w/ Ben Attwood, Clubhouse SKin
Also available on YouTube: youtu.be/Pi20dFaHoVg
Ben Attwood left agency life to create a men’s skincare brand he actually wanted to use. With no investors, no marketing budget, and no prior product experience, he built Clubhouse Skin using TikTok, Shopify, and a lot of trial and error.
In this episode, Ben shares how he:
Whether you're launching a product, bootstrapping a brand, or curious about real-world uses of AI in ecommerce, this one’s packed with practical takeaways.
Show Links:
Clubhouse Skin
Shopify
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Kurt Elster
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Ben Attwood
That's been like the word, but like I don't I don't think Scorsese's shooting anything right now. He just sold a package to Apple. I don't remember what it was, but it was like a Scorsese movie and he had the script writer and the script writer was good and like it's d it's DiCaprio again. But they that that literally just happened. Like they have not shot a single frame or even cast it yet. That's the last thing I heard. So the fact that he's currently in production on a rock movie, I was like, I don't remember ever seeing anything about that.
Kurt Elster
Well, it I'm sure it'll be good and you'll never hear about it because Apple is famously terrible at promoting anything on Apple TV.
Ben Attwood
Apple just had a thing where you can get it for four months for three bucks. So I signed up.
Kurt Elster
You're finally gonna watch Severance Season 2.
Ben Attwood
I've yet to watch anything on it.
Kurt Elster
So coming up today, we got a founder who sold out a skincare brand twice. And that's with TikTok, which I know nothing about, and Shopify Sidekick, which is still fairly new to me, but it sounded interesting.
Ben Attwood
Uh and you know we're just uh it's the end of April. We just figured we'd do a little Q1 check-in. Ooh, check-in on Q1, because we're business. And we do Q1.
Kurt Elster
Paul Kurt. Pre-interview intro.
Ben Attwood
Is this done this before? But no, because the interviews generally go a good amount and this interview went real short. And I felt bad about giving them an episode that was this short. So we're gonna pad that out a little bit.
Kurt Elster
This gentleman was in London. It was late for him. He was clearly tired. You know, so I I I cut him some slack. I cut a little short. But uh all right, so going to Shopify Editions next month. I may or may not be taking the stage.
Ben Attwood
Like by force? Yeah, you just have to wait and see. All right. Like, cause like I think Carly Harley could take you down.
Kurt Elster
I don't doubt that. Yeah. I'm gonna try I'm gonna go stealth and just try to avoid him. Cause if he catches me, for sure I'm getting body slam.
Ben Attwood
I You know, you got like you got the height and weight advantage on Harley, but like I feel like he's one of those guys, like he could do a takedown on you and just like get you in an arm bar and like you're done He just like popped your arm right out of the socket.
Kurt Elster
Or it takes my head right off. For sure he's stronger than me. There's no way I'm beating that guy in an arm wrestling match. Uh yeah, but additions coming up. They got new features, new stuff coming out. But I did see, you know, we're talking about sidekick on the show a little bit today. Uh it um that's available in all languages now. You know, all features generally start in English only. That seems to be the way of things. So if you're waiting to use additions in a different language and you're or sidekick in a different language and you're getting that from this English only podcast yeah your time has come
Ben Attwood
Uh, what else is going on? We're going pretty well. First two months of the year, we were slow as hell. And I'll be honest, Daddy was getting scared. 'Cause we were very slow.
Kurt Elster
Yeah, January, February. I'm like, where's everybody with, you know, these like new year, new me projects?
Ben Attwood
Yeah, it sucked. And then March and April We've been killing it.
Kurt Elster
And still ham. I got multiple good leads just today before recording this.
Ben Attwood
Yeah. It's amazing how it turned around the first two months versus the second two months. Which is weird to me because these tariffs, man, uh does anyone realize that like this is Gonna be worse than COVID, maybe? How so? Worse than COVID in turn like COVID, obviously great for Shopify because everyone is inside their house shopping. But Container traffic from overseas, you know, supply chain. Remember the the years we talked about the supply chain crisis?
Kurt Elster
Oh, yeah, we all became supply chain experts on Twitter. It was amazing.
