Ep. 18: Matt Mullenax, Co-Founder & CEO of Huron
In Episode 18, James and Sean sit down with Matt Mullenax, Co-Founder & CEO of Huron, a fast-growing men’s care brand offering products with high-quality ingredients and captivating scents. We cover:
-Matt’s career path, from investment banking to Bonobos, and how his journey led him to launch Huron
-The challenges of launching a DTC (direct-to-consumer) men’s personal care brand
-The importance of customer-first thinking and how Huron emphasizes consumer feedback in product development
-The impact of scent on the men’s care market and why it’s a key differentiator for Huron
-Navigating the world of fundraising, including the value of having investors with domain expertise
-Key lessons Matt learned along the way, from formulating products to scaling a brand across multiple channels like Amazon and DTC
Matt’s passion for his brand and deep understanding of the men’s personal care space shine through in this insightful conversation.
Welcome to Brandbusters with your hosts, James Schwyn and Sean Lee. Together, we bust open the latest in CPG, retail media, and life, or whatever the we want. And for today's episode, we got something special cooked up for you. Extra spicy. Take it away, Sean.
Awesome. Welcome back everybody to episode 18 of the Brand Busters. And we have a great show today with Matt Mullinax, who's the cofounder and CEO of Huron. For those that don't know, Huron's a rapidly growing men's care brand that offers products with high quality ingredients in absolutely amazing scents. Matt attended Brown University, which seems to be a trend, another, ivy leaguer on the podcast, and got his MBA at Stanford.
He has a background in investment banking, and he previously worked at Bonobos, the ecommerce and d two c darling of the 2000 tens. So really pumped to have you on the show, Mac, and, excited to kinda dig in and and ask some questions and learn from your experience. Yeah. Thanks so much for having me, guys. Yeah.
I mean, we'll kinda jump in and just say one thing that I've seen across our interviews, we just had one yesterday, is a pattern of CPG founders, that have Ivy League backgrounds. You have an awesome and impressive resume. Obviously, the investment banking piece, working at Bonobos. What is it that seems to, 1, draw Ivy Leaguers to jump into this crazy game of consumer packaged goods? And then, 2, what specifically drew you to the the industry, and and why did you launch launch drew you to the the industry, and and why did you launch launch Huron?
Yeah. Both good questions. I don't know if there's a direct correlation between Ivy League and CPG. You think it'd be inversely related, because in the startup world, you know, it's maybe not the most lucrative at the start. But it is kinda funny to see how many folks with similar backgrounds who are operating in today's CPG sphere.
What drew me to Huron? So as you alluded to, after graduation, I worked in investment banking. It was 2,008 investment banking. So it wasn't exactly the high days of high finance, if you will. After about 6 months on the job, I got a little fatigued of Google Imaging major private equity firm's logo and swapping them on PowerPoint presentations.
So I started to kinda tow the waters and see what else is out there. Ended up getting introduced to the team at Bonobos, which is super small at the time. So when I joined, I was 6, I think. Oh, wow. We were operating out of a a small, basically, studio apartment in Chelsea.
So it was very kind of early stage boots on the ground, which was a super cool experience, and that kind of gave me a little intro taste to the what would become the d two c landscape. Yeah. I think all the acronyms came many, many years later, but in the mouthful of Marvel's description, we were a ecommerce brand that sold brightly colored pants. Right? So not exactly the Quippy tagline, but was a really interesting experience for me.
I got to learn a ton from Andy and Brian, the cofounders, who both had consulting, then private equity, then Stanford MBA backgrounds. And I think for me, kind of very junior in my career, I was like, that's an amazing background. Like, that's what I want to do. So after a few years at Bonobos, I got back on the the finance track, so to speak, moved to Chicago and back into banking for a few years, went into private equity, investing in early stage consumer brands. So got to see kind of more of the the breadth, not the depth of the landscape, then went back to business school and then started to think about ultimately what I wanted to do after.
And I think for me why CPG and in particular personal care was was super compelling was I was I was the consumer. Right? I was a kid that grew with bad skin, constantly, you know, walking the aisles of CVS and Walgreens, googling or finding on Amazon whatever GQ list Nicole would put out for, like, best new skin care products and never really having success. And, ultimately, before I started at Stanford, I just said to myself, like, I'm gonna figure this out. So I started researching a bunch of products and ultimately found a brand that I found the products to be effective, but I found the price points to be offensive.
