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This week's episode:

In the heart of South London, a bustling barbershop served as the birthplace for Aaron Wallace, the pioneering grooming brand dedicated to black men. Co-founders Aaron Wallace and Lina Barker share how everyday barbershop conversations about hair woes and aspirations inspired the creation of their acclaimed brand, now gracing the shelves of major retailers like Sainsbury's and Superdrug in the UK and Saks Fifth Avenue in the US. 

In the conversation, we discuss: 

• How barbershop dialogues helped the founders uncover a real need in the men’s grooming space 
• The journey of turning a gap in the market into an opportunity for inclusive innovation 
• Aaron Wallace’s global aspirations and how the brand broke into the US market

If you enjoyed this episode, please pass it on to someone who'd appreciate it, and kindly leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to help others find us.

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About Aaron Wallace and Lina Barker:

Aaron Wallace is a South London entrepreneur who opened his barbershop, Shear and Shine, in 2014. Following the success of the shop, he went on to launch his eponymous grooming brand, earning accolades from Forbes, AskMen and more as an industry innovator. 

Entrepreneur Lina Barker transitioned from organising events at the Houses of Parliament to co-founding the Aaron Wallace male grooming brand. Passionate about marketing and brand building, her work with Aaron Wallace has earned recognition from Forbes and Business Insider.

Learn more about the brand Aaron Wallace: www.byaaronwallace.com

Follow the brand Aaron Wallace on Instagram: @byaaronwallace.com

Follow Aaron Wallace on Instagram: @aaronmwallace

Follow Lina Barker on Instagram: @linasbarker

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AW 0:00

When you're working in the barbershop you wear so many different hats. You're part financial advisor, you're part relationship expert, and you're part hair doctor. So I was having these one on one conversations with black men every single day.

TS 0:19

Welcome to Made For Us, a podcast about the intersection of innovation and inclusion. It's for anyone who's curious about how to develop products that work better for all of us. I'm your host, Tosin Sulaiman. Today I'll be speaking with Aaron Wallace and Lina Barker, co founders of the male grooming brand Aaron Wallace. The company was created to address the lack of hair and skincare products formulated specifically for black men, and has its roots in a South London Barbershop that Aaron used to run. Today, its products are stocked by retailers such as Sainsbury's, Superdrug, ASOS, and Saks Fifth Avenue. In this episode, we talk about the barbershop conversations that were the inspiration for Aaron Wallace and why retailers are suddenly eager to embrace a previously unloved segment of the black hair care market. Here's Lina kicking off our conversation.

LB 1:12

So, Aaron Wallace is a black male grooming brand. And I'm one of the founders here. I have a background in digital marketing and so in the business, I look after all our marketing efforts and channels. And then I also work with the retailers that we have from a marketing perspective, but also just from a strategic partnership perspective. And I'm Aaron, I'm the other founder and Aaron Wallace. And essentially, I handle a lot of the operational side of things and the financial side of things, as well as the product development and the overall direction of the brand.

TS 1:48

I'm curious about your career journeys before you started and was was it always your ambition to become entrepreneurs.

AW 1:55

I've always had a passion for business. But I've also really been passionate about music as well. So I actually studied music at university and was, the original plan was to become a music teacher. When I finished my degree, I decided that I would take a gap year, take a bit of time out before going back to do my PGCE. And it was during that time that I was working at a charity and was essentially helping young people to get into business, helping them with their business plans and helping them to get funding. And that kind of reignited my passion for business that I you know that I'd kind of put to the side. Me and Lina I had another business that we ran before. And then I had the barbershop as well, that I was also running. And yeah, and then the barbershop kind of took us into the Aaron Wallace.

LB 2:44

I've always had sort of more of a commercial marketing advertising interest. So I did media studies at school. And then I went to university to do film studies. And I hated it because it was really focused on like, Alfred Hitchcock and sort of your proper filmmaker type stuff. And I bumped into a friend of mine, who was in our student halls, and they had a tripod and a camera. And they explained that they were shooting an advert and I was like, Oh my God, what, what course is that? I'm on the wrong course. And so I switched over to advertising and marketing communications. And I haven't looked back. A big element of that is brand building, sort of being able to touch consumers through products, and fast moving consumer goods being particularly of interest to me in that space. So it was a natural progression. From there, I started start young global, which is what me and Aaron were running before. And that was a networking hub with young entrepreneurs. And that kind of snowballed into Aaron launching his barber shop, and then bringing me on board for what is now known as Aaron Wallace.