Ben Attwood
Yeah. It's coming again. Like Literally now, and it's worse than COVID, and no one's talking about it.
Kurt Elster
What's our what's our evidence?
Ben Attwood
The COVID, I think the COVID drop Portal Los Angeles, Portal Long Beach, that is where most of the Chinese containers come into America. I think in COVID that dropped 30% that traffic, like overall for the whole year, like 2020 was 30 set 30% below 2019. Like I'm sure there were months that it was way worse than 30%. Uh next week, like those ships take a while. We know what ships are coming. Next week's the ships are down 40%
Kurt Elster
Like So last time it was there were shutdowns. Like factories overseas shut down, living in general shut down here for a little while.
Ben Attwood
Well, and living in general in China and the urban areas shut down very hard.
Kurt Elster
And so Inventory forecasting goes down and the actual production has gone down. So now we have this gap in our manufacturing. And then that the analogy I've always pictured is you know the snake eating the egg. The snake the egg. You could see the egg, but it take a while to move through the snake. That's what happens at a supply chain. We're like, all right, the initial incident at the front of the snake eating the egg did not take long. But then as that for that to move through, you know, it takes weeks, months, years And so you're say our early warning indicator here is what?
Ben Attwood
Is the contain like all the stuff got made. It got put on a ship. It gets put on a ship that comes to America that will be docked and the ships call ahead and they're like, we're coming, so get ready to unload us. The number of ships that will be showing up at the port with stuff on it is down 40% year over year. So 40% less stuff is going to be coming into America. So if you plan on buying stuff. There is not going to be the stuff.
Kurt Elster
So this is going to be like the empty shelves we saw in 2020.
Ben Attwood
Yes. And it's like I saw like Seattle. There's literally one container ship docked currently. There should be more than that. This is what just some random guy on Blue Sky who's a journalist, but like I didn't really check on the number. But he was like, yeah, other than the ships that are currently scheduled to land, there are no ships scheduled for after the ones that are already scheduled. Like No ships are on their way. So I it's like we're kinda I saw someone compare it to it's like a guy that got sh g shot in the gut and is like, I'm fine. And he's just gonna keep saying I'm fine until he dies. Like this is really like even if all of a sudden something everything magically gets fixed in the next month, which Given the people involved, I don't think so. There's still gonna be a whole month where nothing showed up.
Kurt Elster
Yeah, even if we resolve our our tariff negotiations, you still have to make up for That egg moving through the snake. Yeah. Right? It well we we saw this. We know how it plays out in you know twenty twenty with no stuff Now we have to order a whole bunch of stuff, which then resulted in we had you know jack-up prices. Couldn't get stuff fast enough, right? We had just like lines of boats. Which I was on a cruise ship, I saw it. uh and you know shipping problems. It's it's that all over again.
Ben Attwood
And it's like it this isn't like I'm not like wrong about this or I'm not like projecting. The boats say when they're coming. There will be f there will be 40% less boats next week. There are already 20% less boats. This is happening. When do we see it hit retail. When are we gonna feel it? I mean I don't know when the I don't know how long the snake takes. Yeah I don't know either. But it's like there's no boats, dude. The stuff's not coming. But no one is talking about how there's no stuff coming.
Kurt Elster
This would be another toilet paper shortage, isn't it?
Ben Attwood
I don't know. I don't know where those factories are.
Kurt Elster
Thank God I got a bidet. It's just a garden hose I pulled through the bathroom window. Oh my god. So now we've riled everybody up.
Ben Attwood
You know what I would love to do? Let's talk about men's skincare.
Kurt Elster
Well, I want to do another AMA because the last one was successful. The trick to this, I need questions. Just join our Facebook group, unofficial Shopify Podcast Insiders. I'll do a pin post where it's like, hey, post your questions. Uh I'll do that next month and post your questions. We'll do do another AMA episode. So our guest today, we got Ben Atwood, founder of Clubhouse Skin. And it is a skincare brand for men. So Paul, I know you need this.
Ben Attwood
Well, you remember? I thought uh when I saw it in the in the file system, it was like Clubhouse and I was like, the chat app? Are we still doing the chat app? I thought they collapsed.
