We were lucky to catch up with Charles Mayfield recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Charles, thanks for joining us today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

It took nearly three years form idea to execution. Much of that time was spent on product R&D and tinkering with recipes and sampling our products to many hundreds of people.

We decided to try and launch the company on Kickstart in July 2021. Our goal was to raise the money needed to build out the brand, packaging, design and website. Our Kickstarter did not fund and so I turned to the SBA was able to get a loan to get Farrow built out and launched.

The brand, website and product design was completed and we launched the website in January 2022. It was an absolutely nutty time for me. Was managing the farming operation along with my day job. Farrow launched out of the little 1=bedroom farmhouse I was renting. We began renting out some commercial kitchen space at my church and were able to manage the demand for the first year. Farrow launched with our Total Skincare Bundle as the flagship product offering.

The housing situation had to change and in December 2022, we moved to our current rental home and shut down the farm. Something had to give. Fortunately, we were able to secure a high-quality supplier of animal fat to make our SmartLard. Farrow launched a new product in April 2023 in Austin Texas. EpicDermis was our packable/portable answer to customer requests to have something more portable than the glass jars use in our bundle. The product was a huge success, though we had several challenges with the copacker and getting the tubes filled. We hand craft all our products. EpicDermis was the first time we were relying on someone else to package our stuff.

We’ve learned a ton along the way. Patience being the biggest lesson. Farrow is able to scale substantially. We have enjoyed the organic growth from podcast appearances and word of mouth. In 2024, our goal is to push monthly revenue above $25,000. This equates to roughly 300-350 orders per month and would give us positive cash flow to devote funds toward paid ads and social media marketing. Farrow is going to remain committed to the primary marketing plan to appear on podcasts and tell our story.

What are we figuring out now? We are very close to needing to add to our team. Still somewhat of a 1-man operation, we’re running up against limitations and inefficiencies when the Founder is out of town for conferences or podcast interviews. We are also in talks with several co-packers and product design people to develop new products and outsource 100% of the production.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I grew up in my mother’s kitchen and my dad’s workshop. Have always enjoyed working with my hands and crafting/making things. I have quite a diverse professional history of health/fitness/lifestyle coaching, regenerative farming and c0-authoring Paleo cookbooks.

In July 2019, I discovered how effective pastured lard (we call it SmartLard) was a treating and nourishing human. With a background in nutrition and fitness, I was quite used to reading labels and discuss preservatives and ingredients for food. When I shined that lens on skincare, it was beyond astonishing how toxic and damaging most modern skincare products are for our skin.

Having seen the tremendous improvements people make when they eat real food with no preservatives, I simply had to launch a skincare company that delivered the same quality and commitment to health. Why was nobody else using lard for skincare? I don’t know and didn’t care. It gave me tremendous results and was adored by nearly every person I made a sample for in the early days of product development.

I had to launch Farrow. Highlighting the benefits of regenerative agriculture through the eye of skincare seemed like a no brainer. Also, and I’ve said this from the very beginning, our products work incredibly well at nourishing skin. It’s uncanny. This company is going to have many challenges–developing a product that is highly effective at nourishing skin is NOT one of our challenges.

My children are really the reason I’m doing all this. They have been a part of the company since day 1 and it has been so rewarding to share this journey with them both. There are so many life lessons in farming and entrepreneurship. It continues to be the greatest motivator for me to keep pushing forward.

What do you need to know about Farrow? Our business is firmly committed to making the highest integrity products utilizing regenerative agricultural practices. Farrow will be skincare that is transparent, healing, and playfully fun.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Marketing is ALWAYS your #1 problem! We make our products by hand and early on I got really nervous about scale and growth–being able to meet consumer demand. I obsessed over scaling and figuring out how to meet massive demand.

These are great problems to worry about–but the most important problem is getting the word out about your product, As we were gearing up to launch, there were so many rumors and crazy stories about supply-side shortages. I purchased a number of pieces of equipment to be prepared to scale our business. I spent many hours calculating how many people we would need to hire and the roles they would play.

I was so worried about meeting demand that I didn’t spend enough time on creating it. Great lesson learned and something I continue to pay attention to.

Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?

I sold our skincare to a self-proclaimed vegan at an event in Bastrop Texas in January 2023. I had a women come up to my booth and ask me about our products.

She wanted to hear our “pitch”. I spoke to her about sourcing our ingredients (animal fat) from pasture-raised animals that had a happy and glorious life. Then I walked through how impactful those animals are at healing land and building soil.

She tried our product and came back to the table an hour later to buy more to take home. It was at this point that she communicate that she was a vegan.

If you don’t know, Vegans don’t do any animal products. She was so amazed by our story and how we treat our animals and the products’ effectiveness that she decided to take a jar of our SkinFood home. Blew my mind. I’ve said from the very beginning, our company is going to grow one handshake at a time. Having conversations with people and explaining what make Farrow special is a real joy.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://farrow.life/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/farrowskin/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/farrow-skincare/?viewAsMember=true
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/FarrowLife