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“TRUST YOUR PEOPLE AND BELIEVE IN THEM”

SIX REASONS WHY GRIPPLE WENT INTO ORBIT…

FEBE meets the entrepreneur who:

• Built a £100m company that can never be sold
• Encouraged his staff to invest in their business
• Made it illegal for accountants to take control

In June 2018, Yorkshire entrepreneur Hugh Facey was at Buckingham Palace to receive his OBE. The businessman absorbed the serene, dignified ambience and watched as the Prince of Wales attached a ‘Most Excellent Order of the British Empire’ badge to Monty Don’s lapel. Next to receive his OBE was boxer Anthony Joshua. Then, up strode Hugh. The Royal smiled and politely offered: “So Mr Facey. You’re in manufacturing?”

“Yes, sir,” replied the entrepreneur.

“What do you make?”

“Gripples”

“Fantastic Gripple products, I see them everywhere. Brilliant. Wonderful. Well done,” said Charles. “And where’s your factory?”

“It’s in Sheffield, and you opened it SIR!” grinned the Sheffielder.

As the future King’s smile turned to laughter, he scoured his memory for the moment in 1994 that he’d cut the ribbon of Gripple HQ in Sheffield, later describing it as “one of the finest refurbishments of a listed building I’ve ever seen”.

The Facey Way

Fast forward to today, and FEBE is in that same building – The Old West Gun Works in Sheffield. We’re chatting with Hugh, 77 but still full of Yorkshire grit and working daily. Gripple – founded in 1989 to make wire-connecting products – now turns over more than £100m and employs 850 people globally. And his newer business, Loadhog – manufacturer of reusable, eco-friendly packing equipment – entered the FEBE Growth 100 last year with sales of £29m.

But we’re not here to look at the products, ingenious as they are. Instead, we’ve come to discover what drives that success; to be schooled in the ‘The Facey Way’. Because Hugh is an entrepreneur of such singularity that he’s become a national treasure, as his OBE suggests.

“Equality and no secrecy”

The anecdote above offers a clear insight into his character. “It’s simple,” says Hugh. “Everybody’s equal. We’re all part of the same family. The King’s the same as me. The cleaners here are the same as me. We’re no different. That’s how I run this business.”

And he puts his money where his mouth is. Equality permeates every aspect of life at Gripple and Loadhog. The boardroom is in the middle of the factory floor, and everyone, from cleaners to directors, sees the sales figures daily. “There’s none of that bloody secrecy round here,” says Gripple’s founder.

But that’s not all. Hugh hasn’t just created a culture of openness and equality but he has built his company on those ideals: he’s literally transformed the business into Gripple’s employee-ownership scheme. More on that later…

Beginnings

It all started at Sheffield Poly, now Hallam Uni, in the early 1960s, when Hugh took a Business Studies HND. “It was a ‘thick sandwich’ HND,” he says,” so called because you spent two years at college and one year in industry.”

Hugh joined Tinsley Wire in Sheffield – located where a giant IKEA now stands. The now-defunct company’s management (“it eventually got taken over by vulture capitalists – bloody awful people,” says Hugh) soon realised that their thick-sandwich graduate had a decent loaf. First, Hugh won a prize that saw him travel overseas to work for a wire company in Canada; then, when he returned aged 24, he was put in charge of the Sheffield sales office.

Two years later, Gripple’s future founder was sent to run a Tinsley factory in Spennymoor, County Durham, which was faring poorly. He turned it around rapidly, recruiting a new salesforce, developing the product range and entering new markets. Five years later, aged 31, he was back in Sheffield, married and promoted to group sales and marketing director.

Breaking free

As sales director, Hugh proposed a significant change. He wanted Tinsley to reduce its reliance on its five leading distributors who “weren’t doing anything except taking a cut”. But the board wouldn’t budge.

In response, Hugh set up his own business – Estate Wire – and went into competition with Tinsley in 1984.

“My decision was not well-liked,” he says understatedly. “The MD sent a chauffeur to pick me up. In his office, he asked: ‘Didn’t you think you could run this business one day?’ I told him I probably could, but not as well as you and I’d run it differently. He said: ‘Well, I think you should have stayed. But now we’ll make sure you fail.’ Fair enough, I thought, bring it on.”

An unpromising situation

However, the new entrepreneur had no factory, nada wire-making machines and zero customers. Seeing this gloomy scenario as a mild problem waiting to be solved, he convinced a Halifax-based company to back Estate Wire 50:50. Together, they bought a factory at Sheffield’s Manor Top and shipped in machines from Germany and raw materials from South Africa and Europe. In six weeks, Hugh bagged his first customer and never looked back.

Enter Gripple

Estate Wire grew to £5m and, in 1986, begot Gripple. The Eureka moment came on a windy Welsh hill. Hugh says: “I was talking to our sales agent in Wales. On his farm he demonstrated how farmers must tie knots in the wires fences to connect them. That led to an idea: could we create a product that would grip the wires and add tension? It developed into Gripple.”

