Under The Hood: Ash from Obvi

Obvi is a massive hit. They sell collagen protein powder, and a much bigger lifestyle around the brand. Ash (left) and his 2 co-founders Ronak (middle) and Ankit (right) started in 2019, and in less than a year and a half, turned it into a multi-million dollar movement. We go Under The Hood with Ash to hear tips and tricks of the trade.

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Welcome Ash! When was Day 1 of Obvi? And how fast have you grown since then? 

We started in 2019, um, around like the summertime. We only came out with 2 SKUs, it was a very limited run. We wanted to test the concept before we went full force. We ran ads and we ended up selling out in 2 weeks. So that’s when we decided to jump in and create this brand. 

We were completely bootstrapped. Just us 3 founders. We each wrote a check for like $10,000 and that's what we started with. We sold through inventory, and bit by bit we re-ordered more and more, and by the end of 2019 we ended up doing $250,000 in sales.

But then in 2020 - with the pandemic and the eCommerce growth spurt, that gave us a real jumpstart. That first full year, we ended up doing $5m. And then last year (2021) we closed at $18m. All completely bootstrapped. 

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And  how many employees do you have today?

9 employees. 

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Unbelievable. So you just started off with testing via Facebook Ads? 

Yeah. Facebook ads prior to these iOS updates was our bread and butter. Even prior to starting Obvi, my partners and I ran a boutique agency and I was the main media buyer. One of my partners was the main designer and the other partner was overall strategy and communication.

So we knew what we were getting into. We had worked on several brands before and managed $10-15m in spend up until that point. Facebook was our thing, and taking a product from zero to selling out in two weeks wasn't difficult. And over time, our channel mix evolved. We started finding influencers, exploring Snapchat etc and starting to build a real ecosystem. 

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Tell me about the product: You’re selling collagen protein. Were you data-driven in picking this niche? Why did you go into this space?

When you look at that market, and the top competitors in the space - all of their stuff is very dark/black, right? No disrespect to the top players in the industry because they paved the way for us and others, but the branding of those products was always very “medicinal” and the products were largely unflavored.

The products felt targeted towards an older demographic. But since our human bodies start producing less and less collagen already in our 20’s and 30’s - we should all really be consuming supplements to prevent that and prevent visual signs of aging. So we wanted to create a product that spoke to that younger audience that may not even realize they need collagen just yet.  

And that’s how we came up with the brand: Hot pink branding with cereal flavors. Something completely out there. 

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Yes - the famous Obvi hot pink! How has the brand evolved since day 1? Was it always the same?

The initial design that we went with is still pretty much what we have right now. My partner Ankit had a vision, and he’s usually on the money when he does have a vision. He visualized Obvi in ads, on shelves, in retailers. He wanted something bold and scroll-stopping. 

Tell me about the sequencing of events on the acquisition front: How did you ramp up sales so quickly? What came after Facebook? 

So Facebook is still the main tool for scalable acquisition. And for a while, we were just breaking even on the Facebook sales, making a bet that those customers would come back later. But quickly - as we got more street cred, we started selling in retail, and reinvesting all profits from that directly back into D2C. In total: 50% of our time was spent on D2C, and the other 50% on selling to Mom & Pop shops. 

We just kept pushing as much as we could into D2C to get to a point where at least 30% of revenue, comes from returning customers. At that stage, the revenue from a strong base of returning customers can be used to fuel growth and we can finally breathe from a financial standpoint. And right around the time when we reached those targets, GNC reached out and that became our first big name retail placement which was a huge win.‍