Kurt Elster
Yeah, I think that's gone. I think it's over. No, definitely not the chat app. No, Clubhouse Skin Care. Uh but no, he did he was able to build an audience. He didn't have to use paid ads. He did build in public on TikTok. I thought it was a really cool story. uh where you know you could still do a startup business with a you know a legitimate lean you know ship it lean, keep the budget low, you know, not have to borrow a bunch of money. That That entrepreneurial story in e-commerce still live. This guy proves it.
Ben Attwood
Let's go.
Kurt Elster
Today on the unofficial Shopify podcast, we're joined by Ben Atwood from Clubhouse Skin. who found himself working at a a creative agency in London and feeling inspired and ended up starting uh about twelve months ago, a year ago. a skincare brand for men that sold out. I I think I heard correctly has sold out twice already. Well, we'll get into it. Uh Ben, thank you for joining me. How are you doing?
Speaker 3
Thank you, man. I'm doing good. How are you?
Kurt Elster
M well. So all right, tell me what uh your brand's Clubhouse Skin. That's you've got that on Shopify. What is it? What do you sell?
Speaker 3
So we're a skincare brand, obviously, but we really pride ourselves in using like natural ingredients mixed with like lab formulations to create like the best products possible. Um, where I think where we differentiate ourselves is we are we're talking to men specifically. But we are we like to say that we are the second wave of men's skincare.
Kurt Elster
And when did this start? How long have we been doing this?
Speaker 3
So we technically launched about a year ago. I mean we can get into this, but We had some uh we're basically we had a manufacturer that um we signed with initially a year ago and we sold out of our first production run. almost immediately um and weren't able to get more product so we had a second launch in December just been so technically there's two launches there.
Kurt Elster
And did you have all right going into cosmetics, did you have any experience in this previously?
Speaker 3
Um Yes and no. So I was working at a creative agency in London. um a couple years ago now and just by chance one of my primary clients was uh one of the biggest skincare brands in the world and I spent a couple years working very closely with them. uh coming up with new campaigns and creative ways to bring in new customers. Um and Uh got to know the industry really well. So I knew it from a brand perspective, from a marketing perspective. But uh as far as experience formulating products, no, I had no experience at all.
Kurt Elster
And you know, what was the thing that made you do this? You were making things in this industry for other people, and you said, I'm gonna do this for myself. You know, it it seems very difficult.
Speaker 3
Yeah, I can't lie. I think all product-based businesses might be difficult. But uh the reason why I did it was uh when I was working at the agency, I figured since I'm working so closely with these skincare brands. I should at least have my own skincare routine. So I went down to the local pharmacy one day um where I was pretty disappointed by what was on offer. I effectively had two options. One of them was uh buying a brand that was marketed for men, but they were typically full of like cheap synthetic ingredients, uh even like forever chemicals that uh you know just once they hit the oceans they don't leave. Um and they from a brand perspective they relied on these really outdated masculine stereotypes. And I just wasn't really drawn to any of them. So my second option was purchasing a brand that was typically marketed towards women, which was uh super like very effective on my skin, but it wasn't necessarily something that I would proudly display in my home. So Um, I felt like the big brands were all assuming that men are lazy when it comes to their skincare, which to some degree might be true. But I believe that there's a lot of men out there like myself who are willing to invest time into uh more comprehensive routine if we know that it works. So Clubhouse Skin was really built on the assumption that we're not lazy when it comes to skincare.
Kurt Elster
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Speaker 3
Yeah, good question. It requires um a lot of trial and error. So you basically have to troll through Google trying to find a manufacturer that can work with MOQs that are realistic for you, trying to find packaging suppliers that um you know also uh up within a reasonable price range you have to find a lab that can formulate these products um all of these things have to come together Which um can feel like you're you're juggling quite a lot. So a lot of time on Google is probably the the answer to that question.
Kurt Elster
And when you did get the product developed, and then you've you know you've got to build out the branding, build the store, you went with Shopify, right?
