Hello! My name is Kayla Martin, and I’m writing to you from the small town of Martinsburg, WV. I work for my father’s company, Mountaineer Brand. We specialize in the production of all-natural beard care and have recently expanded to all-natural family care products. In just a few short years, this company has grown quickly from the creation of a single beard oil in a kitchen to a multi-million dollar company.
Let me rewind just a bit and tell you about the owner, Eric (my father).
I have always known him to be a very hard working man. I remember being a little girl and being awoken far before the sun came up to be taken to the baby sitter so he could go to work. At that time he was working for a company that made fiberglass bathtubs and showers.
My father had ideas of his own, and decided to start his own business (which was an odd one, I must say). He made fiberglass canoes and cremation urns out of marble. I warned you that it was odd! Needless to say, it didn’t last long, and he found himself back at the fiberglass plant where he started. After years of grueling work, he became a shift supervisor, making a decent salary. Again, his creative mind was focusing on something different.
He then started managing rental properties and building homes. The housing market was booming at the time. Business was great. But, as we all know, the market went down. Another business idea crumbled.
Then came the business Rod-n-Race fiberglass, which only lasted a couple of years. Another one bites the dust.
After the downfall of Rod-n-Race, my father lost his wife to a long battle with breast cancer. I was grown and out on my own at that point, but he was left with my three very young siblings and had no job to support them. The struggle was a hard to swallow reality.
Luckily, he landed a job as a civilian employee at the Army National Guard as a janitor. Of course money was still tight, but he was making it. While working there, he began growing out his beard. He decided to look for some product to use to care for it, but found that everything was over-priced and not suitable for his budget. Again, brilliance struck his mind and he thought “I can just do this myself”.
And he did.
Almost 4 years ago, he crafted the very first bottle of WV Timber beard oil in his kitchen. He gifted it to family and friends, and started researching and perfecting new recipes. He decided to call his little operation, Mountaineer Brand, in honor of the West Virginia Mountaineers. The business began growing locally by word of mouth.
One day my dad and I were working out together. I remember this moment so clearly. On the elliptical, while talking about the business, I said “why don’t you put this stuff on Amazon?”. He took the advice. What happened next, I can’t explain. It was like a blur.
The business began growing so quickly. We expanded to selling on Ebay, Etsy, and had website of our own that performed extremely well. We began growing an audience on social media and getting requests from people to become retailers.
Now, here we are. With over 35 products and a multi-million dollar business. We are featured on target.com, have been on the shelves of Dillard’s department stores, had the number one selling beard oil and mustache wax on Amazon, and have a high traffic website of our own. He finally did it. His dreams became a reality, and I couldn’t be happier for him.
