Finding a tailor in India<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n How to ensure quality and transparency with your tailor as your business scales<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Make sure you have someone on the ground and overseeing things in your factories<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Tackling overproduction and waste with a buyback scheme<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Is having physical stores important for a clothing brand?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Building a customer community based on transparency<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Passionate customers will hold you accountable<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Don\u2019t let imposter syndrome hold you back or impact your business<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Seeking help to overcome your imposter syndrome<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Listen to others but don\u2019t take their word as gospel<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Moving suppliers closer to home isn\u2019t always more sustainable<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n A four-day working week means high production and happier staff<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n New products and adventures for Lucy & Yak<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n I know that you\u2019ve described Lucy & Yak as an accidental business, so just talk us through the light bulb moment for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeah, so everyone always says to me, it couldn\u2019t have been accidental, there must have been something there. But I think when I say accidental, it\u2019s like we didn\u2019t sort of go, here\u2019s a business plan, this is what we are going to do, let\u2019s go and try and get some funding and start this business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It kind of all just happened really organically over the space of a few years. So like I said, we started the business when we first went travelling, but we didn\u2019t actually start Lucy & Yak until 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was funny because we went to New Zealand first, and we quit our jobs. We hadn\u2019t saved a lot of money because we were thinking we had to save money to go travelling, and that was just never going to happen because Chris and I had such party lifestyles, we just couldn\u2019t save any money at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So we decided, you know what? Let\u2019s just quit our jobs. We\u2019ll figure out a way of making money on the road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So we went to New Zealand, and we ended up making these little pouches to sell to other travellers, and we were making them from sort of old clothing that travellers leave behind in hostels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s usually just a box full of shirts, they\u2019re not the best shirts, but the prints on them are quite cool. And turning them into a little pouch was really great, and we sat selling them to other travellers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We were hand stitching them on the beach, and it was paradise. We weren\u2019t earning a lot of money, but I think that was another really big thing for us that we kind of learned how to live off very little. So money started becoming less and less important for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And it\u2019s funny because prior to that, Chris and I were both in sales where everything was commission, getting that sale, and it felt like a really money driven world. And so when we got used to living off very little, we were like, this is amazing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also, that feeling of someone wanting to buy something that you\u2019ve created. Because we love sales, and we love the buzz of selling something, but when you\u2019ve actually created it, there was no better feeling than that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And what was brilliant about back then when we were selling the pouches, we lived in New Zealand for about six months and then when we left New Zealand, we were still getting messages of people who had bumped into each other and knew that they knew us because they had one of these pouches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So there was this community forming in New Zealand around these pouches when we weren\u2019t even there. And that\u2019s kind of the same in Lucy & Yak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s sort of transferred over into this really strong community of people that when they see someone else in the street wearing Lucy & Yak, and they\u2019re also wearing them, or they\u2019re not wearing them, but they know the brand, and they own some, they give each other a little smile or nod or say hi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I feel like the story started there, but then we were travelling for a few years. We had to come back to the UK, Chris\u2019s stepdad was ill at the time, so we had to come back to help his mum, but we had no money when we came back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And we were like, we do not want to get jobs, that\u2019s the last thing we want to do. We do not want to work for someone else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So we ended up buying and selling vintage clothing, and we bought an old van, which was Yak, lived in that, and we were basically travelling around the UK going in charity shops, finding some gems, selling them on Depop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And every time we got a pair of dungarees, we might have paid a \u00a35 for it, and we sold it for like \u00a360 or \u00a370, and we just couldn\u2019t get enough dungarees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And it\u2019s still the case now because we\u2019ve got collaboration with Beyond Retro, the vintage shop, and they take some of our old Yaks back in exchange for vouchers because they can\u2019t get enough dungarees still six years on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So it shows that we kind of hit something at the right time. So it\u2019s funny because it was accidental in that we weren\u2019t trying to start a business as such, but all these events just led to, we just knew we didn\u2019t want to work for anybody else after we did that in New Zealand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you feel that you\u2019ve become almost unemployable once you started your own business?<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can\u2019t go back to the nine to five.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No, definitely not. You just couldn\u2019t imagine, I suppose, someone telling you when and where to be. I think that\u2019s the big thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once you\u2019d realised you\u2019d hit on something with the dungarees, they were selling so fast and so profitably, what were the next steps you then took to build a business out of that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, when we started the dungarees, we went to India and that\u2019s when we met this tailor, and we made the first 30 pairs of dungarees, put them on Depop while we were still in India, and the 30 pairs sold out in a minute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So we phoned him, and we were like, we need to make some more. And we\u2019ve just kind of grown the business off the back of reinvesting the money that we took.