Massive growth

It was a big moment. Today, Gripple products connect wires all over the globe, including the world’s longest fence – the 5,624km Dingo Barrier in Australia – and in countless vineyards supporting the vines. Evolutions of the original Gripple product are used ubiquitously too. For example, there are 60,000 Gripple ‘No 2 Hangers’ in Chicago’s Trump Tower and 18,000 Gripple’ Corner Saddles’ in London’s Gherkin building.

But back on that Welsh hill in 1986, global success was years away. First, Hugh and Estate Wire had to develop Gripple, decide how to sell it, buy out the Halifax-based business partners and do countless other things, including entering and winning the BBC’s Tomorrows World Prince of Wales Award for Innovation in 1991.

In the same year, Hugh hived off the business from Estate Wire, creating Gripple Ltd, and in 1994, aged 48, he sold Estate Wire for £1.1m, leaving his focus entirely on Gripple.

The company grew dramatically, and in 2001 Hugh and his team established Gripple Inc in Chicago Gripple SARL in Alsace and two years later, they started Loadhog in Sheffield, UK.

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The substance behind the story

So, now that we know the main elements of the Hugh Facey story let’s consider – in the founder’s words – what’s driven the growth. Of course, Yorkshire charisma and grit go a long way, but what sits behind them?

Six Gripple growth drivers 

1. “Innovate like heck”

Hugh says: “Innovation drives us: we develop new products and get them out there quick. But we don’t just say it; we mean it: 25% of our turnover must come from products we’ve innovated in the last five years.

Loadhog’s currently running at 68%. And you won’t find many manufacturing businesses spending 5% on R&D as we do. Why not? Because accountants run them.”

2. “Clip your bean counters’ wings”

“By its Articles of Association, Gripple can never be run by an accountant. Why? Because if you’re playing cricket and want to score runs, you put in your best batsman. If you’re going to bowl a team out, you put on your best bowler. The last person you send in to do either is the scorer.

“That’s what accountants do – keep the score. They’re good at measuring how much it costs to do something, but the cheapest thing of all – doing nowt – will undoubtedly end in failure. So I’ve never worried about the financial side of things. We drive the business but we don’t obsess over the figures.”

3. “Bonuses can bugger off!”

“We don’t have any bonuses. I’ve never believed in them. It’s madness to give bonuses to individuals; it’s bad management because success is down to everybody in the team, not individuals.”

4. “Get out there, lad!”

“After launching Gripple in the UK, we didn’t waste time before exporting to Australia and South Africa. Those were our first two big international markets, and building our sales there gave us an excellent platform for growth. We now have 14 sites worldwide, including in the US, Canada, India, Japan and Germany.

“Spending six months working in Canada during my early career helped me to think internationally. And so did getting involved with Junior Chamber International, where I was British President in 1989.”

5. “None of that secrecy”

“We have our board table right here in the middle of the floor so everyone can see it. The reason is that if we’ve had a bad time and someone’s getting a bollocking, it’s not hidden. Equally, everybody can see when we’re all happy. Similarly, everybody in the business sees the sales figures every day. And everybody gets the monthly report. We have no secrecy, total transparency.”

6. “We’re all equal”

“When I sold Estate Wire, I thought it wasn’t fair to take £1.1m when the staff got nothing. So we did a deal where 10% went to the team who stayed at Estate Wire, and the rest came with me.

“At Gripple Ltd, I wanted the company to be like that from the start, so we offered the new team – 17 of us – the chance to buy £1,000 of shares. Today, anyone who joins the business has to buy £1,000 shares and we offer loans to help them if necessary. 

“Every Gripple shareholder gets one share in Glide [an acronym of ‘Growth Led Innovation Driven Employee Company Limited] – a holding company we set up in 2011 to represent all the employees in its partner companies. I have one share in Glide. Our newest member of staff has one share in Glide. That’s as many as anyone can have.”

“So the business is now employee-owned, and the staff are more committed because they have shares in the business – which can go up or down. That’s real ownership and puts us in a great position to innovate and grow.”

“Glide now has roughly one third of Gripple & Loadhog’s shares has been set up so it can never legally be sold. Also, it can never be run by an accountant. And that’s true – I’m not joking!”

FEBE says…

A different breed

Hugh Facey is not your typical 21st-century entrepreneur. A vicar’s son, who regularly worships at 850-year-old Sheffield’s Beauchief Abbey, he takes his beliefs into business. “I’ve never been in business to make money,” he says. “I started wi’ nowt and I’m goin’ to go out wi’ nowt. Business is no different from life – everybody is equal.”

Some people – particularly accountants (!) – may baulk at his approach. But it’s impossible not to admire his entrepreneurial achievements – especially his ability to turn ideas into reality. How many managers blow hot air about ‘valuing their people’ and ‘equality at work’ without actually doing anything to back it up? At Gripple, those values have become legally embedded in the company structure like steel girders. And the results speak for themselves.

Closing thoughts

We began this article revelling in Hugh’s archetypal ‘Yorkshire’ character: a plain-speaking Sheffielder who sees himself neither below a prince nor higher than a pauper. But we’ll leave you with another, perhaps more telling view of this unique entrepreneur.

