In the beauty and grooming industry, the term farm-to-face generally refers to sources of the goods inside the goop. When it comes to Columbus, Ohio-based brand Cliff Original, though, the definition broadens to include the man behind the merchandise. Founder Jared Friesner grew up on a farm, and now makes face, body and beard items with ingredients from local producers. “We could easily buy beeswax a lot cheaper, but getting raw, unfiltered beeswax from our local beekeeper is not just about the beeswax. It’s about the mission to protect the bees,” he explains. “They’ve been growing with us, and it’s a great partnership. We learn a lot from about what’s causing the bees to have trouble, and we educate our customers about that.” Beauty Independent prodded Friesner to divulge more about Cliff Original’s backstory, distribution, customers, challenges and goals.
What led to the creation of Cliff Original?
I grew up on a farm in Ohio. I lived next to my grandparents, aunt, uncle and cousins. I spent a lot of time following around my grandfather, who was a farmer. I was his shadow. My first entrepreneurial exposure was taking care of a steer, feeding it and selling it at a fair. I used that money to buy my first car when I was 16. I had a couple of small businesses in high school. I had a lawn business. I would go around to the mobile homes in the city and mow their grass. It was an opportunity to hang out with my friends while mowing grass. I went to college at Ohio State for business marketing. From then on, I was in sales and marketing, and I’ve been at three or four different startups. I love building a business and brand from scratch. Cliff is the first one I’ve done for myself and not for somebody else.
Cliff Original positions itself as a healthy grooming and style brand. How did you get interested in the health aspect?
I was working in sales and marketing, and I did a lot of driving. I always listened to podcasts or audio books. A friend of mine was attending the health coaching school Institute of Integrative Health to educate herself on wellness. I’ve always been passionate about holistic nutrition, and I decided to listen to modules from the school as I was driving around the state of Ohio. I think I was one of three guys out of maybe 2,000 students. They talked about beauty, perfume and makeup, and I picked up the hair pomade I was using and looked at the back of it. It was a shock looking at the ingredients that were listed. I went to Whole Foods and searched online to find a natural pomade. This was back in 2013, and I couldn’t find anything that didn’t have synthetic ingredients. I researched ingredients that were good for the hair and scalp, and started making small batches for my personal use out of my kitchen. I went to a local beekeeper to get beeswax. It was all trial and error. I have three brothers, and I would give it out to them. A friend of mine owns a retail establishment and wanted to know if she could buy from me. I didn’t have a brand or a label, but I realized it could possibly be a business.
When did Cliff Original officially launch?
It officially launched Father’s Day of 2013. I came up with the name Cliff Original in honor of my grandpa Cliff. He was passionate about faith, family and farmland, and he was very involved in the community. We carry that into the Cliff brand. On Father’s Day, I made homemade labels and came out with the goat’s milk soap. I sold our first retail establishment that Father’s Day, and then I went to our local barbershop in Columbus, Ohio, and passed out samples to get some feedback. It’s organically grown from there.
What were the first Cliff Original products?
The wax pomade was the first product I made. We use the local beeswax as well as shea butter for it. The scent is from essential oils. We have a family friend that we grew up with that has a goat farm, so we started making goat’s milk soap out of her goat’s milk. Today, we have around 12 total SKUs, and we are launching charcoal and hemp shampoo and conditioner. Back in 2013, a friend of mine was going to barber school. He started using the pomade and said this stuff is great for my beard. It helps with dryness. I started doing research on beard care, and that’s where the next set of products came from. That elevated us into the men’s grooming market. There weren’t many options for beards at the time. That brought us more exposure and interest from guys growing beards.
How much money did it take to launch Cliff Original?
We bootstrapped it and are still bootstrapping it today. I haven’t taken any loans out. In the beginning, I would sell stuff on Craigslist to buy more ingredients, packaging or labels. We did a lot of farmers markets, and we would take money from doing them to put into ingredients and packaging. I have been reinvesting in the company on an ongoing basis. I think the first amount was around $500 for the initial round of soaps and pomades. We built from there.
When will Cliff Original be profitable?
Last year was very, very, very close. We have been very frugal. Our overhead is extremely low. We rent a commercial kitchen to make our products. We don’t have any debt on equipment. This year, we are concentrating on growth, but, at the same time, we are trying to stick with our bootstrapping mentality so we don’t go into debt.
Who is the Cliff Original target customer?
With the beard care line, guys who grow beards are the target. Lately, guys have been paying more attention to their skin and hair. Our target becomes more of the guy who is looking to take care of himself and is involved in the shopping decisions. At the same time, a lot of our customers are women buying for their boyfriends or husbands. Women have been a big part of our growth. They are tired of looking at a straggly beard that smells. Once they buy our products, their boyfriends or husbands fall in love with them, and they will buy them directly.
What’s your distribution strategy?
When I first started, my goal was to get into Whole Foods Market. I have been a customer there for 10 years. I felt that, if I could get into Whole Foods, that was my validation that this was a real thing. In 2014, I got into the Whole Foods Market system in one store in Columbus, and we have grown to 25-plus Whole Foods Markets and other natural grocers along with salons, boutiques and e-commerce. E-commerce is still our main focus. We provide a lot of content for our audience to learn about how to be healthier. At the same time, our retail footprint is starting to grow across the United States and make its way west. There’s still a lot of opportunity here in the Midwest to educate our customer base on the retail side.
Pretend we are a retailer. Pitch Cliff Original to us.
We handcraft our products, and we are very big on education. We work with your staff to inform them on our ingredients and why we use them. We do pop-ups, and we create engagement by traveling to your facility to do demos. It’s not just about emails. It’s about supporting you face-to-face.