TS 3:48

So Aaron, tell us about how you ended up running a barber shop. So how did you go from teaching or wanting to teach music to opening a barbershop?

AW 3:57

I've always been passionate about teaching, but I was always passionate about hair as well and used to cut. And I think at that time, I was kind of looking for something to branch into. And one of the struggles that I had was the barbershops that I was going to at the time. So this is a struggle that a lot of black people find with their barber shops and their hair salons is that they're not completely happy with the service that they were getting. The struggle of going to a barber shop, not knowing when you're going to get a haircut, not knowing how long you're going to be in there, unprofessionalism from the barbers. I had been routed to different barber shops trying to find a good one that I really liked connected with and enjoyed. So I thought you know what, this is something that I really want to improve. I want to look at who is the best players in the hair and grooming space. So I looked at say, Toni&Guy, for example. I said, Okay, I want to have the black version or the black equivalent of Toni&Guy in terms have the standard, the procedures and the service that they're offering. So we was one of the very first barbershops to implement a booking system where you could book and have your time slot and come and know that your barber was going to be there at the time that you booked in for. We had massage therapists that worked upstairs that done the facial treatments, and the massage treatments and stuff as well. And I really just wanted to offer a premium service at the barbershop for men, which cut.. which wasn't really seen at the time. And it's very, still very rare, even today to see in the black male barber shop space.

TS 5:36

And it was while running the barbershop that you had the idea for a men's grooming brand. So can you tell us about that?

AW 5:43

So, I say this all the time that when you're working in the barber shop, you wear so many different hats, you're part financial advisor, you're part relationship expert, and you're part hair doctor. So guys all the time, obviously, you've got a bird's eye view of everyone's scalp. Guys who always come to their barbers. My beard is patchy. I'm trying to get my beard to grow, my hair is receding, or I'm getting bumps all of these questions. You go to your barber first and you ask your barber these questions before you even gotten to your doctor, the barbers your first point of call. So I was having these one on one conversations with black men every single day, guys will be coming in, you have one customer in your chair, who is working as a doctor, and you're having a philosophical debate, the next person could be a personal trainer, and you're talking about sports, you see so many different customers sitting in that chair, and you're having all of these conversations.

But I noticed that the common thread between all of these issues that they were facing was the dryness in the hair. So essentially, the guys who come to me they would have the questions to do with their hair and their skin, we would have the conversation and explain to them what's wrong with their hair in their skin, what they could do to improve it. And then the next question was always okay, I know what the issue is, where do I go to get products to solve it. And that was where I always felt like I was sending them on a treasure hunt. Because especially at the time, first, they had to find an afro hair shop that caters for black men, black hair. And then once they found the Afro hair shop to find the men section within the Afro hair shop, they have to navigate their way through all of the women's products, which there's a vast selection of, and there's usually one shelf right at the back, which is like one or two imports from America, which are not really quality or premium, or basically you just got back it's like your only option. So I felt that one being their Barber, and two trying to offer a premium service, I'm in the best position to offer them products to solve these issues that they're facing. So we are an underserved market. And the issues that we're having here in the UK, people in France, people in Germany, I'm sure there's black people across everywhere that are facing the same issues. So that was the original thought process, the origination of the Aalan Wallace brand.

TS 8:17

Interesting. So what kind of solutions were people already turning to like, what products were they already using?

AW 8:24

A lot of people were using kind of homemade concoctions, like literally every person that you speak to, and you ask them what they use, you'll get a completely different answer. So people would literally Oh, I use my girlfriend's whatever she's got in the shelf. Another guy Oh, I just you know, I've got I have coconut oil is good. So I just take some of that from the kitchen and just mixed it up with a few other things. And then hey, I just hope that that does what it needs to do. Literally people were just making their own makeshift products or just using their girlfriends products.

TS 9:00

And I'm curious to know your thoughts on why you think this segment was underserved, especially when you compare it to what's available for black women?

LB 9:10

So I think you have to look at market maturity in general. So if you look at personal care for women, it was a much more mature market. So it only made sense for companies to start targeting particular niches. And within that, I guess women's Afro haircare became an interesting proposition. But if you look at the male grooming space at the time, it was still a growing market. It wasn't growing very fast. It's growing a lot faster now. And the category itself has expanded beyond your basic personal hygiene care into styling, skin upkeep, facial treatments, etc. So the market for male grooming itself is still maturing and I think that's the reason why if you then look within that sector, if you look at within that industry, this niche was seen as not priority, not big enough at the time to focus their R&D efforts towards I think that's the reason why it was completely ignored.

