Candid Brand Conversations

Rachel Crawford speaks openly about their continuing battle with META marketing and some words of advice to other young entrepreneurs about hidden costs in starting an e-commerce brand. 

🎤 MarketingAlec

After successfully launching a product that revolutionized the pet grooming game in Australia, Rach reflects on the struggles of creating a product that had never been conceptualized before, as well as how she pivots amidst META changes and an uncertain marketing landscape. 

MA: So thank-you so much for chatting with us about Harlow Harry! To kick things off, where did the idea behind the brand actually come from. It’s a totally unique product. 

RC: My friend (and now co-founder) and I were away in the Hunter Valley in NSW, Australia, brainstorming over a couple of wines. I always have had an entrepreneurial mind, and knew I wanted to do something. We wanted to bring out something in the pet space that would really disrupt. He mentioned he had always wanted to find a dog perfume that actually smelt really nice that was totally different from what we had come across and as they say, the rest is history.

MA: I’m sure there was a bit of doubt at the time about bringing out a product completely new to the industry. 

RC: Of course, we did a lot of research and connected with experts to understand if there was a reason this product hadn’t been developed, or if it was just because it hadn’t been thought of. It appeared to be the latter and we went for it.

MA: So no competitors, that’s great, right?

RC: I said to someone recently that I almost wish we had competitors within our space, we haven’t seen many but they are starting to pop up now… so be careful what you wish for! 

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MA: No way. That’s crazy. No competitor (brand) for four years is nice, but all good things come to an end I guess. What was the biggest challenge you faced in the initial phase of starting up Harlow Harry?

RC: A challenge that we weren’t aware of was how quickly the little costs add up when you’re building a brand. You need to have savings, even if you take a scrappy approach or launch with a MVP, you still need capital. Also reinvesting profits back into the business for inventory – it can take time before you are able to take money out of the business.

MA: We really like asking this question. Has there been a ‘turning point’ for you and Harlow Harry? 

RC: No.

MA: That’s the answer we always get! There’s this thought in small business that you have a ‘turning point’ or ‘breakthrough’ and then it’s just cruisey. But in our experience, it isn’t that common.

RC: There definitely hasn’t been a blow up moment for us but we’ve seen slow consistent growth, which I think is a positive as it allows time to learn, make mistakes, and grow. It pushes you to keep going, be consistent and feel like you could always be on the edge of a breakthrough.

MA: If you could give someone one piece of advice for starting a brand – what is it?

RC: These aren’t direct ‘businessy’ answers, but I would say they’re so important: 

• Don’t put too much pressure on yourself.
• Don’t compare yourself or your brand to anyone else. Everyone is on their own path. 
• You need to take time to rest. It can be really hard to ‘switch off’, especially if you’re driven. But you need to stop, rest and catch yourself before you burnout which will save you in the long run.

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MA: Let’s dig into some marketing stuff.

RC: Let’s do it.

MA: Do you have a marketing background?

RC: My background is predominantly in advertising with a short stint in marketing before stepping into Harlow Harry full time. I spent a year working as a brand manager for a large fitness group and while they had much bigger budgets there were a lot of learnings from working client side that I was able to apply to Harlow Harry.

MA: Today, what’s your biggest marketing challenge. Something you just can’t seem to nail down or get 100%?

RC: It would definitely be paid ads and the cost to acquire a new customer. We actually turned Facebook ads off the other day to see how sales were affected. We have worked on improving our CPA, but it can be inconsistent and attributions across Google and FB ads don’t always line up.

MA: So you pivot? Right?

RC: Yeah. We’re focusing on dialing up wholesale and PR as a strategy, with less of a focus on paid ads. It’s all about being adaptable. We will continue with paid and keep optimising but it takes time and money and as a small team we have to be smart in where we direct our focus.

MA: So, what’s your retail strategy?

RC: We used to restrict online retailers to avoid cannibalizing our own sales but have recently opened that up to create more brand awareness while we grow. Now that our brand is more established we are looking to acquire additional bricks and mortar retailers. While we haven’t had to approach retailers in the past we’re going to start doing some direct outreach..

MA: What does that look like?

RC: We’re looking at getting a VA to help manage outreach, starting locally with dog boutiques across Australia and we’ll see where we take it from there.

MA: That’s a really smart idea to do it that way. Because finding those retailers is the time consuming thing, isn’t it?

RC: Definitely.

Check out the luxe Australian dog grooming and dining range at Harlow Harry.

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