The Vicious Grooming founder on why most men need one simple routine, not a shelf of products — and why caring for yourself is an act of self-respect.
1. The man in the mirror every morning
Ask Jalen Gage which of his daily habits would surprise people most, and he does not reach for anything exotic. “Grooming myself daily.” Four words. No cold plunge, no 4 a.m. manifesto. For a founder whose whole company is built on the idea that care is a discipline, the answer is less a confession than a thesis.
Jalen runs Vicious Grooming, a men’s grooming brand that, in his words, “helps men look sharp and feel confident through quality beard care—because showing up with purpose starts with how you care for yourself.” He is also the face behind @jalen_gage, an Atlanta-based Instagram account in men’s lifestyle, fashion and travel that roughly 111,000 people follow.
Most founder profiles start with a product. This one starts with a ritual, because that is where Jalen starts. The product exists to serve the ritual. The ritual exists to serve something larger, which he names without hedging in the question he wrote for himself: “That you’re worth the effort.”
That line matters because it is not a slogan pulled from a pitch deck. It is the answer he gave when the form handed him a blank and told him to ask himself anything. Out of every question he could have asked, he asked what his brand should stand for beyond beard care.
RelatedPrincess Keilani: Freedom Over Fame
So this is a story about beard oil, and it is not. It is a story about a man who has decided that the smallest promise you keep to yourself each morning is the first brick of every larger one. “I want men to carry that same care into their health, relationships, and the promises they make to themselves.”
2. The Attractive Character
Russell Brunson’s Expert Secrets argues that people do not follow products; they follow a person. He calls that person the Attractive Character, and he says the character is built from a backstory, a set of parables, real character flaws and a clear polarity, a stance some people will love and others will push against.
Jalen’s backstory is not a rags-to-riches movie. It is quieter and, for a lot of working men, more familiar. “It wasn’t one dramatic moment,” he wrote. “It was realizing that spending two weeks away from home every month left me with little time and energy to build Vicious Grooming.”
His flaw is one he names himself. “My biggest failure was letting overthinking delay my launch. I kept waiting until everything looked perfect instead of giving customers a chance to try the product.” Brunson would say that admission is an asset. A founder who confesses his own hesitation gives the customer permission to stop hesitating too.
His polarity is the sharpest thing on the form. “I believe the grooming industry sells too much complexity. Most men don’t need a shelf full of products—they need a simple routine, products that do what they promise, and consistency.” That is a position that a good share of his own industry, built on twelve-step routines and endless SKUs, would rather he not say out loud.
Put those pieces together and the character comes into focus: a working man, often away from home, who overthought his launch, learned from it, and now tells other men they are overthinking their grooming too. He is not selling perfection. He is selling the decision to show up anyway.
3. The origin: building something he owned
Every founder story has a hinge, the moment the old life stops making sense. Jalen is honest that his hinge was not a single slammed door. It was arithmetic. Two weeks away from home every month leaves a man with what is left over, and what was left over was not enough to build a brand.
“I wanted my hard work to build something I owned—and give me more control over my time, my future, and the life I’m creating.” The sentence has three objects, time, future and life, and one verb that carries the whole weight of it: own.
That is the classic first step of the hero’s journey that Brunson borrows for the Epiphany Bridge. The hero lives in an ordinary world, feels the cost of staying there, and takes one step toward a new one. Jalen’s step was a single product: Vanilla Ember beard oil.
He describes what changed when the work first paid him. “The first real money showed me that something I created had value. It made me want to invest in myself, build something I owned, and turn that first win into lasting income.” He does not say how much. He does not need to. The point of the first dollar was never the dollar.
What Jalen describes is the moment a hobby becomes evidence. Before the first sale, the brand is an idea. After it, the brand is proof that strangers will trade money for something he made. Everything since has been an attempt to turn that single piece of proof into a system.
4. The Epiphany Bridge: the overthinking trap
Brunson’s Epiphany Bridge is the story of how the storyteller discovered the thing he now teaches. The idea is simple: if you walk your audience across the same bridge you crossed, they arrive at the same belief on their own, without being sold.
Jalen’s bridge runs straight through his biggest failure. He waited. He polished. He told himself the product was not ready. “It cost me time, potential sales, and feedback I needed.” Those are three separate losses, and only one of them is money.
“The lesson: launch something you’re proud of, listen, and improve as you go.”
Proud, not perfect. Listen, not guess. Improve as you go, not before you begin. Notice that this lesson is the same one he teaches about grooming. The man with the rough, dry beard is waiting for the perfect routine. The founder with the unlaunched product is waiting for the perfect launch. Both are stalled by the same thing, and both are freed by the same move: start with one simple thing done every day.