And as you've said, that's starting to change, what would you say are the main drivers behind that?

So I think, a lot of awareness, I think the stigma around personal care and sort of being being proud of your appearance and wanting to invest in products for yourself for men is now becoming more more accepted. It's no longer sort of a secret that you keep, because everybody wants to have good skin and good hair and get a good beard. Well, I think for a long time, men were stigmatized, for showing that outwardly. So that's definitely changed in the market now. And I think a lot of that has got to do with more tolerance, and more, like I said, awareness on health and personal care.

Aaron, did you notice that shift in the barber shop? Did you notice that men are becoming more conscious of their appearance and taking care of their hair? Or do you think that's always been there?

I think that the beard care movement was a gateway drug into men becoming more conscious of their hair and skin. A lot of guys would start with the two key issues that I saw a lot was one my bears, I'm trying to join the beard gang, how do I get this? How do I get this going? And through having the conversations of how to take care of your beard is like, okay, so does this apply to my hair hair as well? And it's like, Yes, it's hair. This is just how you take care of your hair in general. Okay, okay, cool. So I should be doing XYZ and just having these very natural conversations with men. I've seen that shift in terms of guys just weren't as conscious as women. So I'll give you an example. There were I could be cutting someone's hair, for example. And I say, oh, bro, you know, your hair is really dry. A common response that I would get is, yeah, I know, I've just got dry hair. And then when you explain to them, oh, but you know, it doesn't have to be dry, you know, if you use, if you condition it twice a week, and if you use a moisturizer, then oil or whatever the sequence is for that for that customer. It can be a lot of softer, then it's like okay, okay, cool. Okay, sure. Like, what what should I be doing?

Women were more have been a lot more aware of what's available. And they've been more aware of, okay, I want my hair to do X, or I want my hair to look a certain way. Therefore, I need to find XY product for that need. But I find that with men, when you have that conversation with them, that educational piece, a lot of men are like, hey, yeah, of course, if I didn't really take the time to look into it, but hey, if there's something that's going to make my beard grow, or make my hair softer and healthier, sure like, I'll try it out. And yeah, that I think that's just the different shopping habits that I found with with men.

So, you then launched your own product while running the barber shop. And that was the precursor to Aaron Wallace. So can you talk a little bit about that?

So the barbershop was called Shear & Shine. So when we originally launched, the brand was called Shear & Shine as well. We built the website, I built the original website back in the day, literally myself on WordPress, we was able to kind of start the ball rolling and get some sales in and kind of get a proof of concept going and test the theory. There are people in different countries that are looking for these products. And then as we grew, we was able to then get some investment, which we then put into building a much better website, building much better products. And we felt that after we had gone through that stage of you know, reformulating the products themselves, rebranding, looking at the name Shear & Shine, do we want to keep that name? Or do we want to transition? We felt you know what this, we've gone so far in the development of this, this is no longer shear & Shine, this is its own brand now. And that's kind of when we made the transitioning to the our Wallace brand.

We'll be back to the interview in just a moment. But first, I have a question for you made for us listeners. I'd love to get your feedback on the show. You've taken the time to tune in. So I'd like to know what you think about this podcast, and what you want more or less of. Are there any guests you'd like to hear from in future episodes? Would you like to nominate yourself as a guest? You'll find a super quick survey in the show notes. So I'd be really grateful if you could share your thoughts there. Now back to the show.

How did you approach customer research? What were you trying to find out and what were your research methods?

So we did we did a combination of primary and secondary research but then in terms of like primary research, so we had a group of brand ambassadors that we inherited from Shear & Shine that stuck with us since since day one and still are here. We often arranged to meet with them for a focus group in a group session, but we also arranged house visits one to one where we'd go to their house, and observe their grooming routine to identify what the issues are, what the gaps are, what the pain points are. So we did quite a lot of that kind of in depth primary research. And that's the same for each formulation, we send it out to one of those brand ambassadors who'd test it at home. So we weren't just living in our own sort of biased cycle, we were really trying to make sure that there was outside input into the products.

So 2019 was when you had the re-launch, Aaron Wallace. Obviously, the pandemic came soon after, can you talk about what 2020 was like for the business?