So always the journey was, you know, how do you kind of channel the former of super clean ingredients, great performing products, but maybe a tone of voice, a brand, a presence that resonated a little bit more with with the me's of the world. You know, the kids in the the Cincinnaties, the Columbus', the Chicagos of the world. So that was kind of the the original mission, and Scott worked on that, kind of the talent in business school and launched shortly thereafter. That's awesome. I mean, from your early days at Benet was were were they funded by Forerunner Ventures?
Was that one of their early invest investors early? Yep. That's a good word. They they seem to be the the heyday of of d to c funding and and had some good exits. But from your time at Bonobos, your time at Stanford, and all the connections that you made in the space, how helpful, if at all, was that launching Huron and and diving into the the startup CPG world in in men's grooming space?
Super helpful. I think from a number of a number of perspectives, one, it gave me a taste for what the fundraising cycle was like, how beneficial it can be, how tough it might be despite how quickly growing you might be as a company or how many tail ones you have, fundraising stuff. It also taught me a ton about really prioritizing the consumer. I think Andy was big on the Zappos model, around, like, truly going above and beyond for the consumer. So, you know, diving into this category, we were operating in what is a little bit of an awkward space.
Right? Like, no one wants to talk about EO or breakouts or things like that. So how do we make it relatable, personable, and how can we be, a little bit of an authoritative figure in the space, kinda given my cofounder Matt's background, which we can dive into. But I think that angle, from a consumer first perspective, whether it was hand delivering New York City orders during COVID or just kind of doing things a little bit above and beyond the call of duty to hopefully strike meaningful relationships with our 1st subset of customers was something that I definitely prioritized. That's awesome.
That's awesome. Yeah. Any advice that you have for anybody that that's listening that may be working for a smaller consumer goods brand or that's that's thinking about fundraising. I know, at least from my experience, you have people that like to to to fund companies that may be in the software space or that don't carry inventory. Obviously, consumer goods is a completely different beast because you have to invest in consumer acquisition.
And then as you grow, you have to put more cash into inventory. It's just a slightly different model. Any advice that you would have either in normal times? And then now I know it's obviously more challenging, because the pendulum is swung back and CPG is not quite as in favor as some of the others from a a VC perspective. But any advice that you have having gone through it or for people that are going through it today?
Yeah. Raising money for widget companies is tough. You know, everyone wants to be in the SaaS landscape where your gross margins are effectively a 100%. But turns out when you when you make widgets, you operate at a slightly lower margin. I think there's 2 prevailing tracks.
1 is you try and go kind of like the high flying VC route where you're very concerned with the logos on your partner page. There's another track, which is a little bit more of our ilk, which is who has previously built companies in and around our category, And can we strike engagements with them, strike up conversations, get to know these folks? And maybe there's, you know, a chance for them to participate. So for instance, Andy from Anubas was one of our earliest investors. Peter Rahal and Jared Smith, who are the cofounders of RXBAR, were 2 of our earliest checks.
So it's interesting because not only do you get, some of their expertise and experience, but now there there's capital on the line. Right? So it's those those folks are a little bit more engaged. And I think finding folks who are 1 to 2 chapters ahead of you, or in Rx Bar and Banillo's case, like, many novels ahead of where we started. Learning from what has worked, but maybe more importantly, what didn't.
So avoiding costly missteps because, you know, much of this journey, meaning the startup journey, is about learning how to say no and when to say it. So understanding what is core to what you are building, what is noise, and kind of taking some of those learnings from folks again who who might be a little bit further in their journey to figure out what's applicable to to you and your business today. I think that's great advice too, especially with them having domain expertise and having done it before. Like, they get it. They get the model.
They understand, you know, the challenges, the the growth opportunities, and they're not giving, you know, irrelevant feedback, which is usually, like, just grow sales and marketing and and and grow the business. So that I I think that's great advice. Which was the advice for many, many years. Right? It was just like, wait.
There's a line item beneath net sales. Interesting. And I think the tenor has certainly shifted. And now who's being rewarded from the fundraising landscape is folks who are infrastructurally building businesses, not high growth brands. And I think that truly is a distinction where, you know, as late as 2018, 2019, brands were getting funded, but there were no underlying businesses to a lot of those brands.