That symmetry is what makes Jalen’s story work as an Epiphany Bridge. His customer does not have to believe a claim about beard oil. He only has to recognize himself in a man who was stuck, made one decision, and kept going.
5. Criticism versus obscurity
The form asks a question most founders dodge: obscurity or criticism, which have you feared more? Jalen did not dodge. “I’ve feared criticism more—putting my name and face behind something invites judgment.”
That is an unusual admission for someone with an audience of roughly 111,000 people. You would expect a man with that reach to have made peace with being looked at. But being looked at as a style account and being judged as a founder are two different things. A photograph can be liked. A product can be returned.
He has done the math on the alternative, though. “But staying unnoticed costs me more.” It is the founder’s version of a bad trade: the pain of criticism is sharp and short, while the cost of obscurity is quiet and permanent.
His answer to the fear is a practice, not a pep talk. “I’m learning to show up consistently, stand behind my product, and let feedback help me build a stronger brand.” Show up, stand behind, let feedback in. Each is a small act of exposure, repeated until it stops feeling like exposure.
This is where Jalen’s story meets the Guild’s. Builders who put their names on the work will always attract judgment. The answer the Guild proposes, and the one Jalen has already chosen, is to keep the record public and keep shipping, so the work speaks louder than the doubt.
6. The Big Domino
In Expert Secrets, the Big Domino is the one belief that, once a customer accepts it, knocks down every other objection. Brunson’s own example was about funnels. Every brand has one, whether it has written it down or not.
Jalen’s Big Domino is sitting in plain sight on his form. If a man believes that caring for himself is an act of self-respect, then the price, the brand, the routine and the two minutes each morning stop being objections. They become the obvious way to act on something he already believes.
He says it in his thousand-year answer: “The belief that caring for yourself is an act of self-respect. Products will change, but I’d want men to keep showing up with discipline, taking pride in themselves, and passing that example to the next generation.”
The second half of that sentence is a quiet piece of strategy. “Products will change.” He is telling us the product is not the domino. The belief is. A founder who knows that can change a scent, a bottle or a price without ever changing what the brand means.
Written as a Big Domino statement in Brunson’s format, it reads like this (our framing, not his words): if we can make men believe that a simple daily grooming routine is an act of self-respect, and that Vicious Grooming makes that routine easy to keep, every other objection becomes irrelevant.
7. The customer who can’t sleep
Brunson insists that you must know your dream customer better than he knows himself. Jalen’s description is specific enough to cast: “A man aged 25–45 who takes pride in his appearance and wants his beard to match the care he puts into his wardrobe.”
The problem that keeps that man up at night is not vanity. It is a mismatch. He has done the work on the wardrobe. The beard has not caught up. “He’s frustrated by a dry, rough, unruly beard and needs a simple grooming routine that helps him look polished and feel confident every day.”
Look at the words Jalen chose: frustrated, simple, polished, confident, every day. That is not the vocabulary of a luxury brand selling an occasion. It is the vocabulary of a utility brand selling a habit, which is exactly what his contrarian belief about the industry predicts.
His own audience on Instagram, built around men’s lifestyle, fashion and travel, is close to that profile by design. Men who follow a style account are men who already care how they show up. The leap from caring about a jacket to caring about a beard is a short one.
The Guild lesson here is that the best customer description is not a demographic. It is a feeling the founder recognizes because he has had it. Jalen’s dream customer sounds a lot like Jalen on a morning before he built the brand.
8. The offer and the price
Jalen’s offer, in his words: “Our Vanilla Ember beard oil softens and conditions beards with a blend of nourishing oils and a signature scent for $20. It’s made for the man who wants a polished beard and a simple daily routine—quality care, distinctive fragrance, and an accessible price.”
Three promises sit in that last clause, and each one lines up with a pillar. Quality care is the product. Distinctive fragrance is the identity. Accessible price is the respect for the customer, the refusal to make self-care a luxury tax.
For context, retail comparisons we checked on November 15, 2026, listed widely sold beard oils from about $12 an ounce (Cremo Palo Santo, about $11.99–$12.92) to $28 an ounce (Jack Black), with Honest Amish Classic at $13.87 for two ounces. A $20 signature-scent oil, his figure, sits in the middle of that shelf, which is where a brand built on “accessible” belongs.
Brunson would call the $20 bottle the front of the Value Ladder, the first, easy yes. The question every founder at this stage faces is what comes after the first yes. Jalen named it himself as his biggest obstacle: “turning attention into consistent sales.” That is the right obstacle to have. It means the product exists and the audience exists. What is missing is the bridge between them, and that bridge is a system, not a bigger post.
