When it comes to purchasing deodorant, aftershave, lip balm and other personal care products, entrepreneur Kyle LaFond has a mantra he shares often with people.
“If you don’t know what it is, if you don’t know what it does, stay away from it,” LaFond, founder of Blue Mounds-based American Provenance, said of the importance in reviewing ingredient labels.
LaFond, a former middle school science teacher, said this belief became crystal clear as he grappled with the fog of additives, chemicals and preservatives that permeated his classroom from the products his students were using.
“It’s all things people shouldn’t be exposed to at that age — or any age,” said LaFond, who eventually left the teaching profession to launch American Provenance in 2015. The startup sells products like deodorant, aftershave and beard balm, which are made without chemicals, additives and artificial ingredients.
Several steps, he said, took place before he made the monumental professional leap. LaFond’s expertise in science prompted a desire to tinker with personal care products that lacked all of those unpronounceable ingredients.
Slowly, LaFond said he began sharing his homemade products with friends, family and acquaintances.
“As I was sharing them with people, I was asking them for honest feedback,” LaFond said. “I also was at a turning point in my career.”
Behind the scenes, several steps also came into play to make LaFond’s interest a full-fledged business venture.
Initially, LaFond said he took the traditional pathway of seeking out loans from financial institutions, which he said were risk averse. Eventually, LaFond said he turned to other sources, including venture capital.
This spring two groups—Winnebago Seed Fund and Tru Fragrance and Beauty—pumped a combined $500,000 in investment dollars into the business, which LaFond said will help American Provenance continue to grow.
Other milestones also have cropped up in the company’s brief existence. American Provenance’s products line the shelves of such national and regional retailers as Whole Foods and Hy-Vee.
Currently, about half of American Provenance’s sales are from brick-and-mortar retailers, while the other half are online orders.
“We’ve been very fortunate, and we’ve been able to work with a lot of great people,” LaFond said.
While the funding and partnerships have been pivotal backbones to the business, LaFond said other sources — some often overlooked — also have given American Provenance the muscle it has today.
Throughout American Provenance’s growth trajectory, LaFond said he mined the resources of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Small Business Development Center and received valuable advice.
“It’s a free resource,” he said. “It’s been fantastic to take advantage of what they have to offer.”
One outward sign of American Provenance’s growth took place this past month. The company relocated from a farm in Blue Mounds, which has been in LaFond’s family for four generations, to a nearby standalone facility, which he selected with assistance from local government.
But LaFond said he has no intention of uprooting operations outside Blue Mounds, a rural community west of Madison.
“My family has a long history in this township, and I wanted to stay very close to my roots,” LaFond said.
