Will King, founder of King of Shaves, talks to New Business about building a brand, why no firm should underestimate the power of the internet and how he is taking on the might of Gillette

Will King has built a business that is challenging the might of Gillette on a world scale. He talks to New Business about how turned his business idea into a reality, what steps he took to grow the company and why no entrepreneur should underestimate the power of social media.

What is your business background?

My first job was selling advertising space for a magazine and relatively quickly I was headhunted to work for a conference and production company. I rose to business development director and then the 1990s recession hit. The business didn't adapt quickly enough so I was made redundant - I was angry, as I was good at my job. So I decided two things. One was to be master of my own destiny and second was to make something, set up a company that produces products.



How did you come up with the idea for King of Shaves?

I always used to get razor burn and rash, and my girlfriend had dry skin so had a number of oils in the bathroom. I always used to complain about my razor and she said, ‘Why don't you shave using this oil underneath the shaving foam?' I did and didn't get razor burn. It was as simple as if it works for me, then maybe it will work for other people.



What did you do next?

I found out how to make oil to shave with and looked for manufacturers. I came up with an oil blend, found a small contract manufacturer who would make the bulk of the oil and a bottle container company. I managed to get into Harrods as I thought this would be the best store to launch in. After I got Harrods I thought that I might be able to secure the interest of a big chain like Boots.



How did you initially fund the business?

When I was made redundant a firm of management consultants were brought in, and a guy called Herbie Dayal - who ended up being my business partner - was one of the consultants and he was looking for a business to buy or invest in. When I told him what I was thinking about doing he said if I set up the business he would consider investing a small amount of money if I got another investor, so I rang a friend of mine and told him about the project. Between the two of them they put in just over £10,000, my Mum and Dad put in £2,000 and I added £15,000 on credit cards and unsecured debt.



How hard was the first year of trading?

Our first year losses were £30,000 and we had sales of £300 - not a stellar business investment. But the following year sales jumped to £58,000 and a year later to £250,000. Because I used the product every day it was simply a question of how to get not just me shaving with it but thousands, then hundreds of thousands and then millions of people. I never really doubted it would work because it worked for me every day and it had the potential to be a product that went from a niche usage into a mass usage.

You just had to go out and walk and walk, be persistent, passionate and believe in the product

What steps did you take to grow the company?

I had to increase awareness of the brand, which I did by selling 10% of the business for £10,000 in 1994 to fund a six month press and publicity campaign. I found out that Will Carling the rugby player used the product and managed to sign him for a relatively small sum of money on a three-year endorsement. I knew I had to get the product listed by the major multiples and I got Boots to eventually list it in 1994. Superdrug then trailed it and Tesco came on board in 1995.



How hard was it to get the product stocked by the major retailers?

To get them on board I worked personally in going out and seeing their buyer, explaining what I was doing, why there was a gap in the market and why oil was good to shave with. You just had to go out and walk and walk, be persistent, passionate and believe in the product. It was five years of what I call the valley of death, five years until I could pay myself any money.



How many years did you run the business by yourself?

I ran it personally in a third bedroom when I moved in with my girlfriend to start off with. I commandeered the bedroom and turned it into a micro office. In 1995 I was juggling too much so I said to Herbie, ‘you've put your money in, we are growing the business but there are gaps starting to appear'. He said that he could join me but we would have to raise some more money. We got a small firm loan guarantee scheme. We managed to raise £100,000 on the scheme in 1995 and maxed this out to £250,000 over the following couple of years.



What did you spend the £100,000 loan money on?

Almost all of it went on working capital, this requirement was quite big given that the business was growing and then it was spent on marketing. I bought shave.com in 1995 and spent about £10,000 on the website. I spent a lot of money on PR and got editorial coverage on a young, British based start-up company taking on the giant that is Gillette.



Does your marketing have to be innovative to compete with Gillete?

Because we never had any money we had to be clever about what we did with what we had. The internet is free and has had a huge effect on businesses and their ability to grow and to trim the cost lower and lower. Twitter is free and people deride it, but the reality is that you get followers out there and friends of your brand. You can communicate with them and they communicate with their friends: that is a very powerful brand message tool as it involves consumers talking to consumers about your product. I have always looked for the new thing coming down the track and how to use that to my company's advantage before you start to get charged a lot of money for it.



You have launched a razor - is this the future for your firm?

Worldwide market size for blades is at $5-6 billion. The shaving software is much smaller, $3-400m. So the business opportunity is in taking out King of Shaves razor and positioning it as like an Apple iPod or iPhone and launching that into the market.



What advice would you give to anyone thinking about starting their own business?

Embrace the power of the internet. The whole way we interact and view content is changing. If you are going to start a business then embrace that change as a constant and remember that there are certain things that people will always need to do, it's just how those products and brands will reach consumers that is going to change.



For more information please visit www.shave.com/home