In 2006, Josh Kilmar-Pursel and Brent Ridge did not have an entrepreneur to become an entrepreneur with a goat milk skincare and body care brand. The couple in New York City went to an apple-picing gate-up upstate at the end of a week and stumbled on a small town called Sharon Springs. He fell in love with the city, and on his drive, with a property for sale: Bakeman Farm, its home was built in 1802.
Image Credit: Bakeman courtesy of 1802. Josh Kilmar-Pursel, Left and Brent Ridge, Wright.
Kilmar-Purcell and Ridge were away from professional farmers-Lilmer-Purcell worked in advertisement, and Ridge was a doctor who started the health and wellness division of Martha Stewart OmniMedia-but he felt that he felt that the field would be the right weekend, so he cash in his savings and bought the property.
After not going for a long time, he found a note from a farmer named John, who was losing his field and had no place for 80 goats. Will the couple feel like taking animals to an empty barn on their property? He agreed and invited John to live in a small hut in the field and to be its caretaker.
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“Everything was very good,” co-founder remember. Then the 2008 recession came.
“We lost our job within 30 days of each other, and we had this new hostage-we had to pay the farm (closed),” Kilmar-Purcell. “So we really go googly, ‘What can we do with goat milk?” And the first thing was that goat milk was soap. ,
Co-founders noted that while many entrepreneurs finally start a business with the goal of selling it today, it was the farthest thing from his brain when he launched his brand in 2009-Way “just trying to survive.”
“I remember if we sell a $ 80-value soap a day, it will be enough to pay the hostage for that month,” Kilmar-Pursel says, “So some nights we will sit there at 10 o’clock at night and sit there, ‘Come, just one more order.” ,
Now, Bikman 1802 Has sold more than 60 million times of that soap and overtaken $ 150 million in sales. Beeekman 1802 sells its premium skincare and body care products through its website, QVC, reverse beauty, Amazon, Target, Laguardia Airport Kindness Shop, Sharon Springs through its major traders, independent retailers and more in Sharon Springs.
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Kilmar-Purcell and Ridge have also published three Cookbook and their first commercial book, Goat Knowledge: How to really make a great businessWill be released on 1 July.
Image Credit: Courtesy of Harvard Business Review
“We started selling soap bars on our website.”
One of the first stages was to create a website for a brand; Subsequently, the sale of the Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) was just starting to get traction.
“We were one of the first beauty brands to be DTC,” Ridge says. “Josh learned how to code. He coded the first website, (and) we started selling soap bars on our website. But then, of course, of course, you were not going to make the fate of selling goods on a website. It was not just environment.”
Co-founders wanted to take all their natural, goat milk soap products, where it was never before-the linger retail place. Hence Ridge Cold-CALD Luxury Department Store on Fifth Avenue in New York City: Bergdorf Goodman, Barniz New York, Sachs Fifth Avenue and Henry Bendel.
Henry Bendel’s buyer told Ridge that if he could be committed to the store every day for the next eight weeks, the retailer would give him a three -foot table from a three -foot table on his main floor, where the brand can join the customers. If the product was a hit, the store would stock up to pursue its products.
“So I did this,” remember the ridge. “I wake up in the field every morning. It is on a drive of about three-and-a-half hours from the city. I bring all the soap. I was installed on a small table. I lived till 8 or 9 pm, I used to go back to three and a half hours in the field. I did it every day for eight weeks.”
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As a physician and scientist, Ridge admitted that he did not know much about how to sell a product back. However, through exposure to other salespers on the floor and “osmosis”, he discovered how to do it effectively. Another major success during that time was: A buyer for Anthropology stopped on a scouting mission and “Fail in love” with the story of Bikman 1802.
“This is how we got our first big order,” remember the ridge. “Our first big break was going to national with anthropology.”
“(Reality TV) helped us quickly grow a loyal, managed fan base quickly.”
For the first decade of the company’s development, Bikman 1802 did not do any external funding. Co-founder was committed to starting business “Old-fashioned methods,” no “spends $ 1 until they made $ 1.50,” in view of a recession where financial institutions disappointed so many people.
As a result, entrepreneurs did not have money to marketing their brand in the early days. Consciously aware of the value of media, Kilmar-Pursel and Ridge seized every opportunity to get Bikman 1802 in front of the audience, from local news programs to blogs.
Then co-founders had an exciting and unexpected opportunity to act in their reality TV shows. Kilmar-Pursel was interviewing for the post of a creative director in a network when the President told him that he did not know if he was right for the job-but the ridge would and the ridge be seen in a reality TV show in a reality TV show and would appear in a reality TV show about his life and about the launch of his business?