Now I think what people want to see is, hey. If I acquire this business, like, what is the cash that's gonna be coming my way versus are we just gonna be funding these losses for a certain period of time hoping that this business or brand turns the profitability corner. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's an adage.
You start a business by saying yes. You scale business by saying no. You're kind of having that appetite for nuisance revenue. What was some of the most I think it's a mixed bag from other founders we've talked to when fundraising, but what was some of the most helpful feedback that you heard, whether it was someone that actually invested or someone that passed, but they gave you actionable feedback that you applied to Huron? It's a really good question.
You know, Peter from RXBAR, who's actually launching a new product called David, I think, like, next week, which is a protein bar. It'll be interesting to see how that goes. If there's anyone who knows protein bars, it's probably Peter Rahal. Yep. He was very adamant on me finding that niche niche, however you wanna pronounce it, the niches of niche consumer pockets.
Right? And, like, truly owning this, like, unique corner of the Internet or the consumer world. I think out of the gates, we tried to be a little everything to everyone. And what that did is it just put our learnings on a longer time horizon, quite frankly. And now we're in a stage where we know exactly why people come to Huron and exactly why people come back.
So as we think about marketing, as we think about tagline creation, web development, product development, it's with kind of like those two core principles under our belts, which people love the performance of the products and love the scent. So it's like, what are the auxiliary products? What's kind of like the breadth of the line? Or conversely, what's the depth of the line? If you love this particular scent, how many different ways can we deliver that to you on a day to day basis?
And I think that took maybe a little longer than we had hoped, but, you know, ultimately, we got there. But But that was something that Peter was really, really passionate about because when he had started RXBAR, it was truly a bar for the CrossFit market. Right? And that was kind of an untapped, again, corner of the consumer world, and they dove in head first, and obviously had a ton of success in doing so. That's great.
I mean, obviously, you guys are very consumer focused. Your cofounder, Matt, I think he's a master scent profiler, a master formulator, from with big company experience. How in the early days, how did you go through that trial and error to figure out what is the right product set? What what are consumers responding to? How did you do the early consumer research to know what sense they liked and what what type of products to offer?
Yeah. Great question. I think from a assortment standpoint, we knew we wanted to come to market with what we consider the best basics. So we wanted to have a body wash, and then we wanted to dabble a little bit in skin care just kind of given my own personal background. So that's we launched with body wash, face wash, face moisturizer, which was called face lotion at the time.
I mean, Matt is brilliant from a product development, product storytelling, scent perspective. And what I didn't realize until much later in the journey is what his expertise and experience in the category does from a, experience relationship standpoint with a lot of these contract manufacturers or fragrance houses. Typically, how it might work if, you know, Sean and James wanna launch a deodorant, you Google a fragrance house, and then they send you, like, 10 samples, and they're like, pick the 2 that you like. And, you know, that's your fragrance. That's not really how we play ball, which is which is nice.
So, you know, our first fragrance I'm trying to I'm trying to remember. Like, we were on iteration probably, like, in the fifties. And Matt is such a, again, like, a well known a well known entity in the category. I mean, his ability to dissect fragrance is insane. And I think a lot of these, you know, decade long relationships with a lot of these fragrance houses allowed us to command that attention versus otherwise.
You know, we're a rounding error at that point to a lot of these fragrance houses. So Their stock their stock sense and Exactly. Exactly. So the ability to not play by the rules, I think, really created this unique tailwind kind of from the get go, that really allowed us to kind of scale product in a way that, you know, a lot of people say, like, soap is soap. But really putting something truly better, we believed different and better in front of them, just knowing that, you know, Matt's built fragrances for the Tom Ford's of the world and built products for lab series.
And, you know, someone who's accustomed to buying Dove for men, like, isn't used to using that sort of product quality. And I think that's what we were presenting out of the gate. Yeah. That's great. I mean, even even from my I I managed Old Spice for P&G for a few years and, obviously, such a cent cent driven brand.
