7 Figures Without Amazon: DIP’s Growth Story

Speaker 1: Kate Asaraf built Dip into a seven-figure sustainable hair care brand without Amazon, VC funding, or big box deals. She did it on Shopify with strategy, storytelling, and a clear line that she wouldn't cross. What makes her different is she uses DTC to build demand, then intentionally drives customers to local refill shops and indie retailers, even when it makes less per order. Because she believes in the future of e-commerce, and that it's a hybrid, e-commerce and Main Street working together. sustainable packaging become a bigger part of how we choose brands, Kate is showing what it looks like to grow without selling out. Thank you for joining us, Kate.

Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1: For anyone who is new to DIP, what is it? Who is it for? And what problem are you solving that the hair care industry still gets wrong?

Speaker 2: DIP is sustainable hair care, which means plastic free. It's actually so amazing that we don't even have to talk about the plastic free part of it, and the bars end up selling themselves. It's for anyone who's been disappointed by sustainability before who's taken a chance on sustainable products and then got angry. That's generally where DIP comes in and saves the day where there it's it was designed for people that loved hair and loved luxury hair products but didn't love the price tag of them. I used to use Kerous Orbe Purology high-end brands and I wanted Dip to be so good that I would never grab one of those other brands if they were next to dip in the shower. And whether you care about the environment or not, which I hope everyone does, the dip conditioner bar will last a full year for most people. If you consider that something like Orbe Gold Lust is meant to be consumed every month and it's expensive for me, my deep conditioner bar saves me over 500 bucks a year in luxury hair care.

Speaker 1: Amazing.

Speaker 2: Thanks.

Speaker 1: So tell us how it works. It's a bar. And is it it's shampoo conditioner? They're separate. Do you have dry shampoo? I

Speaker 2: have something that replaces dry shampoo. It's It's not dry. It's actually wet and it will actually clean your hair. So dry shampoo is great in a pinch and it's a styling product, but I have something called an enzyme spray that works as a shower in a bottle. You spray it on your scalp and like so say you break a leg or you're going through grief or you're, you know, postpartum can't shower as often as you'd like to, you spray this on your scalp and it cleans your hair with enzymes. So you have one bar for shampoo and one for conditioner and then the spray as a dry shampoo option. Yeah, it's a wet shamp that doesn't require a full shower. Have even if you have like extensions like clip-in extensions or people that wear wigs like the enzyme spray will clean those without having to go through and wash your extensions at the roots.

Speaker 1: Amazing. And with someone with a busy lifestyle, I've been in board meetings all day and dinners at night and I have a I have a gala tonight or I'm also a mom. Yeah, that's those are amazing products to have and to find.

Speaker 2: I a mom, too, and I this idea that you have to have so many products in your shower for a family is ridiculous. It's it's feeding into overconumption. The dip bars are made so that you can have a mom with type one hair, a dad with type four hair, and if they have 10 kids with different curl patterns, it will work for all of them. Your shower is like instantly decluttered, and it's reframing and getting people to buy less stuff. And you think about plastic consumption and I know we even take it in. So I assume if things we're putting on our body is in the plastic, it's even healthier to use something like a bar.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. The accumulation of plastic. It's not something that you can deny. It's accumulating all the time year after year. And as if that wasn't bad enough, then we have found in the past few years, it's come to the surface that there's health problems regarding plastic. It's in all of the tissues. It's in our blood, our brains, our hearts. It's It's so frightening, but I don't think that people like to be scared into buying things. So, I try and use DIP as a as a kind a gateway to get someone into a refill store or an eco-minded store so that it offserved all the other vetted swaps that they can make that reduce the plastic for their families. With my twins, when they're little, you're getting by. And then as they get older, you think, how do I make a shift to healthier food? You know, I got rid of all of our plastic cups because I thought, I know we have it enough with with plastic water bottles. We're going to have those occasionally. It's how can we do the best that we can?

Speaker 2: Yeah. And the best that you can is the most reasonable take. It's difficult. First of all, being the mom in the family generally means you're in charge of most of the purchasing and most of those decisions that bring plastic in in the first place. And I I've noticed like moms feel that incredible guilt about having brought so much plastic into their house and now they have to like do this total 180, get rid of it and and restock all this new stuff. And I want people to know that these changes, they're not fast. You don't have to do them fast. And I don't want women to bear all of the responsibility for these decisions.

Speaker 1: Yes. Yes. You did the best with the information you had at the time and now new information has come out and it's time to reassess what the best for your family is.

