Profile: House of Barbaard
With their unique brand of panache, House of Barbaard has somehow successfully managed to blend old-fashioned chivalry with modern unapologetic brashness, making major strides in Vietnamese culture since its opening in 2016. Thanks to the Dutch founded, Vietnam-based brand, men across the country have been afforded the opportunity to express themselves in ways that were thought to be forgotten.
The gentlemen behind House of Barbaard have had quite an interesting road leading up to the success they enjoy today. What was originally planned to be a clothing line, quickly transformed into something much more all-encompassing. Similar to WisePass, they started with a simple idea and have since become more of an alternative lifestyle solution. A community of like-minded men to share ideas and conquer obstacles through newfound confidence and discovery. They are a valued partner of the WisePass platform and have shared with us their amazing story which is our sincere pleasure to present to you.
Let us start from the beginning. Since their second year of High School — House of Barbaard founders Tom Goedhart and Guido de Leeuw have been best friends. Growing up 30 minutes outside of Amsterdam in the quiet, picturesque harbour town — Hoorn, the 2 first connected over their shared love of food.
During break times at school they would visit a local grocer on their way to Guido’s place where they would concoct new creations with a variety of ingredients. Working together to make something new and wonderful, this marked the beginning of a very special and creative bond.
Once they finished High School, Guido went off to Switzerland to study Hotel Management in a sprawling, breathtaking campus reminiscent of Hogwarts.
He studied alongside the offspring of the world’s elites and had to remain sharply dressed at all times. He was surrounded by a variety of cultures as many of his classmates were coming from Asia and other parts of the world. It was there that he met a very special girl from Vietnam that would prove to have a big impact on the futures of both gentlemen.
Tom stayed in Netherlands for university where he first studied interactive design and then completed a following degree focusing on product design. His studies also involved a 6-months internship in Shanghai which introduced him to the Asian way of life and left quite an impact on the way he saw the world. The two friends always kept in contact during their post-secondary studies however and Tom visited Guido at his Swiss school numerous times.
After their studies they both spent some time working in the Netherlands in their respective fields of interest. In 2010, Guido visited Hanoi and was captivated by its rawness. At this time the city was much different then it is today and, in many ways, represented the new frontier for such a young and hungry individual.
This was most apparent during his visit when he discovered a glaring flaw in the city. There didn’t appear to be any good places to find nice shirts for men. Coming from Europe, where fashion flourishes and having been used to dressing well since even before his time in university— Guido foresaw this limitation representing a great opportunity for the entrepreneurial spirited duo to capitalize in the form of a fashion line.
Both Tom and Guido share the same vision and hobbies and therefore any opportunities that either find during their travels are typically a point of interest for both. More so brothers than friends, Tom is naturally more inclined to the creative side of things as his background in design would suggest whereas Guido is more customer service oriented with his business and sales background. When combined, their yin and yang dynamic is a fantastic representation of the ancient philosophy working in harmony for the modern age.
As soon as Guido returned home to Holland, he gathered with Tom and they sat down to develop their business plan. They soon discovered however that their financial situation at that time was not realistic for such an ambitious endeavor and they were left back at square one.
‘It’s better to plant a seed, then to plant a tree and hope the roots stick.’
Shortly after, Tom was given some Reuzel pomade from his barber at the immensely popular Schorem. This ‘old-school barbershop’ is so internationally famous that it is not uncommon for people to travel all the way from Germany and beyond to then line up for hours just for a haircut. The Reuzel pomade ended up being so great in fact that Guido’s Vietnamese girlfriend suggested the idea of bringing it to Vietnam as there was no such product available in her country.
The men have always worked very fast and instantly called up the pomade producers at Reuzel and suggested setting up an Asian distribution center. The company was intrigued by the idea and gave them the go ahead and they immediately began work on creating various marketing channels for their project. On the same weekend, through a stroke of sheer luck or perhaps destiny, a massively circulated Vietnamese publication released a highly complementary article about Schorem and another article the following week about Reuzel.
The orders began pouring into their distribution channels with growing numbers and Guido decided one day to quit his job on the spot and move to Hanoi. His girlfriend’s family had a house in Hanoi where he stayed, and her family was able to help him set up meetings and make connections with some high-level government officials and customs agents. As a fully-foreign owned business this was essential in the success of accomplishing their goals in Vietnam.
To do business in Vietnam — You need the right connections.
Tom remained in the Netherlands during this time to finish up some work however they remained in constant communication, working together on every aspect of the business over phone and skype.
As the official distributor in Vietnam of the Reuzel pomade and in association with Schorem (which translates in English to scumbag), Guido felt the need to align himself with their sensibilities. He began dressing similar to a 1950s ‘greaser’ — complete with the leather jacket, slicked back hair, and the whole nine yards. He started off delivering the products to his customers himself. This helped him turn heads and gain interest around town and pretty soon he had familiarized himself with every winding lane in the city like the back of his hand.