They're not quite on the level of your sense, but, I mean, our philosophy was the performance is gonna be the same, so we're never gonna make performance claims. Let's just make set claims. Obviously, it's a lower lower tier in in mass market, kind of product, but that that's what built the entire brand was purely scent profiles. And and you guys, I think, a testament to the quality and and and care that you put into them. Like, it's great to kinda build a brand behind unique and proprietary scent profiles, especially with Matt's background.
I mean, you can Totally. Build pretty big brands just based on scent alone. Yeah. I think, you know, scent is something that's, like, very much in the zeitgeist right now. There's a lot of brands coming out with scent.
Like, I think Esquire actually launched their own line of fragrances, which is pretty nuts. It's interesting. But I think people are drawn to the fact that typically this is a very margin friendly product, and people are both intrigued and captivated by scent. Like, right, it is a, I like the way I smell. I will buy this.
And I think Yeah. Especially for the male consumer, I think this is one product in the bathroom, let's call it, where there is a willingness to spend. But, the value prop has to be there. Right? So I think our ability to say, like, hey.
This fragrance was built by the same team, the same developer, the same nose that developed these fragrances up here, but now we're develop you know, we're developing and delivering a very similar product at a third of the price point. I think that's a really compelling story to tell. Yeah. Do you guys sorry, James. I just had one follow-up.
But Go for it. When when we talk to the CEO of of Clean Age, they make deodorants, body washes, things like that for for mass market. One of the trends that she was seeing with Gen z was that people are picking different scents for different days of the week or they're wearing multiple scents. Are you guys seeing that trend with your consumers or younger consumers where they may not just have one scent that's their scent? They may buy multiples or or be be wearing different scents on different days?
Yeah. Great question. Don't know the level of granularity around the last point around different Yeah. Different days, but what I've seen that's really, really compelling. And, again, like, definitely buck the trend or at least my initial hypothesis is people buying multiple fragrances at once and not returning them.
Yeah. So it's They gotta be using them multiple days a week or at different occasions. I think that then allows us to think about unique ways to bundle, assort merchandise of, like, buy 2, save x, buy 3, save y. And I didn't think we had that knowledge or level of intel beforehand to feel like that could be a successful funnel for us to dive into, but pretty convinced now that that could be a really interesting, next step for us. Yeah.
I mean, we thought it was really interesting when she said it because, like, my time in Old Spice and then just I think generationally, you had people that they've worn the same cologne their entire life. It's whatever. They got gifted in high school. They pick their deodorant, and they kinda wear that for the rest of their lives. So it's really interesting to see Gen z and millennial trends flipping to be more set switchers than, you know, I wear polo cologne for the from when I got a 20 until till I'm 80 years old.
So I think that's a super interesting thing. James, I'll let you I'll let you dive in since I Sure. Sure. I've got I've got a couple that are all laced together here. So I think going back to the topic of formulations, I I think we see this trend with, DC brands really focusing on, like, educating and entertainment.
So edutainment, if you will. I think Doctor. Squatch shined a light on, some of the ingredients that are used in, like like, Dove or whatever else. It's like, don't wash your body with, like, dish soap or whatever else, I I think, from the video. What are some ingredients that consumers should be wary of and maybe some everyday essentials that should maybe consider more of, like, a premium option like Huron, into their daily regimen?
Great question. I mean, I think, like, the biggest no no that's probably on people's radar or at least, they're familiar with is the use of aluminum or lack thereof. Right? So when we talk about the difference between an antiperspirant or a deodorant, antiperspirant obviously contains aluminum. It's truly, like, clogging your pores, versus a deodorant, which is simply reducing odor causing bacteria or trying to eliminate, but it's not going to clog the pores or help prevent sweat necessarily.
So, you know, I think Native and Moiz did a great job of kind of, like, educating the category there. They were probably one of the first brands on the scene, to really kind of take and own that category. So I, you know, I think people are coming around to that notion. Right? You know, our note on the list, we manufacture without silicones.
Now not all silicones are bad necessarily, but we just took a line in the sand and said, hey. Rather than, like, try and tow the water here, we're just gonna manufacture without. And I think as we think about broader price points and how our retails compare, I mean, our free of list is quite extensive. You know, less 1 or 2 things, one being fragrance. We're basically Sephora clean.
