1. What’s the quick origin story of your brand, and what makes your product or positioning genuinely different from other options in your niche?

Brendon Haxby: ScrubMe came from a very practical e-commerce lesson: control matters.

Before ScrubMe, my business partner Tom and I co-founded Naken Interiors, an online interiors business that we grew from around £1,200 into approximately £2.5m in annual revenue within 10 years, before exiting the business in 2025. Over 13 years, we learned a huge amount about e-commerce, but we were mainly selling established third-party brands rather than building and owning the products ourselves. That meant we were often limited by supplier pricing, stock availability, promotions, margins, where products could be sold and how much control we really had over the customer experience.

We also spent north of £1.5m over those years on website developers, software, marketing agencies and freelancers. Some of that helped us grow, but it also taught us how expensive and vulnerable e-commerce can become when too much control and knowledge sits outside the business.

ScrubMe was built as a response to that. We wanted to create our own product-led brand where we controlled the product, pricing, stock, website, promotions, marketing, channels and customer journey from the ground up.

The idea itself came from a simple but overlooked everyday habit: people repeatedly buy, use and throw away traditional shower puffs, flannels and short-life bathroom accessories without really thinking about the cost, hygiene, performance or waste. We already knew silicone scrubbers were a superior shower accessory in many ways, but we also knew that most people either didn’t know they existed or hadn’t experienced a good one.

The market was full of very cheap silicone scrubbers that didn’t perform well, didn’t feel great to use and, most importantly, didn’t create the lather people expect from a proper shower experience. At the other end of the market, many of the more “premium” silicone scrubbers focused heavily on creating a good lather, but still fell short when it came to the things people actually need from a shower tool, such as effective exfoliation, deep cleaning and overall performance. We tested countless silicone shower products, materials and designs to understand what worked and what didn’t, before developing a range that solved those problems. ScrubMe was created to offer a smarter alternative through reusable silicone shower tools for the body, face and scalp.

What makes the positioning different is that we are not pretending to have invented silicone scrubbers. The difference is how we frame the problem, improve the experience and build the brand around it. ScrubMe is positioned as a more hygienic, higher-performing, longer-lasting and more cost-effective alternative to disposable shower puffs and traditional bathroom accessories. The products are easy to rinse, quick-drying, practical for daily use and designed to fit into a modern shower routine without feeling like an “eco compromise”.

We have also built the business differently. The ScrubMe website is fully customised and built in-house, with a strong focus on speed, UX and conversion. We also manage the SEO, content, paid marketing, Amazon, marketplaces, email and product positioning ourselves. That gives us more control, keeps the business lean and lets us move quickly.

So the origin story is not just “we made a shower scrubber”. It is the story of taking 13 years of hard-earned e-commerce lessons and applying them to a brand we can control properly, built around a small everyday behaviour that most people have never really questioned.

2. Since launch, what have been the 1-2 real turning points for your brand-specific decisions, pivots, or experiments that noticeably changed your growth or profitability-and what did you learn from them?

Brendon Haxby: One of the biggest turning points was around messaging.

Before launch, we had already done a lot of product testing, so we knew the performance had to be right from day one. The real learning came from how we communicated the product. We originally thought hygiene would be one of the strongest hooks, because silicone is easier to rinse, quick-drying and less like a damp shower puff or loofah sitting in the bathroom. But we realised hygiene alone is not always the strongest reason people buy.

For most customers, the better message is the overall shower upgrade: better lather, better exfoliation, better feel, longer-lasting, easier to keep clean, cost-saving over time and more eco-friendly because it reduces repeat shower puff purchases. Hygiene is still important, but it works better as part of the wider benefit rather than the whole positioning.

The second turning point was paid marketing and tracking.

With our previous business, Naken Interiors, we were selling established brands that people were already searching for and understood. When we started in 2011, paid platforms and AI-driven campaign learning was not really part of Google Ads in the way it is today, with that becoming much more significant around 2023. A lot of the demand and product data already existed because the brands were known.

ScrubMe is different because it is an establishing brand that most people have not heard of yet. That means paid marketing is not just about spending money on ads. It is about giving the platforms clean data so they can learn who is actually likely to buy. We realised very quickly that if tracking is not set up properly, you cannot judge the product, the creative, the offer or the landing page fairly.

The main lesson was that with a new DTC brand, tracking is not a technical detail. It is a growth decision. If the data is wrong, the platforms learn badly, budgets are wasted and you can make the wrong calls about what is working. Getting that right is crucial for profitability.

3. Which 2-3 channels drive most of your revenue right now (for example SEO, paid social, email, marketplaces, influencers), and what have you learned about making those channels work in your category?

Brendon Haxby: The three main channels that drive the majority of our revenue are SEO, marketplaces, mainly Amazon, and paid ads.

SEO has always been one of our biggest strengths and is a major revenue driver for us. That now includes not just traditional SEO, but also areas like AEO and GEO as the way people discover products continues to change. With ScrubMe, we are not yet a brand people are actively searching for by name, so we have to meet customers where the demand already exists, around searches like body scrubber, silicone body scrubber, scalp massager, face scrubber, shower puff alternatives and reusable bathroom products. The biggest lesson is that organic visibility for a new brand is not just about ranking product pages. It is about educating the customer, explaining the problem and building trust before they buy. Content around shower puff cost, waste, hygiene and product comparisons is important because many people do not realise there is a better alternative until the problem is framed properly.