Tom arrived just in time for their expansion into other products and their boom in popularity. Their merchandise became so popular in fact that people began bootlegging their products. Visiting relatives from Western countries would smuggle in suitcases filled with the pomade for the intention of underselling the dynamic Dutch duo. This was merely a small speed bump however and only the beginning of them having to deal with copycats.
Their innovative problem-solving mindset led them to develop hologram stickers for their products ensuring their clients of the authenticity of each purchase. They also began distributing their products to customers with ‘Thank You’ postcards signed by both Tom and Guido. This was a nice touch to the standard process and solidified their focus on high-quality branding to go along with their premium customer service.
As they continued to expand in customers and products they were constantly asked when Schorem would be coming to Vietnam. It became increasingly apparent that the demand was undoubtedly there and that the existing offerings throughout the country weren’t up to the standards that the market craved. During their time as brand representatives, they were witness to all of the industry’s shortcomings and how even the high-end venues in Vietnam that tried to copy Schorem consistently missed their mark.
The idea had been planted. ‘Why not open our own high-end barbershop the way we would want it.’ This eventually led them to detach themselves away from the image of Schorem — with their ‘scumbag-barbaric’ style and instead embrace their own more formal approach to the ‘bad boy’ style. They focused on their natural sensibilities — ‘being gentlemen with attitude.’ They weren’t entirely different from the Schorem style as they liked the connection to barbarianism however they wanted to do away with the ‘scumbag’ symbolism. After some thought they eventually decided on House of Barbaard by combining the English word ‘bar’ with ‘baard’ — Dutch for beard, and conveniently ‘Barbaard’ without a ‘d’ — Barbaar is Dutch for barbarian.
The only problem was that they weren’t barbers. They did however have contacts to all the right people and were and remain firm believers in the philosophy that if you want to do something, you have to do it right. They began formulating a plan, finding investors and locally sourced talent across Vietnam as well as looking at importing experts from Holland to educate their team on best practices.
Bringing their mission in Vietnam full circle, they ended up recruiting the man behind the Reuzel and Schorem articles in the Vietnamese publication for their head of marketing as well as the exact Dutchman who started this whole journey by giving Tom the Reuzel pomade, to help educate their recruits.
Since we aren’t barbers ourselves, we come at things differently and that gives us an edge.
From there they went about ensuring that their team of barbers would be highly skilled in a variety of applicable arenas and not just in hair styling. They set up a barber school and recruited the most passionate, best possible applicants from all over the country to make the best team possible.
They ended up with 50 applicants and held 3 different interview stages to join the school. The first was an introduction where they had discussions with each individual recruit to see whether they shared the same passion and motivation. Next was to examine basic knowledge with tools, scissors as well as general social skills with strangers.
For the final stage, there were 15 recruits remaining and they were broken into 2 teams. They were then asked to participate in the ‘Escape Game’ to see how well they worked together. This was quite a genius and innovative tactic and likely one that will be used by companies in the future as it was important for Tom and Guido to recruit people that were strong team players.
Those that succeeded in the interview process were inducted into their barber school which included ‘gentlemen classes’. They were taught about the company’s vision and standards as well as traditional procedures of being cordial, offering good-natured hospitality, and other soft skills. Tom and Guido also had a very unorthodox approach to typical training programs in Vietnam as they gave participants salaries. The team of applicants who made it through now work for House of Barbaard are now thriving in their new environment — networking and building relationships with the elites of Vietnam on a daily basis.
We are not a company, we are a club and we treat all our people as family.
They opened their first shop in Hanoi in January of 2017 and grew in popularity so rapidly that they quickly expanded to HCMC after only 1 year in business. What they found was that wealthy men from around the country would fly to Hanoi for the weekend with the primary reason being to get a haircut at House of Barbaard. The definition of men on a mission, once in HCMC they converted a former Airbnb into the grand establishment it is today in under 1 month.
They never cheated on quality however and leveraged each other’s educated skills and opinions to the fullest extent, sharing the decision process of all aspects of the business. They saved countless dollars with Tom’s design prowess and Guido’s hospitality expertise. As always, they take great pride in their work and consider themselves perfectionists. They have successfully managed to simultaneously maintain a very high attention to detail while preserving the big-picture focus necessary for business founders.
This has also been imprinted onto the entire team. ‘The longer people work with us, the more they gain confidence — taking initiative and thinking and acting for themselves.’ This is a priceless lesson. Since they started, not a single team member has left the company. Two have tried but they ended up coming back quickly.
They never give up on their team nor their dreams and now that their brand has taken off and become so successful they have begun working on releasing their own clothing line as they had originally intended. They have established their own subculture with a loyal following and therefore have created the demand for their ideas through a rather unique and extraordinary introductory journey.
Certainly, you will see the appeal and the reasons for its popularity once you enter their lavish locations and experience the services they offer. An old-fashioned barbershop, on paper they specialize in two things — haircuts and beard grooming. House of Barbaard however is much more than a typical barbershop — it’s a lifestyle. Just like WisePass, they’ve created a safe-haven for the modern gentleman and they are not likely to slow down anytime soon.
