Menswear Style Podcast
The Menswear Style Podcast is a leading men’s fashion and menswear podcast exploring men’s style, clothing, grooming, lifestyle and the business behind some of the world’s most exciting fashion brands. Hosted by Peter Brooker, each episode features conversations with menswear designers, fashion entrepreneurs, innovative brand founders and industry experts from across the global fashion and apparel industry. Discover the stories behind established and emerging clothing brands, from the first idea and challenges of launching a fashion start-up to building a successful international business. Guests share their experiences and insights across fashion design, sustainability, manufacturing, marketing, branding, eCommerce, retail, social media and business growth. Whether you’re interested in men’s fashion and style, discovering new menswear brands, starting your own clothing label, or learning how successful fashion businesses are built, the Menswear Style Podcast takes you behind the scenes of the modern menswear industry. New conversations with the people shaping the future of menswear, men’s style and fashion.
Menswear Style Podcast
Alvin Oommen, Founder of OXFORDhill / Natural Hair Styling
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In this podcast episode we interview Alvin Oommen, founder of OXFORDhill, a brand dedicated to manufacturing an innovative hair styling clay using nature's most potent ingredients, while ensuring maximum effectiveness. Their passion lies in the creation of all-natural skin care, hair care, and home care products, meticulously formulated with purposeful ingredients that not only deliver exceptional results but also combat the risks associated with free radicals. Unlike most personal care brands that expose us to a staggering number of 168 chemicals daily, OXFORDhill takes a different path. They have embarked on a mission to develop a brand that epitomizes cleanliness, naturalness, and minimalism, without compromising on performance. The foundation of the brand is the OXFORDhill Standard, which permeates every aspect of their formulation and production processes. Their inaugural product is a natural hair styling clay that embodies their principles. It offers a matte finish, a hold that can be reshaped, and incredibly thick hair without any unnecessary weight.
Hello, welcome back to another episode of the Men's Wear Style Podcast. I'm your host, Pete Brooker, and today on the show I'm talking to Alvin Uman. Alvin is the CEO and founder of Oxford Hill. Oxford Hill is a hair care brand, though soon-to-be skincare brand, soon-to-be home care brand, but today we're focusing primarily on the hair care brand. And this particular product has bentonite clay in it, also known as Earth's Healing Clay. Bentonite has been widely used for centuries to absorb toxins from skin. It's filled with minerals. It's also a fantastic source of nourishment for the hair, but we're gonna get into that product and more. Like how how to brand products, you know, from the ground up, how do you start a business like this? And what are the key things that you need to know and the mistakes you need to avoid? But to tell you all about Oxford Hill himself is the CEO and founder Alvin Uman.
SPEAKER_01Well, my name is Alvin. I'm from Philadelphia. I started off uh a career in accounting, and then what we ended up doing was pretty much doing the tax consulting for like high net worth individuals. And one thing that I found in in common with every single one of the clients that we had was the fact that they all produced uh or created value by creating products. And I knew that the creation of products or at least helping and being part of the supply chain would be just an incredible way to be able to just add value into the world. So I knew whenever I would kind of jump out of uh the job that I was in and take the entrepreneurial path, it'd be some type of creation with a physical product. Uh, I ended up launching my first business, which was a contract manufacturing of cosmetics. That's where it all began. And so, really quickly, you kind of decide to stop um buying products that you would use on yourself. You'd stop buying hair products, you stop buying lotions, and then you just go down to the lab and figure out how to make your own.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's pretty crazy. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, you mentioned the word value there. It's funny because I was just having this conversation with my girlfriend just yesterday on on that very word value, and how the most important thing, I think, in this world is not to have a feeling or an opinion on something or or determine I don't know if I'm liked or if I like that person. But to have value is like that should be enough on its own, right? So if I say, look, I don't know if that guy likes me, my girlfriend always goes, What does it matter? Who cares about whether you like them or they like you? Do they offer you anything? Can they, you know, have they got any value and do you have any value to them? It's a much more transactional commodity to have than just liking someone and having a feeling, I think, anyway.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. And it's like the premise of that is just basically having an outward uh focus and outlook on life. I mean, you can go ahead and be me focused and then focus on what makes you happy and what makes you uh doing what you love, which I I do believe in, but it's more so what creates value for yourself and other people around you at the end of the day, right? So I 100% agree with that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And it's also something cool to have at the barbecue to tell someone that you've made your own product, you know.