Speaker 3
Yeah, 100%. I mean, to be honest, if you're a small business and you're not building on Shopify, then it's a pretty early mistake that you want to avoid. So they just like make it far too easy to get started. So It was a no-brainer from the get beginning. Plus, while I was working at the agency, we had at least one client per month come to us that was using a different e-commerce platform. and would be asking us to rebuild it for them on Shopify. So I had this inside scoop uh which just made it a no-brainer.
Kurt Elster
And what's the our initial products? What are we selling?
Speaker 3
At the moment we're selling a cleanser, a moisturizer, and a vitamin C.
Kurt Elster
And describe this packaging, because I love it.
Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, well I love I I love that feedback because I spent a lot of time going through hundreds of revisions of packaging. So I appreciate that a lot. I mean, how would I describe it? I would say that it's fairly understated. We're trying to go for um we don't we don't want to be a pretentious brand, but we do want to feel premium. So I would say that the branding was a balancing act between um those two worlds.
Kurt Elster
That Helsinki moisturizer is so cool. I don't know, there's something about it. And then the way you photographed it, I'm like, yeah, that it spoke to me.
Speaker 3
Oh, thank you. I gotta send you one.
Kurt Elster
Oh yeah, I know absolutely I'll use it. Uh so everyone talks about their their first sale. It's kind of a big deal. Uh what was yours like?
Speaker 3
So, good question. I've been building Clubhouse Skin in public basically from day one and documenting the entire journey on TikTok. So my first sale was actually all captured on camera. And I cannot describe the relief that you feel when you hear that Shopify sale notification go off for the first time. after building something for 12 months, there we go. Oh, I love that sound so much. But obviously. As you're building something, people will always say, Oh, I can't wait to buy that, or I'll definitely support you. But at the end of the day, it doesn't mean anything until they actually make a purchase. So hearing that notification go off for the first time definitely made me feel like the last 12 months of my life weren't wasted and that I had a good opportunity in my hand.
Kurt Elster
It for sure it's validation. What um for that initial product launch, yeah, how did you market it? How do we get the the audience engaged? Was it through this act of building in public on TikTok?
Speaker 3
It was purely building in public on TikTok. Yeah. I think that the reality of having a small business, if it's bootstrapped Is you don't have a marketing budget. Or if you do have a marketing budget, it's purely from the cash flow of the business. So it's never significant. So at the beginning of the process, I was building in public purely as a marketing play, as a way to get attention. Uh, but it quickly developed into being more about building a a community, 'cause that really pays off over the long run.
Kurt Elster
It's with what did that how did how big did that audience get?
Speaker 3
So by TikTok standards, not that big. I mean, I think we have collectively about like ten thousand followers across platforms, which is not a significant amount. However, if they are loyal fans that have been following you for a year, that's so powerful and that was more than enough for us to launch our business from and to generate sales and to sell out within a couple weeks.
Kurt Elster
Yeah, I I definitely would not underestimate the power of being a micro influencer. You know, being in that that 10 to 15,000 range definitely could get things done. But all right, so we're bootstrapping, right?
Speaker 3
Yes.
Kurt Elster
And so you're doing, I would imagine, most everything yourself.
Speaker 3
Yes.
Kurt Elster
How much how much did we lean on AI here?
Speaker 3
Yeah, quite a bit. Quite a bit. I mean Specifically, when we were relaunching the brand, um I turned to AI quite a bit. So in the process of our relaunch, I wanted to re-engage my previous customers to try and build up hype again because we hadn't been selling for a few months. Um, the issue was I didn't really know who those customers were. And I am not a data guy at all. I am very much right-brained. creative thinker, uh even the thought of me diving into store analytics frankly exhausts me. So I asked Sidekick to go through my sales data and tell me who my mo most loyal brand advocates were.
Kurt Elster
Wait, hold Shopify Sidekick, the that the little like nerdy assistant icon in the header, you click it and the guy pops out. Helps you with your store.
Speaker 3
Yeah, that little guy.
Kurt Elster
But it actually worked.
Speaker 3
Uh yeah, it works. Yeah, it works great. Yeah, for sure.
Kurt Elster
I'm oppressed. So what did you ask it to do? What was it able to do for you?
