Building a Brand by Blooming Beards – Beardo
What if we ask you to spot one thing common in Virat Kohli, Kit Harrington and Ranveer Singh? We asked this question to 100 friends, and 65% of the respondents chose “Well-groomed beards" as answer!
Men’s grooming market has grown from a mere Rs 3,200 crore in 2016 to a whopping Rs 10,000 crore today & the presence of several heavily funded startups such as Beardo, Bombay Shaving Company, Ustraa, LetsShave, and The Man Company in the segment speaks volumes of its potential.
Recently, FMCG major Marico Ltd acquired an additional 55 percent stake in Beardo to take complete control of the men’s grooming brand. The FMCG giant had earlier acquired a 45% stake in the start-up in 2017. With this acquisition, Venture Catalysts (VCats) took a complete exit from Beardo, making it one of the very few start-ups who have given its early investors a successful exit with stellar returns!
Fast forward to today – With Yash as a Brand Ambassador & Bhuvan Bam and many others as a Digital Influencers, Beardo has a range of 50+ products in its portfolio, a salon presence across 60 Indian cities and a social following that’s rapidly approaching the 6 million mark, there’s simply no stopping! Founded in 2015 by Ashutosh Valani and Priyank Shah, Beardo has become India’s most chosen men’s grooming brand in just three five years.
Interestingly, Beardo is also one of those D2C (Direct to Consumer) brands, that started with an “Only Online” strategy. Taking advantage of the new market dynamics via digital ecosystem, brands like Beardo tapped into the evolving buying patterns of Indians. While 5 years back, e-commerce revolution was considered a bubble or fad, it is now pretty clear that it is here to stay – and why not? D2C brands can leverage this to:
· build niche brands in relatively smaller yet scalable market opportunities
· reach consumers nationwide without deep offline distribution & smaller P&Ls
· focus on lower fixed cost and ROI-focussed digital marketing with no need to invest in high-cost ATL (Above The Line) marketing
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This is exactly what Beardo did! When its two young and dynamic founders decided to enter into the men grooming segment, they knew that they have to choose a niche market which they can capture very quickly. Around that time, keeping beard was slowly becoming an international trend. Ashutosh and Priyank saw huge opportunity in the market as India was still to catch up with the trends and there were no companies catering to this niche sector. They duo started manufacturing products like beard oil and beard wash under the brand name Beardo and hence the roots of this cult were born!!
If you have read our article about the evolution of men grooming market, you would remember how we emphasized on innovation as one of the critical enablers for this segment. Beardo, the case in point, took four to five months to get the right formulations for the first variant of oils for beard skin, which is very different from scalp. With many iterations after customer feedbacks, Beardo established itself as a consumer product company while building a community that buys their idea.
What Beardo started selling was an experience rather than a product!
Beardo started promoting itself on social media, as most of its customers are online. Within one year, the brand had already expanded into body, hair and face. It was around this time that they decided to adopt an omni-channel model and ramped up to 14+ cities & 2000 salons. What came next was a celebrity face that could connect with the audience without losing connect with the brand image – and thus entered Sunil Shetty, not just as a brand ambassador, but also as an investor & a mentor. Within the next year, the brand had already attracted investors like Venture Catalysts & Marico, & rest is history!
Coming back to the men grooming market, a market research agency Mintel revealed that an average man in India spends around 16 minutes on body grooming, 14 minutes on his hair, and 12 minutes on his face. A rising urban-middle class population, per capita income growth and an increased willingness of Indian men to adopt a grooming regime has ensured that it is high time to rise over the fact that men groom for women. Men Grooming is now being recognized as an essential personal hygiene factor, not to mention that men grooming kits are the most loved and highly chosen gifts to men these days!
Seeing the high potential in a segment that virtually non-existed half a decade back & the right mix of success ingredients, No wonder that Beardo is a force to reckon with , as it plans to expand its reach to over 25,000 outlets from the current 5,000 over the next two years and eyes the international markets such as the US for future growth. We wish them M(oo)ch blessings and hope to see them in blooming colors in coming years!!
By: Anmol Gupta | Isha Garg
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Interesting story!