SPEAKER_01Oh, for sure, for sure, for sure, for sure. So I made uh in the lab of our contract manufacturing company, we were producing products for all types of all types of brands, lotions, creams, um, you know, hand soaps, anything that you can think of, we were producing it. And our business in the contract manufacturing space just scaled significantly. Um, and then one day I had uh this idea to create a little bit of like a hair product because my friend had gifted me something that was on the market, which was a natural product, minimal, uh minimally formulated. And I tried it and I remember it just making me angry because I understood what the brand was trying to do, but I did not think that they succeeded in doing it. And I was like, okay, well, you know, I have experience in this space. I have chemists at my disposal. Um, and I was like a makeshift chemist, uh, YouTube DIY chemist, so to speak. And so I would sit there and do hundreds of iterations of what other brands were trying to do until I created this formula, which was a five ingredient hairstyling product, which was natural and didn't have anything that can kind of create irritation in the scalp. And I only circulated that product amongst myself and maybe some family and friends. And then one day I started getting feedback that was saying, this is incredible. Like you should brand this and you should sell this. And I didn't have any interest in doing that because my primary business was growing and it was a contract manufacturing company. There's no time at all to be able to start another brand. But then I and I think we'll get into this in just a little bit. But eventually what ended up happening was I said, okay, well, let's take this formula that's just sitting in my room and turn it into uh a product that has beautiful packaging, sustainable packaging, and has a brand name and get it trademarked and call it Oxford Hill and just start building more products around it eventually that are also minimally formulated and kind of exceed the expectations of what people would have. And thus Oxford Hill was born.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yeah, it's always great to be underestimated, I think, isn't it? Oh, yeah. So, like when people have, I'm not saying they will have low expectations, but any expectations of of a product when they pick it up, if they don't know about it, if they've never heard of it, and then to get blown away. That's almost the the ultimate compliment, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. I think that you know, for our first year, uh we were not getting um any sales. We only had this single product. Uh, right now we're launching three more products in the coming in the coming weeks. Uh, but when we first uh launched the clay, I mean it was only my friends and family that were purchasing it. I think within the first year, we probably had maybe what 200, 300 orders. It was nothing. Um, but what we started seeing is that those 200, 300 people, uh, and actually, uh, I don't like to use this word, but I but I have to to explain it. But it's kind of like a cult following uh because clay, uh hairstyling products have so many different categories. But a clay is very, very niche. There's some people who like high greasiness in a product. There's some people that like uh really, really, really like ultra strong cement hold. But then there's this category of people who like a very, very uh, they want it to look like it's styled, but they don't want it to look like it's styled, if that makes any sense, you know? Yeah, a matte finish. It's like a well-groomed look. And that's what clay does. And so this kind of like this, this, this, this very, very um, this consumer group emerged that started discovering our product, purchasing it, and then providing us feedback and saying, hey, I see what you're trying to do here, but okay, it doesn't last more than a month. Okay, I see what you're trying to do here, but the hold can be better. And on and on and on, we'd get all of these emails of people saying, here's how to make it better. And then we would respond to that by sending them revised formulas. I think we ultimately ended up making over 96 iterations based off of customer feedback. And I remember uh about seven or eight months ago, we ended up launching this final formula, and then through TikTok, one video goes viral, getting uh 600, 700,000 views, and then other videos just started getting 1 million plus, and people started discovering our product and then loving it, and then providing more feedback. And out of nowhere, we have a family, we have a community of people who love hair clay. And that's when you know something that was like a hobby turned into a real brand that adds value that we can never stop now because there's people that will be severely disappointed if we ever cease to exist.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. You've got a responsibility now, you've got to give that.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. It's a unique feeling, actually, to be quite honest, you know.
SPEAKER_00So take me back to the early days with regards to the branding. So there must have been some key decisions to make on not only the name but the look of the product as well. Are you paying as much attention to that at the beginning because it's just you know, you're giving it to a small audience relatively, or how has it changed into anything else since?