9. The Linchpin: a system that sells while he’s away
Brunson’s 2023 book The Linchpin argues that a business stops being a string of launches when it is anchored by continuity, recurring revenue that keeps paying while the founder does other work. He lays it out in nine steps across three stages: a continuity program and a “Most Incredible Free Gift Ever,” then a bulk-continuity offer sold by a Dramatic Demonstration, then a high-ticket offer sold by a second one.
Jalen did not use the word continuity, but he described the need for it almost exactly. “I need a repeatable system that converts followers into customers, brings them back, and keeps sales moving while I’m away at work.” Converts, brings back, keeps moving. That is a subscription described by someone who has not yet built one.
Beard oil is one of the most natural continuity products there is. A bottle runs out. A man who uses it every day, the habit Jalen himself practices, will need another one on a schedule he could almost set a calendar by. Brunson’s first step, “Create Your Continuity Or Subscription Program,” fits the product as if it were written for it.
A Linchpin path for Vicious Grooming might look like this, offered as our proposal and not as anything Jalen has announced: a refill club for Vanilla Ember as the continuity; a free-sample or first-bottle offer as the free gift; a 30-day “groomed with purpose” challenge on Instagram as the first Dramatic Demonstration, using his own tagline; and later, a premium kit or barbershop partnership as the high-ticket rung.
The appeal for Jalen is personal, not just financial. The whole origin of the brand was time away from home. A continuity engine is, in the most literal sense, a way for the business to keep his promises to customers on the weeks he cannot be there to keep them himself.
10. Daily attention, daily proof
Ask Jalen what he does every single day to earn attention, and he gives a working plan, not a vibe. “I’m building daily visibility through one grooming or lifestyle post, behind-the-scenes Stories, and genuine conversations with my audience.”
That is three channels with three jobs. The post is the public proof. The Stories are the backstage, the part Brunson says builds the Attractive Character fastest. The conversations are where followers turn into people with names, and people with names turn into customers.
Brunson’s Linchpin calls this engine the Attractive Character Flywheel, and every one of its nine steps ends the same way: you launch the offer to the world by putting the character in front of people again and again. Jalen already has the flywheel turning. What he is building now is the offer it can spin toward.
His tagline is short enough to fit on the bottle and in a bio: “Vicious Grooming — Groomed with purpose.” His pillars read like a checklist he could post every week: “Quality · Confidence · Discipline · Self-Respect · Purpose.” Five words, each a theme for a post, a Story or a challenge day.
The daily cadence is also the answer to his fear of criticism. Nobody gets used to judgment by being judged once a year. You get used to it by showing up every day until the showing up is the ordinary part.
11. No rivals and a five-year horizon
Most founders, asked to name a rival, name a company. Jalen declined. “I don’t have rivals. I’m only competing with myself.” It is a short answer, and for a brand built on self-respect, a consistent one.
His planning horizon is equally plain: “5 years.” Not a decade-long manifesto, not next quarter. Five years is long enough to build a real brand and short enough to be accountable to.
What does he want at the end of it? He did not soften this one. His 10X goal: “Build Vicious Grooming into a $10 million men’s grooming brand—on shelves nationwide and part of the daily routine of one million men.”
That goal has two halves, and the second matters more than the first. Ten million dollars is a revenue number. One million men with a daily routine is a habit number. Only the second one is the belief from the Big Domino coming true at scale.
Brunson would note that a goal stated in customers’ daily lives, rather than in the founder’s bank account, is itself part of the Attractive Character. It tells the audience who the brand is really for. Jalen’s answer tells them it is for them.
12. The Guild DNA: space, superintelligence and legacy
Every Nightlife Report Guild interview ends with questions that have nothing to do with business and everything to do with the kind of person who builds one. They ask about space, about machines, about what survives you. Jalen answered the ones he chose to answer, and he left others blank, which is his right.
On life beyond Earth, he picked the boldest option on the form: “Out among the stars — no ceiling.” He left blank the questions about space exploration in general and about taking a one-way trip himself, so we will not put words in his mouth about either. But “no ceiling” is consistent with everything else he wrote. It is the 10X goal pointed at the sky.
On superintelligence, he gave the most considered answer on the form. “Both. As a business owner, I see the opportunity to turn ideas into reality faster and give small brands access to capabilities once reserved for big companies. The threat is handing over too much control or trusting decisions we don’t understand. I want machines to expand what people can do, with people accountable for how they’re used.”
