{"id":25035,"date":"2021-11-16T12:11:39","date_gmt":"2021-11-16T12:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/localhost:10003\/?post_type=scaleup&p=25035"},"modified":"2024-07-30T14:47:30","modified_gmt":"2024-07-30T13:47:30","slug":"entrepreneurship-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ecommercefulfilment.com\/resources\/scale-up\/entrepreneurship-week\/","title":{"rendered":"Entrepreneurs Week: Losses, Learnings & Leaps of Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"James<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Global Entrepreneurship Week<\/a>\u00a0was founded 13 years ago to celebrate and empower entrepreneurs in every country and community around the world, especially those who face barriers to launching their own businesses.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Every November, 10 million people take part in\u00a0#GEW<\/a>\u00a0activities and events that inspire them to make connections and gain knowledge from those entrepreneurs who were once in their start-up shoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Tuesday 9 November, founders from eCommerce businesses came together at The Scale Up\u2019s dedicated \u2018Celebrating Entrepreneurship Week\u2019 event, hosted by founder of\u00a0J&J Global Fulfilment, James Hyde.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As well as hearing from specialists in\u00a0global expansion<\/a>\u00a0and digital marketing, our guests listened to the start-up to scale up tales of independent games studio\u00a0CluedUpp Games<\/a>\u00a0and Irish-based, inclusive athleisure brand,\u00a0Peachylean<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are just a few of many highlights and takeaways from the presentations, discussions and Q&As\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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\"A<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

CluedUpp Games<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Tref Griffiths, founder of CluedUpp Games, once headed up Customer Services at J&J and enjoyed engaging in game nights alongside his day job.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Those \u2018doing something fun outside of work\u2019 activities soon became something much more, something hugely successful. So, as no surprise, James accepted Tref\u2019s resignation letter and wished Tref the best of luck in his new venture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CluedUpp Games is a cross between Pokemon Go and Cluedo, using augmented reality through a phone app to take players on a murder mystery tour. Players are presented with a number of clues to try and work out who committed the crime. The first location for the platform was in Milton Keynes in 2017, led by a very small yet specialist CluedUpp Games team. You\u2019ll now find CluedUpp Games in over 80 countries \u2013 but interestingly it\u2019s still played in English.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it came to expanding globally into those 80 countries, Tref took the slightly more risky but definitely more entrepreneurship approach. He\u2019d identify a new city, test it with his team, put it out there and see how it fares. And it worked. Sometimes you just need to take a leap of faith when growing your business \u2013 there\u2019s a lot that can be said of \u2018gut feeling\u2019 when it comes to identifying the right place, at the right time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peachylean<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Next up, Sharon Keegan, Founder of Peachylean and \u2018Chief Confidence Creator\u2019. The Irish entrepreneur who impressed the Dragons\u2019 Den judges with her body-positive athleisurewear brand back in May 2021.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

After losing five stone and bouncing back from postnatal depression with her two boys, Sharon wanted to help other women going through similar experiences. Peachylean epitomises confidence and self-love with a strong brand message of supporting women in and outside of the gym, helping them to dream, believe and achieve anything they want. With its female empowerment message, Sharon says it\u2019s important that they stay true to their word, so the company made the decision to work with and employ a lot of women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since being offered investment from three of the five Dragons \u2013 Touker Suleyman, Sara Davis and Tej Levani, her international business has skyrocketed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAfter the Dragons\u2019 Den episode aired, we had hundreds of thousands of people on our website with thousands of orders. Without a really good fulfilment partner to help get those orders out on time, tracked, delivered and with feedback \u2013 we would have completely failed. That success would have been all for nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s really no point in driving masses amounts of traffic or spending on your digital marketing to create a huge amount of sales unless you have a watertight fulfilment partner like James and James.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe still use the Dragons as mentors and Touker Suleyman has been phenomenal in helping us to open stores in the UK. We\u2019ve found the UK market\u2019s been a more difficult nut to crack in comparison to Ireland and the US. That may be down to the Brexit movement and \u2018Buy British Buy Local\u2019 consumer mentality \u2013 and we\u2019re of course an Irish company. So while we\u2019ll always stay true to our roots, the Dragons\u2019 support in tapping into the UK consumer has been invaluable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On being asked what she\u2019d do differently, Sharon said, \u201cMaybe I would have created more technology products first. Community is core to everything we do as a brand and we have a vision to create a digital course or some kind of events system \u2013 in hindsight, we could have perhaps started with that. But, I honestly have no regrets. A lot of our failures were huge lessons, even during the six weeks of hell following the Dragons\u2019 Den airing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe started with very little money but we scaled very, very quickly. There are some days when our success could\u2019ve ultimately been our failure because we were running out of cash which is always such an issue for start-ups. You can only do what you can do with what you have.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quick-fire Masterclass: Global Ambition<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