It was very much a roller coaster. Initially, we saw kind of a massive fall off in terms of activity and sales and stuff, because no one really knew whether they was coming and going. And most people was focused on toilet paper. So no one was really thinking about their beard initially. But I think that when things started to die down a bit, and we went into kind of the lockdowns and stuff and people started to get a bit more comfortable, we actually saw a spike in ourselves. And we think that the reason for that is obviously because a lot of people were spending more time on their phones or had more availability to be on their phones, which meant that our adverts that we were running, what was gaining a lot more traction. So in that sense, it was for an E-commerce brand like ours, primarily ecommerce brand like ours at the time, it was beneficial because we saw a good conversion.

And you started selling your products online. But since then, you've partnered with retailers in the UK and in the US. Tell me about how that started?

I think it's one of those cases where preparation meets opportunity. We have a very clear brand story that's very compelling, a clear position in the market. So we had this like little niche corner of the male grooming space completely. So we owned it at the time, and it was us and no one else back then I'm talking about. And so when the Black Lives Matter took hold globally, I think it was a sort of a rude awakening to a lot of retailers and companies in general. But let's just talk about retailers for now, where they were internally challenging themselves to see where they're missing, where are they not servicing a particular demographic or an underserved demographic. So on their part, they started to look into brands that could help them better serve their diverse customer base. But in tandem to that we were impressed we were promoting heavily we were very clear in our position. So they discovered us very easily because of our presence in the press, so ASOS came to us all of our retailers have come to us so it was a snowball effect. It started with ASOS and then we got approached by Zalando and then Debenhams, etc. So, so, for us onboarding with retailers has been quite a smooth journey. And I know that's not reflective of most brands who want to get into retail who have to be proactive and got these different strategies to get in front of buyers. For us. It's been mostly buyers coming to us which is really great.

So besides ASOS and Debenhams, who also you're partnering with?

We're currently stocked in Saks Fifth Avenue in the States. We've got Superdrug, here in the UK. We've got Sainsbury's here in the UK. And then we've got the Zolando in Europe.

Going back to the early meetings that you had with the retailers, did they make any promises in terms of shelf space and visibility? And were you looking for specific commitments from them?

What we always have been very clear on is that we're looking for a collaborative partnership. This has to be a two way street because I always explained this to retailers. For example, we used to go shopping atSainsbury's every Saturday with my mom. But we've walked right past the personal care aisle under the assumption that there was nothing in there for us. So this has to be an exercise for both brands and retailers. We're going to have to do a job to let customers know that we exist and that we're available in these spaces. But you also have a job to tell your customers that hey, we now have products for you. So it's really important that collaborative mindset is there from the very beginning and then in terms of shelf spacing, etc. That's an evolving conversation. We're trying and testing different things. So for example, in Superdrug, we're in the men's aisle, but we're also testing a secondary sighting in their kinky and coily and curly section to grab the attention of predominantly Afro haircare shoppers who'd go to that aisle knowing Superdrug has an extensive range available for them.

So I wanted to talk about breaking into the US market. Was that always part of the plan?

Yes, absolutely. This is a global brand, we've got global ambitions. But I think the way that you go about that has to be very strategic, because if you do it incorrectly, you could shoot yourself in the foot. So for us it was about it being strategic again, Saks came to us, it's not the other way around. And when they came, that was a good opportunity for us to test the US market, to have a retailer that's well established over there, where we can sort of send customers to where they can order without the shipping fees that would come from ordering with us directly. So at the moment, about 46% of our web traffic comes from the US. So there is demand there. And that's sort of increased 70% year on year. And in terms of organic ranking as well, in the US, we're ranking sort of number one and some of the key search terms. And I think the reason for that, it goes back to the US being a bit more mature in terms of male grooming in general. So they're constantly on Google searching for information. So and we've been very good at putting the right content on our website. So we're very searchable and reachable by them, which is why we're getting that much traffic from the US.

So what's next for Aaron Wallace?

We've got some exciting things in the pipeline. So we'll start with the products. Of course, we're expanding our product range, we're going to continue growing out our existing retail accounts. And then additionally, of course, we're also looking at other retailers that are a good fit for potential launches either next year or the year after.

That was Aaron Wallace and Lina Bakker. You can find out more about Aaron Wallace in the show notes. If you enjoyed this episode, why not share it with a friend or colleague. And don't forget to leave a review on Apple podcasts or Spotify. I'm Tosin Sulaiman. Thanks for joining me on Made For Us.

Transcribed with the help of otter.ai