Speaker 2: Yeah. And that's such good advice because we're making so many decisions already. I shouldn't have to put that pressure additional pressure on ourselves. And my daughter loves all of the skin care. The thought of having you dip in her shower without all the bottles is a great thought. turning it into someone who loves the product that you're probably naturally turning away from those as you

Speaker 1: start to use dip more. It's a soft serve. You get them in with great hair care and then hopefully they're like, "Okay, I don't want to buy more paper towels. What's the substitute there? I don't want to buy more Ziploc bags. What's the substitute there?" I didn't realize my store near me sells refills of pasta or mango cheeks. It's the changes come as they come. It's exciting and a treasure hunt to find the new things that you can swap. as you need.

Speaker 2: You grew dip to seven figures without Amazon, VC funding or big box deals. How did you do it and what did you do instead?

Speaker 1: The simplest answer is I understood the customer. I knew what people felt very emotional about. And for me, my emotion about the whole thing was I was tired of buying things that were intended to save the world and be more sustainable only to make me super angry that they weren't as good. That emotion is very frustrating. How many $14 deodorants can I buy before I lose my freaking mind?

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yes.

Speaker 1: I am that customer that's yearning for those things. So, I tapped into that emotion which is a very universal. You can ask anyone if they've felt that way. Have you bought something sustainable? I got hosting. Yeah. That's the reason so many people were excited about sustainability in like 2020 2022 and then they were like enough not buying another one because I understand that emotion because I am that person. I I knew how to market it and get it into the right stores and the right places where the right customers would find it.

Speaker 2: I love the refill movement. I knew the mi were going to be there looking for the best hair care. And how did you know that the bar would work?

Speaker 1: I went through I I did I spent 20 years in the beauty industry. I did not know that the bars were going to be so well-loved and wellreceived, but I did do everything I could to make them the best that I could make them. I worked with a chemist who had never made bars before, but he had made beautiful products for some of the biggest names out there in salon care. So, I challenged him, I want to make a bar that works for all hair types, and people don't like that. I was like, it doesn't matter. I want you to make something that works for all hair types that is also so good. Don't look at another bar. Look at everything about luxury hair care and figure out how to make that into something that will impress someone who is used to buying a lot of marketing flux stuff. It was a fun challenge and we went through 40 different iterations before dip became what it is now. And I still was like scared to launch. Launching something is so scary. I hope people like it. I hope people are not tired of buying bars already cuz there's a sustainability fatigue out there that's very real. You know, I was so worried when we started that we were too late. People liked it.

Speaker 2: Yeah. And your marketing is fun. Your packaging is great. And I see the mental shift with getting used to using a bar,

Speaker 1: but having less is appealing. Just someone who is busy and on the go all the time. I'm sure it's great for travel, too. It's great for travel. It's great also the conditioner bar because my husband and I surf and now our children surf. The bar you can dip in water and run down your hair and it will instantly detangle and you can just air dry. So if you're like someone who swims or someone who likes to have a good time and have have chicken fights in the pool, you can uh you can use the dip bar to like detangle your hair.

Speaker 2: What was your first growth move that actually worked and what did you stop doing because it was a distraction?

Speaker 1: figured out very very early that the sustainable community is very tight-knit. These refill stores where we decide where I decided I was going to try and get dip on their shelves. I realized that they don't have the resources to do a lot of marketing. And one of the most fun activations we did was I had this campaign called Refill is a new record store and it was all about, you know, when you you'renger and you go into a record store and that person you could tell them what band you like and oh, if you like this band, you should check out this band. And it was a fun way to discover new music. Well, that's the analogy I made with sustainability. It's refill is the new record store. When I go into a refill store, tell me what's new. Tell me what's what actually works. You don't have to waste money on bad sustainability. I made records for every single retailer we had at the time and we made custom records uh for them to put on their Instagram and I had them blitz it all out at the same time talking about refills a new record store and that actually it was one of our first growth steps that got people really listening cuz all of a su if you were in the refill movement which is culty in its own way all of a sudden you saw all of the places that you were following post it was almost like firefest but cooler. It's everyone talking about how how refill makes you feel when you shop there.

