How this beauty brand turned a huge failure into 26,000% growth

You don’t have to be a serial entrepreneur or marketing executive to know that starting a beauty brand is difficult. It’s no exaggeration to say that Max Appelmann learned the hard way. As the founder of Truly, he built a beauty brand every step of the way, overcoming enough hurdles that would have easily ended any other company. Like many other founders, it all started with him dropping out of college at ASU.

“I was a very bad student, but I was very passionate,” Appleman says. “I wanted to create something special. I wanted to change and impact people’s lives in some way. I’ve always been a hard worker and wanted to start a business. I wanted to demonstrate my abilities, but that wasn’t possible at school. That led me to find a specific gap in the market at the time.”

It didn’t take long for Appelman to realize that college wasn’t for him. Instead, he founded his first company out of his apartment. Appelman saw a need for an organic lubricant brand and started his own. He learned that measuring lube in bear-shaped bottles was difficult, but he learned from his mistakes and put them to good use by launching his next company, Truly Organics, in 2018. Did.

“I failed in every possible way,” Appleman says. “The first time I received a large order from a distributor, there were shipping issues. It was all glass bottles and everything broke. I learned how to work with manufacturers and how to go door-to-door and sell to stores. I got to the point where I needed a fresh start. I also realized that there was a much bigger market for what I wanted to do, which was innovation and disruption. But lubricants were a very small field. At that time, I said there was a similar opportunity for shampoos and lotions. I was looking at the natural and organic market, and at Whole Foods, I realized there was a huge disconnect between personal care products and food products. I realized that and wanted to fill that gap.”

Since then, Truly has grown by 26,000 companies since its inception. But that’s not the brand Appelman started, and it’s not just because of the name. Appleman spent two to three years developing his Truly Organics before launching, putting everything he had into it and working closely with cosmetic chemists to create the first product. In the beginning, Truly Organics started with very simple clean hair and body products. To bring true organic pop to store and home shelves, Appelman introduced its now signature aesthetic of colored swirls and pretty packaging. It started with Urban Outfitters and eventually caught the attention of retailers like Nordstrom and Ricky’s. Soon after, Ulta jumped on his Truly Organics bandwagon and added six of his products to six doors.

“My superpower is to understand people, understand what they need and want, and provide that to them, acting as a go-between, so to speak,” Appleman said. say. “We realized that for people, it’s not enough just to have natural or organic products. If you go to Whole Foods, you can see natural and organic products, but it’s not a luxury. The format wasn’t very effective or easy to use. It wasn’t fun. It didn’t smell good. It was so lacking. And when you go to Nordstrom, you get the fancy, fancy stuff. You’d see it, and it was full of chemicals and trash. Then you might find something super fun at Urban Outfitters, but it wasn’t that serious.”

That’s when Appleman decided to create what he called the perfect “product that checked all the boxes.” “It was going to have something that vegans wanted, something that luxury women in Beverly Hills wanted, something that was really fun and eye-catching, and had high-end natural ingredients. We realized that’s what we needed to do to be successful.” My idea was to create the perfect product that would sell well on store shelves.”

For a moment, Truly Organic seemed unstoppable until it had to pay more than $1.7 million to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for not living up to its claims that its products were 100% organic . Appelman faced a difficult choice: shut down his business or start over.

“We learned, we listened, and we got better,” he says. “What I learned, and this has stuck with me and I think about this almost every week, is that you can’t just sell and say, ‘What can I tell someone to make money?’ I mean, it’s that simple. I think most people do it because it’s a business, and that’s fine. But what I learned is the customer perspective, and that’s the FTC’s job. That way we can protect our customers. Honestly, it’s been a blessing in disguise.”

A $2 million investment allowed him to take the latter route, just as they walked into Ulta’s doors. This investment, along with his initial capital and last year’s profits, has allowed him to grow exponentially. Appelman expanded Truly by crowdsourcing his social channels and shaping the brand around customer wants and needs through direct feedback from customers. Many of the brand’s best-sellers are born this way, including Coco Cloud Whipped Luxury Shave Butter, Glazed Donut Shave Oil, and Smooth Legend Pre-Shave Scrub. The shaving category is a particularly important category for Truly, accounting for 70% of the brand’s business.

“It was a combination of really listening to customer feedback, talking to buyers, and asking people, ‘What’s missing?'” Appleman said. “First we added color to the formula and then added a gold lid to the packaging. We continued to add these elements and keep making it better and better.”

As part of Truly’s growth, Appelman has recently taken on two key roles. Kamila Kambarinova currently serves as Chief Sales Officer and previously worked at Amorepacific USA, which leads the Amorepacific, Innisfree, Laneige and Sulwhasoo brands. Additionally, Nick Bracken, formerly of Glow Recipe, is now Chief Operating Officer.

To continue its growth and customer demand, Truly is launching four new products today. Soft Serve Aftershave Oil is blended with strawberries enriched with anti-inflammatory peptides to reduce redness and heal bumps, hydrating hyaluronic acid, and natural AHAs to exfoliate to prevent razor bumps and ingrown hairs. Masu.glaze donut whipped shave butter It softens hair for a smooth shave, and contains plenty of moisture to create a barrier that protects your skin from bumps and razor bumps. Niacinamide soothes redness, while antibacterial vanilla stops ingrown hairs before they occur.unicorn fruit aftershave moisturizer Shea butter, antioxidant-rich matcha, and antibacterial rose water each provide moisturizing, antioxidant, and antibacterial properties to keep skin smooth and glowing.Aluminum-free Cococloud embedding prevention & whitening deodorant Mandelic acid, mango butter, and coconut moisturize delicate skin while preventing body odor, ingrown hairs, and discoloration.

“Honestly, I came from nothing, so we’re very grateful for our customers,” Appleman says. “So I don’t take any success for granted. Without these people, I wouldn’t have known how to create these products. We interact with the same people every day. Some of our employees actually started out as customers. I built relationships by talking to them and getting feedback about our products and business, and ended up hiring them in our customer service department. Our customers are certainly part of the business. We have a real relationship with them.”