
  I feel like this four system is as much a business management
• 29:25
  system as it is energy management,
• 29:29
  umsomewhat of a.
• 29:33
  No, it, it makes sense.
• 29:34
  I'm curious, how does that work practically though?
• 29:36
  Is that like, um, you get together with the management team on a Monday,
• 29:39
  you have some conversations around the framework and you are kinda like, right,
• 29:42
  this is what I'm gonna do this week.
• 29:44
  Um, I mean, practically, how do you, how do you know
• 29:49
  Uh, I think you have to be monitoring your numbers.
• 29:51
  So if we go back into, um, I guess my, my four levers example, there would
• 29:56
  be core metrics across everything that you're, that you're looking at.
• 30:00
  Um, the main one, I honestly, I just wanna understand what conversion rate
• 30:04
  and traffic levels are and, um, and CPM.
• 30:07
  So like how much is that?
• 30:08
  How much are we paying in total for
• 30:13
  ratio?
• 30:17
  New customer acquisition costs.
• 30:19
  There's just a couple of core metrics that we're gonna be looking at, and that
• 30:22
  almost guides the conversation, Hey, we're seeing new customer acquisition go up.
• 30:26
  Why is that?
• 30:27
  Let's dive in.
• 30:28
  Okay, it's because CPMs went up.
• 30:30
  Did CPMs go up across the market?
• 30:32
  Do we think that this is just going to be temporary because it was the
• 30:35
  week of the American election, so we don't actually need to change anything?
• 30:38
  CPMs were just up because they were up.
• 30:40
  Everybody.
• 30:41
  Okay, no action needed.
• 30:42
  Or is it a random week?
• 30:44
  We have no idea why CPMs have gone.
• 30:47
  Through the roof.
• 30:48
  Okay, now we know that we need to dive into our individual ads.
• 30:52
  Oh, it turns out that one of the ad settings is completely wrong and like
• 30:57
  we're spending all this money on something that we thought was off, or there was
• 31:01
  this ad that was performing really well and all of a sudden out of nowhere,
• 31:04
  it's just not converting anymore.
• 31:05
  Um, we, and we missed that.
• 31:11
  Right.
• 31:12
  I guess, uh, monitoring sort of system.
• 31:15
  But often when I'm working with anyone who kind of works in my, my businesses
• 31:19
  at this point, people are pretty good at being proactive, um, about, Hey,
• 31:23
  we spotted this, um, it was affecting conversion rate, so even before the,
• 31:27
  the Wednesday meeting, um, often we're able to kind of address stuff.
• 31:33
  So if you were, um, if you were starting out again today.
• 31:38
  Knowing.
• 31:38
  I mean, you've, I remember the reason I'm asking, or sort of going down this
• 31:42
  road, Gareth, I remember this conversation I had with a chap called Albert Goe.
• 31:47
  Um, Albert Goe was a really fascinating fellow, very polarizing,
• 31:52
  uh, fellow, died a few years ago, um, an extraordinarily wealthy man.
• 31:59
  Um, and I got to know him, uh, and travel with him a little bit.
• 32:03
  I, I remember saying to him one day, he's, he was quite.
• 32:06
  He made his money in the 1960s, or he started to make his money in the
• 32:08
  1960s when in the UK he set up a chain of supermarkets called Quick Save.
• 32:14
  The whole idea behind quick save was if you leave the baked beans on the
• 32:18
  pallet and people pick the, uh, the tin of baked beans off themselves,
• 32:22
  you can charge two pence less.
• 32:24
  Okay.
• 32:24
  was this whole, this whole kind of way of thinking about things quite
• 32:27
  differently to cut costs, um, therefore you could cut prices, therefore
• 32:32
  you could attract customers in.
• 32:35
  And he did really well.
• 32:36
  I mean, he went from being a baro boy to, you know, exceptionally wealthy guy.
• 32:41
  And I remember walking with him, I think we're in Germany at the time,
• 32:44
  and I said to me, G listen, I, I, I, I've got a question for you and
• 32:46
  I'm curious to know the answer.
• 32:48
  you had to begin again today, would you do?
• 32:53
  knowing what you know about the world, about markets, and so on and so forth.
• 32:57
  And before I tell you age's answer, Gareth, I'm curious
• 33:00
  to know what your answer is.
• 33:02
  I think if you're starting again, anything that's going to build a degree of
• 33:08
  community is the, the absolute key thing.
• 33:12
  Um, so what I mean by that.
• 33:17
  Is, it could be actually a lot of different things.
• 33:19
  Some people build email lists, some people build, um, social media followings.
• 33:24
  Some people build Facebook groups.
• 33:25
  Some people build in-person meetups.
• 33:28
  Um, but I think the.
• 33:31
  Up to now or the, the, uh, generation of e-commerce that I grew up in.
• 33:37
  Uh, so 2014 kind of onwards into, into now, um, has been the age
• 33:43
  of, I would say, fairly cheap attention on social platforms, as in.
• 33:49
  There's all these people on Facebook and Instagram and TikTok and Snapchat and
• 33:54
  Pinterest and Reddit and all the other places where you have a ads product.