    \n
  • When it comes to selecting the right manufacturing partners to work with, or any other global partner for that matter, it\u2019s important to do your research. Network and ask other brand founders if they have any recommended contacts \u2013 they\u2019ve been in your shoes and are usually willing to help. Sharon mentioned ISPO is a great trade show to attend for sussing out great apparel manufacturers specifically.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Having separate eCommerce storefronts, for example .co.uk vs .com, for different markets can be beneficial for SEO purposes. Bear in mind that this takes time and investment to do, particularly if translations are needed, so you\u2019ll need to weigh this up against how profitable those locales are for your business.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • When looking to expand your business in new territories, it\u2019s a good idea to be partnered with a fulfilment company who offer technology that enables you to sync inventory with multiple store fronts by warehouse. With data, you can choose where\u2019s best to ship from in the most cost-effective way, for both you and your end consumer.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • There are numerous levers you can pull from a marketing perspective to drive traffic to the products which you have surplus stock of. Follow the data. Where is the product selling organically? How much traffic\/revenue are you receiving from each location? Google Analytics is your best friend.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • When you\u2019re starting out it\u2019s about getting the product in front of different consumer groups, testing and validating. You can use social media without spending masses on marketing in the early days to find your community, your consumer, your avatar \u2013 whoever that may be.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Identifying global influencers to promote your products in different regions is straightforward (and easy if they\u2019re already advocates of your product type!) Try engaging with micro-influencers, not the huge influencers asking 10k for one post and three stories. Not everyone can afford this when starting out. Micro-influencers are the ambitious, creative types who are very active \u2013 they\u2019re \u2018The Builder\u2019, the person who wants to be a huge influencer one day.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • You\u2019ll find there\u2019ll be lots of tweaking along your scale up journey. You\u2019ll come across a lot of intricacies, especially when it comes to regulations, customs and duty per country. That said, with the right partners and a great marketing team, you can scale very, very quickly and it is manageable. Don\u2019t be afraid of \u2018going global\u2019. Just do it.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    This is the first year we\u2019ve been involved in Global Entrepreneurship Week, but it won\u2019t be the last. Through The Scale Up, we\u2019re championing the sharing of good practice across all areas for retail businesses – not just order fulfilment.<\/p>James Hyde, Founder – J&J Global Fulfilment<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cWe\u2019re always delighted to welcome entrepreneurs like Sharon Keegan and Tref Griffiths to our event panels \u2013 these are the inspiring individuals who\u2019ve started with very little and faced huge personal battles, yet made huge successes of their visions. Sharon in particular was very transparent about the challenges she\u2019s faced and there\u2019s nothing more invaluable than real-talk when you\u2019re starting out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Global Entrepreneurship Week\u00a0was founded 13 years ago to celebrate and empower entrepreneurs in every country and community around the world, especially those who face barriers to launching their own businesses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":24888,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"yes","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[376],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scale-up"],"acf":[],"modified_by":"James Dillon","featured_image_src":"https:\/\/www.ecommercefulfilment.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Untitled-design.png","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/www.ecommercefulfilment.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Untitled-design.png","author_info":{"display_name":"J&J Global Fulfilment","author_link":"https:\/\/www.ecommercefulfilment.com\/author\/james-and-james\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecommercefulfilment.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecommercefulfilment.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecommercefulfilment.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecommercefulfilment.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecommercefulfilment.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecommercefulfilment.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecommercefulfilment.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecommercefulfilment.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecommercefulfilment.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecommercefulfilment.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}