It appears apparent in hindsight: Of us with tattoos have distinctive skincare wants. However go away it to 3 new faculty graduates to see what nobody else did and launch a direct-to-consumer skincare firm for that viewers.
That was in 2019, when Drew Fallon joined two of his Miami College (Ohio) buddies who had created a aspect hustle referred to as Mad Rabbit. “We had one product, one social website, and one promoting channel,” Fallon instructed me.
Two years later, the corporate hit $3 million in annual gross sales — nonetheless as a aspect hustle. That’s when the three founders left their full-time jobs to be, as Fallon places it, the last word in tattoos.
He and I just lately mentioned the rise of Mad Rabbit. Your entire audio of our dialog is embedded beneath. The transcript is edited for readability and size.
Eric Bandholz: Give us a fast rundown of your organization.
Drew Fallon: Mad Rabbit is the primary direct-to-consumer tattoo skincare firm. Our merchandise assist people’ tattoo ink keep vibrant and contemporary for so long as attainable. We offer alternate options to mass-produced merchandise which are usually dangerous to tattooed pores and skin.
We launched as a aspect hustle in 2019, the identical yr my two co-founders and I graduated from Miami College in Ohio. All of us had full-time jobs for about two years after graduating. Throughout that point, we went from zero to $3 million in income with one product, one social website, and one promoting channel.
Within the winter of 2021, we determined to do that full-time. The three of us are actually 25. We’re early in our tattoo journeys, and so is our main buyer. Many are 25 to 30 years outdated with solely a few tattoos. However tattoos might be addictive. Folks get one, they usually are inclined to get extra.
Bandholz: How do you attain $3 million as a aspect hustle?
Fallon: For one, my co-founder Selom nailed Instagram advertisements, which was our solely paid promotion. He did an unbelievable job. Our first Google Advert got here in 2021, the identical yr as our first Amazon sale.
However it primarily got here all the way down to giving individuals one thing that didn’t exist.
Bandholz: You went from a way of life model to hyper-growth.
Fallon: We have been worthwhile solely with out the wage expense of three workers. By late 2020, we had simply completed filming on Shark Tank. We didn’t know if it was going to air. We have been within the strategy of closing a $500,000 take care of Mark Cuban. He’s now our largest investor, having participated in subsequent financing rounds.
We launched our soothing gel in January 2021. It offered nicely. Then we created a sunscreen in March, which went berserk. We offered 10,000 items in every week. At that time, we stated, “This can be a particular alternative. We now have two choices. We are able to preserve coasting, or we are able to pursue probably the most of what this might grow to be.” We went with the latter.
We’re constructing a model to be the last word in tattoos — approach past skincare. However constructing a model is dear. It requires loads of funding. We determined to go for it and confronted little or no competitors.
Bandholz: I assume most of your prospects are girls.
Fallon: Sure. That’s right — about 55% feminine. Initially we had extra male prospects, however our feminine viewers grew as we launched extra merchandise. Girls have a tendency to purchase extra skincare items. We’re going via a model refresh now to de-emphasize the masculine vibe. We’re switching to white packaging, too.
The tattoo tradition is numerous. My 18-year-old sister has three tattoos. Harley Davidson riders have many tattoos. Cooks are into tattoos, as are athletes.
Talking to every section is a chance we haven’t cracked. We method everybody as in the event that they have been the identical. However we’re hiring individuals with segmentation expertise to construct completely different buying cadences.
For instance, a feminine would possibly purchase the balm and take a look at the sunscreen two months later. However a male would probably buy sunscreen first after which strive the physique wash.
Bandholz: You talked about Fb Advertisements. How did Mad Rabbit react to the iOS 14.5 monitoring?
Fallon: In April 2021, about 85% of our advertising and marketing spend was on Instagram. When iOS hit that Could, it was just like the practice got here off the rails. We didn’t know what was taking place. Our gross sales mirrored not solely the iOS change however the provide chain scarcity.
Quick ahead to 2022. We’re spending more cash on social than ever however at higher advertising and marketing effectivity ratios. Plus we did two huge pivots.
First, we did an equity-for-services take care of Inked, an internet journal. They’ve about 60 million followers throughout their social media channels. They completely and aggressively promoted our model, merchandise, and content material throughout these channels in change for proudly owning a part of our firm. That exploded the highest of the funnel for us.
The second factor was TikTok. We now have TikTok movies within the final six months with over 20 million views and 400,000 followers. They too have generated a large top-of-funnel impact.
With thousands and thousands of views from TikTok and Inked, our Fb Advertisements began working once more. We scaled Fb in January 2022, and we’ve been rising month-over-month since then.
Fb now drives numerous our gross sales, as evidenced by our attribution modeling. We take every day promoting by channel and every day gross sales on our web site 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 Amazon.
Bandholz: The place can individuals comply with and assist you?
Fallon: Take a look at our web site and Amazon retailer, or comply with Mad Rabbit on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Fb, Pinterest, or YouTube. I’m on Twitter and LinkedIn.
