Andy Sims’ side hustle wins coveted award

Andy Sims with his Beard Awards certificate. Photo / Grace Odlum

It was nine years ago when Andy Sims started his beard care business in his garage, and he had no idea it would turn into an award-winning brand.

Sims spent 18 years as a builder, before he noticed a gap in the market and started his “side hustle”.

At the time, he and his wife were living in Johnsonville and there was an obvious need for men’s grooming essentials, but not many options.

Sims started importing various products to sell and eventually, as his business grew, he began creating his own products too.

He said balancing his building career with running Bearded was difficult at first, but when Covid hit he had a lot more time to put into his small business, and eventually he gave up building altogether.

“With having that time on my hands, I thought ‘I’m going to give this stuff a crack’.

Andy Sims.

“Bearded got that big that I had to make the decision to hang up the tool belt or pursue Bearded.”

It was actually during that Covid lockdown that Sims grew his first beard, as he needed to test his newly created products.

“I never used to have a beard ... I was the lab rat.”

He also got in touch with his tattoo artist to get a logo designed and sent them a picture of himself with his beard to base it off.

“That’s actually a skeleton version of my own face, which is pretty cool.”

Shortly after the decision to do Bearded full time, Sims and his wife made the move to Paraparaumu Beach, and he upgraded from the garage into a small studio in Ihakara St, Paraparaumu, where he creates his products, packages them and ships them to his customers.

“The studio is like a home away from home, that’s what I made it to be.”

The business is essentially online only, but Sims said he does get a lot of foot traffic in-store too, and when those customers want to buy something, he gives them a code for free shipping, and they can pay online and take the products.

His business is growing quickly too, and much to Sims’ surprise, he was nominated for every single category at this year’s Beard Awards in Auckland.

Some of the popular Bearded products.

The awards, which are a charity event for men’s mental health, were held in July and consisted of both Australian and New Zealand beard care brands, and while it was too expensive to enter every one of those categories, Sims put his best products forward.

After having their products sampled by several judges, Bearded managed to win the best shampoo/conditioner category with their beard wash, and Sims said they also got five honourable mentions in other categories.

“It’s kind of amazing how it’s taken off.

“We welcome anyone in who wants to come in and say hi.”