Speaker 3
So I w when I was trying to figure out who my like most loyal customers were. I asked it to like go through my sales data and tell me who they were. And what it gave me was a list of uh all my customers categorized from most to least engaged based on uh like number of purchases and frequency of sales. So with that list, it saved me such a headache and God knows how much time. But I was able to take it and started cold calling a lot of my previous customers.
Kurt Elster
Oh wow.
Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, yeah. To tell them how relaunch, man. It was terrifying. It was terrifying. But it worked. It worked a trade. Um like this is something that I typically would have struck off as too hard of a task for me. But psychic definitely made it a lot easier.
Kurt Elster
It feels like you were able to just ask it for what you wanted, it sounds like.
Speaker 3
Yeah.
Kurt Elster
And then work from, you know, most valuable on down.
Speaker 3
Yep, absolutely.
Kurt Elster
So I I'm fascinated. What else could this thing do for you?
Speaker 3
Well, in the same vein as me being allergic to uh analytics and data. Um, I do know how important can conversion rates are. So I knew that I had to get mine uh higher. So I asked Sidekick what I could be doing to improve my conversion rates. Turns out my uh product descriptions were really not that great.
Kurt Elster
So it knew this and suggested it to you.
Speaker 3
Yeah, it did. Yeah. So instead like previously what I might have done is Uh well what I would have done is brought in an external agency where they would have probably charged me 2,000 pounds a day uh to analyze my website and make suggestions here and there. Um all to just boost that conversion rate a little bit, but instead I just asked Sidekick and it was it was job done, same day. For free.
Kurt Elster
So the suggestions it gave you was like, you know, update product descriptions, they give you anything else?
Speaker 3
Yeah, it was uh It was mostly product descriptions and uh optimizing my imagery. My imagery files were too big.
Kurt Elster
Oh wow. Okay. I knew that too.
Speaker 3
Yeah.
Kurt Elster
The so did it surprise you what it could do?
Speaker 3
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean it's so much more convenient than um because it's actually built into the shop Shopify UI. It's just always there, which Come to think of it, that's probably exactly why they called it a sidekick. I love that little guy.
Kurt Elster
Yeah, like the little the little nerdy guy with his mask on. Yeah. The um Was there anything it couldn't do? Or you're like, man, I wish it could do, you know, X, Y, Z.
Speaker 3
I don't know if it does this yet. If it doesn't, I'm sure they're working on it. But I would really love for it to take over my customer service inbox.
Kurt Elster
Oh, for sure. That seems like that seems plausible.
Speaker 3
It definitely seems plausible. It's something that I will uh adopt as soon as it's made available to me for sure.
Kurt Elster
The anything else that surprised you about it. I've just, you know, I have not encountered someone that's like, man, I I used shot by sidekick. Yeah and it provided me you did these really incredible unlocks for my business. So wondering just you know open-ended anything else about it that surprised you or that you didn't know.
Speaker 3
I think those were the two main use cases, to be honest.
Kurt Elster
Makes sense. I've used it also just for like help and support. I'm like, hey, how do I do X?
Speaker 3
Oh yeah. I mean, yeah, emotional support, Ivan.
Kurt Elster
How would you uh how would you describe its personality or tone of voice?
Speaker 3
Um I feel like I feel like sidekick is always in a good mood, even when I'm not. Like I might come to it with some like Some blunt question, but Psychick is always, you know, a little bit more chipper than I am, which is nice. He's like that friend that's just always positive. Good energy to be around.
Kurt Elster
That's great. I love it. All right. I gotta give I gotta give Shopfi sidekick another look. Um Okay. You know, we touched on the packaging. I was like, look, I love you know the Helsinki moisturizer. I thought uh the branding on the site's really cool. It feels like you know, a a luxury apparel store to me. So it's kind of like a an understated branding, you know, a quiet branding in a space that like You would expect makeup for men to go the other way where it's like liquid death in your face. Why'd you go the way you did with the branding?