As we finish our chat at The Old West Gun Works in Sheffield, Hugh looks towards a colleague – a fellow Glide shareholder. “That lady’s from Ukraine,” he tells us. “And her son is in the army because he has to be, but his wife had a baby. So they all clubbed together, got the wife and child out of Ukraine, and brought them back to Sheffield. They went in and got them out.” And as Hugh speaks, tears well up and his voice cracks, maybe revealing what really drives this entrepreneur – not profit, but a desire to do the right thing and to make a difference. With his company’s pioneering employee-ownership system, he’s undoubtedly bullseying his objectives.

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More Facey Wisdom

Nuggets for up-and-coming entrepreneurs…

 “The first thing to do is get experience – I was lucky at Tinsley Wire. It was well run and I learned a lot. So my advice is to get experience before you plough on – that way, you’re learning efficiently rather than learning by constantly tripping over things.”

“Don’t be worried when things go wrong. We all make mistakes; you have to make errors to learn.”

 “In a business, everybody is equal. There isn’t a top-down. Everybody contributes equally. That’s the way to think about it.”

“I have the smallest desk at work, and I’m not called boss. Trust your people. Believe in them.”

HOW TWO DOCTORS DITCHED THEIR WHITE COATS TO BECOME ENTREPRENEURS – BUT STILL SAVE LIVES

FOUR FOUNDER LESSONS…

When Dr Guy Braverman and Dr Allen Hanouka became businessmen, little did they know that they would build a multimillion-pound company that would save many, many lives.

Their career paths seemed set when Dr Guy Braverman and Dr Allen Hanouka were working at North London’s Royal Free Hospital in the early 2000s. Allen was set to become a registrar ophthalmologist, and Guy was on the path to enjoy a glittering future as a doctor. So when they suddenly decided to dump their white coats – and years of training – to become travelling salesmen, some thought they needed to have their heads examined.

But from Guy and Allen’s point of view, swapping their white coats, ophthalmoscopes and stethoscopes for suits, phones and cars made perfect sense. It was a risk, sure, but a calculated one. And if their plan worked, they would help many more patients than if they had remained as doctors. In fact, they may even save countless lives.

Their career volte-face stemmed from their observations at the Royal Free. Guy says: “I remember seeing the same stethoscope being used repeatedly and thinking, hang on, surely we need a quick and easy way to disinfect shared patient equipment. MRSA and superbugs were big news at the time, so I mentioned it to Allen and he agreed. And that was it – our lightbulb moment.”

Allen says: “Surprisingly, 20 years ago, not everyone believed that sharing patient equipment without regularly disinfecting it had any impact on hospital-acquired infections. Instead, the profession was focused on hand hygiene. So the shared kit – things like the observation trolley, blood-pressure cuff and pulse oximeter – moved from person to person without a second thought. Today, it’s different – environmental decontamination is a huge part of infection prevention.”

The two doctors came up with the idea of wet-wipe dispensers on walls, ready to use at appropriate points in the hospital. No one else was offering this solution but it suddenly seemed vital. Could they produce and market a new disinfectant product? If so, should they? After all, it wasn’t something that they could do in their spare time after work and at weekends. It was all or nothing.

Guy says: “I couldn’t get the idea out of my head, and after much thought, I hung up my white coat and started working from my bedroom. I found a factory that pointed me toward someone who creates wet-wipe formulas and commissioned him to make one for us. Next, I located a manufacturer and Allen and I invested around £25,000 of savings to make GAMA Healthcare’s first batch of wipes.”

Guy transitioned from doctor to start-up entrepreneur overnight. Soon Allen did the same. Some of their nearest and dearest were shocked – what were they playing at? There was no guarantee their idea would work, and what about all those years of medical training? Were they going to drop their highly prized vocation just like that?

If their business idea were to succeed, they had no choice. “We basically became salesmen, going from hospital to hospital selling our ideas and products,” says Allen.

GAMA Healthcare sold its first product – universal disinfectant wipes – in January 2006 to London’s Royal Marsden Hospital. In 2007, after a few more successes, Guy and Allen hired their first staff member, who still works for them today.

Their launch timing was excellent – which is partly why Guy and Allen had to act swiftly. To get on top of superbugs, UK hospitals started setting up infection-prevention departments. So it was a brilliant moment for two qualified, hospital-savvy doctors offering a new range of disinfectant products to enter the fray. The co-founders carefully and diligently built up trust with infection-prevention departments, who soon began asking them for a range of new products. For example, could they supply pre-surgery body wipes and cannula-cleaning solutions?

So Guy and Allen returned to the expert they’d commissioned to create GAMA’s first disinfectant formula – Adrian Fellows – and offered him the role of research and development director in exchange for a 5% stake in the company. He accepted.

Growth continued and three years ago, GAMA Healthcare hit £50m. In 2021 – due to Covid – turnover tripled. From last year, as things went back to normal, the business was back on track to continue its longstanding double-digit growth.

So what – apart from great timing, two monumental career changes and tons of hard work – are the reasons for GAMA Healthcare’s success? How did Guy and Allen water the sapling and turn it into the oak tree we see today? The co-founders suggest four main reasons:

1. We provide a uniquely effective service.

Guy says: “We offer products – but that’s only part of the story. At the start of our journey, we realised that training would be vital for infection-prevention departments because they didn’t have the time to do it themselves. So we offered training as part of a complete solution and, as a result, we’ve become famous for our after-sales support.