• 33:59
  Um, YouTube as well, obviously a huge, huge platform.
• 34:03
  Um, and in the grand scheme of things, renting that attention in the form
• 34:07
  of putting an ad into their content has been relatively inexpensive.
• 34:11
  Now, of course, in eCommerce, we hear all the.
• 34:16
  It doesn't matter.
• 34:17
  Like that's what the, that's what the market is charging.
• 34:19
  So you have to figure out how to make the ads price work.
• 34:23
  Like that's just the price of the auction.
• 34:24
  There's no point in complaining.
• 34:26
  Um, but when we get to a point where there is nothing that you can do to make things
• 34:30
  work, it it, that means that you have to find alternative sources of, of traffic.
• 34:35
  And I think that's why we're seeing more and more of these creator led brands.
• 34:39
  Stuff like Mr. Starting brands.
• 34:41
  Um.
• 34:43
  Brands being spun out of startup studios from big multinationals
• 34:48
  like L'Oreal and blah, blah, blah.
• 34:49
  Like they have some degree of insight around product and visibility
• 34:54
  on how they're going to be able to drive traffic and the way
• 34:57
  that a mere mortal can kind of.
• 34:59
  Do that is to start a, a, a niche community.
• 35:01
  Any degree of aggregation of people's attention, um, of your own aggregation
• 35:07
  of people's attention that you can ultimately divert to something that you
• 35:11
  are selling, um, or some degree of buy button would be, would be the key thing.
• 35:15
  So if I was starting again today, I'd likely be going out and either
• 35:19
  buying or building communities.
• 35:21
  So that's.
• 35:22
  Places where people with a common interest or um, allegiance have, have gathered.
• 35:29
  Uh, and I would be, yeah, I would be trying to, trying to get as much of
• 35:33
  that available attention as possible so that I own that attention rather
• 35:37
  than needing to rent it, because we don't know what the future renting that
• 35:40
  attention looks like at this point.
• 35:42
  that's a really interesting answer.
• 35:44
  And is I, I mean, yeah, you started out with Rock Crawl, uh, rock roll raises.
• 35:51
  Were you aware of, of the aspect of community then?
• 35:54
  I mean, I can imagine that actually it's built, it its own sense of community.
• 35:57
  You mentioned the Reddit forums earlier on and this sort of, this, this, you
• 36:00
  know, we talked a lot about ceremony and stuff like that, but I imagine
• 36:03
  it's, it's sort of built this sense of community, but was, was that intentional
• 36:08
  or was that just because actually the, you, you, you lucked out a little bit.
• 36:11
  You had a great product that kind of created that community and, and
• 36:16
  actually at the moment, that's one of the things which is really important.
• 36:20
  Um, I think I wasn't as aware of the importance just from
• 36:24
  like purely a commerce context.
• 36:26
  That wasn't something that in 2014 I was laser focused on because we.
• 36:31
  You know, the Tim Ferris four Hour workweek book saying, Hey, you can go
• 36:36
  start a landing page with a product that you've just cooked up, and why
• 36:40
  don't you run Google and Facebook ads to drive traffic to this landing page?
• 36:44
  And if people buy that product, then you should actually make
• 36:47
  the product and ship it to like.
• 36:49
  That doesn't, that doesn't happen because you can't get 50 purchases
• 36:54
  on a landing for and under anymore.
• 36:59
  Like unless you're, unless you're.
• 37:04
  Mm
• 37:07
  Hundreds of, or thousands of pre-orders on a product.
• 37:10
  If you've built a community, if you're launching a new barbecue and you own, and
• 37:14
  you've built a up, a huge YouTube channel of people who are obsessed with barbecues
• 37:19
  and you've made the perfect barbecue, uh, for those people, then, then you're
• 37:23
  gonna have a fantastic time if you've chosen to launch a barbecue company.
• 37:27
  So what do you think?
• 37:28
  I mean, I can just hear everybody's sort of listening to the show, you
• 37:31
  know, running their own business.
• 37:32
  They're going, well, this is great.
• 37:33
  You know what channel.
• 37:36
  What channels, I guess, have surprised you in building community?
• 37:38
  I know people, there's the standard channels, there's a Facebook, there's
• 37:40
  Metas, there's obviously YouTube, which makes sense for a whole bunch
• 37:44
  of brands in so many different ways.
• 37:45
  But, um, are they still the core ones?
• 37:48
  Are you finding traction and interest somewhere else?
• 37:51
  Mm-hmm.
• 37:52
  I think the thing that's interesting to me most right now is, um, is
• 37:57
  truly now we're social commerce.
• 38:01
  The West, let's say.
• 38:02
  So social commerce has been how a lot of e-commerce in, uh, Asia, especially
• 38:07
  China, has been done for a very long time.
• 38:10
  Um, and when I say social commerce right now, practically, that that
• 38:14
  effectively means TikTok shops, but
• 38:16
  there's no doubt that Instagram and YouTube are.
• 38:19
  Mere months behind TikTok.
• 38:22
  Um, and that's where creators who have a community are able to promote products.
