Byredo Founder Ben Gorham on Working Out to Bulk Up in Middle Age - The Wall Street Journal

The gym is where Byredo founder Ben Gorham's brain goes into full creative mode. By the time he arrives at his studio in Stockholm, his day becomes a scheduled lineup of meetings and other duties, so the meditative state he gets into while working out is key. Gorham, 44, who pursued professional basketball before starting his fragrance and luxury home goods company, has spent the last year getting into lifting weights. "I read something about the depletion of muscle mass in middle-aged men," he says with a laugh. "I was doing a lot of trail running and climbing and surfing and skiing, but I felt like I needed to start bulking a little more." 

Gorham founded Byredo in 2006. Over the years, the company's scents, with ethereal names like Mojave Ghost and Rose of No Man's Land, have gained a cult following, prompting Byredo to expand beyond perfume, candles and body care into categories including sunglasses, leather goods and, most recently, makeup. In June, the fashion and fragrance group Puig, which owns brands like Carolina Herrera, Dries Van Noten and Christian Louboutin, announced it had acquired a majority stake in Byredo.

"It was a bit like dating multiple people," Gorham says of the acquisition process. "You were trying to imagine a future in a short period of time with a number of different people and corporations." Here, he also speaks to WSJ. about why ignorance can be an incredible driving force and the notebook where most of his ideas begin.

What time do you get up on Mondays, and what's the first thing you do after waking up?

Between 6 and 6:30 a.m. I'm either on the road traveling, which is less and less—even beyond Covid, it's something I've tried to limit. When I'm in Stockholm, it's full "go" mode with the kids. Get them up, breakfast, ready for school and then drop-off at school.

Do you have a go-to breakfast?

The youngest is in a cereal mode. The very simple Swedish breakfast is toast with butter and cheese and sometimes porridge. And then weekends tend to be the waffles and the pancakes.

What about caffeine, are you a coffee or tea drinker?

I drink coffee, usually after my workout. I try to just do water in the morning, drop off the kids and then go to the gym.

Do you take any vitamins?I try to eat enough fruit to not eat supplements. The only thing I do take is vitamin D because we live in Sweden so in terms of sunshine, Sweden is notorious for the limited hours of daylight. 

Do you set aside a specific time to brainstorm or reflect or meditate or journal?

Airplanes used to really do that for me. Until the Wi-Fi started to be very efficient, it was really a bubble where I could gather my thoughts. I wouldn't call it a journal, but I do have an extensive notebook with ideas and notes. 

When you're creating a new scent, how does that process start and what does it look like?

The notebook that I mentioned is this place where all these ideas [start]. Once an idea is strong enough, it starts to manifest itself into a tangible brief—anything from pictures to poetry to objects to ideas. That's what I usually brief the perfumer with and from that, we start a process. He creates an initial interpretation and we start a process of modifications. That can take anywhere from six to 24 or 36 months, with hundreds of iterations. 

Congratulations on the acquisition—did you always know you wanted Byredo to be acquired? 

I didn't always know. I think I always looked at the big groups because I was so competitive, so those became my ultimate competitors… whether it was Puig, which is the smaller of them, but then [Estée] Lauder, Chanel and

L'Oréal. I also started to realize quite early that I was going to need help in truly realizing the potential for the brand and part of that was resources and structures. At this point, I'm in my 16th or 17th year since I founded the brand. It's very clear that the next step up requires a bit more muscle. 

What made the smaller house the right fit?

I was very grateful to have been in the process and gotten to know all the big groups. With Puig, it was their track record working with founders, whether it was Dries [van Noten] or Charlotte Tilbury or even Paco Rabanne way back in the day. Founders stayed with them and worked with them for a very long time. We also share this kind of underdog emotion, that kind of chip on my shoulder has always been a driving force to compete. 

Do you have plans to expand into any new categories this year?

This year, we're still focused on makeup, [which] is really growing crazy for us, which we're super grateful for. With that momentum, I still have to learn the business of makeup, because we've been fragrance and leather and other accessories for a while now. The one I've been working on for two years now is skincare. It's becoming this new obsession.

How did the acquisition feel emotionally?

When you reach certain milestones or goals, it's hard to celebrate. Because you've convinced yourself for so long that things are that way. The emotional response was maybe a bit different than I thought it might be. It doesn't mean I'm taking it for granted. It's this kind of athletic approach of visualization that's been going on for so long.

My sister called me and she said that she'd googled the chances, because I used to be a basketball player, of making the NBA and she came up with some obscure number of the likelihood of that happening. And then she said, "I Googled the likelihood of building a company from scratch to this magnitude," and she said it was way, way harder. That brought me some solace.

The cliche of entrepreneurship is often if you'd known how hard it would be, you'd never have done it. There's some truth in that. But I also think that ignorance is such an incredible force for pushing through. 

Since you mentioned a potential skincare expansion, I wanted to ask about that part of your routine. 

It's evolving. That was kind of the first thing, just understanding the lengths that women go to to take care of their skin. More and more guys too. Right now, I'm trying most of my wife's products but it's still simple in terms of cleansing and moisturizing. It's starting to become clear even scientifically that all those steps are not necessarily that useful. I'm trying to simplify that. 

What's one piece of advice you've gotten that's guided you? 

My mother always said, like most mothers, encouraging their kids that they could do anything they wanted. I think I believed that at a very young age. I think that's truly empowered me and it's helped me not see limitations the way other people do. It may be simple but I really think I took that to heart a very long time ago. 

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.