Deeckla is the founder and CEO of SCRUFF & SMOOTH, a men’s skincare and grooming hub. Prior to launching S&S in March 2022, Deeckla held leadership roles at Nordstrom, Microsoft (Xbox), and Eddie Bauer, specializing in marketing, loyalty, and business growth.
SCRUFF & SMOOTH is a men’s skincare and grooming hub featuring products created specifically for men’s skin and lifestyle. The site helps men quickly find face, hair, and body care products that complement their on-the-go activities.
In this episode you’ll learn about:
- The importance of a niche market – understanding how important it is for your consumer to have products that are specifically made for them.
- A dropship business model – partnering with established brands to sell your products, never needing to keep inventory on hand.
- The strategy for selling to a minority market – ways to focus on research, and adjusting your branding accordingly.
- The importance of market research – getting past the superficial conversations to discover the true needs of your consumer.
- Finding research participants – a willingness to talk with anyone, and offering incentives.
- Rebranding – the importance of applying your research findings, and adjusting your brand and website to fit your consumer’s needs.
- Improving website engagement – how a website rebrand dramatically increased website traffic.
- The importance of knowing your baseline KPIs – you can’t compare your success to another brand, know your baseline so you can track your success.
- Partnering with a developer – how an outside perspective can help your social media marketing efforts.
- Having a brand that focuses on the problem it solves, not the product – knowing what is most important to the consumers visiting your website.
Resources:
- Scruff and Smooth
- Fall Line Digital
- Shopify
- Jobs to Be Done Video
- Nordstrom
- Microsoft
- Xbox
- Eddie Bauer
Connecting with Guest:
Connecting with the host:
- Rebecca Babicz on LinkedIn
Quotables
- 1:46 “After experiencing some serious burnout in my last role, I decided to take some time for myself, and then ended up deciding to become an entrepreneur and found a new business.”
- 2:31 “Men are largely underserved when it comes to the beauty industry.”
- 4:29 “I will interview the founders myself and make sure that their heart and skin is in the game, that they really care about the things that they create.”
- 8:39 “Customer research is probably the most important thing that you can do, especially when you have a startup.”
- 10:17 “Being a first-time founder and trying to ask all the right questions and understanding the right thing.”
- 12:16 “The amount that I had learned from those conversations was insanely deeper than the superficial information I was getting in the beginning.”
- 17:19 “[Men] are just not exposed to the same level of information as [women] are. Women are bombarded left and right about skincare and makeup, and how to look flawless and look younger.”
- 19:41 “ I highly recommend [Shopify] for anybody who’s learning to create a website for the first time.”
- 20:15 “It’s very interesting to hear how men make decisions about what they want to buy.”
- 25:29 “Masculine does not necessarily mean darker colors, it can show up in lots of different ways.”