• 38:28
  So creators can now go out and without needing to produce their own product, come
• 38:32
  up with a novel formulation for a skincare brand or render CAD designs for a new I.
• 38:43
  Barbecues are good.
• 38:44
  Let's stay with them.
• 38:44
  Yeah.
• 38:44
  Yeah.
• 38:45
  Barbecue's good.
• 38:46
  Uh, render cat designs, put up money to do all the quality control and manufacturing
• 38:50
  for thousand barbecues or whatever.
• 38:55
  That attention aggregation, uh, we can move over to, to creators who
• 39:00
  have the ability to in-app monetize the aggregation of the attention,
• 39:05
  which up to now has been really inel.
• 39:07
  So in, in a way, it's like the perfection of the affiliate model, and lots of brands
• 39:12
  have been built on an affiliate model.
• 39:14
  That's where a creator promotes something says, use my code or use my link and
• 39:19
  go to the site and then you purchase.
• 39:20
  But there's so many.
• 39:22
  Opportunities to lose the purchase.
• 39:24
  So if I've done a great job, I've become a magical hat influencer, and I go out and
• 39:30
  pro promote this hat, and I send someone to a Shopify site, say, use my code.
• 39:35
  Don't forget to use my code.
• 39:36
  When you click this link and go to this hat website, um, well, I have
• 39:40
  to trust that they find a hat that they like, they add it to their cart.
• 39:44
  They, they pick a size that actually ends up working out and they don't return the.
• 39:48
  And they have to check out.
• 39:50
  They have to remember to use my code probably and.
• 39:53
  It's just, it's, there's a lot of clicks.
• 39:55
  There's a lot of opportunities to lose the conversion.
• 39:57
  So social shopping is conversions happening in app, whether it's right
• 40:01
  now TikTok, but I think it'll be within Instagram, YouTube, and whatnot is
• 40:06
  another example of an app that's, that's doing really well in social commerce.
• 40:10
  Um, that's kind of nude, is not, it's not actually coming.
• 40:15
  Social media platform, it's just its own social commerce platform.
• 40:18
  And so, um, that's what's most interesting to me right now because it's, it's
• 40:22
  letting brands get access to other communities that have been built up
• 40:27
  and almost align or ally with many different communities in the form of.
• 40:32
  Um, of working with a creator.
• 40:34
  So, um, I just think there's it's communities all the way down.
• 40:38
  Um, and even if you don't have the bandwidth to build a community right
• 40:42
  now, technology is finally emerging.
• 40:44
  That lets you ally with them really easily.
• 40:47
  I.
• 40:47
  Yeah.
• 40:48
  Yeah.
• 40:48
  And I know I, it's funny, your fellow can, I dunno if you know
• 40:50
  Jordan West, your fellow Canadian, who's also a, a podcaster, um, he
• 40:55
  is really hot on this at the moment.
• 40:57
  I mean, just brands are doing some extraordinary things over
• 41:00
  on TikTok with social commerce.
• 41:02
  And so, um, yeah.
• 41:04
  It's, it's a really big deal.
• 41:05
  Gareth, thank you so much for joining us Men.
• 41:07
  Uh, really.
• 41:08
  No, it's been great.
• 41:09
  It's been a fantastic conversation.
• 41:12
  Uh, loved it, genuinely loved it.
• 41:13
  Super excited by what you guys are doing as well.
• 41:15
  And um, yeah, really, really cool.
• 41:18
  So, uh, fantastic.
• 41:20
  What a great conversation.
• 41:21
  That was huge.
• 41:22
  Thanks again to Gareth for joining me.
• 41:24
  In fact, I should do this.
• 41:25
  There we go.
• 41:26
  Yes, yes, yes.
• 41:27
  Bring out the, uh, the applause from the, the cheesy sound desk.
• 41:31
  Uh, make sure you subscribe to the show, wherever you get your podcast
• 41:35
  from, because we've got some more great conversations coming up.
• 41:37
  And of course.
• 41:38
  I don't want you to miss any of them.
• 41:40
  And in case no one's told you yet today, let me be the first.
• 41:43
  You are awesome.
• 41:44
  Yes, you are created.
• 41:45
  Awesome.
• 41:46
  It's just a burden you have to bear.
• 41:47
  Gareth's, gotta bear it.
• 41:49
  I've gotta bear it.
• 41:50
  You've gotta bear it as well.
• 41:51
  Now the eCommerce Podcast is produced by the amazing Pod Junction.
• 41:55
  Big shout out to the team, including Ada Fanon, uh, that makes this show possible.
• 41:59
  Josh Edmundson wrote the theme music, uh, and of course, as I said, if you'd
• 42:03
  like to know more about the show or.
• 42:05
  All that sort of stuff, just go to eCommerce Podcast dot net.
• 42:08
  Uh, but that's it from me.
• 42:09
  That's it from Gareth.
• 42:10
  Thank you so much for joining us.
• 42:12
  Have a fantastic week wherever you are in the world.
• 42:14
  I'll see you next time.
• 42:15
  Bye for now.