“Initially, Allen and I would go into hospitals and show nurses how to clean shared patient equipment and high-touch surfaces. Today we’ve got a big training team who work with thousands of nurses every month.

“Our training service ties in with our company culture of focusing on positive solutions and becoming a trusted partner. We’re here to reduce infection rates – it’s a mission that goes beyond a commercial transaction.”

2. We learned how to sell effectively.

Allen says: “We spent years training as doctors but became salesmen overnight, so we had to get good at sales. Today our sales team knows more than we ever did. But there are still general sales golden rules we live by. One is to be polite and nice. Another is to know when to shut up. A third is to always take ‘no’ gracefully.

“In any industry there are times when potential clients are dismissive. That hurts but it’s vital to take knockbacks gracefully because those customers will often come back later. So we never burn our bridges.

“Equally, we never badmouth a competitor. Instead, we spend our time discussing the good things we can offer. Customers don’t like it when someone tells them that a certain brand or product is bad. Instead, they want positivity.”

3. We put absolutely everything into attracting and retaining talent.

Guy says: “Our team is the key to our success – no question. So we understand the importance of attracting exceptional people, developing them and giving them autonomy.”

Allen confirms: “We try to provide clear career progression paths. And we believe that homegrown talent – especially people who’ve gone through different departments – is the best talent. So everyone has a personal development plan and gets half a day off each month to work on it.”

Guy: “We have some great stories. Suzy, for example, joined as a PA 11 years ago and is now CEO in Australia – she worked her way through the business and we sponsored her MBA. Similarly, Carol, our Head of Acute Sales – the department that deals with the NHS – started as a sales rep ten years ago.”

“We also offer great benefits and as much work-home life balance as possible. We give bonuses to the whole company, not just salespeople, which creates a one-win mentality. So if the business hits a certain number, then everyone, whether they’re in admin, the creative team or sales, gets a bonus.

“We devise an individual Contribution Plan for every employee too – basically a target and appraisal system aligned to turnover, profit and company values.”

4. We understand the importance of building the right culture.

Allen says: “To retain excellent people, you need the right culture. So we spend lots of time building a positive culture.

“For example, one of our mantras is to have fun – we believe that to be good at your job, you have to enjoy it. We embody that by celebrating business wins and important life moments. So we mark birthdays in a big way. Every Friday, we sing Happy Birthday together and try to make work fun.”

Guy says: “Another one of our mantras is: we win together. So it’s not just one salesperson winning a new client; it’s not just the procurement team negotiating a lower price; it’s not just the R&D team launching an alternative product. By ‘we win together’, we mean that every single team member is responsible for making us successful in every aspect of the business. And we celebrate those wins together.

“We also work hard on staff engagement. So we run engagement surveys every six months, listen to what people tell us and initiate change as a result.

“Last but definitely not least, we recruit to the company values, hiring the person who best matches our values rather than the individual with the most experience. That’s because you can train someone, but you can’t change their personality.”

FEBE says…

GAMA Healthcare started as a gamble involving two people potentially sacrificing their careers to chase an idea that could come to nought. The co-founders ditched years of training and the medical profession’s prestige to become lowly salespeople, running around the country trying to get a business off the ground. However, the gamble paid off – and then some!

The first thing to say is that Guy and Allen’s idea has worked. Their innovation is reducing hospital infections worldwide and saving lives. GAMA Healthcare has published results of clinical trials to prove it.

Their idea worked commercially too. To achieve this, not only did the co-founders have to transition from doctors to entrepreneurs, they then had to evolve from entrepreneurs to CEOs. By mastering this double transformation, they have turned GAMA Healthcare into a fast-growth multimillion-pound multinational company boasting a talented team and an effective, happy company culture.

The two former doctors and their team have played a blinder, and we can’t wait to see where they take the company next.

HOW TO GET YOUR CUSTOMERS TO LOVE YOU

When businesses face unexpected threats, the directors usually call emergency board meetings. A leadership team gathers in the boardroom to thrash out a survival strategy and take decisions that they often hide from customers and the wider team.

Here’s what women’s clothing company Snag did when facing a crisis during 2020’s first lockdown: founder Brie Reid took to Instagram and invited her customers to share their solutions. There was no secrecy and no formal summit for company VIPs. In any case, it would have been tricky for Brie to call an EGM even if she’d wanted to — her company has no office and discourages formal meetings. Incredibly, Snag is run almost entirely through WhatsApp.

So, this is not a traditional, top-down company. Instead, Snag, which launched in 2018 and employs 120 people, places customers at the heart of its decision-making process. And those ‘Snagglers’ – the company’s nickname for its faithful fans – are essential to Snag’s growth.

Saved by the Snagglers

You might be wondering about the outcome of Brie’s Instagram plea. She explains: “At the start of the first lockdown, our revenue quartered and we weren’t eligible for Government assistance. We tried not to panic and even donated 28,000 pairs of tights to the NHS. But by April 2020, we knew we would run out of money.

