Foundry Appoints Experienced Beauty Exec To Guide Men’s Personal Care Business
Jani Friedman, former chief merchandising officer at Dermstore and VP of new brand development at Guthy-Renker, has joined direct-to-consumer brand consolidator Foundry as GM of personal care to grow its men’s personal care business and help guide acquisition strategy.
While doubt surfaced about the strength of men’s personal care after Unilever offloaded Dollar Shave Club in October and Disco shuttered in November, Foundry has shown its belief in it by acquiring three men’s brands—Blu Atlas, Supply and Stryx—within less than two years. It’s leveraging the brands’ audience and its burgeoning knowledge of what they purchase to become a larger player in the segment. With that as her objective, Friedman’s responsibilities include accelerating customer acquisition and broadening distribution.
Each of Foundry’s men’s personal care brands has its own team topped by a manager, and Friedman oversees them. There’s also shared support staff across brands that handle functions such as email marketing, creative services and website merchandising. “They’re very smart, they’re scrappy, they’re allowed to take risks, make a mistake, rinse and repeat. Let’s fix it, learn from it, and go,” says Friedman. “I was wildly impressed with both our shared services teams as well as the brand managers. My job is to bring beauty experience to them.”
Out of the three men’s personal care brands, Blu Atlas and Supply are Foundry’s biggest focuses. They’re profitable eight-figure brands. Grooming brand Supply registered over 40% sales growth last year, and its auto replenishment skyrocketed 186%, according to Friedman, who says the brand has about 15,000 of what it calls VIP customers. Its average order value is $98, meaning that customers are building their carts beyond its bestselling $59 The Single Edge SE razor. Supply is set to have two significant shaving product launches this year.
“It’s a premium experience,” says Friedman. “We’re never going to compete with Gillette, we just aren’t. We don’t want to go after the disposable market and be in competition with that. We want to have a beautiful, very sophisticated, very innovative and efficient way of shaving.”
In 2023, skincare, haircare and fragrance brand Blu Atlas achieved almost 220% sales growth. It has a $66 average order value, and it’s notched 62% growth in repeat customers. Its hero product is the $100 eau de parfum Atlantis and its $25 shampoo is a bestseller. Haircare products constitute roughly a third of Blu Atlas’s sales.
Foundry will be making a sampling push to drive customer acquisition in 2024 by, for example, sampling Supply’s liquid products. It will be offering free trails where customers only have to pay for shipping. Currently, email marketing and social media are its main tools for drawing customers. For Blu Atlas in particular, retail, brand collaborations, varied product sizes and a second fragrance along with skincare releases are expected next year. Bundles that incorporate Blu Atlas and Foundry products are on deck, too. The brands’ prototypical customer is a 25- to 44-year-old male with medium to high disposable income and interest in self-care.
“I was wildly impressed with both our shared services teams as well as the brand managers. My job is to bring beauty experience to them.”
Friedman considers retail more of a marketing opportunity than a huge sales catalyst. “Our retail is to say, let’s get another diverse group of men that shop that way and that will come into the fray and know the brand and then maybe they’ll buy online after that. Retail isn’t necessarily a winning proposition from a profitability perspective,” she says. “You have to decide, is the marketing ROI going to be better? Do we put more money into paid social or do we put more money into retail? So, it’s a big risk. It is going to depend on if it’s the right retail partner.”
During the holiday season, which saw Foundry’s men’s personal care hit triple-digit sales increases from the prior year, men’s cosmetics and skincare brand Stryx’s concealer was the No. 8 concealer product in the concealer category on Amazon and No. 1 in the men’s concealer category at the giant e-tailer, according to a LinkedIn post by Foundry CFO and co-founder Matt Rhodes. Like Foundry’s other two men’s brands, Stryx is profitable, but it’s in men’s cosmetics market that Friedman describes as “very niche.” In his LinkedIn post, Rhodes mentions that Blu Atlas will join it on Amazon in 2024.
Foundry was established in 2021 with $100 million in equity capital from LightBay Capital and Monogram Capital Partners. Its workforce operates remotely, and Friedman lives in South Carolina. Foundry’s portfolio consists of around 10 brands. Along with the men’s personal care brands, there are candle and diffuser brand Craft & Kin, candle and jewelry brand Benevolence LA, leveling product brand LevelmatePRO, fishing accessories brand Brute Magnetics and recreational vehicle technology brand TechnoRV.
Last year, Rhodes told Beauty Independent that Foundry’s portfolio could expand to about 20 brands, and it zeroes in on brands generating between $10 million and $30 million in annual revenues for acquisitions. Foundry aims to be a multibillion-dollar business. Men’s remains a priority for its acquisitions, but Friedman notes it’s additionally exploring brands in the broader beauty realm outside of men’s.
The firm Grand View Research forecasts the global men’s grooming market, valued at $202.6 billion in 2022, will advance at a compound annual growth rate of 8% from 2023 to 2030. “We think it’s a good market,” says Friedman. “It’s working for us. We’re seeing the growth, we’re seeing the replenishment, we’re seeing the AOV, we’re seeing the new customer acquisition.”
Friedman is convinced that premium men’s brands with lighthearted messages will especially gain ground. “It’s not, does it have a 28% increase in hydration? Guys are like, what’s that mean? I don’t even care about that,” she says. “They want to look good and have confidence. The single biggest thing our customers are telling us is, ‘We want to be confident.’”
Discussing Foundry’s acquisition targets generally, Friedman says, “What we look for is a strong brand story that can resonate. It’s ideal that we keep the brand founder on. So, we want to have a strong founder. We want to have strong value proposition, that’s obvious, but real problem solutions, something that’s not just another skincare brand, not just another makeup brand. It is got to have something behind it and some point of differentiation.”
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