Pink clay turns to gold for Melbourne entrepreneur James Hachem
James Hachem, the son of world poker champ Joe Hachem, launched his skincare business using personal savings and an Amex card. Now it’s on track to hit an eight figure annual turnover.
Fiona Byrne
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Pink clay has turned to gold for Melbourne entrepreneur James Hachem.
Hachem, the son of 2005 World Series of Poker Main Event champion Joe Hachem, launched Alya Skin with his friend and business partner Manny Barbas in 2018 using personal savings and an Amex card.
Incredibly, Alya Skin is on track to hit an eight figure annual turnover next year.
The brand’s hero product is a pink clay facial mask.
“We saw a gap in the market for clay masks. They were trending on google, trending on Instagram, and so we researched the product and came up with Alya which is a pink clay mask using Australian ingredients,” Hachem, 24, said.
“It launched two and a half years ago and we are in 1500 stores in Australia, New Zealand and Canada. We have a goal to have 10 products in the range by the end of next year and be in 5000 stores globally.”
With four skincare products currently available, Hachem said he and Barbas were confident from the get go that they had backed a winner.
“We went all in from the very start. No matter what happened we were going to make this work because we believed in the product,” he said.
“We invested all our own money in it and at one point had an Amex that we were funding it on. Now fortunately it is paying off and continues to grow.”
While Alya’s growth has been partly because of its popularity with digital influencers, Hachem said the quality of the skin care range was what kept people coming back.
“The product has to speak for itself,” he said.
“You can only market so much. If the product is not great then people are not going to come back and purchase it.”
Hachem is part of a wave of ‘next generation’ sons and daughters of well-known Melburnians who are making their mark in business, fashion, sport and entertainment.