107: sTitch Leggings Tom Hunt on his challenge to grow from £5k to £100k a month selling men’s leggings

Tom Hunt is in charge of growth at sTitch Leggings – selling leggings for men. They launched in Dec 2012, and in March 2017 had their best month yet, turning over £5k. Tom has also recently launched a SaaS business called “Sneez” to publicise Sneez they’ve set themselves a challenge to get sTtitch Leggings up to £100k per month.

About the business

• eCommerce Business Structure – Online Only
• Product Range Scale – niche
• Based in the UK, sell worldwide
• On Shopify
• Plugins:
  • Klaviyo
  • OptiMonk
  • Sneez

Listen to learn why so many eCommerce professionals are personalizing their marketing and switching to Klaviyo for their email marketing.

Getting Started

Tom and his two best friends enjoyed going to the trendy Brick Lane Market in London on Sundays. After seeing pretty girls there who they were too shy to speak to, they devised a cunning plan to have their own market store so they could speak to the girls. Since they were all passionate about skinny jeans at the time, they decided to try selling leggings for men.

They purchased female leggings from eBay, drew on their male logo, and within one week of hatching their plan, they were in their own shop at Brick Lane Market. During the eight hours they were there, they did not sell a single pair of leggings. However, they did have fun and learn that they enjoyed doing it together.

Three months later, they started an eCommerce store selling male leggings, and have been slowly learning and growing ever since.

Listen to learn about the team’s experiences with Dragon’s Den and TopMan.
See what happened on Dragon’s Den:

The Growth Challenge

Tom and the team at sTitch have challenged themselves to turn over 100,000 pounds per month. They are taking three steps towards reaching this challenge. First, they changed the domain name. At the same time, they implemented the second step of doing Facebook advertisements and increasing their SEO. After they have a bigger online presence, the third step of finding retail stores to sell through will be easier. The end goals of the challenge are to raise brand awareness and get into retail boutiques.

Find out all about the ongoing challenge here

Listen to learn more about SEO switches and the benefits of focusing on only a few things with the laser analogy.

Most Awesome Thing Right Now

sTitch Leggings has maintained their character and mission of envisioning a day where men can wear what they want instead of what they are told they should, liberating the modern man from conventional fashion. Staying true to their mission is the most awesome thing.

Listen to hear more about how….

Systemizing the Business and the Efficient Outsourcing Formula

Before creating sTitch Leggings, Tom worked in the corporate world in systemizing and outsourcing work. He took what he learned there to the sTitch team, releasing the three founders from routine mundane tasks so they could focus on the things they were best at and enjoyed doing.

To accomplish this, the team hired a VA and developed a formula for outsourcing to her. The formula is a four-step process.

1.    Be aware of your time and fill out a spreadsheet with all the tasks you do.

2.    Assess the spreadsheet against your criteria and prioritize the tasks.

3.    Document exactly how these tasks are performed.

4.    Hand the tasks off to the VA.

Get the guide Tom mentions here

Listen to learn the details of the Efficient Outsourcing Formula and how to form your criteria.

eCommerce Book Top Tip

• Millionaire Fastlane by M.J. DeMarco

eCommerce Traffic Top Tip

Using customer testimonials on social media (better explained on the podcast – so go on, have a listen!)

You can hear about all this on the podcast, for free – right now…

Tool Top Tip

• HotJar

Start Up Top Tip

Minimize your downside. Find out if your product will work and who your customers are before spending a lot of money.

Interview Links

• sTitch Leggings
• Sneez
• Connect with Tom:
  • Twitter
  • Website