Amazon is important for a different reason. Customers already trust the platform and many go there with buying intent. For a product like ours, Amazon helps remove some of the friction that comes with being a new brand. The challenge is that you have less control over the experience, margins are tighter and reviews matter hugely. We have learned that marketplace success depends heavily on the basics: strong images, clear titles, benefit-led bullet points, competitive pricing, fast delivery and building review volume. It is not enough to list the product and hope Amazon does the work.

Paid ads are the fastest way to test messaging, creative and demand, but they are also the easiest place to waste money. With our previous business, we sold established brands that already had search demand and customer recognition. With ScrubMe, we are building demand for a new brand, so tracking and data quality are critical. If the platforms do not have clean conversion data, they cannot learn properly, and you can end up making bad decisions about the product, offer or landing page.

The main lesson across all three channels is that you cannot rely on one route. SEO, AEO and GEO build long-term demand, authority and discovery. Amazon captures high-intent buyers who already trust the platform. Paid ads give faster feedback and help test what actually makes people buy. The hard part is making sure the messaging is consistent across all three, so customers understand ScrubMe as a better shower routine, not just another bathroom accessory.

4. How are you thinking about search in 2026 – Google, AI assistants like ChatGPT, and other discovery platforms? What, if anything, have you changed in your content or site to stay visible as AI search grows?

Brendon Haxby: We are thinking about search much more broadly now than just traditional Google rankings.

Google is still extremely important, but customers are also discovering products through AI assistants, marketplaces, social platforms and answer-led search experiences. For a brand like ScrubMe, that matters because people are not always searching for us by name. They might be asking questions like “what is the best alternative to a shower puff?”, “are silicone body scrubbers more hygienic?” or “how often should you replace a loofah?” We need to be visible wherever those questions are being answered.

The advantage we have is that we control everything in-house. A few months ago, we made a major update to our site structure and content strategy with this shift in mind. We moved away from thinking only in terms of product pages and keywords, and started building clearer content around questions, comparisons, problems and routines. That includes content around shower puff cost, waste, hygiene, product comparisons, body scrubbers, scalp massagers and reusable bathroom swaps.

We have also worked on making the site easier for both search engines and AI systems to understand. That means clearer page structure, stronger internal linking, more direct answers within content, better product information and more educational pages that explain the problem before pushing the product. The goal is for ScrubMe to be seen not just as a shop, but as a useful source around better shower routines and reusable bathroom products.

The update is already making a difference. It has helped us improve visibility and gives us a stronger foundation for SEO, AEO and GEO as search behaviour changes. The biggest lesson is that AI search rewards clarity. If your site is vague, thin or purely sales-led, it gives search engines and AI assistants very little to work with. If your content answers real questions clearly and connects naturally to your products, you have a much better chance of being surfaced.

5. What do you do to turn first‑time buyers into repeat customers and advocates? Are there specific experiences, content, or community touches that work especially well for you?

Brendon Haxby: This is an interesting one for ScrubMe because we are not selling a product that should be replaced every few weeks. In fact, part of the point is that our products are designed to last much longer than traditional shower puffs. So we do not think about repeat customers in the same way a skincare or supplement brand might.

For us, repeat purchase comes from expanding the routine. Someone might first buy ScrubMeBody, then later add ScrubMeFace, ScrubMeScalp or HookMe. That is why the customer experience after the first purchase is important. We want people to understand how each product fits into a better shower routine rather than seeing it as a one-off bathroom accessory.

The main things we focus on are education, product experience and trust. After purchase, the customer needs to know how to get the best from the product, how to store it properly, why it is different from a shower puff or flannel, and how the rest of the range fits together. Content around shower puff cost, waste, hygiene and product comparisons helps reinforce that decision after they buy.

Reviews are also important. For a new brand, social proof makes a big difference, especially when people are switching from something familiar like a shower puff to something they may not have used before. A happy first-time customer can become an advocate simply by leaving a review, recommending the product to someone else or buying a set as a gift.

The biggest lesson is that retention does not always mean pushing people to buy again immediately. Sometimes it means making the first product experience strong enough that they trust the brand, understand the wider routine and feel confident recommending it. For ScrubMe, advocacy starts with the product doing what we promised.

6. If you had to write a short playbook for an ecommerce founder one stage behind you, what would you double down on over the next 12 months – and what would you stop doing entirely?

Brendon Haxby: If I were writing a short playbook for an e-commerce founder one stage behind us, I would double down on control, tracking and content.

First, I would keep as much knowledge inside the business as possible. You do not have to do everything yourself forever, but in the early stages you need to understand your website, margins, SEO, paid ads, tracking, product data and customer journey. If every important answer sits with an agency, freelancer or developer, you are building dependency rather than capability.

Second, I would get tracking right before spending heavily on paid ads. With a new brand, the platforms do not already know who your buyers are. If conversion tracking is weak, Meta and Google will learn badly, your results will look worse than they really are, and you may make the wrong decisions about the product, offer or creative.

Third, I would build content around real customer questions, not just product pages. Search is changing quickly, especially with AI assistants and answer-led discovery. Founders need content that explains the problem, compares options and gives clear answers. For ScrubMe, that means content around shower puff cost, waste, hygiene, silicone scrubbers, body scrubbers, scalp massagers and reusable bathroom products.

What I would stop doing entirely is chasing every channel at once. It is tempting to try SEO, TikTok, Meta, Google, Amazon, email, influencers, affiliates, marketplaces and PR all at the same time. The problem is you end up doing everything badly and learning nothing properly.

I would also stop outsourcing strategy too early. Use specialists where needed, but do not hand over the thinking. Founders need to know what is working and why.

The simple playbook is: build a product people understand, make the site fast and clear, get tracking right, focus on a few channels properly, and create useful content that helps customers make a decision. Everything else is secondary until those basics are working.