[Klub Digest #2] Breaking Barriers: Bombay Shaving Co's ₹300 Crore Groove in India!
From Humble Whiskers to Billion-Dollar Dreams: In this exclusive with Shantanu Deshpande, let's deep dive into Bombay Shaving Company's journey to a 1500 Cr valuation in 7 years. 💰
Welcome to the second edition of Klub Digest: a weekly newsletter breaking down the growth strategies of India’s most loved brands. This week, we break down the strategies of the most adored grooming and personal care brand: Bombay Shaving Company.
Could a daily chore like shaving create a premium niche? Well, this brand did! D2C grooming and personal care startup Bombay Shaving Company has disrupted India's $114B grooming industry.
A team of four forward-thinking individuals recognised an opportunity to revolutionise the experience by providing customers with an enjoyable and fulfilling alternative to this mundane task.
The tale of its inception
When discussing the emergence of men's grooming startups in the U.S., Shantanu Deshpande was intrigued by the potential for similar opportunities back home.
He identified that big FMCG players primarily controlled the Indian grooming space and that upstarts could break big companies with a differentiated proposition!!!
Finding a niche in the saturated market
Deshpande saw big monopoly companies to be incredible but, at the same time, slow in innovation and not consumer-centric. But there is scope to take a 5-10% market share, which was seen when Fogg took a huge market share from Axe.
Here are 3 insights that led to the emergence of BSC.
/1 IPL's growing popularity led several cricketers to become style icons through sporting beards, making them quite hip and trendy. The acceptability of beards in the workplace was also on the rise.
/2 Around 2012, there was a noticeable shift in men's grooming habits due to the increasing number of well-educated and financially independent women and the rise of online dating apps like Tinder. As a result, men became more conscious of their appearance. They were particularly keen to present themselves in the best light possible on dating apps like Tinder by using impressive profile pictures.
/3 With the ease of e-commerce through mobile phones, men could access grooming products more easily and maintain their stylish looks.
Keeping these in mind, Shantanu, along with Raunak Munot, Deepu Panicker, and Rohit Jaiswal, founded a fresh and thrilling homegrown brand, Bombay Shaving Company (BSC), in 2015 with the explicit intention of disrupting the monopolised market that had long neglected the needs of urban Indian men.
Their objective was to offer the most exceptional shaving experience imaginable.
BSC’s 0→ 1 journey
1. Hitting the nail on the head
BSC did not have an easy journey. They rolled out their first product, an exquisite six-part shaving kit (priced at around Rs 3,500), only available on D2C channels. According to Shantanu, it was “the most beautiful thing in town!”. For the average Indian consumer, this kit was “uber expensive”.
“It is much more than costly. It is ultra-premium. Gillette sells you Reynold’s ball pen. I will give you Waterman fountain pen.”
Shantanu says as he dismisses the label of ‘costly’.
For the next two years, the company struggled to identify the issue and was puzzled by the low repeat rate of only 10%.
The Aha! Moment: During a meeting, someone opened a Dairy Milk chocolate bar, and it suddenly dawned on Deshpande what his brand was missing!
“It suddenly hit me that Dairy Milk is generic for chocolates. Red Bull is known for energy drinks, Maggi is known for noodles, and Bisleri is known for bottled water. But what does Bombay Shaving Company stand for? Nothing! We didn't have a core.”
Today, Bombay Shaving Co. is synonymous with razors; their average order value went from Rs. 3,500 to Rs. 600! Much more affordable for Indian consumers!
2. The pandemic brought a breakthrough
The pandemic (2020) came as a breakthrough for BSC. The brand was now selling single units of products such as hair oils, beard trimmers, shampoos, face washes and moisturizers, and other men’s grooming products.
In 2020, it also decided to go offline. This was a bold move, as most businesses strengthened their online presence during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, BSC had a different vision.
Research showed that men wanted to be able to touch and feel the products before buying them. BSC created a more personal and immersive shopping experience for its customers by going offline.
The company's decision to go offline has been successful. In the two years since it moved, Bombay Shaving Company had opened over 100 stores across India while penetrating DMart, Reliance stores, and army canteens. It also saw a significant increase in sales.
“Sometimes, they don’t want to wait for two to three days for Amazon to deliver. They want to see it when they go to the neighbourhood kirana stores, or when they go to an army canteen, or they go to D-Mart for their shopping. They want to see your product there.”
3. Building brand and differentiated products
Now that BSC had found its focus, it was time to focus on branding and building differentiated products. The solid brand positioning led them to get the most traffic from organic sources!
They spent the next two years scaling the business. And it worked! 16X growth happened from 2 cr monthly gross sales to 32 cr.
4. The Launch of ‘Bombae’
Deshpande seized the opportunity to launch Bombae, a brand specialising in hair removal and personal care products for women, after discovering that BSC, a grooming company, didn't offer any products catered to women.
The idea was to move women from services (salons) to products (hair removal razors). The brilliant strategy here was to take hair removal from a functional category to a beauty category which screams in the brand communication.
Bombae now contributes to a staggering 25% of BSC's total revenue and presently owns 7% of the market share!
The Secret Sauce Shantanu’s 4-pronged approach 👇
1. Understanding Consumer Needs
Finding a balance between brand identity and consumer identity was key to their growth. Shantanu believes that too much-branded content will end up in the consumer running away.
He understood that razors need to be effective, not glamorous. At the end of the day, nobody flaunts them.
2. Not targeting a particular demographic
Grooming is age-agnostic, so BSC did not just rely on the millennials as their customers. The company does not classify consumers based on age or rural or urban. Bombay Shaving Company even introduced a wider range of grooming kits that resonated with customer preferences across geographies.
Catering to a broader audience through an omnichannel marketing strategy led to staggering results!
3. Shrewd Hiring Strategy
BSC has a highly selective hiring process that favours seasoned professionals with extensive experience in their respective fields. It means candidates who have worked for 20 years in sales within the FMCG industry, even without an MBA, are given priority.
You are particularly in demand if you have a strong supply chain and distribution background.
4. The Barbershop with Shantanu
The fundamental intent of ‘The BarberShop with Shantanu’ was to ensure everyone had a fair shot at being an entrepreneur.
Shantanu's video podcast featured intimate conversations with successful entrepreneurs like Aman Gupta, Ankur Warikoo, and Vineeta Singh in Season 1, which had over 1.5 crore viewers, and he's built a community of 200K startup enthusiasts in 3 months.
While the intent was always to support entrepreneurs, Shantanu built his personal identity in the process. The result?
Based on the available data, most social media traffic (69%) to BSC originates from YouTube. Shantanu's YouTube podcast is likely a significant contributor to this traffic.
This observation underscores the value of Shantanu Deshpande's personal brand, which can enhance credibility and authenticity, attract potential investors, and create abundant opportunities.
BSC’s playbook on choosing its investors
Raising capital in large amounts and achieving the right kind of valuation is hard. Shantanu Deshpande talks about how to tackle investments and investors with ease.
He underlines the importance of
1. Alignment of vision
2. The criticality of long-term and patient capital
3. Consistency
Read more in our blog post, wherein Shantanu reveals, exclusively to Klub, his successful approach to selecting the right investors, which catapulted his startup to a staggering INR 1500 crore valuation in just 7 years.
PS: The Breakfast Klub is back with a masterclass you wouldn’t want to miss!
We're thrilled to share with you that Klub, in association with Simpl, is hosting a D2C Masterclass on the 6th of August in Bangalore with 50 D2C industry experts and venture capitalists - all under one roof! Pre-book your tickets today from here!