With more than 250,000 men already treated, hair loss treatment business and EY Entrepreneur of the Year finalist firm Sons recently surpassed an annual run rate of €20m in revenues.
A few years ago a “lived experience” saw two young Irishmen who were then living and working as expats in London talk openly and honesty about the spectre of hair loss for men. Both Will Kennedy and Adrian Gilbane were confronting an uncomfortable reality that affects a lot of men as they age. And a business was born.
Today their business Sons is targeting a European market valued at €4bn and a market valued at €10bn globally with their hair loss treatment for men.
“Our ambition is to be the leading consumer brand for hair loss in each of the territories we are active in. We have good traction in Europe at the moment which is worth €4bn for treatments for male hair loss”
So far more than 250,000 men have been treated by Sons and late last year the business, which recently surpassed its own €20m annual recurring revenue target, raised €6.75m in debt and equity funding.
Sons is among 24 Irish finalists who have been named for the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Awards which take place in November. Currently in its 27th year in Ireland, the programme works to recognise, promote, and build a supportive community around Ireland’s high-growth entrepreneurs and is considered one of the strongest programmes globally.
Since its inception, the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Ireland community has grown to a tight-knit network of more than 600 alumni who harness each other’s wealth of experience, with three quarters (75%) conducting business with one another. Together, the EOY alumni community generates revenues of €25bn, and employs more than 250,000 people across the island of Ireland.
In the past 11 months the finalists have engaged in a strategic growth programme which includes a week-long CEO Retreat in South Africa.
A growing business
“The nuts and bolts of what we do is we’re a men’s healthcare brand and we focus primarily on clinically proven products for hair loss and scalp health,” explains Sons co-founder and CEO Will Kennedy. “The reason we are predominantly a digital platform comes from the lived experience that Adrian and I had back in 2018. We became friends about 13 years ago and when we moved to London we both began to notice we were losing our hair.”
Having talked about it and confronted the reality that affects a lot of men, they both went to an in-person clinic in London. The experience, which was expensive, was unsatisfactory and the two friends realised their had to be a better way.
Gilbane, a scientist, put his skills to work and combined with Kennedy’s business acumen as a strategy and investment consultant, a business was born
“Our mix of backgrounds combined with a belief that if we removed the clinic and do it via telehealth consultations and going a direct-to-patient model using the subscriptions business model it would marry up very well.
“It’s a largely untreated condition but impacts the majority of men. So we felt we could develop a brand and a proposition that most guys would feel good about using.”
Rather than walking into a clinic or a pharmacy with a prescription, the business model allows male customers to consult virtually with Sons to derive the right treatment and, through the convenience of subscriptions and delivery, they would be more likely to stick with their treatment and see results usually within nine months.
Gilbane explained that Sons would have a range of products in its portfolio from treatment of hair loss through to styling.
“Our core offering for the majority of our patients who are suffering from hair loss is two medicines – one is a prescription drug finasteride which works by blocking DHT, the hormone that causes hair loss. And we have minoxidil, which is an over-the-counter medicine similar to Regain, that increased blood flow and oxygen. Combined, those products deliver efficacy in more than 90% of men, or 60% if used individually. Historically people were taking the products but were not combining them. We brought in that combination approach to bring in greater efficacy.”
To ensure that the hair that grew back was healthy, Gilbane said Sons developed their own intellectual property in the form of supplements and cosmetics to ensure hair grows back in proper density and quality.
“We improve the overall strength of the hair follicle and appearance. We’ve done real world studies with our patients to show that when you add these additional products and combine them all together into a plan, you get better results both from a clinical perspective in terms of the regrowth but also how the patient feels in their confidence and their self-esteem.
“It’s important to point out that it is important that there are follicles there that the drugs can act on and in 90% of cases we achieve results.”
Kennedy explained that the ‘Sons’ brand was developed to provide men with a brand they could trust that is also discrete and wouldn’t look out of place alongside other brands on the shower shelf.
“Our ambition is to be the leading consumer brand for hair loss in each of the territories we are active in. We have good traction in Europe at the moment which is worth €4bn for treatments for male hair loss.
“We believe that a third of the male population that go through this condition take products. We think it’s a viable market that could double in the next 10 years. We think a brand like ours is the key to unlock it digitally.