“I went onto Instagram and started talking directly to customers. I wrote: ‘This is the situation and we need to find a way out. Does anybody have any ideas?’ The Snagglers came back with: ‘We think you should run a buy-one-get-one-free offer. We’ll pay now and you can send us two pairs of tights in November.’”

Brie’s Instagram message went out on Sunday night. By Monday, Snag had the offer on its website. By Friday, the promotion had raised £1.25m.

“We got through the entire pandemic because our customers did that for us. It’s absolutely mind-boggling,” says Brie.

How to make your customers love you

Part 1: Honesty & transparency

So, Snag has a unique relationship with its customers. But how has it created such a powerful bond?

The company’s founder has always treated customers as equals, maintaining friendly, honest dialogue with them, almost seeing them as team members. This culture of transparency and openness is rooted in the company’s early development.

Brie describes the series of lightbulb moments that led to Snag’s formation: “In 2018, while walking down George Street in Edinburgh, my tights started falling down.” (Not a typical start to a business origin story, but then Snag is not a typical business).

She continues: “I tried shuffling them back up but eventually had to stop and take them off in the street. The manoeuvre didn’t go quite a smoothly as she’d hoped and so attracted quite an audience. Later, to deal with the emotional fall-out, I had a laugh about it with friends, and I discovered they’d all endured similar moments.

“I thought, wow, all these people, whatever their size, are having tights issues. How big a problem is this? And because I’m a data nerd, I wanted to put numbers on it. So I did a Google survey of 3,000 people and found that 90% of women said their tights didn’t fit. Of those, 70% said life would be significantly better if they did have perfect tights.

“OK, but how big could a tights company be? I soon found that the global tights market is worth $56 billion, so launching a business seemed like the next logical step.”

So, Snag’s first act as an embryonic business was to share an embarrassing moment, uncover its customers’ problems and understand how to improve their lives. This culture of ‘chatting as equals’ has continued over the years.

Brie says: “The way I see it, our customers co-own the brand. They drive everything from product evolution to website development, and we respond to every comment or piece of advice they offer, whether on email or social media. For example, during the first 2020 lockdown, we received 10,000 emails from wellwishers; we split them among the team and replied to every single one. We’re in constant communication with our customers and that’s so, so important for us.

“But it also means that when they have a need, we have to turn it around really quickly.”

Part 2: Act fast on customer feedback

To deepen the customer relationship, speed is of the essence. If you ask your customers what they want and then react slowly, you may damage the bond. But if you unearth their desires and give them what they want ASAP, you prove that you’re listening and trustworthy.

To achieve such speed, Snag has developed a radical way of working. Brie says: “We’ve built a unique work culture because we need to be super-fast and efficient. So we don’t have an office – we were a virtual business even before Covid. And we don’t have any fixed working hours. Also, all our communication is via WhatsApp and we don’t plan meetings. Basically, the whole business is run from my iPhone.”

She explains why: “We want to eliminate unnecessary processes; reduce time-wasting; improve efficiency. For us, it’s about outcomes, not hours worked. At Snag, you spend your time working, not asking somebody how their cat is after its operation, so we strip out the chatter and superfluous meetings. People who live for social interactions do not tend to enjoy working here. We totally ‘get’ those people, we love and respect them, but Snag’s culture is not for them. Contrastingly, other personality types flourish here.”

Snag’s focused ‘non-office’ culture is built with customers in mind: time spent chatting with team members is time not spent making Snagglers happy. This company prioritises customers above all else, which is why it has such a bond with them.

Part 3: Give them a product to be proud of… and one that fits

Once Brie decided to launch a business after her George Street experience, she had many questions to answer. Why were 90% of women unhappy with their tights? Why was fit such a problem? Why had no other companies fixed this?

She explains: “What I discovered is that all tights only varied by length. So extra-small and extra-large were the same width, just longer or shorter, which is crazy.”

Eventually, Brie found a manufacturer (“the amazing Francesco, probably the only person who loves tights more than me”) who could create tights in different widths. And Snag produced its first run.

Her next move was to try the new tights on 100 women to see if she’d solved the all-important fit problem. She says: “Everyone loved them and we realised it was time to launch.”

Today, Snag takes at least six months to develop each product, testing them on people of all sizes. The founder says: “Normally, clothing is fitted once on a size-eight individual, then mathematically graded for other sizes. We do the opposite: we test fit in every size on many different people at every stage. Then, when our product hits the market, we know the fit is perfect.”

Unsurprisingly, getting the basics right — creating well-produced clothing that fits — strengthens your customers’ respect for you. With so many poor-quality, ill-fitting tights on the market, Snag has positioned itself as the high-quality tights manufacturer that cares and reaped the rewards.

But it’s not just about fit. Brie says: “Our customers also know our products are ethical. Our factories pay the living wage, we’re single-use-plastic-free throughout the supply chain, and we don’t use harsh chemicals. We also listen. If enough customers say they don’t like something, we change it. And if enough ask for a certain item, we make it. We greatly value having that open, two-way communication.”