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Co-founders got an opportunity to generate awareness for their brand, and within five months, Great beakman boys Was being broadcast.
“It really helps us grow a loyal, manageable fan base quickly,” Kilmar-Pursel tells. “But we were not distracted by becoming a reality TV star and trying to get another show and another show. It was really a good free commercial that helped us start a business.”
Great beakman boys She ran for two sessions, and although co-founder was not looking for more reality TV opportunities after wrapping it, one and one came to them after a serndipitus encounter in a book signat the amazing Race,
,the amazing Race The story was so authentic for the brand that it was a multiplier. ,
It was 2013, and Kilmar-Purcell and Ridge estimated that even though they had only reduced it to half through competition, the number of spectators will bring significant exposure to the Bikman brand. In the first episode, he introduced himself as a “The Beckman Boys” to rolish and ensure the ball, which people will always listen. ,
“We were Dalits throughout the season,” remember the ridge. “We were two middle -aged gay people. We are not going to defeat athletes and small people. In the third or fourth leg, we were in Indonesia and we thought we were going home. It was like 120 degrees; We were struggling all day, trying to complete the task, which were taking 100 pounds of the banbo and what we thought was thinking what we were thinking. Let’s just take advantage of this,
The couple was walking on a road, where a school was letting out; Reverse around a lot of children around and about the camera crew, Ridge started chanting “Bikman Boys” and joined the crowd. “We just thought, Oh, what is a great way to go out Amazing race, “Ridge says.
Then the co-founders pulled something that he never expected: he won the entire race. Before winning, Bikman 1802 received around 100 orders per day on its website. Soon after, the number increased to thousands.
“It was great about the fact that we were always at the last place and the ultimate underardogs the whole race (that) it was fit with the story of our founder: we were not to lose our job and start on the farm and start anything else in a small city in the rural New York,” Kilmar-Purcell. ,the amazing Race The story was so authentic for the brand that it was a multiplier. ,
Image Credit: Bakeman courtesy of 1802
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The next major development of Bikman 1802 came shortly after the success of milestones co-founders the amazing Race When the brand launched on TV retail. Entrepreneurs recognized the ability of the Bikman 1802 to tell the story of 1802 and sell their products, but they knew that they would have to come up with a hook to stop the audience in their tracks.
So the couple opted to bring the child to the air.
“It is disruptive,” Ridge states, “and stops you. If you attract people’s attention, you have a lot of possibility of selling something. It was a real trick that we still use. Now we are the number 1 skincare brand that crosses QVC and HSN.”
Bikman 1802 continued on the scale by landing in reverse beauty, target and Amazon. The reverse rollout of the brand set for approximately 1,500 stores, coincide with the epidemic and led co-founders to seek their first external investment for the company.
Eurezo, a major global investment group, Acquired a controlled share In the company with an investment of $ 62 million in 2021.
“You have to return to the basic principles of whatever happens to create a great brand.”
Co-founders have learned a lot of growing their business over the years. Although they enjoy watching shark TankTV shows where optimistic entrepreneurs can pitch their commercial ideas to judges for potential investment, they warn aspiring founders what they say ” shark Tank Effect ” – The belief that they cannot start a business without raising money.
Kilmar-Purcell says, “What we have found is a business that starts his life by raising money, in reality never becomes a business.” “They only become money -raising businesses because they start raising money and then after a few months, they raise more money, and then they have to raise more money – and they get better in raising money than running their own business.”
Watching that pattern motivated entrepreneurs to write Goat knowledge And share the lessons they have learned with the world.
Ridge says, “There are lots of ways to do a good business where you can earn money,” but if you want a great business, which is going to be inherited and final, then you have to return to the basic principles of whatever happens to make a great brand. ,
According to the ridge, ignoring trends is a key to success in skincare and body care space, as copycat products will be difficult to stand out in the market saturated with similar offerings.
“The world does not require another vitamin C cream,” Ridge explains. “There are already a thousand vitamin C serum. What is true innovation? How are you going to bring something new to customers that are going to improve their lives?”
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Co-founders say that with the opportunity to host the farmer John and his goats, the basic function of kindness is in the form of a driving force of Bikman 1802.
The company has donated hundreds of thousands of qualified reasons in hundreds of thousands of dollars products and financial assistance. The brand has also established a kind of kindness: a community of Skincare Content Creators and Community Influencers who are “emotional about spreading kindness for the skin, animals, communities and planets.”
“Selling the product is below the next level,” says ridge, “because we know if we are successful in spreading kindness, the product (people) will have a higher value.”
