Niche Skin-Care Product Proves Its Worth Outside Its Target Demographic

Ruby Tuesday Pick of the Week: Climb On!
Why It’s a Gem:  What began as a niche product proves valuable to a much larger population

(This interview has been edited for clarity and length.)

Lynda Resnick: This week’s Ruby Tuesday, we’re speaking to Amy Reynolds, vice president and co-founder of Climb On. For our readers, Amy, will you describe your business model?

Amy Reynolds: We create and manufacture chemical-free skin care, using food-grade base oils and therapeutic-grade or organic-scent oils. Our product was originally created for extreme athletes and rock climbers. We’ve expanded our product line as well as expanded our customer base.

LR: How are you doing in the recession?

AR: We’re doing extremely well, actually. Our sales have increased almost 50% in the last eight months. We have three avenues for selling: We distribute, we wholesale, and we retail. We sell to distributors, we sell direct to stores like Whole Foods, and then we sell direct-to-consumer, and our direct-to-consumer is 37% of our sales.

LR: What would you say is your unique selling proposition?

AR: I really think that it’s the value of the product, because our Climb On line is our bread and butter. It’s extremely multi-purpose, so it’s a really practical product. We don’t use fillers, so every ingredient is an active ingredient. And it’s not only a moisturizer; even though we’re not allowed to promote that it heals, it does heal the skin. It heals burns, it won’t let you scar. It has an extreme range of valuable properties. That’s really the most important thing about it.

LR: I think that that’s more your value statement, and that your unique selling proposition is that these products were designed for people who spend their time in the harshest climate under the harshest circumstances. “If it works for them, it will work for you.”

Tell me how you got started and how long you’ve been in business.

The Reynolds sisters built their business on their shared love for rock climbing.

AR: Climb On the company was incorporated in 2000. We moved into an official warehouse in 2003. The recipe was invented by my sister in ’97. I’m a rock climber, and I was living in Boulder, Colorado. She came to stay with me, and it was a hobby of hers to make things with essential oils and herbs. One day my boyfriend and I came in from a really long day of climbing. Your hands just literally throb and they’re also raw. She came out with something, and we said, “Who cares about the face mask? Make something for us!” She went into the kitchen and made Climb On.

LR: Today, how do you split the responsibilities between you and Polly?

AR: There’s a pretty divisive set of responsibilities, and then there are some gray overlaps. She is responsible for the production and creation of all the products. She orders all the oils, she maintains that side of manufacturing. I do the marketing and books, like payroll. I keep things organized. I’m the list-maker. And then we both take care of shipping. We’re pretty busy.

LR: I can imagine. How many employees do you have?

AR: We have two employees, believe it or not: just she and I. And we have a wonderful young woman in high school that comes in part-time. We’re really looking to hire someone full-time, but we just want a certain person, a certain work ethic. But we hire out. We have a wonderful graphic designer. We have a CPA – all these different people who are contractors.

LR: Your products have a wonderful scent, but they’re naturally scented, aren’t they?

Climb On

AR: That’s right. They smell the way they do simply because of the mixture that Polly uses. And she only blends for the medicinal properties of the ingredients, not to make it smell a certain way. She’s a clinical aromatherapist, so she sees oils in a very different way than other people do.

LR: Are you trying to scale up? Do you have a plan for how you’re going to do that?

AR: Not really. We have things that we’d like to happen and things that we go towards. We’re pretty intuitive, so we take what comes to us that feels right. We’re kind of at a holding place right now. We had been trying to get investment, like a partner, to sell stock. That didn’t really work out, so we’re thinking that might not be the best way to go. I did approach Clif Bar, because they have the exact same customer base as us. We even do events with them around different races and competitions. Because it’s not a flat market: The naturals and organic skin care are the fastest-growing segment of the cosmetics industry. Those are the kinds of things we’re thinking about. We’re just putting it out there.

LR: Right. So, if you had more money, would there be things you would do that you can’t do now?

AR: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. First of all, we could reach more people. If I had more money, what I would do, marketing wise, is target different races and different regions and get the product in the hands of the people who are needing the product, like bikers, climbers, surfers. There are so many races, like the Boston Marathon; we would sponsor those. We’d get our logo out there, and more importantly, people would actually have the product in their hands. And that’s how we’ve grown our business in the first place.

LR: Those things aren’t as expensive as you think. Would you like some advice?

AR: Absolutely!

LR: First of all, let’s go to the website. You need a statement on your site that speaks to the fact that “these products work for sports enthusiasts under the harshest conditions. Imagine how they’ll work for you.” When I first went to your site, I thought, “What is this? Rock-climbing and skin care — it doesn’t seem to go together.” Then when I started to think about it, I realized, “Oh my god, if it works for them, it’ll work for me.”

AR: We have a decision to make about whether we self-manufacture or at some point hand our product over to a skin-care manufacturer that makes it for us, keeping the same quality of ingredients. What do you think about that? What would you do?

LR: I’ll tell you what we do. I have actually developed a POM skin-care line, but it’s going to be years before I bring it out. I have tried to work without outside people. In the end, we do everything ourselves. It’s awful to say, but I remember one time when we were testing the skin-care line and my skin broke out, and then when we did the research, we found that they changed ingredients on us. Another time they let the oil become rancid before they mixed it.

Climb On's Amy Reynolds shows off her nature-inspired product.

It’s so hard honey, when you have the kind of sensibility that you do, the way we do at POM. In the end, we do it all ourselves. Now, it is harder to grow, it’s expensive, but it’s the only way I’ve ever found in all my years in business to deliver the highest quality. And I would put that in your advertising, that you keep it under your jurisdiction because you know that’s the only way to guarantee that it’s as pure as it was when you started. That isn’t to say that there isn’t some wonderful skin-care manufacturer out there that’s absolutely going to do the best for you, but you would be so small compared to their other clients that I don’t know how you would be able to force them to do the right thing. It’s bad news, but it’s true. Any other questions?

AR: We have definite goals in regards to making our packaging environmentally sustainable, but the minimums are so high, and they’re custom orders. I just wondered if you knew any kind of industry secret that we didn’t know, or if we just have to wait until we can afford the minimums.

LR: You have to either wait until you can afford the minimums or until the entire industry of packaging wakes up and starts to offer lower prices. And I think that time will come. We have tried biodegradable bottles, but they disintegrate before our product does. And they’re not biodegradable in a landfill; you have to have a compost heap in your backyard. Well, who has that? The whole area is in flux now, so it’s hard.

Have you done any research on the amount of people that come to your site and how many leave before they order, or any of that stuff?

AR: No, I don’t even know how to do that.

LR: You need metrics on that. The website needs work. You need to have one product at a time that you feature on the top. The layout could be more thought provoking; it shouldn’t be so heavy in copy. These things aren’t that hard to do, and it would really help people focus, because they’re busy and they don’t want to read through everything.

AR: I just want to say thank you so much. Today’s an exciting day for us, and your time is so valuable. It’s priceless. I know that you’re a very high-quality person, and I feel like I’m a higher-quality person now.

LR: Oh, darling, you’re doing something that is good for the world. Your work is beautiful, and it deserves to succeed. You just need a few pointers to get ahead.

AR: Lynda, thank you so very much. I’ll contact you in a couple of months and let you know how fabulous we’re doing with all your advice.

LR: You too, sweetheart. All the best.