On legacy, he was local and honest: “My family and people I know.” And on what he would want still in use a thousand years from now, he went straight back to the Big Domino: “The belief that caring for yourself is an act of self-respect.” Asked how far ahead he plans, he said five years. A man who plans five years out and hopes his belief lasts a thousand has already separated the plan from the purpose.
Put together, this is the DNA the Guild looks for in a Champion: no ceiling on ambition, accountability for the tools, a legacy measured in the people around him, and a belief bigger than his own product. In his own TED-talk title, it fits on one line: “Stop Waiting to Become the Man You Respect.”
13. The talk he would give
The form gives every interviewee eighteen imaginary minutes on a TED stage. Jalen’s title is “Stop Waiting to Become the Man You Respect.” It reads like the whole interview compressed into nine words.
“Stop Waiting” is his failure turned into advice: the launch he delayed, the perfect moment that never arrived. “Become” is the hero’s journey, a man in motion rather than a finished product. “the Man You Respect” is the Big Domino, self-respect as the reason for everything else.
Brunson writes that an expert’s message is strongest when it can be taught as a story the audience can step into. Jalen’s title does that. Any man can hear it and immediately supply his own version of what he is waiting for.
It also says something about the brand’s future. A title like that is not about beard oil. It is about the routine, the discipline and the promise kept to yourself, which means the brand has room to grow into anything that serves the same belief.
The Guild’s job is to give builders like Jalen the record and the room to deliver that talk for real. The work comes first. The stage comes later. He has already written the title.
14. What Nightlife Report sees next
Jalen arrives at Nightlife Report with three assets most first-year founders do not have together: a real product with a stated price, a sizeable and relevant audience, and a clear, contrarian belief about his own industry.
He also arrives with a clearly named gap. “The biggest obstacle is turning attention into consistent sales.” He is not asking for more followers. He is asking for a system. That is a sign of a founder who has already done the hard first half of the work.
The path we would suggest, and only suggest, follows the two books his own answers keep pointing to. From Expert Secrets: keep telling the Epiphany Bridge, the overthinking story, because it is his strongest piece of content. From The Linchpin: build the refill club before the next product, so the business keeps moving on the weeks he is away.
The Guild can help with the parts a founder cannot do alone: the published record, the vouched hours, the introductions to barbers, stylists and photographers in the Guild who serve the same customer. He is being named to the Guild’s Founding Roll as a Founding Member, initiation pending, at Level 1, with no verified voucher hours yet.
His last word on the form is the right place to end. “That you’re worth the effort.” For Jalen Gage, that is not a tagline. It is the routine, the business and the reason, all in one line.
The carousel
Twenty slides, built from his own photographs and his own words. Photo: courtesy Jalen Gage, except slide 17, which uses a NASA/ESA Hubble Ultra Deep Field still.
Sources and credits
- Nightlife Report Interview: Founders & Creatives form, submitted November 15, 2026, 7:02 a.m. Pacific Time. Quotes in this article are verbatim from that form.
- Public Instagram profile @jalen_gage, as read November 15, 2026: Atlanta; Men’s Lifestyle / Fashion / Travel; about 111,000 followers.
- Public Linktree: linktr.ee/gagejalen.
- Vicious Grooming website: viciousgrooming.com. The $20 Vanilla Ember price is his figure, from the form.
- Russell Brunson, Expert Secrets, and The Linchpin (2023). Used here as analytical lenses. Neither author has any connection to Jalen Gage or to Nightlife Report.
- Beard-oil retail comparisons, read November 15, 2026: whollykaw.com/learn/best-beard-oil and youngcotton.com/best-beard-oils-for-men (Honest Amish Classic $13.87 / 2 oz; Cremo Palo Santo about $11.99–$12.92 / 1 oz; Jack Black $28.00 / 1 oz).
- Photographs: courtesy Jalen Gage. Cropped and graded only. No AI-generated likeness. No AI-generated product shots.
- Carousel slide 17 background: NASA, ESA / Hubble Ultra Deep Field.
Interview conducted by written questionnaire through the Nightlife Report Interview: Founders & Creatives form, November 15, 2026. Photos: courtesy Jalen Gage. Want to be interviewed? Get interviewed.
You might also like
New NewsThe Clinic That Is Not Yet Built: A Field Observation of Giving A Smile’s Smile Under the Stars Gala
GuidesNYC Clubs and Apps for Making Friends: A Run Club, a Book Club and a Dinner App
Black Friday 2026 Starts Today: The Calendar From Target to Cyber Monday
CultureIs There Room for You? The Full Heaven Room Investigation
Guides4 LA Clubs and Groups for Women Who Want Real Friends
New Field ReportsI Don’t Romanticize Struggle. I Understand It.
Leave a Reply