SPEAKER_01Yes, I think that right from the beginning, we made sure that we prioritized the premium look and feel of the product because you can have an amazing product, but if you do not know how to deliver that and package it in a way that makes people feel as though that there's value in what they have, then unfortunately, many products fail for that reason. They could have an amazing formula, but the way that they distribute that to an end consumer doesn't make them feel as though that they're being valued. Again, it comes back to the whole word of value creation. And so we were very intentional with everything from the typesetting of the brand, from the matte finish that's on the box that we have, from the frosted glass that we use, from the type of premium cap that we use to enclose the jar, every single detail of this needed to feel as though that even though that this was just a two-ounce product that probably lasts four to five months, there was a value in it that exceeded beyond just what the application of the product was. But when they hold it in their hand, it's something that creates and screams premium. And that makes you feel as though that, you know what, I deserve an elevated product. And it makes people think, you know what, there is a difference between something that I can get at, you know, perhaps the drugstore versus people that are creating and curating small batch formulations for the use and intent of something that's different from what other people in the mass market are creating right now.
SPEAKER_00Right. That's interesting. So you didn't really there, but there were no shortcuts even from the beginning, even from the early stages. You wanted this to be a premium product. And so, but there's nothing that's moved. I know you said there's been lots of different iterations of the product itself, but the branding hasn't really changed.
SPEAKER_01No, no, I that's one of my biggest recommendations. I think that right from the beginning, you're it you're always going to get better, you're always going to innovate a product. And there's little ways that we innovated the packaging. Um, you know, perhaps we would get customers that would email us and say, hey, the the box crushed in transit. And then we found out that's because there's a little bit of space in between the top of the jar and the top of the box. So you get smarter from that capacity when you're modifying the packaging. But you should provide something that's compelling right from the beginning in your branding, in your color scheme as well. In fact, from day one, when we created the the um Oxford Hill brand, we had a color palette for the next four to five products. We already know what the second, third, and fourth product is going to look like in terms of a color scheme, because what we envisioned is not just this one product. But ultimately, if five or six SKUs were sitting on a shelf together, would that look like a family? Will people be able to walk past it down an aisle and say, that's Oxford Hill? Not because the color is the same, but because there's a palette here and there's a story that's being told from the packaging itself. That's something that we did not skimp out on from day one. And the only thing that we needed to modify later on was the actual user experience. And for that reason, I would say don't wait for something to be perfect. If you're going to wait for anything to be perfect, uh make sure you're waiting for the packaging to be perfect or as perfect as you can, I would say the branding to be as perfect as you can. I would definitely say that. But when it comes to the actual use of the product, that will get better in time because you're now dealing with people and people have different types of preferences, they have different types of opinions, and they can provide so much more value than you and your internal team can to figure out what your consumer wants because they are your consumer.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. And also, I imagine though, you can't you have to have it like there's a theme, it has to have like a fruine, but it can't all look the same as well. Because I'll tell you something that really does my head in was when you get a couple of products and you get the facial scrub and the moisturizer that looks exactly the same, and then you put on one and rather than the other. And I'm like, Jesus Christ, that that boils my piss. I mean, like, how how can I just get? I don't want to have to think each time I pick up a bottle, but at the same time, you need to keep it within the family so it makes it look like the same. They must, it might be harder than I give them credit for, people like you credit for.