So as we kind of stack up against the broader men's category, our formulations are are, like, very, very clean. And we did that intentionally knowing that that's kind of where the industry is trending. So rather than manufacture and come up with products and formulations that we love and grow attached to, and then 3 years later be like, holy cow. We gotta, like, pull this chassis altogether because we need to reformulate. You know, what does that do from the perception from the end consumer standpoint?
So, you know, silicones, phthalates, parabens, you know, all of those things have been outside, of the, you know, ingredient list really from the start. I think that's a combination of what consumers are reading in the industry news, but also kind of what's happening in the broader beauty space largely targeting the female consumer as she's much more educated and conscious of a lot of these ingredient callouts and and what's in her products. Yeah. And from that trend standpoint, I feel like until maybe the last decade or 7 years, there really hasn't been much innovation in men's regimens. It's you have your shampoo, baby conditioner.
Guys typically opting for, like, the swab, 2 in 1, and or 3 in 1 in some instances, which, you know, some women might claim as barbaric. We would use something all in. Is it because millennials are aging and now coming into different issues, and we want, like, products that serve these issues? What do you feel like has led to all this innovation, these brands sprouting up in the the men's kind of personal care space last, you know, several years? Yeah.
Great question. I think men's as a subset within beauty is kind of like the last domino to fall, if you will. Right? You know, I like to joke if if the last time you've switched your body wash brand was, you know, when you're wearing cargo shorts and, like, a shell necklace and, like, that's telling in itself, like, what else have you been using for the past 15 or 20 years? Like, the the list is not long.
So I think presenting folks with, you know, valuable alternatives. Right? Like, a lot of people might view this customer as cheap, but we view them as, like, value centric. And you have to pitch, like, what the value is into spending 3 to $5 more on body wash. It's like, well, what am I getting in return?
Well, you're getting a formula that's 30% more concentrated. You're getting a formula that doesn't use potentially these harmful ingredients. You're getting a formula that has luxury level cologne scent profiles and a body wash. So I think, like, those are just angles that we need to storytell and communicate as to why this is a this is a better product. But as we think about kind of like the male consumer, like, I think there's just a lot of folks going after this particular archetype because, you know, the female consumer has a litany of options, right, across hair, body, makeup, etcetera.
And I think, again, for men outside the pure play mass world, there's just a lot of opportunity. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. My personal experience with Huron, I've been a active customer for probably 2 years.
So, actually, the first product I bought from you all was the, the iStick, which I have right here. That. Vintage. I'm I'm a I'm a dad of, 2 boys, and I never thought I'd buy, like, an iStick or I roller. But then I noticed I started having, like, you have sleepless nights.
Like, all of a sudden, you have bags under your eyes. I'm like, what is happening right now? So it was kind of vulnerable. I'm like, am I really gonna research this? Found you guys, bought it, and then I end up going in, like, surely enough.
Like, now I've got the shampoo and then the conditioner and the body wash. So, like, it compounds. Like, I haven't gotten to the scents yet, but I think you guys developed a nice line in terms of addressing maybe some of the more, like, vulnerable needs of, like, male consumers. And then they have a great experience with the product, and then they wanna expand and are willing to pay, you know, 3 to $5 more Yeah. And and have kinda one go to brand or product on it.
So Yeah. At least my personal use case. No questions there. Just kind of giving you my example with you guys. No.
We, James, we appreciate the support. And I think you you laid out a really nice use case for us, which is once you kind of, like, see the value or like the brand or enjoy the products, guys will go all in. Right? It's the reason why true classic exists because who else is gonna buy 12 t shirts at a time? Right?
It's like, oh, I like the fit of this t shirt. I want it in every single color, or I just want 12 white of them. You know, 12 white. Done the same thing with with, Built Basics. It's like I I like one fit, and I buy, like, this shirt in every color, and now I buy pants and everything else.
It's, like, great. I found my one thing for this particular need I'm stocking up for a year. You know, if you joked internally, like, do we sell a decade's worth of body wash and just, like, super discount it? Yeah. You know, because, like, that caters to that mentality a little bit.
So, no. It's it's a really interesting, really interesting story. So we we appreciate the support, James. That's awesome. I know.