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So we never borrowed a penny, we never got any investment. The few \u00a3100 we were travelling with was all we ever had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I think what happened was me and Chris have learned over the years that we\u2019re a really good team, in that I\u2019m quite good at just getting stuff done, and I love figuring out how to sell something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And he is very, very good at the sort of business side of things because he had been a manager before, but I\u2019d never been a manager before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So jumping up from a sales executive as the highest position I\u2019ve ever had to being the owner of a company was a big overnight jump. And then the imposter syndrome was unreal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But yeah, we just kept basically taking that money and putting it on more stock, and we just kept growing it like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And then we moved into a warehouse, which was terrifying because that was our first commitment to a big outgoing each month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From my experience, when I\u2019ve met people who run a fashion brand or start a fashion brand, they often are fashion designers by trade. That\u2019s their previous, that\u2019s what they\u2019ve done in their career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t know if there\u2019s just something different about the way we\u2019ve approached it. We\u2019re very customer driven because that\u2019s the background of where we are from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve worked in bars and sales, and it\u2019s always about, what does the customer want? Not what do I like or what do I want to wear? What does the customer want? What\u2019s the customer telling us they want?<\/p>\n\n\n\n And so we\u2019ve always been really customer obsessed in that way, which really serves us well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I want to come back to this tailor that you worked with in India. You said the business really started to grow. As you were scaling up how did you ensure quality and transparency in that process?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I remember us pulling our hair out many times in the first few years. Because we went travelling to India, we went travelling for six months, and initially it was like, \u201cOh, I\u2019m going travelling, but if we find someone who could make some dungarees, we might give it a go.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n So we\u2019d been in India like a week, and I bumped into somebody who I\u2019d met in New Zealand years before walking down the street, and they just had some stuff made in this village in India, and they were showing me, and I was like, this is so weird.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019re here for six months and the first week I bump into somebody I\u2019ve not seen for three years, and they\u2019ve just had some clothing made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So we went to this town, and everything\u2019s kind of happened like that. I never know if it\u2019s just how we look at stuff when it happens because sometimes, I feel like opportunities are there, and we just miss them because we\u2019re fixated on something else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And anyway, that happened, and then we went to this town called Pushkar in Rajasthan, which is where they had this clothing made. And it\u2019s basically just a street full of people who have got shops and there\u2019s a tailor in the shop making stuff and altering stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The idea is that it\u2019s a really ethical place because you\u2019re meeting the person that\u2019s making it. But we actually had a few samples made in different shops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But then when we actually came to buy in bulk and say like, \u201cOh, we want to order 30 or 40.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n They explained to us that it would go out to this bigger factory on the outskirts of the town, but they didn\u2019t want to take us to this factory because I think they were worried we would cut them out, which is fair enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But there was just something in us that was like, we want to meet the people that are making this. We want to know who they are and if they\u2019re treated well and if they\u2019re paid fairly. So we kind of just gave up because no one would take us to this factory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And then the hotel, we\u2019d been staying in the guest house, the cook in the hotel was asking us, \u201cWhat have you been doing here?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And we explained, and he said, \u201cOh, my brother\u2019s a tailor, and he can\u2019t afford a shop on this high street. Why don\u2019t you come and meet him? We\u2019re 10 kilometres outside of his town. We\u2019ll drive you out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n So we went out to meet him and that\u2019s when we met Ishmael who had two tailors working with him, and he was making bits and pieces of clothing for the market that we\u2019d been making samples for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He wasn\u2019t getting paid very much at all because these markets are mostly clothing for travellers who are on a budget, and you might pay \u00a31 for a pair of leggings off this market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So you can imagine how much the tailor and how much Ishmael were earning. It was nothing. So we got him to make a sample, and everything was great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He made the sample. It needed some tweaks, but then it was incredible because he was so good in that the trust was just there instantly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The experience we\u2019d had prior to that, would be if we said, \u201cOh, this is not right.\u201d They\u2019d say, \u201cYes it is, it\u2019s fine, it\u2019s fine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whereas he was like, \u201cNo, no, I\u2019ll take it away. I\u2019ll fix it.\u201d And then the same vice versa, because instead of negotiating him down, we negotiated him up, and he was like, \u201cAre you guys crazy? Do you know how to negotiate?