Entrepreneur of the Week: How Bold Beardsmen is Redefining the Grooming Experience For Men

Tony Aniagba and Neville Hall Jr., the founders of Bold Beardsmen, are not concerned about appealing to a large audience. The innovative duo are quick to point out that their beard care product line is targeted for a small, yet influential demographic of men living life with a purpose–ranging from risk takers to the stay-at-home fathers to artists and the everyday businessman. “Our focus is not selling a product for the beard, but rather building a story around the lifestyle and grooming experience that drives and influences every bearded man of color, said co-founder, Neville Hall Jr.”

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“We also challenge the claim that beards are a trend or some form of a fad that will fade out once the next best thing comes around,” Hall continued. This brand caters to facial hair growth, a transformation that all men experience as they come of age. So beards will always be relevant, especially in our culture.”

In fact, to prove their business concept, the trailblazers hit the streets of New York City. “Instead of going the more conventional route, we wanted to build an organic following. So with a camera in-hand, we traveled around parts of the city interviewing hundreds of beardsmen and profiling stories of their most memorable bold moments. From these brief encounters, about 90% of these men confessed that they knew of no products they could use for their beards. The few questions we asked on those street corners led to lengthy conversations and stories that left us inspired. That’s when it all clicked, we knew that these were stories that other men could relate to and decided to go for it and create a product.”

The product line features all natural ingredients in various scents. Beyond a product line, Bold Beardsmen is a movement. “We stand for the under-represented bearded men who do super things but are still fallible. The men we signify are not magazine models, nor are they perfect people. These are everyday men who still get nervous at the thought of doing new things but what guides them is the fear of never trying.” With a digital magazine featuring everything from grooming tips to lifestyle and culture, Bold Beardsmen is a breath of fresh air for a “style” often judged more critically–especially for men of color. Black Enterprise caught up with the co-founder Neville Hall Jr. to learn more about their journey. 

What marketing tools have you used to successfully position your business? 
We’ve used Instagram to attract a large number of loyal followers. Instagram was a great way to use a clean and aesthetic platform to showcase stories and pictures. This tool gave our brand the opportunity to grab the attention of an extended audience outside of New York and was fairly easy to use. Most times, the potential reach on Instagram is overlooked.

Additionally, e-mail marketing has helped us increase momentum with our products. Once we curated a list of target customers, we used e-mails to keep them excited about product updates and promotions.

Any other marketing tips for small business owners?
Before you spend a second of your time on marketing, get a pulse check on who your targeted audience and demographic will be. When you arrive at a decision, be as unconventional as possible.

It’s so easy to follow the conventional methods that we know today as marketing, but do your best to shake things up. It’s worth it in the long haul.

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Describe your biggest challenge? How did you overcome it?
Our biggest challenge was that we did not have any entrepreneurial experience. There is a lot of “on the job learning” and figuring things out as we go. The beauty of starting a business in today’s age is the unlimited amount of information at our fingertips. If you really take the time out to learn, you can pretty much teach yourself how to do anything.
Every time my partner and I sat down to discuss strategy, the first things we addressed were:

What are we doing well?
What can we work on?
And how do we learn what we don’t know?

It was a legitimate way to remind ourselves that we had to outwork every similar company in this growing industry.

You used money from your savings account and spent time in your mother’s basement to develop products. What other sacrifices did you make to turn your vision into reality? 
Essentially, money always tends to be the prefacing sacrifice when starting a business but it quickly became more than just that. The time that we have spent growing is the time that other people may allocate to spending with friends and family or leisure activity, but as you develop you must keep in mind that these sacrifices are necessary when building something you truly believe in.

What makes your business unique?
As a brand, we aren’t too concerned with the crowd. We try not to focus on comparing ourselves to our competitors because this can start to affect the authenticity of the way we do things.

By watching what everyone else is doing, you subconsciously start to adapt to a standard of how the industry does things and in turn, end up stifling your creativity. We rather just listen to our audience and have fun with it.
The thought of inspiring others and showing people like us that they can create successful businesses too is what continues to drive us.

Can you share any career advice you heard as a young adult, but glad you didn’t follow?
As an up and coming entrepreneur, you’ll often hear “you’re young, take your time”, but in all honesty, there is no real good time to start a business. You just have to start now, make mistakes, learn from them and keep going and oh, and who needs 8 hours of sleep?