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, because and and that shocks me because that's something that I see all the time. How is it that a huge company that produces hundreds of thousands of units or millions of units uh and the teams that they have behind them and not realize little things like that, right? Whereas we, as smaller producers, as small batch producers that are producing probably 10 or 20 or 30,000 units in a run, how are we able to figure that out with the limited budget that we have? And it shows just how much closer we are to the consumer than many other larger brands. And I think that that's why there's a shift that's happening from consumers looking for more premium, smaller run um production batches of anything, even clothing. Um, so there is a value that comes to that that people are now beginning to notice. And also it maintains a quality. There's many of our competitors uh, or many of our customers are coming from uh our competitors that just scale too fast, too quickly, to the point where they could not control the supply chain. I'll give a quick example of that. You know, we use a very, very high quality type of bentonite clay in our bentonite powder in our product. Bentonite powder is very interesting. It's basically the magic behind our product. So if you have thin hair or fine hair, um, our clay just makes it look a little bit thicker. It's like a band-aid if you have thin hair. And the reason being is because bentonite powder is basically volcanic ash that's been aged for thousands of years, but it absorbs each single speck of bentonite clay absorbs 10 times its weight in water. So it absorbs actually and gets a little bit bigger. Now, what happens when you put bentonite clay on slightly dampened hair? Well, what happens when you use our hair product, which is primarily bentonite clay, on your dampened hair? It gives this fuller and thicker look because it's just absorbing all that water. And that's the that's we found like a very, very specific niche and just weird solution to people that have fine hair or or thinning hair. And we're able to do that because we have such high quality ingredients. Now, the moment someone comes up to us and says, Hey, I want a million units, well, we'll reject that, no matter how good the business is, because we need to be able to sustain the supply chain and make sure that the premium quality ingredients that we're getting have something that are able to be procured. And so many of our competitors or customers have left our competitors because they scaled so quickly and in the process their branding might be great, but they could not scale the supply chain to meet the demand. And that's not something that we want to do or will grow our business into.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I guess like so. Every well, every brand and company needs a USP. And I my sister's starting up her own product range as well. She's in the uh the beauty business, and she's putting products into her like moisturizer, like ingredients from the local village and things like that. Because in order to start telling the story, it's always good to start from a place of like honesty, as it as it were, or something that is close to your heart, right? Sorry, I'm just gonna displace my cat, okay. And um, it sounds like to you got the like the bentonite clay is something that you can sing about and rhapsodize about, but yet if you scale too quickly and that eviscerates, then you don't have a story to tell anymore in terms of like what is close to the what is the brand's heart. So that's interesting. Do you have um like the bentonite clay? Do you have that close to you? Is it like in Philadelphia, or do you have to go to like Iskier and get it off the beaches there? Like, how does it work?
SPEAKER_01It goes, it's pretty far. We keep we get it from the west coast where most of the bentonite clay is produced from. Um, but at the same time, we just have good relationships with our suppliers that are able to get it over to us quite quickly. All bentonite clay for the most part uh is produced uh along that range, and then it's sourced to us um pretty quickly. The good thing is from day one, we anticipated some type of growth like this. Um again, this brand was an accident. My contract manufacturing company, I was 26 at the time, and it began to scale quite significantly, or 25 actually. And um, you know, by that point we had hit just under a million dollars in revenue. And I had a partner who owned a significant stake in it. And it was sad, it was difficult because one day I had found out about an embezzling scheme that was happening, and I had to quickly um uh address it because I didn't know how if I every single new contract that I get, if it continues to scale, well then you know, uh other people are benefiting from it and they're doing unfair things. And I remember that uh it was a difficult time, and within 10 days of us confronting what was happening, we had no choice but to shut down the business. No point, no, no choice. We had to just shut it down. And then that was like the main trigger that caused me to say, okay, well, it's been six months. I don't know what to do next. I don't know what's going to happen with the contract manufacturing business. And that's when Oxford Hill, uh, I decided to turn that into a brand that can create value in a very legitimate way. And I didn't expect it to do what it's doing now, but from day one, I started off with the experience that I had with contract manufacturing by making sure that our first suppliers are ones that we can scale with. It's not people that we are uh just uh, as you just said, we don't want to lose the story that we have for a very long time. So we've anticipated what where we would want to be five or 10 years from now. We've anticipated that from day one and choosing who our suppliers were. Now, when we get to year 11, that's when I got to start making decisions on okay, do we have to reiterate the formula with other suppliers and probably more multinational to maintain that quality? Thankfully, I haven't crossed that bridge yet, but I can't wait to get there. Yeah. But that's something that I'm looking forward to.
