Eric Bandholz: Give our listeners a fast rundown of what you guys do.
Drew Fallon: Mad Rabbit is the web’s first direct-to-consumer tattoo skincare firm. Our firm gives an entire suite of skincare merchandise optimized for the tattooed neighborhood and aimed toward serving to individuals’s ink keep as vibrant and contemporary for so long as potential. The concept is to supply alternate options to merchandise made by large firms akin to Procter & Gamble and Unilever, that are formulated for the plenty and customarily comprise elements dangerous to tattooed pores and skin.
We began in 2019, the identical yr my co-founders and I graduated from Miami College in Ohio. All of us had full-time jobs for about two years after graduating. We grew the enterprise as a aspect hustle for the primary two and 1 / 4 years. We went from zero to three million with one product, one social channel, and one promoting route. Within the winter of 2021, we determined to go all in and do that full-time. The three of us are 25, so we’re comparatively younger. We’re early in our tattoo journeys, and so is our major buyer. Many are 25-30 years outdated and solely have a few tattoos. However as soon as people get one, it may be addicting, and so they are inclined to get extra.
Bandholz: How do you develop a $3 million firm as a aspect hustle?
Fallon: For one, my co-founder Selom nailed Instagram adverts, which is all we had been doing for promotion. Our first Google Advert was in 2021, the identical time we made our first Amazon sale. Selom did an unbelievable job of scaling the Fb adverts account. However in the end, I feel it got here all the way down to giving the market one thing individuals wanted that didn’t exist prior, at the least not in an excellent accessible method. The necessity was mirrored at scale and nonetheless reveals within the firm’s development in the present day.
Bandholz: How did you guys resolve to make the transition from a life-style model to a hyper-growth enterprise?
Fallon: Properly, take into account that we had been worthwhile with out the wage expense of three workers. I haven’t gone again and carried out the maths, however we most likely would’ve been unprofitable had we needed to pay three individuals a dwelling wage. However the thought course of was that by the top of 2020, we had simply completed filming on Shark Tank. We nonetheless didn’t know if it was going to air. We had carried out a take care of Mark Cuban, which was nonetheless going via then. We ended up closing a $500,000 deal; Cuban is our largest investor now. He’s participated in subsequent financing rounds along with his Shark Tank word.
We launched our soothing gel that January, which did effectively. Then we put up a sunscreen in March, which went berserk. We offered 10 thousand items in a matter of every week. At that time, we mentioned, “Okay, that is most likely a reasonably particular alternative. And we’ve two choices right here. Primary, we are able to preserve coasting, or we are able to pursue the last word of what we expect this may develop into.” We imagine we’re constructing a model that’s the final authority in tattoos and goes method past skincare. You’ll be able to have a worthwhile on-line way of life enterprise that makes cash or create an industry-leading model. However constructing a model is dear. It requires loads of funding. We determined to blitz after it and confronted little or no competitors.
Bandholz: I assume that almost all of your clients are girls, although the floor stage really feel is masculine.
Fallon: So it’s gamble, and you’re proper, but it surely’s about 55-45. It was once extra males two years in the past, however our feminine viewers grew as we launched extra merchandise. Ladies have a tendency to purchase extra skincare merchandise. However at the moment, our branding is masculine. We’re going via a model refresh proper now. We’re going to do white packaging and a impartial really feel. It was the three of us for the primary couple of years, and we weren’t doing viewers segmentation or designing flows for various individuals.
When you consider tattoo tradition, it’s extremely various. My 18-year-old sister has three tattoos. So take into consideration any person like that who has a few tattoos, after which take into consideration the Harley Davidson motorbike rider with tattoos. There’s this huge spectrum. Cooks are actually into tattoos. Athletes are actually into tattoos. So, studying to talk to every section is a chance that we haven’t cracked.
At the moment, we discuss to virtually everybody as in the event that they had been the identical particular person. However we’re hiring individuals with the expertise and bandwidth to assist us flesh that out. there are completely different buying cadences. A feminine will purchase the balm, then is extra inclined to take a look at the SPF two months later, whereas a person would possibly buy the lotion first after which wish to attempt the physique wash subsequent. There’s a lot low-hanging fruit for us in that regard.
Bandholz: How did you guys react to the iOS monitoring and privateness adjustments?
Fallon: In April 2021, about 85% of our advertising spend was on Instagram adverts. When iOS hit, it was just like the prepare got here off the rails. We didn’t know what was occurring. Our gross sales mirrored not solely the iOS change however the provide chain scarcity and Amazon points. Quick ahead to 2022. We’re spending more cash on social than we ever have at higher advertising effectivity ratios. We did two large issues to navigate via what was purported to be the loss of life of DTC. First, we did an fairness for providers take care of Inked Journal, a digital media writer. They’ve about 60 million followers throughout their social media channels. They completely and aggressively promoted our model, merchandise, and our content material throughout their social channels to an viewers of 60 million individuals. In order that exploded the highest of the funnel for us.
The second factor that we did was TikTok. It’s not the first driver of our gross sales, however in the identical vein because the Inked Journal stuff, we’ve TikTok movies with over 20 million views and 400,000 followers that we’ve gained within the final six months and have a large top-of-funnel impact.
With a whole bunch of tens of millions of views from TikTok and Inked Journal, our Fb began working once more. We scaled Fb once more in January, and we’ve been rising month over month. Fb now drives numerous our gross sales. You would possibly ask, how have you learnt that? And get into the entire attribution state of affairs. Wanting on the advert textual content, the campaigns, and the return on belongings, all of it appears to be like like crap. However so long as we are able to handle a sure a number of on promoting, that’s what we discover necessary. What we’ve ended up doing for attribution is we take every single day of promoting by channel and every single day of gross sales between Shopify and Amazon and do a easy linear regression in Excel. We are able to discern that Fb remains to be driving a ton of our gross sales, together with gross sales to Amazon. So, we did a few issues deliberately to explode the highest of the funnel, after which we began to have a look at attribution extra holistically.
Bandholz: The place can individuals observe and help you?
Fallon: You’ll be able to try our web site and Amazon retailer or observe Mad Rabbit on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Fb, Pinterest, or YouTube. Look out for us within the tattoo parlors coming quickly, too. We’re in a pair hundred of these proper now. I’m on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Selom Arbiter (Co-founder)
Oliver Zak (Co-Founder
Erin Murray (Model Advertising Govt)
Marc Zuzolo (DTC advertising)
Andrew F. COO
Sarah Perez (Social Media Supervisor)
Amy Turman (Digital Advertising Supervisor)
Noah A. (Neighborhood Supervisor)
Evan Folder (Designer)
Mark Cuban (Investor)
Garin Chadwick (Content material)
