Episode 37: Building a Community with Kim and Tim Lewis of CurlMix

Aug 30

On this episode of the Subscriptions: Scaled podcast host Nick Fredrick is joined by Kimberly Lewis, and Tim Lewis, Co-Founders at CurlMix, a subscription service featuring clean hair products for curly hair. Kim currently serves as CEO and Tim is COO/CTO.

A Rocky Start

Kim and Tim share their journey that started with an idea to start a social network for women with naturally curly hair. They both quit very good corporate jobs, and Kim took a job at a portrait studio, whilst Tim began working at Starbucks. They weren’t making nearly as much as they were before, and they couldn’t get any traction in securing funding for their idea.

They were big fans of the television show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, and Kim signed Tim up to be on the show without telling him. He went on and won $100,000, which the couple used to fund their start-up.

Unfortunately, there was no money to be made from a social network for women with curly hair, and after a year and a half they had only $200 in revenue. Reflecting back on it, Kim says they lost a lot of money, but felt like it was payment for a real-world equivalent of an MBA. They shut down the business and regrouped, vowing to start a new business that would generate revenue from day one.

CurlMix Is Born

In 2015, inspired by an episode of Shark Tank, they decided to launch a subscription box service for hair care products. It was specifically designed for people with curly hair, and it was a DIY model where the customers received a box with all the ingredients and they made their own products.

But it wasn’t smooth sailing from the beginning. The initial launch resulted in just one box sold, and that was to Kim’s cousin. They went back to the drawing board and focused on sales and marketing, specifically how to sell a subscription service. They contacted influencers and journalists to build an audience, and the second launch was much more successful, with 100 subscriptions sold on the first day.

Changing the Focus

They experienced moderate growth, but it wasn’t fast enough for their liking. Then they saw people canceling their subscriptions after a couple of years. Kim reached out to them, and found out that the boxes were piling up at their houses. Making DIY hair care products was fun for a while, but eventually they went back to buying products at the store.

At that same time, Kim looked at the numbers and noticed that they had strong sales on one particular product, a dry flaxseed gel that gives customers a wash-and-go look. They couldn’t find a manufacturer to produce it for them, so Kim had to figure out how to make it in their home kitchen.

When they pivoted to only offering a single product, sales plummeted from $17,000 to $3,000 per month. But it quickly increased and they were making more than ever after a few months. They had found the product that people wanted.

Micro-Influencers

They didn’t have a marketing budget, so they turned to micro-influencers, meaning people who had fewer than 20,000 followers on Instagram or Facebook. They would offer a revenue share with them in exchange for promotion of their product, and sales continued to trend upward.

Through word of mouth, they secured 30 micro-influencer partnerships. This affiliate partnership program allowed them to gain traction in the market with the proper audience without having to invest a lot of marketing money up-front.

Building a Community

As the growth continued, they focused on building a community through email lists and a Facebook group. It wasn’t the standard push marketing a typical business might use, they were after true engagement with their subscribers and potential new customers.

They started doing a weekly live show where Tim would film Kim actually in the shower talking about the products, showing viewers how to use them, and answering questions. As they created content their community grew, as did their sales.

They are still active nearly every day on Facebook and Instagram, and weekly on YouTube. They are on a first-name basis with many of their customers because they communicate with them so often.

Being Nimble and Fast

From the beginning, Kim and Tim have done their own manufacturing, and it has paid off. They’ve invested in new equipment over the years, and this allows them to pivot quickly when they see a demand for a new product. They’ve never raised their prices, instead they try to add value to retain subscribers and acquire new ones.

This sometimes involves quickly developing a new product as either a value-added item or as a sign-up bonus. Doing this increases the lifetime value of a customer, because they are adding value to each subscription.

Digging Into the Data

Collecting data is a priority for Kim and Tim, and they use the insights they get from that data to inform the direction they will go with their content. A customer survey or poll may reveal a common problem that customers are having with a product and they can identify that problem quickly and write a blog post or create a video that directly addresses the solution to that problem. They can follow it up with a social media blitz, email blasts, and a live question and answer session.

As far as their sales data and trends, they work on that together. Kim is usually the one to spot some kind of trend in the data, which she will point out to Tim, who was a researcher in behavioral economics and psychology before starting CurlMix. Tim is able to analyze the data, whether it’s sales data or customer feedback, and he can create the appropriate surveys on the quantitative data that allows them to make sense of it all.

The Customer Experience Is Key

Tim and Kim stress that for their business, customer experience is key. It goes beyond all the social interaction, it’s key with every interaction a customer has with the company. This might mean doing small batch products that a select group of customers might be interested in, something they can easily do since they control their own manufacturing.

They also customize the unboxing experience which increases user engagement. They’ll include a personalized card in the box, directions for using the products, and links to relevant blog posts or videos. The result of these efforts is that users have posted videos of them unboxing their teal CurlMix box, adding goodwill and enthusiasm to the community of subscribers.