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But do you know what, he told us how his pay structure worked and that he basically gave 50% of the money to the tailor and the other 50% he used for his overheads, and then whatever was left was his profit, I suppose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So because he told us that, when he gave us the price, we were like, well, you know what? We actually think a fair price is this because we believe we can sell them for this. And so we negotiated upwards, which he thought was crazy. So instantly that trust was there, which was amazing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So that was great because I think that was a really good way of setting up a relationship because it meant that we had trust, and we had some sort of say over the ethics and the practices of the business. Because it\u2019s a tiny business, and it grew with us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The problem with that though is the quality was not up to scratch as we started growing. It was fine while we were small and our customers knew us really well, but then as we started growing, if we ordered 100 of something, sometimes the quality was just really bad, and items were tearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We must have spent six months of the first and second year in India trying to help him set up this factory and get it up to scratch. And he was growing with us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So it was kind of like these two startups growing side by side, which was just chaos. It was absolute chaos, and it took us a really long time to get him up to scratch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At what point did you feel that you had got him up to scratch, and you could take a step back, not spend all your time in India overseeing that process?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I would say that time never actually came and then Covid hit. But what we were lucky with was just before Covid hit the last trip we had out there, we had met this woman called Sonya who was incredible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She worked for another supplier that we worked with because Ishmael was a woven factory, and so we needed a jersey factory when we went into selling fleeces and stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So we found this other sustainable factory that we could make recycled fleeces with. And Sonya worked for them, but then she ended up getting made redundant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And she was so good at managing our account we were like, should we give Sonya a job? And then we\u2019ve got someone on the ground in India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And this happened about three months before Covid, which was like, oh my god, how lucky were we because she was on the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She was going back and forth to Ishmael\u2019s factory, spending time with him, helping him get up to scratch. And she\u2019d actually got more experience working in the factory side of things than we had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So she was able to really help him. She then started to build a team. So we\u2019ve now got a team in New Delhi that basically help us support the factories, but also someone on the ground making sure the ethics are being maintained as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because before Covid, we relied so heavily on being there and supporting them, and we could physically see a problem in the factory. But when Covid hit, it was like, we can\u2019t be there. We just have to trust now. And so it was really great that we had Sonya on the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I mean, you talk a lot about sustainability and ethical practices. Obviously the fashion industry is responsible for about 10% of the world\u2019s carbon emissions. So what are you doing to try and tackle overproduction and waste?<\/p>\n\n\n\n So this is a massive thing for us. And I think since the first year we had an idea of buying clothing back, but we just couldn\u2019t figure out how to actually do it, because it\u2019s quite complicated to do it online, and we just didn\u2019t have the infrastructure or the team or anything like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve always believed that when you\u2019re producing anything new, whether it\u2019s organic or whether it\u2019s the most sustainable fabric you can think of, it\u2019s still not as sustainable as something that already exists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And there\u2019s definitely enough clothing in the world that we could probably all manage without making any more clothing for years and years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I think one of the things that makes me feel a little bit better is that we always approached Lucy & Yak with the idea that people are not going to just stop buying. And there are so many brands out there that are really, really terrible, so we just want to offer something that\u2019s just that bit better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But then on the flip of that, we\u2019ve sort of launched a buyback scheme finally, and we\u2019ve launched it in our stores to begin with because we just want to basically feel it out and find out what the teething problems are before we launch it online, because we really would love to launch it online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The thing is I think with circularity is businesses have to make it profitable, otherwise they\u2019ll not stop producing new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So we\u2019re trying to figure out a way of actually making second-hand profitable to us as a business so that we can actually produce less. So basically at the minute we give up to a \u00a320 voucher for you returning your old Yaks back in any condition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They can be completely unwearable, and we\u2019ll recycle them, or if they\u2019re in a good condition, we\u2019ll put them back up for sale the shop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And what we\u2019re hoping is the percentage that we get back that\u2019s good enough to sell on, will pay for the ones that we have to recycle and pay for the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And if that ends up being even higher, we might increase the price that we\u2019ll pay for them and encourage even more people to bring them back and really get serious about the fact we really want to buy these back because we can actually make money out of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So that\u2019s really what we\u2019re hoping because I think if businesses can make it profitable, imagine if you could make it so that your business was 50% second-hand, 50% new or even less and still have the same business, I think that would be a much better way to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Definitely. So you\u2019re trialling it at the moment, just trying to work out the right business model for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And it\u2019s interesting that you are doing the buyback scheme in your stores, which I wanted to talk to you about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I know you opened your first store in 2019, you now have stores in Brighton, Bristol and Norwich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So how important are bricks and mortar to the brand?