So you guys have been around for 6 years. Obviously, there's been probably a lot of 1 point o, 2 point o, 3 point o evolutions of the brand and and how you go to market. What are some of the biggest lessons you've learned starting as a a true, like, direct to consumer brand on the Shopify site, then venturing into Amazon, and then starting to venture into other other channels, be it kind of smaller wholesale channels or or trying to go retail in the future? Like, any any big things that you learned that would be helpful for people to know or things you would have wished you'd learned quicker or done differently? Yeah.
Yes to all. A a bunch of thoughts. Very broad. I think I think one of the biggest learnings for me, is to poke holes in your own hypotheses frequently and violently. I mean, I think for a long time, we would make just judgment calls and say, like, like, this doesn't seem to be working.
Therefore, blanket statement. And that that couldn't be further from the truth. I think where you get a little bit into trouble is if you have a small team or a team of 4, resource allocation just becomes something to handle. Right? So if signs of an early test aren't promising, you're kind of quick to pull the plug because you're like, ah, this isn't gonna work because we have 75 other things to be working on.
And a great example for us is subscription. You know, 2 or 3 years ago, I had a hunch that consumers and guys in particular just had subscription fatigue. You subscribe to Netflix. You're an Amazon Prime member. But recently, we've seen our subscription business explode.
And I think how that eventually occurred was, 1, admitting we were incorrect, but 2 was how do you structure a subscription program that provides a ton of value to the customer, not to the business? And I think when you think like that, there was just a ton of opportunities. They're like, well, why don't we do this? Or, like, how about that or make this more prominent? And we've seen our opt in rates triple in the past 6 weeks, which is, like, super compelling.
So I think being not so quick to write things off and what that boils down to is, like, come to the table with a perspective, but be your own harshest critic in terms of, like, poking holes in that narrative or in that hypothesis. So that was that's definitely been one thing. 2, I think staying true to the brand. You know, from an early investor, we you know, he was very adamant that we go through the brand creation process with 1 of the big New York agencies, right, which we did. And I would say that we had a a good experience, and I'm excited about the end result from the name to the color scheme, etcetera.
We paid a lot of money for that. And what we ultimately did 6 weeks after launch is we rebuilt the entire website. And I flew in 5 buddies from undergrad and 5 buddies from grad school and got some guys local in New York, and we sat in a WeWork and drank way too much beer and ate way too much pizza and just whiteboarded, like, how do you talk about face wash? How do you talk about body wash? What what's punny in this world?
How do we think about landing on the site? And that to me was probably a 100 x more valuable, from a takeaways and learnings perspective than maybe going through the agency process. You know, we grew up in an era where, you know, you had to be associated with one of these agencies almost coming out of the gates to be successful, and that's just that's just not the case. You know, for every award winning x brand that comes out of those agencies, there's probably 5 in the graveyard that no one ever talks about. And I it it kinda took some learnings to eventually get there, but that was certainly a learning.
And then lastly, I would say, you know, there's a lot of talk around acquisition hurdles and, you know, Meta being super jumpy and being super reliant on paid channels. I'm a I'm a huge fan of Preston, the the cofounder of Chubbies. He's become a buddy, friend of friend. I think what he puts out content wise on LinkedIn is, like, so sharp and literally genius in his push around brand marketing. And I think that was a huge wake up call for me to be like, what are the SMSes that are currently being set out in flows?
And, like, when's the last time, like, I actually reviewed those? Because oftentimes, you know, the the voice is kind of me speaking to me 10 years ago. Like, so does it resonate with me? So consistently building in kind of heat check opportunities to say, like, is this still on brand? Like, maybe this is on brand in 2020, but does this still work in 2024?
And I think having some of that, internal reflection to kind of go through and say, hey. Voice is free. Right? Like, there's a lot of things in marketing that are not free. Voice, tonality, how you show up, like, all that is free.
So auditing that more regularly is something that I was not doing, and now we're doing pretty pretty frequently and seeing the results because of it. Yeah. No. I think those are really great points. I mean, they're kinda tried and true in in in in some respects common sense, which is, one, the consumer's boss.
Right? So, like, as you're thinking about subscription program, like, what do they want and how are they gonna find value? Like, always think about, like, what's the consumer want and how can you solve a pain point or deliver value to them? I mean, it sounds easy, but if it was, everybody would do it. I think the second piece is when I when I founded the Xevo brand, I was in P&G Ventures.
