Le Gaol
My partner Bretton, a professional hairstylist for over 10 years, saw his industry come to a halt at the start of the pandemic. During this time, we both reflected on our careers and passions, seeking a path to fulfillment. Bretton's love for creating ambiance, hosting gatherings, and aromatherapy, combined with my background in brand design, marketing, and photography, led us to create a product experience that blends our creativity. With a foundation of love and intention, Le Gaol was born.
Overview
Bretton was new to running a small business, so in order to best collaborate with him through the brand creation process, I’ve taken a mentorship approach to help him iterate upon his vision. This allowed us to grow Le Gaol in a way that paralleled his own growth, all while maintaining forward momentum. To get us started, I leaned into my design and marketing background to lay the foundation for developing the brand strategy, while in Bretton dove into developing the product line.
We eventually launched in October 2020 and have since evolved our brand from simply providing home goods and candles to being community–centric with the introduction of workshops and private events. Along the way, our journey introduced us to some exciting media opportunities and retail partnerships.
O N ECreating our brand
A celebration of Scottish heritage
To accompany Bretton’s vision for handmade goods, he was looking to build a brand that embodied the artisan nature of products. The foundation to our explorations were deeply rooted in his desire to pay homage to his Scottish ancestry. After chatting with some of our Scottish friends and researching various phrases, we found came across "Le Gaol," meaning "with love" in Scots Gaelic. This was the perfect pairing to his forthcoming product line of handmade wreaths, stone decor, and candles.
For our symbol, we drew inspiration from the Awen, a Celtic sign representing creativity and inspiration. This led us to create our signature “Awen Wreath,” a symbol of decorating life, inspired.
Soft launch on social media
In October 2020, we launched our e-commerce website and an accompanying Instagram account with a focus on building an organic audience. This initial two-channel approach enabled us to free iterate on initial messaging, available products, and our visual brand style. Our initial product lineup included candles, concrete geometric moss planters, and artisan wreaths, and we wanted to test stickiness with potential buyers to learn and iterate towards our future states.
T W OEvolving our brand
Business growth mapping
After being in business for almost a year, we identified that was in a great position to plan for the next phase of the business. We went through brainstorming exercises to review our previous year of operations, map aspiration goals, and dive deeper into who our customers are in order to evolve our brand further. This informed our planning towards of how to deprecate old inventory and roadmapping future offerings.
Developing customer personas
A majority of transactions at this point had been through word of mouth and live transactions. We ideally wanted to focus on attracting a higher-end demographic with our brand and product. Looking at the data the majority of our transactions thus far had reflected that market. To better guide our overall brand strategy, we workshopped brand personas based on insights from actual customers, as well as aspirational customers for future targeting.
Workshopping our mission, vision, and beyond
We didn’t just want a brand that looked good—we wanted it to have meaning. So, we focused on shaping our core story by crafting a clear vision and mission. Over the course of a month, we workshopped all areas of the business to identify:
Which areas of the brand we wanted to evolve
Our roadmap for product deprecation, refreshes, and introductions
How to scale daily operations
How we can scale to include new services
Company roadmapping exercise
Vessel deprecation roadmap
Honing in on brand attributes
A renewed web presence
With the overhaul of our physical product line, a brand refresh, and introducing new services, we also workshopped the update of our website. After performing a competitive analysis for brand alignment, we collaborated on wire framing and designing our renewed web experience.
Redesigned home page
Scaling to include new workshop offerings
T H R E EGoing beyond the vessel
Growing from candles to connection
As an outcome of our company workshopping efforts, the next phase of our company was to introduce candle making workshops. What mattered the most to us was aligning with other local and small businesses which highly valued fostering community—this brand alignment was critical for us in identifying strategic partners.
Organic lead generation tool
With the success of our workshop offerings, we converted our experiences into a lead generation tool for future attendees and prospective partners. Workshops quickly became a core element to our brand and product differentiator in our local community.
Media Coverage
We had the opportunity to share our story on live television in a feature segment on LIVE! in the Bay on KRON 4. SD Voyager Magazine also reached out to us for a feature in their online publication.
F O U RContinued growth
The best is yet to come
We are currently in our 5th year of business and our side business has grown to be and experience that we love to share, not only with customers, but with one another. The brand continues to evolve, and so do our products and offerings. Workshops continue to be a core offering and have scaled to partnering with apartment communities in offering resident events. We also now offer private event services, white label products, and have expanded our product line to include travel and room + linen sprays.
Visit us online at www.legaolhome.com or follow us on Instagram @legaolhome, where I regularly post brand photography and video.