SPEAKER_00Or I can imagine you as like the Tony Stark in the lab of creating all the clay. You'll be like, well, how do we synthesize this so we don't have to go to the beaches to get in anymore?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, absolutely. But our customers notice it's so crazy. There can be a very, very tiny degree of a change, and we'll get an email. And I appreciate that. I love that. I love that because it makes us so much more careful because we use the experience that we have from contract manufacturing when it comes to making sure that there are production standards, making sure that there's ISO standards, making sure that there's a QC check in every single bottle that comes out of our factory now. Everything kind of works itself out in such a way where we're like, okay, if we do synthesize it, we got to make sure that we do not eliminate a fan that we've created.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Well, it's otherwise, it's a community. Otherwise, you'll they'll start saying bad things in the forums, right? And then it'll snowball. But that's interesting. Alvin, I just want, I think before we turn the mics on, we we were talking about like the the messaging of your brand and what this podcast is about. And I like to think that there's always something that we can take from these chats and pass on, like key bits of knowledge. And where you are at your stage with the brand, I think is very interesting because I think you can now you're at the point where you can look over your shoulder and give people some advice that may be coming up the field behind you. Uh, are there is there anything that you would say, look, this is how you do it, but do it differently. Don't do it how I did it, or is there something that's very important that people need to get right from day one when it comes to this?
SPEAKER_01I don't think uh money should be a um disruptor or inhibitor from people to launch a product. I think that when it comes to this, uh I put it in quote, small batch, because you know, some people when they think of small batch, it's like 100 jars, but small batch can be anywhere from 20 to 30,000 jars, right? And so um, but when you're thinking of small batch, it it's intimidating because you're thinking, how can I produce anything? And I would say that there should be a lot of field testing that's done because you want to make sure that you're producing something that people want. Uh, the two things that I would say that no one should ever um, I guess, skimp out on or do a poor job of is branding and then even uh building excitement through a website. And people think, oh, I don't have any money to start or launch a product. Well, if you created a landing page and then you said, hey, this is what I'm thinking about making, and I'd like to take pre orders now, well, there could be a community. And there can be a niche of people that say, you know what, that is something that I want. That is a product, a hair product that adds volume or adds thickness of some sort in some way. And I want to have that eventually. So I'm going to support this person. And what ends up happening is through pre-orders, you end up generating enough of the revenue that you need to create a small batch of products to test. At the same time, you get your proof of concept. I always said that if you can convince 10 people, 10 people who are probably not your family and not your friends to purchase your product, you actually have figured out that there is a proof of concept here. That's the only thing that you need. If you can figure out 10 people or how 10 people can purchase your product, you can figure out how 10,000 or 100,000 people can purchase it. It's there, there's more than enough people. There's no, it amazes me how we don't even advertise. We do not even use digital advertising. And we have not even scratched the surface of the customers that we can have for our product. And I think that there's so much room in every category. And if you're someone that says, okay, you know what, there's no more room for improvement in X category, whether it be a clothing brand or whether it be a hairstyling product or whether it be some type of a skincare product, there's other ways that you can make a consumer feel alive. And that can be in fight, figure out a way a way to make your packaging better. And so it's not necessary to reinvent the wheel. That is a very, very good way to scale and grow something beyond what you could ever imagine. But if you're trying to just create some type of value and do well for yourself, don't necessarily reinvent the wheel, but figure out how to make something just slightly better. And that's how I launched my brand. I got a good product, but I thought it could be better. And I thought the packaging could be better, and I thought the ingredients could have been better. And that's what ended up happening. And as a result of that, uh it started with me asking people, is this something that you would like? And I would get pre-orders. And that's what funded the initial units that ended up being sold. And so if you're scared because there's you're so you're a risk-averse person, well, then eliminate as much risk as you can. And perhaps the easiest way to do that is by getting people to agree with what you're trying to do and say, hey, I will support what you're trying to build. You have my vote, you have my confidence. And if you have one person, if you have 10 people, then you can get many, many, many people. And I also say consistency is very, very important. Um, one of the mistakes that I made in the early days was um not uh taking seriously the fulfillment of the products. I thought, you know what, this is uh extremely small batch at that time. So, you know, somebody is willing to wait a couple of days to get their product. Well, I quickly realized that when someone gives you a dollar, they expect a value in return immediately. It doesn't matter if when whatever they do end up getting is going to be phenomenal for them. You have to respect the time that they have and the the confidence that they place in you and giving you their dollars. So make sure that your fulfillment, like ours is now a day, two days maximum. And that's only if there's a holiday. Like we're really quick to ship out now. And we have good partners that we ship products through. And make sure that you're respecting the consumer from a delivery standpoint as well. The customer service experience is one of the most important ways to build fans. And what was a game changer for us was adding a chat button on the side of our website.
