“You can be ethical and still be profitable”: Ethique’s Brianne West on overcoming the challenges of scaling

Back in 2012, when Brianne West began experimenting with the idea of solid shampoos, she never imagined a global pandemic. Nor did she imagine growing Ethique by 999% in the following years, with valuation figures over $100 million. 

At the time, all West wanted was to create an ethical product that cut down on consumer waste. 

So how did Ethique go from selling a 100 bars in 2012 to such a significant valuation, and manage to grow sales by over 150% in the last 12 months, as well as meeting environmental goals and still being able to give to charity? 

The answer, West tells SmartCompany Plus, lies in figuring out how to scale — and learning from mistakes made along the way.

“Everyone said it was a terrible idea”

When West began selling solid shampoo bars from her student apartment in Christchurch, under the previous business name ‘Sorbet’, she wanted to change the world.

She wanted to free dumpsters and landfills from plastic, and she wanted to give to charity. She had the requisite scientific knowhow (as a biochem graduate from the University of Canterbury, Christchurch) and some prior business experience already, after running two small businesses.

Despite this knowledge and experience, West was told she was “trying to do too much good”.

“Everyone said startups can’t afford to do that. Everyone said it was a terrible idea,” West reflects.

“But I started small and self-funded it. It was $100 worth of ingredients a week and I made 100 bars a week and that was hard.”

Yet, the hard work paid off.

West crowdfunded the company in 2015, back when it was still a very new concept for the Australasia region. She knew that the process was excellent for raising a small brand’s profile — if done well.

After the crowdfunding success, all that was left was for West to figure out how to scale a product that she made in her student apartment, with the aid of a microwave.

West says she’s lost a lot of microwaves from accidentally setting them on fire, but Ethique has also managed to both keep plastic from landfills, offsetting 120% of its carbon emissions, and gives 2% of all sales given to charity.

Thus far, Ethique has given over $2 million to over 700 organisations involved in ocean conservation, equity and equality, rewilding and habitat restoration and animal welfare. It also established the Ethique Foundation, and intends to donate another $10 million by 2026.

“Listen to your gut instinct”

One of the first lessons West learnt on her journey to saving 20 million plastic bottles from entering landfill was about people.

She had a simple — albeit difficult mission — that has been the key to Ethique’s success.

To this end, West says that she learnt the hard way how important it is to surround herself with the right people: not just when it came to skills, but also in ambition and philosophy.

“They need to share your values, but not necessarily think like you,” she says.

“In the growth process, you need to find the right people to complement your skill set but you also need to learn how to say goodbye.”

One of the hardest things West says she learnt was listening to herself and overcoming self-doubt.

“I wasted a lot of money and spent a lot of time with people who were ultimately bad for me and bad for the business. But I didn’t listen to my gut instinct,” she says.

“I didn’t have the courage to do anything about it for a long time. A person may be experienced on paper, but it doesn’t mean they understand your business the way you do.”

“Always build bigger”

Every company goes through growing pains. In Ethique’s case, these adolescent pains were the result of shooting up very fast in a short period of time.

It took the team 18 months and a custom built facility in Christchurch to scale — and then they outgrew it in six months. It may have been easier if all Ethique’s machinery wasn’t custom-built for products that were extremely finicky.

“Everyone says that’s such a good problem to have, but it really wasn’t. We were out of stock. A lot of products were out of stock for months and months. We were really annoying our customers because we simply couldn’t keep up.”

In response, Ethique moved to a new factory in Auckland.

“But it took me probably another year to 18 months from when we moved to consistently get out 50,000 bars at a time,” West explained.

Growth, West iterated, was never what you expect it to be.

“We grew faster than anticipated. We built the factory to last five years, but it didn’t even last us six months. Hope is not a strategy — you must always build bigger.”

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Ethiques above everything

Ethique is clearly not longer what it was in 2012,  but nor is the Ethique from five years ago the same as it is today.

It’s constantly evolving, whether it’s the packaging — which West says now takes into account the size and handling experience to help visually impaired people — or ingredients.

One of the biggest battles Ethique faced was cutting out palm oil entirely, considering the oil is intrinsically linked to the destruction of ancient rainforests, human rights abuses, human trafficking, and child trafficking.

An alternative was not easy to find. In fact, until recently, palm oil-free derivatives weren’t readily available on the market, and palm oil is essential to helping products foam.

Now instead of palm oil, Ethique uses coconut oil, olive oil, rice bran oil and sugarcane instead, which results in a similar output – but not quite the same.

Making the switch was hard to do, but West said she is “stubborn and unyielding” on living these values, and the Ethique team is the same.

Building an ethical business is not easy — especially not one that is still turning a profit.

But as Ethique’s track record has proven, and as West emphatically said, “you can be ethical and still be profitable.”

It certainly comes at a price — for instance, when you account for the cost of palm oil alternatives — but as she noted, the value to social and economic sustainability far outweigh the costs.

And it doesn’t hurt that consumers are increasingly demanding for sustainable, ethically-made products.

At the end of the day, West says that products evolve and can get better, and that everything can be fixed.

“It just needs to be something your consumer wants,” she said.