Speaker 3
So from day one, my primary goal really has just been to build a business that I want to own. and that I'm proud of and is for me under the assumption that if I like it, other people probably will too. Um, so one of our taglines is actually go forward with quiet confidence. And to be honest, I'm a fairly quiet, understated guy. So I guess Clubhouse skin is probably a reflection of my own personality. Uh Plus I feel the loudest person in the room usually has the least to say. So I really resonate with people and brands that aren't desperately yelling for attention all the time.
Kurt Elster
Tell me about that the name, Clubhouse Skin. Why Clubhouse?
Speaker 3
Good question. And again, the amount of names that I went through to land here. Is too many. But the honest answer is it made me feel something. Like when you think of a clubhouse, it makes you think like there's lots of visual references that come to mind with that. It gives me a whole universe that I can play with throughout the rest of the brand, throughout the rest of the messaging. uh it feels like, well, in its name, it is a clubhouse. It feels like something that you want to be a part of
Kurt Elster
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Speaker 3
The reality of bootstrapping a business is you just you don't have any marketing, like I was saying before, there's no budget for it. So bootstrapping in public is truly one of the only advantages that we have over the big companies. And if we're not going to leverage it, I feel like it's a huge miss for small businesses. And a potentially massive unlock for opportunities. Like I have had retailers reach out, uh investment opportunities Uh I've gained a mentor because they found me on TikTok.
Kurt Elster
That's amazing.
Speaker 3
It's unlocked doors that typically just I I would have no business entering. So I just I couldn't suggest anything more than doing that.
Kurt Elster
You, you know, as the individual business owner, brand owner being, you know, face to camera sharing that story on social media. is something, you're right, that a large company can't do. Like Unilever cannot do that. It's just, it doesn't work for them, right? But You know, peop I've I think people buy for people, not brands, and that's what you're enabling here.
Speaker 3
Yep, 100%. It was without a doubt one of the best decisions that that I made. For sure. Like in uh as an example of the power of building in public and building community, there's a store here in London called Earl of East. Are you familiar with it?
Kurt Elster
No.
Speaker 3
Okay, they're a really cool store that sells like homeware and lifestyle and beauty products, but it's a very curated selection, and they have four or five stores here in London. And I really wanted to get Klupphouse Skin into Earl of Beast. Now I put out a video titled Help Me Get My Brand Into Earl of Beast. and asked my community to tag them in it. And long story short, they got tagged in my video constantly for about four days straight. And they ended up reaching out to us to stock us, um, potentially just to stop the online barrage of commenters, but doesn't matter. We're stocked in L of East now. And that wouldn't have happened had I not built in public and had I not built a community.
Kurt Elster
That's amazing that your your community stood up for you. Yeah. What um You know, what kind of responses have you gotten that have surprised you? It sounds like quite a few.
Speaker 3
Yeah, I would say that was the situation that surprised me the most. Um We also had a store in Paris reach out to us that found us through TikTok. The mentor that I gained is actually He he used to be at Unilever. So I've got, you know, these super talented people that otherwise wouldn't have been available to me. Uh all of these things surprise me. I'm constantly surprised by the messages I get in my inbox. Even talking to you like this wouldn't have happened, would it? You know, someone somewhere saw my video who sent it to someone and now I'm here talking to you.
Kurt Elster
It's true. I mean you're right. You're absolutely right. Hey, was this your first entrepreneurial endeavor?
Speaker 3
It was not. Um Yeah, it was not. It depends on where you want to begin though, because one of my earliest memories was uh I used to draw like comic books. And I would go knocking on my neighbors' doors to sell them these hand-drawn comic books, which were so bad, so bad. And they used to just buy them out of pity. So I don't know if you count that. Um but in the past I've I've also I've started other businesses, but this is the first business that I've started where I've felt this real visceral reaction from the market that they want to see it exist. And I've garnered, you know, a customer base of people that genuinely love the product.
Kurt Elster
That's that's cool. That's really cool. The um what do you is there anything, you know, now that you've you've had a an entrepreneurial success, right? And this thing's really it sounds like it's building steam. Has it taught you anything about yourself?
Speaker 3
Yes, it's definitely taught me that I am more stubborn and resilient than I initially thought. I mean, I I touched on this very briefly, but our first manufacturer presented us with a lot of issues early on, um, ended up costing us a significant amount of money that probably could have destroyed the business before it even started. But uh I finished a I found a way to get around that into um you know, get over the hurdles. So I think that I'm a lot more resilient than I initially thought I might have been.