Speaker 2: And I love that. And you're taking a world that's so tech. We're we're going in a direction of being more in person. You went one way and now and you're bringing that back. And I like how you relate it to the record store because you say people were listening. So so smart. People miss that part of commerce, that part where you feel you're discovering something and finding something new and you're in a little secret. I think that in the sustainability community, refill stores provide that for people and we're so used to being bombarded with digital ads. You like one sustainability company, don't worry, you're going to see 15 ads for all of their competitors right around the bend. It's way cooler to get people into real life and having real conversations. And it's not exactly measurable as a marketer, but it's measurable in in terms of you see over time that the orders start rolling in a

Speaker 1: lot more and the trust is built on real people. Well, cuz could you imagine you can go into a store and ask one question or you can sit in online and realize you spent four hours. If you ask AI, you're not going to get a genuine answer anymore because companies have already figured out how to slide their company into the results. Real life is where it's at. And I'm excited to see people return to it.

Speaker 2: Me, too. I'm very ready for the swing the other way. Why did you decide to build on Shopify and say off Amazon even when it could have scaled faster.

Speaker 1: It's because I know the refill store owners. So, so personally in so many markets around the the country and if I had put my products on Amazon for sure I could my business and the revenue what everyone says is a no-brainer but at the expense of what? At the expense of my store owners. And there's no doubt in my mind that if I put dip on Amazon, it would hurt the sales of these store owners that helped build my business in the first place. So, it becomes a question of what's more important to me? Is it seeing sustainability thrive and getting people into those stores to have those conversations? Or is it lining my own pockets and Bezos's pockets? Even though I do use Amazon, I don't tell people to not use Amazon. It's not what I'm about. If I can get someone, dangle that carrot, get someone into a store and realize how important getting someone into a store is and realizing that that store owner has personally tried pretty much everything in their store and curated the best of the best for sustainability. If I can get someone to make that connection, then I that is bigger than shampoo. And your building's so smart and intentional that it's only going to grow in that way. And you're right, everybody uses Amazon, but it's not necessarily the most sustainable, right? Well, it kills small businesses for sure. There are some independent store owners that sell more than $50,000 worth of dip per year in a singleowned store. There's many that do $75,000 worth of dip in a year. If I chipped away at any of those or incentivized people away from their stores and back because the bars last so long, if they make one conditioner bar purchase on Amazon out of convenience with some other things, then that store owner is not going to see them for another year. So, to keep them going into the stores, it's part of the way it's built.

Speaker 2: And I love that you're thinking past, okay, they bought the bar, they'll go back in and buy something else from that store owner.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Think about how many there was that moment in culture where it was like the Target mom would go into Target to buy one thing and come out with a cart full of other things. Yeah, I can never can never buy one. But what if that person that same person that's that's now, you know, lots of people aren't shopping in Target anymore. Um, but think about if we redirected them into a place where they could buy sustainability things that go in for dip and I found some other things that solutions to my problems. So that was the thinking behind it. We're four and a half years into the business. It took me about three years of people criticizing the way I was building it and saying it was naive and and too altruistic and to to now where as a brand we've redirected $5 million into independent stores. It probably feels great to kind of feel good. I love the store owners. I love seeing them thrive. They're they're doing something that I don't know if I could do. They physically need to be there or have someone there all the time. They have to constantly see what's new and curate and try. I celebrate I I call it punk rock economics that someone in the age of Amazon would open a refill store. It's so cool and power culture and impressive and I want people to understand that that is worth celebrating in your town.

Speaker 2: Yeah. And it's so great that they care about people because I'm all for the robots cooking and cleaning at some point, but we are still human beings.

Speaker 1: Sure. If I could get a robot to to clean my uh bathrooms and fold the laundry, like I don't mind doing the It's the folding that cooking and cleaning. Well, I want to cook when I want to, but I'm all for the cooking and cleaning.

Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. What does hybrid commerce look like in real life for a founder who wants both e-commerce growth and retail partners?

Speaker 1: It looks exactly what we're doing now. It's building our product offering online. We tend to not offer so many discounts. It's very rare that we're offering discounts online. And we also understand that not everyone lives near a store. So, we'd also don't want to punish DTOC customers. We have a point system. They call them dip dollars. So, we make it very easy for you to accumulate points for your next purchase. So, you purchase once online and then you can accumulate points and then you get discounts no matter what every time you shop. And then they I do it for the stores. Like I don't want when someone buys dip for the first time for it to be like 40% off. Otherwise, no one would ever go to stores. I make that promise to my stores that I won't undercut them and I won't try and take people away from them with intense sales and I protect them from that behavior. And and part of that is not being in big box stores that you have to allow them to discount a lot to be part of theelves. And that's the best in a sales consumer customer relationship.