“Our ambition is to have 5% market share by 2027 and we’re looking at a range of products in scalp health and dandruff treatment that Adrian is working on that will widen that for us.”
Gilbane adds: “Looking at our own data that we gather through our online consultation, more than 70% of men have never actually taken products before. So we are reaching new demographics through new channels that show the market size could actually be much larger.
“We are tapping into a trend that we are seeing across most digital health categories: if you make treatments more accessible, then you can really grow the market and make it really exciting.”
Putting down roots
Having both shared the “lived experience” of balding and hair loss, Kennedy and Gilbane appear today be both sporting perfectly health barnets. Kennedy says it is about supporting self-esteem for other men who experience inevitable hair loss. “Our own research shows that for our customers 90% say it is working and for 80% it is improving their confidence and hair density.”
However, the reality of the business because it is subscriptions based means there is inevitable churn and a challenge for Sons is that it loses 40% of its customer base within the first six-to-nine months of acquiring them. “It’s about creating a routine and normally it requires taking three or four products into their normal routine, so it’s about sticking with that regime. But in terms of efficacy, they see start to results between the nine or 12-month mark.
“The challenge for us is managing expectations and getting the customer to stay the 12 months. At that stage our churn is very low, dropping to between 5% to 10% of that base. So the customers we keep become a very loyal customer base and it shows that our products are working.
“Adrian’s done a great job with our Customer Success team and we are looking at investing in new AI technology to create a virtual tracker for customers. In terms of Customer Success, we would speak with our customers every three or four weeks to manage the customer journey and encourage them to success.”
Both Gilbane and Kennedy agree that the male grooming marketplace, particularly among younger men in their 20s and 30s, is thriving thanks to a greater emphasis on aesthetics and fitness compared with previous generations. “Often the challenge is there is a lot of procrastination when it comes to hair loss and a lot of people can be in denial that it is happening,” Gilbane said.
Gilbane studied pharmacology in UCD but like a lot of graduates in post-recession Ireland found there weren’t many roles available at the time. He studied for a Master’s in Scotland and completed his PhD in London where he worked in strategy consulting and finance. Kennedy studied Commerce at UCC and worked for a decade in the food and beverage industry with companies like Kerry Group.
“In London there was a focus on work and achievement among our peer group that we both benefited from,” Kennedy recalled. “So we started the business in London but bringing it back home to Ireland was always the intention. We now employ around 30 people, with 20 in the UK and 10 in Ireland. A year ago we had just one person in Ireland, so it’s a pretty fast growing team.”
Adrian adds: “The business started from a lived experience. It was a problem that we were both experiencing and we were basically the core target customer. We felt there was a really good business opportunity and we knew we could actually make a difference. We wanted to help people.”
Becoming entrepreneurs wasn’t something they had planned to do but the stars aligned. Kennedy said: “I did have an interest in maybe doing something for myself outside of the corporate world and I even took a lease on a pub with a number of friends as a project which we ran for a couple of years. My time in Kerry Group working on M&A projects gave me exposure to new acquisitions in the States and then incubating those into Europe as a business manager gave me a lot of commercialisation experience but also taught me how difficult it can be.”
While hair treatment wouldn’t be considered a sexy area of tech for investors, Kennedy said that the investors they pitched to understood the opportunity immediately. “We were very cognizant to pitch to people who would understand consumer health and e-commerce and our recent funding which was roughly 60% debt to 40% equity, was led by the Davy EIIS fund and a consortium of private investors.”
Kennedy said the business is well-capitalised for future growth and is on target to grow 70% this year.”
Commenting on being nominated for the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Awards 2024, both founders say it is an incredible honour.
“For us it’s about the value of the network and we are honoured to be nominated,” Kennedy said. “It’s a validation for the team and all of the hard work that they’ve put in. The events we’ve been at, the advice we’ve been getting through the programme from fellow nominees and the alumni is already making a difference in terms of the journey we are on.”
Main image: Will Kennedy and Adrian Gilbane, founders of Sons
-
Bank of Ireland is welcoming new customers every day – funding investments, working capital and expansions across multiple sectors. To learn more, click here
-
Listen to the ThinkBusiness Podcast for business insights and inspiration. All episodes are here. You can also listen to the Podcast on:
-
Spotify
-
SoundCloud
-
Apple