Part 4: Be ‘radically inclusive’

Snag’s ethos is to welcome every customer as they are. Brie describes this as “radical inclusion” and it’s an essential part of Snag’s identity. It’s also an important reason customers feel a close bond with the company.

She says: “At Snag, everybody’s welcome, everybody’s loved, no matter what gender they are, what size they are, who they are, or where they are. We call this ‘radical inclusion’ and it’s tricky to get right. For example, we once considered launching a loyalty scheme. We ran it past the Snaggers, as we always do. They came back with: ‘How can you be inclusive if you create something exclusive?’ Their response blew me away. I thought we were doing a nice thing, but it wasn’t because it wasn’t inclusive. That experience taught us so much about what being inclusive really means.”

The future

By forging a deep connection with its customers, Snag has raced from a simple idea to a £40m company in just four years. It now has two warehouses — one in the UK and another in the Netherlands (but, as we’ve heard, no office). Brie’s ambition now is to grow into a £1bn company. If Snag continues to build such a supercharged customer relationship, there’s no reason why it can’t get there, especially since it has now widened its range beyond tights. The founder is also eyeing South America (“the biggest tights market globally,” says Brie), Africa and China.

Two stats back up the idea that Snag has forged a uniquely special relationship with its customers. First, its conversion rate is 10%, so one in every ten people who visits its website buys a product (the global e-commerce average is 2-3%). But here’s the real clincher: Snag’s repeat rate is 84%, meaning more than eight in ten people who buy return to buy again.

So if you want inspiration in your quest to make your customers not just like you, but adore you like a beloved family member, look no further than Snag. You’ll need to be as honest as a best friend, as good a listener as a priest at confession, and more responsive than a needy boyfriend. Most of all, you’ll need a relentless desire to give your customers what they want. If you prioritise all those things and do it well, you might get close to Snag’s relationship with its Snagglers. But don’t count on it.

by Matt Wright

‘YOU GOTTA HAVE FUN, GODDAMIT! THAT’S WHY WE BOUGHT A COMPANY RACEHORSE’

We live in an era of remote working, office pool tables and CEOs signing off emails with smiley emojis. But beneath the fluff, many people still believe deep down that fun and work do not go together ­– that fun is expensive and a distraction from the DEADLY SERIOUS business of running a company. In these people (you know who you are!), the spirit of Scrooge lives on, albeit heavily disguised by team away-days and office chill-out zones.

However, there’s no secret war on unprofitable jollity at Fairfax & Favor’s HQ in rural Norfolk. Here, fun is regarded as absolutely essential and is a central tenet of the culture created by co-founders Felix Parker and Marcus Fountaine. The most recent embodiment of this ethos is the purchase of a company racehorse – you can read more about ‘Mayheblucky’, the five-year-old hurdler, below…

Fun power

Why is fun so important at Fairfax & Favor? Felix says: “We think that having fun ­­inspires people, energises them and leads to rapid growth. Also, if you’re not having fun, you’re probably not good at what you’re doing. So fun is a big reason why people like working with us, and pretty much the only rules at Fairfax & Favor are: do your job, be nice and have fun.”

Based on the evidence, it’s hard to argue with Felix’s theory that fun leads to growth: Fairfax & Favor (the middle names of Felix and his old school friend Marcus) has become a £30m British country lifestyle fashion brand in nine years.

But while fun plays a big role, there’s more than LOLs behind Fairfax & Favor’s place in the FEBE Growth 100: the company’s other core values of ‘live and learn’ and ‘be independent’ play a large part, too. And so do the co-founders’ inspirational levels of belief and motivation.

Total conviction

“We’ve always had confidence and hunger,” says Felix. “In year one, I told our supplier factories in Spain and Portugal that we’d be their biggest customer. They laughed – but now we are. Today, I’m saying the same to bigger factories, and I hope we’ll soon be having the same conversations with them.”

Such conviction gave the luxury fashion brand an excellent start. By year three, the friends had hit their first milestone: £1m turnover. More growth and expansion overseas followed.

Live and learn

However, a change of strategy was soon needed, and here we see Fairfax & Favor’s second core company value ­– ‘live and learn’ – in action. Rapid expansion abroad started to suck time and energy out of the business. Turnover increased but profit did not, and the duo realised they were on the wrong track.

“That first million felt amazing, but as the business grew, we learned lessons,” says Felix. “Chasing revenue isn’t as important as tracking EBITDA [earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation], and increasing territories is only beneficial if you’re making money from it.

“We expanded into France and Germany, which generated significant extra work, yet we grew by only 11%. Our expansion plan needed rejigging, so we refocused solely on the UK. Revenue doubled. That showed us the importance of doing things properly – concentrating our efforts and not spreading ourselves too thinly.

“Today, we’re looking at expanding into the US, but rather than targeting the whole country, we’ll focus on areas with an equestrian culture.”

Youthful advantage

Starting the business aged 21 has led to other steep learning curves for Felix and Marcus. But there are also benefits to founding a company at such a young age. With fewer responsibilities, it’s less risky, and this duo were able to reinvest every penny. “I lived with my parents at first,” Felix says. “It wasn’t a ‘cool’ thing to do, but it meant we could start Fairfax & Favor with £5,000 each and no external investment.”

