DTC POD: How The Best Brands Are Built

Lessons learned from scaling a men's skincare brand to a multi-million dollar brand (with Benjamin Smith, Founder and CEO of Disco)

Episode Summary

Benjamin Smith, founder & CEO of Disco, joins the POD to talk about changing the standard for men’s skincare and the importance of customer validation. Disco is a science-backed skincare brand with a focus on product development for a growing market of men. Benjamin has always been invested in his own health and wellness, especially skincare. Growing up, a family friend and dermatologist who is now Disco’s medical advisor, taught him how to take care of his skin early on. Stay tuned as Ben discusses how he validated Disco, how to scale an eCommerce brand fast, and how Disco is using content to grow. If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for influencers and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram and LinkedIn. We Speak About: [00:50] Ben’s background in health and wellness [03:45] How and why Disco was created [07:45] Disco’s customer validation in a crowded market [13:20] Getting a “good handle” on an estimate of users [15:25] How Ben realized there is a growing market for men’s skincare [18:25] Branding and pricing standpoint to compete against drugstores, and big brands [21:20] Creating organic and UGC content to educate consumers and solve problems [25:15] Ben talks about the challenges of being a founder [28:20] Three steps to connect better with customers that were a turning point for Disco [31:20] How Disco educates their customers about skincare in post-purchase content [33:40] Where to find Disco on socials and the web

Episode Notes

“We really invested in our formulations, which allowed us to scale because our products work and our return rate is less than one percent.” @itmebenji #DTCPOD
“The space is becoming more crowded, but I view that as very validating and not something that keeps me up at night.” @itmebenji #DTCPOD
“We made our facial cleansers in solid stick form, like a deodorant stick. We really took care and effort to make sure that our cleansing experience was pretty enjoyable.” @itmebenji #DTCPOD
“We really started to find our stride and figure out how to speak to customers better. And that's what's allowed us to scale so quickly.” @itmebenji #DTCPOD
“I took stock and thought about and reflected on that where society was heading and had a lot of conviction about skincare becoming a much bigger part of men's lives.” @itmebenji #DTCPOD

We Speak About:

[00:50] Ben’s background in health and wellness
[03:45] How and why Disco was created
[07:45] Disco’s customer validation in a crowded market
[13:20] Getting a “good handle” on an estimate of users
[15:25] How Ben realized there is a growing market for men’s skincare
[18:25] Branding and pricing standpoint to compete against drugstores, and big brands
[21:20] Creating organic and UGC content to educate consumers and solve problems
[25:15] Ben talks about the challenges of being a founder
[28:20] Three steps to connect better with customers that were a turning point for Disco
[31:20] How Disco educates their customers about skincare in post-purchase content
[33:40] Where to find Disco on socials and the web

Standing out in a crowded, yet growing market

Benjamin Smith, founder & CEO of Disco, joins the POD to talk about changing the standard for men’s skincare and the importance of customer validation.

Disco is a science-backed skincare brand with a focus on product development for a growing market of men.

Benjamin has always been invested in his own health and wellness, especially skincare. Growing up, a family friend and dermatologist who is now Disco’s medical advisor, taught him how to take care of his skin early on.

Having a dermatologist on the Disco teams helps them create clean products with deliberately chosen ingredients.

There’s a gold rush to capture the market share of men, and the skincare space is crowded, but Ben views this as validating. Having a unique brand and effective products, allows Disco to reach its target consumers.

A founder’s perspective, the importance of listening to customers

Ben understands from experience the challenges of being a founder.

From the launch to the middle of last year, Disco had a low conversion rate and couldn’t figure out how to acquire users properly. Ben even ran out of money a couple of times.

Finally, in the summer of last year, Disco found its stride by learning how to speak to customers better. That’s what allowed them to scale so quickly, especially in the last six to seven months.

The three actions Ben took for Disco to reach its recent turning point were adding a post-survey into the checkout process, reaching out to customers for feedback, and noticing patterns between the two.

Post-purchase surveys had five different reasons why customers may have purchased Disco. This gave real data from customer responses to understand why people were actually buying.

Reaching out to customers, Ben received valuable feedback about the website experience and the product that was similar to post-purchase survey responses.

Ben learned Disco needed to acquire customers in a different way. That’s when they really had a product-market fit and started to grow.

Stay tuned as Ben discusses how he validated Disco, how to scale an eCommerce brand fast, and how Disco is using content to grow.

If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for influencers and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram and LinkedIn.

Mentioned links:

Disco’s Tik Tok account: www.tiktok.com/@letsdisco

Disco’s Instagram account: www.instagram.com/letsdisco

Disco website: www.letsdisco.com