The creation of Koud with Ash Bent | Willow & Blake

Why ice baths?

Ash: For me, I've got experience in D2C e-com brands with my last business, and I had this amazing experience with ice baths about eight years ago where I got to spend 10 days with Wim Hof. It put my life on a completely different trajectory. So for a new business, I wanted to be able to do something for people and give them access to something that had such a big impact on my life. I looked at the ice bath brands out there and none of them really spoke to me and definitely didn't speak to my wife. So that's why it was ice baths. 

Why the name KOUD?

Ash: Koud is Dutch for cold, and my mum's side of the family is Dutch. And it just so happens that Wim Hof, who I was able to spend that time with and had a big influence on me and my life, is also Dutch. So it was very fitting. 

Why did you choose to work with a creative agency?

Ash: For me, with my previous brand, I didn't put the brand as number one. It was much more product focused. We did so many brand iterations as we grew and I never really felt that connected and confident with who we were. So this time around, my brief to Willow & Blake was it needs to look like a $100 million brand from day one. Brand is everything. I've taken a very, very different approach this time, it's not my area of expertise and that's why I needed to work with experts in the space. 

You've built brands in the past, how was the process different with KOUD?

Ash: This time around with building Koud, brand was first. That was it. That's number one. But a big thing was making sure what we're doing in the market is different and being able to get cut through. So that is multifaceted, from brand to product to our positioning. This time around, it wasn't so reactive to what's out there. It's very considered. It took longer, or longer than we wanted, but it turned out really well. Looking at the category we're in with ice baths, it's a trending category. We've all seen it all over social media where the question is, how do you know if someone had an ice bath today? And it's like, they will tell you. Or you'll see it on their social media. It is something that's definitely trending. So we're looking at that and there's a lot of players that have come into the market over the past few years. The big thing I looked at is how are we going to get this cut through? How are we going to stand out? Brand obviously being the biggest thing. But it's the individual elements of the brand too. 

What core elements help to define your brand and cut through the category?

Ash: For us it was owning a look, having certain colours that would get cut through. We've got our hero colour, the yellow. Then also our brand tone. The great thing is with all the work that we have done with Willow and Blake it has become clear when it comes to writing copy, whether it's for our emails or when we’re doing something for our meta ads or whatever it may be, it's so easy to be able to get something that sounds like Koud because we're so clear on who we are. Having brand guidelines just makes it so easy for myself as a founder to know how the brand needs to come across. It's no longer writing something, rewriting it, being in a different state of mind at a certain point where the brand doesn't quite come across right. I can always reference the brand guidelines and that gives me that clarity that we can execute on. 

What single piece of advice do you have for Founders?

Ash: My number one bit of advice for founders, and this has been through a lot of reflection myself with business, is that it's not about what you do. It's about how you're different.

It's about how you get cut through, and having those really clear USPs. In this sea of sameness, you have to be able to stand out in your category and in your niche and become memorable. That's the most important part.

The other thing for a founder is resilience. All we do is deal with problems the whole way on the journey. With my previous business, we scouted, we got to a multi-eight figure brand, and had 100 employees. On that journey, every single day, all I was doing was dealing with challenges and problems, from when we started out to the point where we had like 100 employees. As a founder, you have to know that and accept it. You have to have the resilience to work through it. That’s the number one bit of advice I can give, is to be prepared for that.