SPEAKER_00I saw that. Yeah, I like that.
SPEAKER_01It was that was the most amazing thing that we could have done because that directly leads to people that become immediate fans. When someone uh goes on our website, myself or a member of my team, immediately we'll get a message from them if they if if they choose to use the chat button, and I'm on there and I'm saying, hey man, what's going on? I'm not doing anything formal. I'm not saying hello, how is your day? I'm like, what's up, brother? Thank you so much for taking a look at our website. Thanks for giving us a shot. What questions do you have? I'll answer it. I've woken up at three in the morning getting a text message from someone who goes on our chat icon. I'll get up and I'll say, Hey, you took the time to get on this website when there are legacy brands that are out there. I will answer anything that you have to ask, you know? And maybe perhaps when the when the volume comes to thousands of people coming in on the chat section per day, I'll have to figure out a way to Yeah, you gotta farm that out.
SPEAKER_00You gotta farm that out. Especially if it goes off like a like a WhatsApp beeper and your girlfriend's next year, it's half two. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01You can but right now, as we're building like this fan base, those are the people that become our ambassadors. Those are the ones that say, you know what, I love this product, I love the customer service. If you look at our customer reviews, the majority are majority of them are like amazing customer service, and that's what causes people to keep purchasing. So I hope that advice helps. But prioritize your customer service, uh, get a proof of concept and get pre-sales so that the risk is off of you just by that month, so that you can take that dive into the deep end of a pool.
SPEAKER_00Alvin, those are some great bits of advice that I've even got projects percolating in my head. I'm like, oh, I'm gonna take all three of those. So thanks for that. And and we're we're running out of time, so I'll just have to put a pin in this. But I think customer service is probably at the top of my things now when I do look for brands that I'm gonna either invest in or buy a product from, and having and having in a world where we're just everything's about big business, you know, and big tech. And you're like, if you try and get hold of YouTube, for example, like maybe a video got taken down. Good luck. Good luck trying to get a message from YouTube, right? Good luck trying to get a message from Facebook, or you know, the these businesses just that we use every day that you think, oh, I can't even get this to work. You've got zero chance of getting hold of any of these people. So I think it's always refreshing. Number one, when you can get hold of someone either on an email or a chat, you just feel like, oh, I'm just one step closer to resolving this just by having someone talk to me. There's that. And number two, having your friends and family review your product is is sweet of them, but not always the best thing, as I'm pretty sure you know, because sometimes they don't know how to give you the the hard truths, right? You know, so having other people outside of that that can maybe buy the product 10 quid here or there, and then go, right now, here's my honest review is going to help you a lot further than giving your products to your brothers, sisters, mothers, and then just saying really nice things because they want to support you and not derail you in any kind of moral standpoint. So I'm with you on that. Um, Alvin, I'll I'll have to put I'll have to bring this to a close. We've got a hard out, you've got a life to get on with, and uh, I've got to get over to Cambridge and drop off a dog. That's the truth, but we've got to go. But Alvin, thanks so much for coming on. Uh, oxfordhill.co is a place it's a place to go and and pick up some products. More products coming out on the way, so make sure you stop over there and uh give them some love and and see what else is in the pipeline. Um, you've got some skincare products coming out, I want to say, possibly.
SPEAKER_01Skincare coming out. We have deodorants coming out, we have fragrance bombs coming out. It's gonna be an exciting year, and uh, you'll see us in a lot of publications in the months to come. So we're excited.
SPEAKER_00Amazing. We're excited too. Brilliant. Thanks, Alvin. You've been listening to the Menswear Style Podcast. Be sure to head over to menswearstyle.co.uk for more menswear content and email info at menswearstyle.co.uk if you'd like to be a future guest on the show. Finally, please help support the show by leaving a review on iTunes or wherever you're listening to this podcast. Until next time.
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