We done the same thing. We hired a big New York agency, launched a website, ended up redoing it, like, a month later, and it was just me and 4 people on a whiteboard for we locked ourselves in a room for 3 or 4 days. And the flow, the pitch, the emails that we came out of that were so much better than, you know, the initial take at it. So I think for any founder out there, you know the insights and you know the business probably better than everybody else. You know the voice.
Like, just do the work even if it's painful and lock yourself in a room for a week or 2. The outcome is probably gonna be 10 times better, and you'll spend way less money than than outsourcing it to somebody who doesn't care as much about the brand, which which I think is great. And I think the yeah. I mean, there the the final piece too on that is you really just have to get back to, like, always staying on brand, always staying on equity, keep your tone of voice. It's very easy when other people get involved or other agencies get involved.
They they wanna put their stamp on it. They get bored with it. Like, the consumer doesn't get as bored with it as you do because you think about it every day, and it's very easy to start deviating from your original brand or your original tone just because you're you're bored. So I think all really, really great advice. Kind of following up on that, is there any you had referenced Meta and and a lot of the challenges that are out there.
Is there any channel that you think over the next 2, 3 years will be kind of the best emerging channel? Obviously, hard to always predict the future, but anything that's that's getting you really excited. I'm really encouraged by TikTok, honestly. I I know it's probably a, a hot button, subject, but in my mind, there's way too much smart money that's invested in TikTok for it to just all of a sudden fade away in 3, 6, 9 months. Like, that's not gonna disappear without a fight.
Oh. And what's really interesting about that channel from a brand standpoint is the uglier, the better, and people love stories. So I I am not a content creator. I am not great at it. I it's not my favorite thing to do, but you quickly realized how much people gravitate towards storytelling and wanting to know what's underneath the hood.
I have a hypothesis that, you know, for every entrepreneur out there, there's probably 5 folks that would love to do something entrepreneurially, but won't whatever reason. Maybe it's not the right time in life. Maybe they can't support it financially. Like, whatever the reason. So why not give those folks unfettered access, like, to a behind the scenes of, like, what it's like to be 5 years into growing a men's personal care brand?
And the more we can show and actually be faces and people, like, actually building things, then I think there's just so much more gravitational pull towards the brand. And it costs nothing. Right? So we've seen a direct impact of just posting once a day what the results do for us on TikTok shops. Right?
Because the first thing people do is they'll click on your profile and say, like, hey. Is this some drop shipper from god knows where across the globe? Or is, like, this a brand with, like, real people who seemingly do things that I do, and it's actually pretty relatable. And that's enough in a very crowded market and very crowded category who's all fighting for our share of wall to say, yeah. I'm willing to try this brand out.
So, it's, you know, it's maybe not the the most different or sexiest answer, but I'm actually pretty pretty bullish on the platform just given what it can do for for branded brands, and those who are willing to kinda put themselves out on the platform. Yeah. We we talked to the founder of Cheers, Brooks Powell, and kinda talked about a similar theme of this, like, celebrification of founders, and how it kinda creates you know, he who also admittedly wasn't a regular creator type to leaning into that after, like, you have 2, 3 good weeks. You're like, shit. What do I post about now?
So just like, alright. Well, here's here's here's how we're setting up our weeks. Here's us building a booth for a trade show and, like, just giving that, like, kind of lifting the veil behind the scenes. One, makes you more accessible, I I think to the consumers as well, which I think everyone I think maybe the sad nature is we're we're all yearning for that, like, connection, and it feels like a connection by proxy to the brand, and your identity a little bit. So, I guess, how?
It sounds like you're doing that right now, but any other plans that haven't been unveiled yet, to continue kind of give your your users, and customers exposure to you and and kind of behind the scenes look? Yeah. The way we kind of, like, thought about the content strategy is just figuring out, you know, what has been an emergent archetype within the customer file that, like, seems to resonate for whatever reason. One of the things we're learning is it's, like, runners and folks who are outdoors focused and active. And then secondly, it's kind of like, is there any overlap where you feel confident in creating content consistently?
Because consistency is of, like, the 10 c's I just listed. Like, that's probably the most important for the platform. So for me, it was really interesting because, like, I run every morning. So, you know, all Olympic records are safe when I'm outside. But it's something that I can at least do regularly to say, like, okay.