Amazon, yes or no?
We are not on Amazon. There are a couple different reasons why. We value our independent partners whether they are barbershops or boutiques. We are very passionate about barbers and work with a lot of barber schools. They educate their clients about our products and, if those clients end up getting them on Amazon, that can hurt. They’re trying to make a living, too. I’m not saying we will never be on Amazon, but we’ve had a lot of growth with our grassroots efforts and working with our current retailer partners. If the day comes that we want to go on Amazon, we want to be ready and make sure it’s a great fit whether we do it ourselves or with a third-party business. We aren’t going to rush into it.
What percentage of Cliff Original’s sales are direct versus wholesale?
E-commerce is about 20%, and retail is 80%. We are trying to grow both sectors.
Is there a dream retailer for Cliff Original?
Nordstrom comes to mind. They are very selective about the brands they bring on and would represent our mission well. We always had an eye on Birchbox. It took three years to get there, and it’s finally happened. We’d really love to see growth in independent boutiques, though. Our drive is to work with entrepreneurs because we relate to them, and we can develop a support system with them.
What is Cliff Original’s hero product?
The bestselling product is our goat’s milk bay rum soap. We use goat’s milk, clay, coconut oil and oatmeal, and it’s for the face and body. Whether you have a beard or no beard, you have to wash yourself. So, soap is an easy entry product for any guy.
Do you have a mentor?
My uncle Pat is an entrepreneur, and I have always asked him for advice. He’s guided me to where I am today. He has driven home the importance of relationships. He’s always said, “Never burn a bridge. You never know who is going to impact your life, so be kind to everybody.” My grandpa Cliff was the same way, so I grew up with that mentality. Especially because we have more employees now and it’s not just me and my family, we have to take care of those employees and their families. It’s humbling, but, at the same time, its motivating to have that responsibility.
What have you found most challenging in building a brand?
For me, delegating responsibilities is challenging. It’s something I’ve learned, and I’m trying to do more and more of it. We have a great team and great partners, so it’s getting easier. I was doing it all — designing the products, making the products, labeling the products — but, to grow a successful business, you have to have a great team. I have noticed growth because of the team, and it’s refreshing to know someone has your back. My wife is also tired of me bouncing ideas off of her.
What’s been the worst day at your business?
The worst day was when you wake up, and you can’t make payroll. It was one of the worst days because it’s not about my paycheck, it’s about our employees. They are banking on us. We ultimately made it work, but it was an eye-opener. Building up inventory over the holiday season when you don’t have sales is a balancing act. Each holiday season, the inventory gets bigger before we have sales. The employees understood what was going on. They ended up not losing a paycheck. We went out and did a couple more pop-ups to help with cash flow. The team put in extra effort to do the pop-ups. It was a frightening time, but, looking back, we definitely learned a lesson.
What’s your biggest fear as an entrepreneur?
Letting people down. Sometimes you say yes and overpromise. I don’t want to not fulfill a promise and jeopardize someone else’s business.
What’s something a successful partner of yours does that you wish would become more widespread?
We work with a barber school in Dallas, and they’ve helped us develop some of our products, which has been really exciting. The students test out different scents and formulas. When we launch them, they are thrilled because they’ve had an opportunity to work on the development. Having partners like that team up on the development has worked well, and we will continue to do that.
Do you take vacations?
I have three kids, and we usually try to get away at least once a year. For the first couple of years, we did not. It was more weekend getaways. Lately, I’ve been trying to unplug more. I don’t check social media or I turn my phone off for an extended period of time. That’s great to be more focused on the moment with my family. Recently, over the holidays, I didn’t have my phone with me for about five days. After a couple of days, you kind of forget about it. We aren’t doctors. So, lives aren’t being jeopardized. I have a great team and, if anything comes up with customers, they could take care of it. It’s taken me five years to get there, but it’s progress.
What helps you balance your work life with family?
I’m thinking about the business 24/7, and I can’t deny that. It doesn’t go away. Setting up a routine in the morning has been beneficial for me. I get up at 5 a.m. and work out, meditate or walk for two to three hours before the kids wake up. That’s been helpful for time management and keeping me healthy. As an entrepreneur, you are the last person you take care of. Self-care is very important to me. If I can’t take care of myself, I can’t take care of my business or my family.
What’s in your office that’s precious to you?
On my desk, I have a picture of my grandpa’s farm that a friend of mine took. No matter what happens in my day, it brings me back to where I grew up. It keeps me level-headed.
How big is Cliff Original, and how fast has it grown?
Percentage wise, it’s been up 50% to 100% every year. This year, we think we are going to be in line with that. In the first year, I was thrilled when I made $5,000. Within the next year or two, we hopefully will reach $1 million.
What’s been the biggest product fail?
We developed a shave butter product we were excited about. It got great feedback, but it had no preservatives, and we had some issues with it holding up. It basically would turn on us and become a zombie. We had to take it off the shelves and start over. We had to stop and slow down a bit, and do it right. We are taking time in developing new products. We have a shave oil that recently launched as a replacement for the shave butter. That was the product the barber school helped development. They were looking for a shave oil, and there wasn’t anything on the market they could find. At the end of the day, it all worked out.
What goals do you have for Cliff Original going forward?
Instead of renting a commercial kitchen, we want to have our own destination production facility that’s like a brewery where you could see the product being made, and you might be able to get a haircut in the front. We could possibly grow some of our own ingredients there like lavender or hemp. We could take farm-to-grooming further.
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