We recently connected with Damon Taylor and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Damon, thanks for joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

We came up with the idea for Octobod during the pandemic lockdown. One day, I ran out of shave cream and couldn’t wait for one to arrive in the mail, so my wife Kim made one for me using just a few natural ingredients. Turned out to be such an amazing shave, I really questioned why I previously used a terrible product that came in the form of a blue gel that made my face feel tight and dry. Or why I used shampoo that contained hormone disrupting chemicals. Or why I used any old deodorant from the drug store with equally nasty ingredients. Women tend to be much better educated when it comes to steering clear of parabens, phthalates, SLS and so on. But I realized that I and most other men didn’t give it much thought. We also just started to notice how much plastic packaging came through the door with every online purchase we made. All those plastic deodorant and toothpaste tubes, those plastic bottles of shampoo, moisturizer and shower wash which never get recycled. That’s the cold, harsh truth. They end up in landfills forever or, even worse, in our oceans. We tend not to dwell on that because the sheer number of items we throw out weekly or monthly is so overwhelming. So we ignore it, and don’t change our habits. But that’s largely because there is a lack of easy alternatives.
After doing some research, we saw that there were brands that featured natural ingredients, but then they packaged their products in plastic jars and tubes. We decided there was a big gap in the market and set out to fill it.
Kim refined the shave cream to a point where we were giving it to friends to try and getting a great response. So then we moved on to making shampoo, moisturizer and deodorant and trying that out on friends too. I figured out ways to package it without using plastic, while Kim concentrated on testing and improving formulas and we realized we had a potential business. There didn’t seem to be anyone else who was making a full range of grooming products for men only using clean ingredients and leaving plastic out of the equation. Octobod became a passionate mission to create a place where men could get everything they needed in one place, with one click, and say goodbye to single-use plastic in their bathroom forever. We keep it simple, we keep it affordable and we keep it clean!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Octobod is a line of mens’ grooming products – shave cream, moisturizer, soap, shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant – made using only clean ingredients and without any plastic packaging. We cover all the bases and have made it easy for men to rid their bathroom of most single-use plastic with a couple of clicks on the Octobod website. We began the business because we knew that many men care about these things, but don’t necessarily have the time to think about it. Searching for products that don’t use plastic packaging or harmful ingredients is time-consuming. No single website covers the range of plastic-free, clean products that we do, and most retail stores have a very limited amount of plastic-free toiletries. We knew that if we took care of that for you, then you’d happily get on board.
We also believe in simplicity. From personal experience and our own research, we knew that most men want grooming products delivered to the house in one box, every couple of months, from a single place, instead of spending time shopping in numerous different stores or websites. All they want is affordable, natural products that smell great and really work. If they could have that, AND those products were plastic-free and made with clean ingredients, we knew it would be a no-brainer for a big segment of the male population.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

We had to overcome a number of problems on our way to launching Octobod. But we also knew, going in, that problem-solving and putting out fires is the primary occupation of any business owner. Shortly after designing our packaging, buying domain names, building a website and launching social media, we realized that we needed to trademark our name. A previous glance at the US trademark website had shown that our name was available and trademarking it had gone on the to-do list. Two weeks later, when it made it to the top of the list, the name had been taken in our category by someone else, just days earlier! There was no way round it but to choose another name and re-do everything. It took some time, but we came up with Octobod, which worked really well, as we aimed to make eight things for the body. Some time later, as we were about to launch, Kim was diagnosed with a serious illness requiring surgery and preventing her working for some time, so Octobod had to go on hold for a while longer, as Kim worked her way through recovery and regained her health. A week before launch, when most of our office work – social media, web design, general bureaucracy – was taking place at our apartment, the landlord announced that the entire building would be re-wired from top to bottom in a few days, with a team of electricians opening up our walls and ceilings and all power being cut off during business hours for two weeks! But we got past all these things, and many other obstacles, determined to have Octobod up and running as quickly as we could, and we succeeded.

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

We bootstrapped the business entirely. Kim actually raised a big chunk of initial capital through a fundraising brainwave she had. She is also a painter, so she created a series of limited release small paintings that all sold out within minutes of them being posted on social media. Other than that, we had a range of skills that enabled us to do a lot of things ourselves quite cheaply. Kim can make almost anything, so she developed the products from scratch herself. We have spent much of our lives in the fields of art, photography, writing and filmmaking, so the creative side of designing packaging, writing copy, photographing products and so on were all things we were able to do ourselves. It cut costs but ate a lot of hours, but that was the only way to do it.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.octobodco.com
• Instagram: @octobodco
• Facebook: @octobodco
• TikTok: @octobodco