Fierce independence

By reinvesting profits, the co-founders have retained 100% control, which means they can indulge their third key company value: independence.

“Being independent is important because it means we can create our own unique culture,” says Felix. “Independence enables us to live and learn in our own time and have fun.”

Galloping forward

And nothing better demonstrates Fairfax & Favor’s unique fusion of independence and fun than its recent decision to buy a company racehorse – Mayheblucky – and launch a racing club for customers.

“If we’d run that idea past a board, they’d probably have shut it down. But we make the calls, so we’re able to give these ideas a go,” says Felix. “Our racing club means customers can join us on special race days, with picnics and free-flowing Champagne.

“We have an amazing community of customers and we want to bring them together. I’m certain Mayheblucky will be a strong marketing ploy because a racehorse fits our brand – it’ll be fun for our employees, customers, and investors. Fun, I believe, creates community.”

The 80,000 people in Fairfax & Favor’s Facebook Club would agree. Felix says: “Our Facebook Club has become this incredible space where like-minded people share highs and lows and support each other. It allows us to be so much more than a faceless brand.”

Hitting the high street

Fairfax & Favor’s emphasis on fun and community also shines through in its bricks-and-mortar expansion. With four shops trading and more planned, they provide another way to connect with the brand’s community. The stores offer standard and exclusive birthday appointments, including Champagne, coffee, cake and a special birthday gift.

This physical presence is nothing new – the brand started out trading at county shows, horse trials and game fairs as well as online. When the pandemic struck, they reverted to online only, allowing them to grow 120% during Covid. Now they are refocusing on their offline offering. It’s an omnichannel approach that has paid dividends.

So, what next? 

The co-founders have ambitious plans. Having recently unveiled a 60,000-square-foot fulfilment centre in Snetterton, Norfolk, they want to open six more UK shops in three years, taking the total to ten. Simultaneously, they plan to develop their presence in parts of the US – so much so that they project America will generate 15% of total sales by 2025. And, of course, they will keep having fun.

Felix says: “Ultimately, we set out to build a £100 million company. We’ve got a long way to go, but we’ve got a lot more to give.”

Fun and fearlessness

Marcus and Felix are the epitome of fearless entrepreneurs – their enviable combination of drive, conviction and high standards got the ball rolling nine years ago. But their long-term momentum – a £30m success story with more to come – stems from their unique company values.

Firstly, ‘independence’ allows them to express themselves, experiment and flourish, accountable to only their team and customers.

Secondly, their humble’ live and learn’ attitude accepts – embraces, in fact ­– mistakes because they result in valuable lessons and evolution. Similarly, ‘live and learn’ enables the whole team to act freely, fearlessly and decisively.

Finally, we come to the golden rule; Fairfax & Favor’s raison d’être – to have fun. Fun is not only life-enhancing, argue Felix and Marcus, but also attracts and retains talent, inspires, energises and leads to creativity. For them, fun is a precondition for fast growth.

So, Scrooges observe, repent and hear the gospel according to Fairfax & Favor: enjoyment is not a mere foolish frill on the starched shirt of efficiency. And business does not have to be deadly serious. Felix and Marcus suggest that the truth is this: fun leads to profit, and profit leads to more fun! That’s entrepreneurship, the Fairfax & Favor way.

FROM BRITISH KICKBOXING CHAMPION TO A £23M COMPANY IN FEBE’S G100

How Andrew Wright harnessed the self-discipline learned from championship fight training to unleash a multimillion-pound retail business.

What do elite pugilism and entrepreneurship have in common? A great deal if you ask 36-year-old former British kickboxing champion turned company founder Andrew Wright. Don’t worry, we’re not about to duck and dive into a series of cliches about rolling with the punches and refusing to throw in the towel. But what we will do is examine exactly how Andrew launched online appliance retailer The Wright Buy in 2009 with £2,000 and turned it into a £23m company.

British Champ

“I was British Kickboxing Champion twice in the mid-2000s,” says Andrew. “I hung up my gloves in 2007 after breaking my arm a couple of times, so I’m a bit soft around the edges now. But kickboxing stood me in good stead for business.”

The Wright Buy’s founder is also a former British champion in another sport. Aged 12, he ruled these isles in yo-yo-ing, finishing 13th in the World Yo-Yo Contest in Hawaii. Of course, many entrepreneurs excel at PR spin, but Andrew is the first we’ve met who shines at this type of spin!

Discipline

So, Andrew has a hat-trick of British titles to his name – two in kickboxing and a third in yo-yo-ing. He’s also created a £23m company. How has he hit such dizzy heights? We’ll look at the link between sporting rigour and business success later, but Andrew provides an initial clue: “I used to practise the yo-yo for three or four hours a day when I was a kid. I took that discipline into kickboxing and then into business.”

Dining-room business

He started The Wright Buy in 2009, two years after retiring from kickboxing. First, he bought ten cooker hobs, selling them on eBay for a profit. He then repeated the exercise, buying more and stacking them in his parents’ hallway.

