Today we’d like to introduce you to Matt Bramlette.
Hi Matt, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
After I left a career as a designer in advertising, I opened a retail shop that focused on small brands, handmade goods and mostly local. That was in Kansas City Missouri. The KC Maker scene at the time [and still is] booming. I wanted to work with small brands and people that had control over their creativity rather than being creative for a big company.
When the retail shop first opened, the only place to buy wholesale handmade goods was Etsy. So, we traveled around the country going to craft shows like Renegade and local shops to scout for products to sell. One of those was a “do it yourself soap kit”. It’s always a good idea to test out DIY kits because customers have questions.
We had friends over that owned a successful candle company and they said they had some materials to make soap and donated them to us.
Since the retail shop was slow at first, I had time to work on a brand for the soap but had no real plan of starting an actual business. It was more of a project. Also, I was designing graphics that would be printed on shirts, totes, glassware etc and selling that at local craft markets in addition to the store. When the soap was introduced, customers seemed to gravitate towards that. And since soap is a consumable, we could establish return customers. So, we decided to put more focus on Bear Soap as a side gig.
Fast forward 9 years the brand had grown to include 14 soap scents, solid shampoo, toilet bombs, beard oil, beard balm, solid cologne, bath bombs and more. We also decided to move out West to the Palm Springs area in CA. The retail shop was closed before the move and now it’s just Bear Soap Company full time.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I think all small business have struggles. Most creative people are not strong on the business side of things so there are lot of learning experiences. And most small businesses don’t have the income to have a team to handle various parts of the business. Usually it’s the creative doing it all.
Trying to find a way to make enough profit with all the expenses of materials, work space, bills, cost of software to design things, show costs etc is VERY challenging. It’s crucial to be completely aware of all expenses and balance that with profit.
Getting wholesale accounts in our hometown of Kansas City was fairly easy as I owned a store and had tons of connections. In CA it’s like starting from scratch. The market here is tourist driven and very different.
Online purchases direct to our site is preferable for best profit, but it’s incredibly hard to breakthrough online and get people to take those steps that aren’t already customers.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I already went into my background so I will describe ways that Bear Soap Company stands out from other bath and body brands. First and foremost, our advertising uses mostly middle aged, chunky and hairy men [the look is often described as “bearish”]. The initial reason was because all bath and body brands used mostly women, or young, thin men. We wanted to break through a sea of sameness. And it has been one of the most attention-getting aspects of our brand. Every in-person show we do, people comment on the postcards which feature an ad on one side.
And in the years since our first ads, we’ve seen many other body brands follow suit.
Second thing that might make us stand out is we look like the guys in the ads. To have two older men making bath bombs, soap and more isn’t exactly the norm. Obviously that isn’t a brand strategy as we couldn’t have chosen that part, but it works surprisingly well in our favor.
The one setback of both those aspects is people read the brand as “men’s soap” and it’s not. The only items in our line up for men specifically are the beard products. We have a large variety of scents to appeal to anyone with all our products and the visuals are purely to catch attention. Self care for every body.
Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
I’d say one of the obvious lucks was the initial donation of soap making supplies from our friends that owned a candle company. That sort of prompted us to take the leap without spending more money.
Bad luck comes in the form of live events or retail shops….as in you have ZERO control over whether a customer comes in or approaches your table to buy. Also, the weather is a major factor with outdoor events and even a retail shop. When it’s pouring rain on a Saturday you lose a lot of business as customers don’t want to be out in the rain.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.bearsoapcompany.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebearsoapcompany/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thebearsoapcompany
