We were lucky to catch up with Andrew Glass recently and have shared our conversation below.

Andrew , appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

The idea for Non Gender Specific really came from my experience working in the industry on both the women’s beauty side and the men’s skincare side. It was much harder to get the mens products into retail, even if the product formulations were great, and that is when the idea for a truly genderless brand came to mind. I couldn’t understand why an industry that embraced people in the workforce for who they were and felt so progressive in many ways could be so backwards in its marketing to consumers. Why did everything have to be so segregated? At first, I’ll be honest, a lot of people didn’t get my concept. They immediately went into the mindset of “oh a brand called Non Gender Specific must mean it’s for people in the trans community, or people who are non-binary,” and that was the exact opposite of our goal. It took a solid year of training people to stop labeling, that skin is skin, and that gender identity has nothing to do with it for them to get it. We also use the “less is more” approach to beauty, so everything we create is either multi-correctional or multi-functional, which was really important for me personally. Working years in the fast-paced, trend-driven, speed to market cosmetics industry really opened my eyes to the amount of waste our industry contributes, so I knew that this was something I wanted to address in Non Gender Specific.

Andrew , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I was born in a small South African town called Phalaborwa, and was immersed in nature and culture from an early age. That has had a huge influence on the brands I create and products we formulate – Everything we pays homage to our planet and utilizes the power of botanicals to deliver results. I’ve been in the beauty industry for nearly 15 years now. I started out in retail sales and slowly worked my way over to the brand side before starting my own, where I spent a lot of time in product development and marketing. I think having a well-rounded background in the industry in all areas, from sales and account management to innovation and marketing has enabled me to be successful in my own businesses – I never stayed in one area. One of my biggest strengths is being able to identify gaps within the market and develop products in order to fill those opportunities.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

That “no” is “no” – I’ve learned that many times the word “no” means not right now, but there is always hope for the future. I’ve had several instances with retailers where we received a “no” from the buyer only to receive a “yes” later on. It’s all about timing. Many times the buyers are watching and waiting to see how the market responds before committing to a new brand.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

All of my businesses have always been self-funded, and we’ve been able to do that by slow and strategic growth. No matter how much money you have, you can start somewhere. At the beginning I spent a few hundred dollars to get a couple samples made. With those samples I was able to take photos that I used to build a brand deck, and then sent that brand deck out to buyers. I thought it would be important to get feedback from the retail partners I knew I wanted before making a major investment. We also used that brand deck to send out to press! We’re also very careful about stock levels to avoid being inventory heavy, and that keeps liability risk low.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.nongenderspecific.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nongenderspecificofficial/?hl=en
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewlglass

Image Credits
Non Gender Specific