Speaker 2: Yeah. And I'm sure it builds loyalty too. It

Speaker 1: does. I would be so mad if I bought something and then like two days later I

Speaker 2: saw it advertised for 40% off. Like come on. You want that feeling for people? I saw the picture of you and it was probably the early days with all the packages around you. Going back to that moment, what was the hardest and most critical time in your business? In the early days,

Speaker 1: the hardest time was actually I put in a big purchase order. I had a contract manufacturer at the time and then they started not answering the phone anymore and they were hard to get in touch with. Turns out they went bankrupt and wow I didn't I lost the big deposit and then I didn't know if I was going to have a business again. I had to figure out very quickly, am I going to find another contract manufacturer which then puts your formulas at risk because then they can change them a little bit and then to someone else or we build our own factory and um I'm talking about it very casually but it was very scary.

Speaker 2: Yes. Yes.

Speaker 1: Yeah. So I ended up investing in our own factory and I took some of the displaced workers who are amazing and we just kept

Speaker 2: going. And thank you for having the courage to share this because we all go through moments in our business where something happens and you think, can I get through this? Should I quit? Should I keep going? How do I make fix this and still become successful?

Speaker 1: And in real time, it was terrible. Like I was like rolled up in a ball or in the corner and worried that I had built this business that I just wouldn't have any products again. However, fast forward and now everything's great and happy and I we have a factory but we had to double its size. um with after a year and that was exciting taking that leap. It was a leap of faith because I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know how that the laws or the risk or the insurance or all of those things. Now I do and it was worth it.

Speaker 2: Yeah. And it's so inspiring cuz it's hard to wake up every day and think just keep going especially when you don't know with that leap where and when you're going to land.

Speaker 1: Testament to my team. They helped do it and they made it possible. I'm forever grateful for the team for pulling it together and making it happen. Because in entrepreneurship, whether you're a soloreneur or have a team, like you aren't doing everything alone, you you're always relying on the people around you. Whether whether it's to have someone watch your kids while you go handle something or whether your whole team is getting together to rally to put up racks and start a factory.

Speaker 2: And for anyone listening, it doesn't matter if you have a $100,000 B business, a multi-million dollar business, or a billion dollar business. Everyone goes through those moments of how do I get through this? How do I work through these challenges that That was one of the toughest challenges. I think you're not alone. Most entrepreneurs, you know, I love the stories of hearing the challenges and how how women and entrepreneurs have overcome them from women telling me, "I sold my car and I don't know what gave me the confidence to do it, but I did it and now I have a warehouse full of product." So amazing.

Speaker 1: It's so And you don't know what you're capable of until things start going

Speaker 2: wrong.

Speaker 1: You said no to fake influencer campaigns. What does marketing look like for you that actually builds trust?

Speaker 2: I took the fact that we don't use influencers and we don't pay for non-C customer first UGC. We don't we don't have these surrogate customers pretending that they love DIP. We took that as the marketing campaign. So the marketing is that if you see someone talking about DIP online, they've purchased it. Whether they something say something good or bad, at least it's real. And that has been fun because I don't know another brand that can has walked that narrow the line. That's something very very special specifically to our brand. If I was a consumer and I saw that, I would be like, "Okay, I trust this."

Speaker 1: And that's exactly what I thought as I was learning about Dip, I thought, "Oh, this looks real and oh, this is very relatable." I saw the the picture of you with all the packaging around you and thought, "Okay, very relatable to an entrepreneur." And then I saw the women using the bar and thought, "Wow, relatable for everyday use." I've been in beauty marketing a long time and there's so much unrelatable marketing that it's almost comical when you think about it. Cuz every woman I know is pretty funny, pretty sarcastic, a little bit silly, but definitely like multi-aceted. I'd say prismatic. And then you see marketing that reduces us to body image or like this toy clam. I don't know anyone that fits into any one of these conversations. I'm in the bleachers with

Speaker 2: my customers. Yes. For the brand. And that's when we're fun.

Speaker 1: Yeah. And that's where you want to be. I have a a client who is a skincare brand owner and she said, "Everyone keeps telling me that I have to have crystal bottles." And I think I want it to tell me what I'm supposed to do with the product. Crystal bottles are nice. Don't get me wrong. I like nice and luxury products occasionally, but I don't need a lot of crystal bottles all on my counter where I have to try to figure out how to use the products.

Speaker 2: Yeah. And you know what? Entrepreneurs in that in that scenario should go with their gut. It doesn't matter what everyone wants.