Here's a training plan. And then I fed my son breakfast, and then we did it. So it's it's just something to feed the platform. So not to say that Huron will be, like, a run talk page, anytime soon, but maybe every 3rd or 4th post could be like, here's another morning. Like, you know, to Brooks' point, like, we're getting the day set, and then we do this.
And, like, here's a cool new brand that I discovered in, like, the electrolyte world. You know, things like that where it's like, okay. This this all kind of operates within a few degrees of separation, from kind of, like, this core architect that we're kind of delivering content towards. So I think we'll continue on that path. But kind of understanding, like, where is content creation the easiest because it feels the most natural, and then how does that resonate with kind of, like, the audience that you're trying to target?
Yeah. Oh, that's great. And I know you you mentioned running. You you you post stuff about running on Twitter. You post stuff about running on the on your TikTok page.
Is there any lessons you've learned from being a a prior athlete or from running that either kinda helps helps your your kinda mental health or just lessons that you can apply to the business on a daily basis? How how do those things interact? Because we see a lot of former athletes. I think James and I both lift weights. We both run.
You see a lot of business people that that do physical pursuits. How how does that work for you, and and how is that an outlet, and how has it impacted the business? I think for me, to your to your last point, it's exactly that. It's just a natural outlet. Right?
Like, I I will go for a run and think about 10,000,000 things other than running, which is, like, a really great kind of, like, safe place, just to go escape for an hour, to think about work, to think about life, to think about whatever. It just creates creates, like, a little bit of, like, a a natural vent or a natural outlet of sorts. And I think for me, I mean, growing up as an athlete, like, I always had working out and fitness as a part of the day to day routine, and I think removing that from the schedule actually makes me 10x more measurable to be around. So, you know, it's not only for me. It's probably for everyone else's sake, as well.
My wife would say that about me. She's like, if I don't do it she's like, even if it's inconvenient, just go do it because I don't wanna deal with you the rest of the day. 100%. 100%. So, look, I think I think it's I think it's really great.
Like, it's it's such a it's such a stimulus for me in the morning. I can feel it dialed in. I thrive with routine. So it's like, I try and get up the same time every single day, try and go for a run every single morning, do a little bit of work beforehand. It just you know, I had the same thing for school lunch from the time I was a 1st day of school in 7th grade until I graduated high school.
Right? It's just like one of those weird routine driven folks. So it's just the the safe comfort zone that I operate within, and it makes me feel great. That's great. Great.
I think we're we're probably close to time here. Is there any any advice or or parting thoughts that you would give the audience on kind of building a brand or or growing in the ecommerce and and Amazon space? Parting advice. No. I mean, I think a lot of folks kind of throw their hat into the proverbial ring because there's they've experienced some sort of friction or, you know, they were they wanted to be the consumer of something, but something did not exist.
So, you know, at the end of the day, when you are your own customer and consumer, it just gives you so many rights of passage to say, around tweaking brand marketing, around understanding end consumer, and ultimately having a passion for what you do. Like, we are, you know, 5 years in market, but probably on the journey for 6 years. Now it feels like I haven't worked in 6 years, if I'm being totally honest. Right? Like, I love what I do.
I love the work that we're doing. I love the intellectual curiosity. I love the challenges. And I think for me, I never had the perspective of, wow. I could do so many things after this having operated a business because you touch everything.
You touch CX. You touch supply chain. You touch d two c. You touch Amazon. You touch marketing.
You touch product Counting. Exactly. Exactly. And I think rarely in life do you get exposed to so many verticals so quickly, and you just gotta figure it out. Because if you don't, then the business doesn't survive.
Right? So I think kind of being your own consumer, like, taking a step back every once in a while to acknowledge that, is really, really important and really, really healthy and just allows you to kind of repel out and see things a little bit more clearly from a 30,000 foot vantage point. It's awesome. Well, Matt, we really appreciate you taking the time. I think the audience is really gonna love the conversation.
He's gonna learn a lot from it. So like we do at the end of every episode, please follow Matt on x or Twitter or whatever we call it nowadays. Friend us or follow us on LinkedIn, and then give go to go to Huron's website and and give him a try. I think you'll love the sense. Appreciate everybody's time, and thank you for joining.
Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.