The self-tanning industry mainly focuses on making products for women, so there hasn't been much attention given to products for men. But three friends, Tom, Joe, and Jaron, saw this gap and decided to start their own company called Bro Glo in 2021. They wanted to shake things up in the market by creating self-tanning options specifically for men.
At first, Bro Glo was just a small project they worked on during the pandemic. They didn't expect their brand to grow so quickly. But with their creative content marketing and data-driven strategies, their brand started to take off.
In this case study, we'll look at the story of Bro Glo. They started with just $974 and within a year, they were making an average of $250,000 to $300,000 in revenue every month. They achieved this by creating a lot of viral TikTok videos and promoting the best videos using paid ads across all the big social media platforms. And even though they didn't have much external funding, they managed to grow Bro Glo's revenue by over 600% while staying profitable. Read on to lean how the triple founders mastered how to build and scale an e-commerce brand for men.
The initial launch and unexpected success
Before starting Bro Glo, Tom, Joe, and Jaron had previous experiences as entrepreneurs. While they had some success in their previous ventures, nothing compared to the rapid growth they achieved with their new self-tanning business.
The idea for Bro Glo came about when Jaron, who has fair skin, had trouble finding a self-tanner that looked natural on him. Recognizing a gap in the market, the founders decided to launch their business in 2021 with a unique formula for a self-tanning product designed specifically for the face. They started with only $974 in startup funds.
To promote their brand, they initially focused on creating TikTok videos featuring Jaron's humor. These videos gained a lot of traction and received hundreds of thousands of views.
Taking advantage of their growing follower base, Bro Glo sold out its first batch of 200 units within just two weeks.
Encouraged by this initial success, the founders reinvested the profits from those sales into purchasing larger quantities of inventory. As word spread and orders continued to pour in naturally, Bro Glo experienced consistent growth month after month. It became clear that their natural sunless tanning products were resonating with male customers.
The early viral success of Bro Glo confirmed the founders' belief that the self-tanning market was lacking options for men like themselves. By the end of 2021, Bro Glo had exceeded all expectations and became a profitable side business, even though it was launched during a pandemic.
Scaling paid ads and testing new customer acquisition channels
In 2022, Tom, Joe, and Jaron wanted to find new ways to attract customers for their business, Bro Glo, instead of relying solely on organic reach. They decided to hire a digital marketing agency to run paid ads on social media and improve their results.
The agency took advantage of Jaron's popular TikTok videos and turned them into paid ads. This helped Bro Glo reach a wider audience without having to spend a lot of money. This was especially important because social media algorithms were giving less preference to newer accounts, making it harder to reach people organically.
Towards the end of 2022, Bro Glo also started selling their products on Amazon in order to reach a larger customer base. Their good reputation helped them gain acceptance from Amazon customers, and this new sales channel began generating a lot of revenue for them.
By investing more in paid advertising and exploring new sales channels like Amazon, Bro Glo experienced continuous growth every month. Their earnings increased to an average of $250,000 - $300,000 for the rest of 2022, which was a massive 500% increase compared to the previous year.
Addressing seasonality and operations challenges
However, as they grew, they encountered new challenges. One important lesson they learned was how customer demand varied throughout different seasons. In their first year of expansion, they struggled because they didn't have enough sales data to understand how demand changed throughout the year. For example, they spent a lot on marketing during the winter when fewer people were interested in self-tanning products.
During the busy summer season, they faced another problem: running out of inventory due to unexpectedly high sales. This not only disappointed customers but also wasted their marketing budget. To address these issues, they realized they needed to operate more efficiently.
One problem was that their small warehouse couldn't handle the increased number of orders. The founders had to decide whether to get a larger space or outsource their order handling to someone else. After careful consideration, in June 2023, Bro Glo chose to work with a local third-party logistics provider (3PL). This change made it easier for them to manage a larger volume of orders and ensured that products were shipped on time. It also freed up the founders' time to focus on generating revenue rather than managing logistics.
Overcoming challenges leads to more success
When we look back at the lessons learned in 2022, the founders of Bro Glo made some smart moves to improve things in the second half of 2023. They analyzed a year's worth of sales data and used it to adjust their paid advertising, so it matched up better with the times when people were most interested in buying.
The founders also made sure to have more products in stock early on to avoid running out when demand was high. They hired an outside company to handle the increased workload of fulfilling orders as they grew.
These changes really helped them continue growing. Throughout 2023, they consistently made between $250,000 and $300,000 in monthly revenue, which was a huge increase of 600% compared to 2021.
At the peak times, they even made over $300,000 in monthly revenue. What's even more impressive is that Bro Glo managed to stay profitable from the beginning, which shows that the founders made smart financial decisions.
Looking back, Tom, Joe, and Jaron credit their success to always improving based on data. By quickly addressing any problems that came up, Bro Glo was able to grow smoothly without the usual difficulties that come with rapid expansion.
Future plans
Hitting those $300,000 monthly revenue goals has made Bro Glo even more determined to succeed in 2024 and beyond. The founders want to make sure their brand is thnumber-onene choice for men's self-tanning and more.
They're not just sitting around. Bro Glo is improving their current tanning products and they just launched a new skincare item, a face moisturizer, that doesn't tan the skin. They're also planning to add more products beyond their main tanning line.
One big goal is to get Bro Glo products into physical retail stores, not just selling online. They've received a lot of interest from retailers and plan to explore this new avenue once they can handle the increased workload.
Content creation is still a big part of their success. Jaron used to handle all the video production, but Bro Glo is looking to hire another content creator to make even more videos for their social media.
Ultimately, Tom, Joe, and Jaron want Bro Glo to be a major player in men's grooming, offering a wide range of products. By constantly making improvements and exploring new ways to make money, their self-funded business is set to keep growing.
Key takeaways
Bro Glo's journey from a basic launch to a $300,000 monthly business has some great lessons for other business owners:
- Being creative with marketing can help your business get noticed early on.
- Adjusting your paid ads can help your business grow even more after the initial push.
- Changing how you operate can help you avoid problems as your business gets bigger.
- Using data to make smart decisions about spending and inventory can help smooth out the ups and downs of demand.
- Always analyzing what's working and what's not can help you fix problems before they become major obstacles.
- Growing by adding new products and exploring new ways to make money can have a big impact over time.
By making smart choices and sticking with them, Bro Glo shows that you can build a successful online business without outside funding. Their story is a great example for other entrepreneurs who have big goals.