Speaker 1: Yeah. She's got great products. But when she said that, I thought that is completely true for a consumer. Oprah named Dip Curly Hair brand of the year. What happened after that moment? And did that moment support you in getting additional repeat customers?

Speaker 2: That moment came out of nowhere. It was a stylist that mentioned dip for curly hair and that and then Oprah the editorial team picked it up and it was amazing. I went back and forth with them cuz in order to use the Oprah name on materials or the website, you have to pay a licensing fee and it's not cheap at all. I went back and forth with the team and I want to be able to put this in our small stores. I'll pay whatever

Speaker 1: licensing to put it in our small stores and salons all around the country. And they said, uh, no, because they couldn't control when it left the floor. Okay, tell me what I'm allowed to say. Like, they're like, you did it, but you can't logo and you can't put it out. I probably didn't get the big return on it that other brands do. But I also don't care because we're also the dip bars are sold in um curly hair curl specific salons. And to me, I can use that endorsement and use it freely way better than I can use Oprah. I loved Oprah growing up, but when I talked to like Etsy, they like don't care at all.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting when you're trying to think of all the consumers.

Speaker 1: Yeah. And how to market to all the because your brand can be used amongst it sounds any age. So thinking about that, I think most who know Oprah have respect for Oprah even if they didn't, you know, grow up watching the show. So it didn't turn into the big uh splash. It probably should have, but it would have required a huge investment on my side and I couldn't even use it the way I wanted to.

Speaker 2: Yeah, those are the choices. Business choices.

Speaker 1: I got to let

Speaker 2: So, are there is there one bar or do you have different types of bars for different types of hair care?

Speaker 1: So, it's a one formula and we have different scents. I watched women and men buy hair care at all different levels for a very long time. And what I discovered is that the behavior is someone takes a bottle off the shelf, they open it, they smell it, but and then they read it before putting it back on the shelf. And I thought that that was interesting because what that told me was that people care about what their hair care smells more than what it does. That was why I wanted it made for all hair types. You had the freedom to choose what you smell, which seemed to be the number one factor. And then it I made sure that it worked. The development process was not all in the lab. A lot of it was spent asking people what they bought and why it was important to them. A friend who built a a large brand and she actually stood in a store and watched people's reactions to the bottle. She put her bottle on the shelf and watch the reaction to see if someone would go to it or not. It's interesting

Speaker 2: to think. That's very very important. You you don't you don't know how many times brands like don't think about that and then they'll put something on a shelf and it benchmarked against right next to theirs and then it just swallowed up hole like because because it's not

Speaker 1: different enough and she worked for a very large entertainment company so she probably had anything she needed but instead she stood in the store and watched the reaction. So it's so true.

Speaker 2: When I was in beauty marketing I would do that a lot. I just see how things would go. If you can stop being so addicted to data and start rehumanizing the way you approach your business, I you end up with a better model. It doesn't mean throwing data out the window, but it's just it's just so much cooler to watch real people in real life interact with your brand.

Speaker 1: Yeah. And we're still human. I think I hope I talk to women entrepreneurs all the time and I know we're all busy. How do you make sure that you're living your joy every day and taking time for you? I

Speaker 2: don't scale my company into oblivion. I don't need my company to be so big that it takes away from me and my family. And also, I think about my employees and their time and their families. There's no emergencies in Dipland, right? There's no shampoo. There's no reason that everyone has to work so incredibly hard that they're broken down. And it's important to me.

Speaker 1: Yeah. I'd love to see that you've taken that intentionality from your product also to your team members and focusing on that human side. I was struck by at the end of your life, people don't care about your job and they don't care about how much you worked or how hard you worked. People think about the relationships around them and their time with their children and their memories and how they're perceived on the earth while they're here. We're only here for a short time.

Speaker 2: So, I know that I could probably scale this thing to be huge, but I wouldn't do it at the expense of spending time with the family with, don't get me wrong, in the beginning, we were working crazy long hours to get it off the ground, working 20our days, but now that it's built, it's moving, it's die hards, it's got, you know, some systems built in and it's got a team, that's how I support everyone, not just my own well-being as

Speaker 1: the owner. Thank you for sharing your challenges, telling us all about DIP, and making us think more about sustainability. Share with us how and where we can find you.

Speaker 2: My name is Kate Asaraf. You can find me on LinkedIn under that name. You can find our products at dip already.com. If you go to the store locator, you can see if there is dip available in your town and you can ask some question. You don't have to trust me that it's great. You can go and ask the store owner in town. And then if you want to find us on Tik Tok or Instagram and it's under dip.