Kurt Elster
You know, good good personal skills to discover about yourself or traits rather. Um if you had to go back If you had like one mistake you could undo. And I assume it's probably, you know, not higher that that manufacturer. But other than that one, uh anything else you would change. Like how could you have avoided that manufacturer mistake?
Speaker 3
I could have not ignored all of the red flags.
Kurt Elster
So that's a lesson.
Speaker 3
I mean it's it's cliche, isn't it? Like if it's too good to be true, then it probably is. But it's cliche for a reason. So Yes, I think that would be what I would try to avoid. I would also begin uh documenting the journey earlier than I did because I went a couple months without doing that. So
Kurt Elster
That's a couple months of growth and community building that I could have been doing that I missed out on the What do you think it you mentioned cliches, but what do you think people get wrong about entrepreneurship?
Speaker 3
So I heard the hosts of the My First Million podcast say this recently, and it's really stuck with me. But they said that a lot of people play business. They do all of the flashy stuff like make a logo, make an Instagram account and like talk about it online without actually going out and making any sales. I've been thinking about that quite a lot recently. Like what are the high impact things that can be done every day that actually make a difference? and make sure and hold myself accountable to the fact that I'm not like playing business. I'm not just, you know, talking about it without taking action.
Kurt Elster
I think a hundred percent I agree with you and them. Um I think it it's harder with social media, right? Because like, you know, you there are you know you could post flashy things about entrepreneurship on social media that'll get a reaction. Right. And then that that feeds the ego. And then that makes you do it again. And so kind of like the algorithm really manipulates you into doing it a little bit. Because I think it's an easy trap to fall into. And so you're you're right to bring it up and you know be uh cognizant of it.
Speaker 3
Yeah, for sure.
Kurt Elster
So Where does uh where does Clubhouse Skincare go from here? Like what what's next? We've had this successful product launch.
Speaker 3
Uh I want it to be as big as it can possibly be, but I'm not I'm willing to do it at my own pace. Uh I want to do it just by building a cool brand that people gravitate towards. Uh we're gonna bootstrap the entire way, so I'm quite comfortable with being in this for the next five, ten, fifteen years, whatever it takes. But in the short term, We're throwing a wine and jazz party in Paris soon. So if any of your listeners are based out in Paris, they can definitely reach out if they can come along. Also working on some cool collaborations.
Kurt Elster
I would know yeah, a clubhouse skincare collab just knowing like how how neat yeah your branding is. A You know, a brand collab. That could be cool.
Speaker 3
You know who I really want to collaborate with, and I'm just gonna put it out into the universe, uh, hoping that it happens one day. Is Larry June. I don't suppose you know who that is.
Kurt Elster
No, I was I I was gonna guess Kith. I was way off.
Speaker 3
So Kith would be awesome. That would be that would be insane. Larry June is a rapper actually. He but he raps about skincare and eating organic food and traveling to Europe. Like all of these things I just think are so cool. I really resonate with him. So I'm gonna put it out there and one day we're gonna collaborate with Larry Dune.
Kurt Elster
I think you could pull that off. Yeah. I have faith.
Speaker 3
Yeah, I think so.
Kurt Elster
So if I want, you know, if I'm interested in in Clubhouse Skin Care, I want to know and I want to follow along. Where do I go? Where do we find you?
Speaker 3
Either TikTok or Instagram, to be honest. Um it's just Clubhouse Skin on TikTok. Clubhouse. skin on uh Instagram working on trying to get the same username for both, but not yet. But yeah, either TikTok or Instagram.
Kurt Elster
I will include those in the show notes. Absolutely. Uh and hey, do you ship internationally by chance?
Speaker 3
We sure do.
Kurt Elster
Oh, excellent. All right, I've got I got some moisturizer I have to go order.
Speaker 3
Yeah, well, first ones on the house. How about that?
Kurt Elster
Deal. Ben Atwood, Clubhouse Skincare. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3
Thank you, Kurt.
Kurt Elster
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