“Next, I took over the dining room,” he says. “I’d run the car to the post office each day and post out the goods. I wanted to build a business that would give me a nice income so I wouldn’t need to work for someone else – being my own boss was my main motivation.”

Keeping it simple

Like a snowball rolling downhill, Andrew bought more stock, made more sales and used the profit to rent shipping containers for storage. All the while, he never wavered from his single-minded aim. He says: “I didn’t have a business plan except to make £10 profit per box. If I made £10 each time, I was happy because I knew that if I sold 1,000 boxes a week, I’d be making good money.”

Three in a row

Soon, by keeping it simple and consistent, Andrew was turning over £10,000 a week – the target he’d set for renting a warehouse. On cue, he took two neighbouring units in Bishop’s Stortford and knocked them through. Later, Andrew took a third adjacent unit and connected that, too.

The art of good buying

Before long, he had seven warehouses scattered around the Bishop’s Stortford area. “It was a headache, but we had to do it because we had so much stock,” he says. “I built the business using end-of-line stock, so manufacturers would call up and say: ‘Can you take 1,000 washing machines? Or 500 cookers?’ They’d ask for, say, £200 each, but I’d haggle them down to £100. I wouldn’t call myself a salesman, but I am a good buyer. Also, I always stuck to my word. If I said I was going to take something, I did.”

Another step up

In 2016, Andrew consolidated, buying a single 100,000-square-foot warehouse in Haverhill, Suffolk. “I didn’t want to pay rent for the rest of my life,” he says. “So I decided to buy a big building and pay off the mortgage. I’m pleased I did because the property has doubled in value in six years. I’ve also bought another warehouse around the corner, so we’re now up to 150,000 square feet.”

The reasons for The Wright Buy’s success

So, that’s Andrew’s story in a nutshell. Let’s now examine the reasons behind The Wright Buy’s impressive growth. Remember, this company began life in 2009 in Andrew’s parents’ hallway but evolved into a £23m online retailer with its own appliance brand, Cookology. How?

Simplicity

First, success has come from keeping it simple. Andrew started with an uncomplicated goal: to make £10 profit per box. While that number may have changed, the principle remains the same. Andrew confirms: “To this day, I still wonder: how much am I making on each box? Things can get complicated in business, and people obsess over all sorts of things. But at the end of the day, you need to make a certain margin on each sale. That’s always been the basis of my business.”

No frills

Second, The Wright Buy’s growth has come from keeping costs low. The company has never chased glamorous offices, unnecessary frills or excessive staff headcounts. Instead, like a budget supermarket, it focuses on delivering the goods efficiently with minimum fuss. The founder says: “I rarely pay too much for stock. Also, I know the importance of keeping costs down. Currently, we employ 18 staff despite being a £23m business.”

Develop trust

Third, success has sprung from keeping both suppliers and customers happy. Andrew and the team started by winning the industry’s trust because they always stuck to their word. Next, they got consumers on-side by following their golden rule of retail: do what the customer wants. Always. Andrew says: “We’ve built up good relationships with manufacturers. We’ve done the same with customers by doing what they want. At the end of the day, they can get credit card refunds if they aren’t happy. So ultimately, no matter the issue, you’ve got to suck it up and do what they ask.”

No shortcuts

Finally and most importantly, The Wright Buy’s growth results from Andrew’s mindset – a mentality forged during his relentless sporting training. He says: “As with elite sport, business has no shortcuts. Success depends on hard work and consistency. I worked six days a week for the first seven or eight years to build The Wright Buy. You’ve got to be absolutely all over it to get a business off the ground – you’ve got to give up pretty much everything.”

He continues: “Sports training and entrepreneurship are similar – doing well in both requires complete tunnel vision and consistency of effort. But in many ways, business is even harder because you get so many knockbacks and curveballs.”

The ‘secret’ of success

So, in conclusion, on one level, there is no ‘secret’ to Andrew’s success – just as there is no ‘secret’ to becoming a sporting champion. Quite simply, you need enough talent to start with, and then you must put in the hours, almost daily, over many years. But on another level, maybe there is a kind of ‘secret’ – or ‘golden rule’ – that can help people to achieve such metronomic consistency of effort. Andrew’s keywords are these: “To reach your targets, you’ve just got to keep at it, no matter how bad you feel.”

“Just keep at it, no matter how bad you feel.”

The ability, or mindset, to follow that golden rule – relentlessly, in all weathers – is, in all likelihood, what separates champions from also-rans and successful entrepreneurs from mere dreamers.

It’s a ‘secret’ that has undoubtedly worked for Andrew – three-times British Champion and now the owner of a multi-million-pound business.

SECRETS OF A SERIAL ENTREPRENEUR: HOW ACTIVATE GROUP ENTERED THE FEBE GROWTH 100 HALL OF FAME

What fuels a serial entrepreneur? What motivates a founder who, having sweated blood and tears to launch, develop and exit a business, repeats the exercise, swerving the beach in favour of more early morning wake up calls and interminable spreadsheets? In the case of Mark Wilcox, the answer may surprise you. This serial entrepreneur says his second multimillion-pound company came about because his wife kicked him out…