<\/p>\n\n\n\n So we\u2019ve never really viewed them as necessarily a sales channel, even though they are. They do really well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We always approached it as, we just want these community hubs, so we\u2019re not going to overexpose ourselves and rent these massive stores that we are not going to be able to afford for whatever reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019re kind of trying to open lots of them, but small in size that\u2019s manageable financially if we were to go into another lockdown or something like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I think for us, it\u2019s all about community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Having those spaces that we can bring customers in, we\u2019re going to be doing a lot of workshops and events that are all around sustainability and upcycling and things like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also, the big thing was we knew it was going to allow us to launch this buyback scheme because it\u2019s really easy in store for them to get it, re-tag it, stick it straight on a rail and sell it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whereas, from my vintage days, photographing one piece and then selling it, you just don\u2019t really make any money from that because of the cost involved in actually photographing it, and there\u2019s only one of it. It\u2019s really hard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So what we feel like is if we change this to online as well, if we start accepting people\u2019s clothing back online, we won\u2019t sell them online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019ll probably end up with, we want to call them Lucy & Yak vintage stores. So they might just have second-hand Yaks in them if we open it up to online because we\u2019ll end up with quite a lot of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So that\u2019s the kind of goal that we really want everybody in the UK to live within one hour of a shop. So we don\u2019t want too many, probably 10 to 15 over the next few years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But we feel if everyone\u2019s within an hour of one, then we should be good. Or everybody who I suppose in the most populated areas anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And then we\u2019d love to do a big Yak van that travels around the smaller areas from time to time up cycling things for people and things like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But yeah, that\u2019s where we\u2019re at with retail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019d love to talk to you about growing that community of Yakkers. What are some of the tactics that you\u2019ve used to really create a loyal customer base?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you know what? I think it\u2019s funny because when we talk about marketing, we\u2019ve never really tried to market it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From the early days I\u2019ve done a lot of videos on social media and things like that. And I think that\u2019s been a massive thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think when people can see real people behind the brand because people buy from people. I think that that was a massive thing for us. I think customers really feeling like they\u2019re part of that because we\u2019re sharing the journey with them, and we\u2019re being really transparent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When things go wrong, I\u2019ll jump on, I\u2019ll do a video and apologise or explain what\u2019s happened. I\u2019m not apologising because we didn\u2019t really do anything wrong, but we just want to say, look, this is what\u2019s happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And most of the time I think what is amazing about it is customers mostly when they get frustrated at businesses, it\u2019s just because they don\u2019t understand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So they might assume it\u2019s one thing, but then as soon as you get on and explain, they\u2019re like, \u201cOh, right, yeah, that makes sense. You\u2019re human, and you just made a mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I think that\u2019s a big part of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also, there\u2019s just something in the brand, and honestly still, I sometimes don\u2019t know how to bottle the magic. It\u2019s this community on Facebook that actually started on its own organically, and then we ended up taking it in-house, and it\u2019s just incredible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Everyone\u2019s so kind to each other and I think there\u2019s something about like we were saying, our customers, they\u2019re just really, really nice people, just so kind, so uplifting to each other. And the brand has really attracted them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I honestly don\u2019t know if that\u2019s because we are really transparent, and we\u2019re really open, and so they feel like they can be, or I really don\u2019t know, sometimes it\u2019s hard to bottle what that magic is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But this community is incredible because someone will post a photo, and they say, I don\u2019t think I look very good in this. And everyone just jumps on, and they\u2019re like, you look amazing, you look incredible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All the customers they say that they\u2019ve never found a brand that they felt was them and sort of expressed who they were until they found us. And it spans so many age demographics as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s like you\u2019ve got 16-year-old girls sharing dungarees with their mum. And I would\u2019ve never done that, no way would I have shared any of my mum\u2019s clothes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They must have cool mums, I think that\u2019s what it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Super cool mums wearing dungarees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And it\u2019s interesting that you, coming from a sales background, it sounds like you actually get the biggest kick out of that community rather than making a sale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeah, it just makes you feel so good. I think that was one of the things that when the business was starting, we were really focused on obviously the ethics and the sustainability side of things. We didn\u2019t really think about what it would mean to customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We were customer focused in, give them a good service, and make sure we listen to them, but we didn\u2019t really think about what it would mean to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We never really thought we would create a brand that means so much to people. And it\u2019s funny because it has its pros and cons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When we mess up, boy do we get the stick for it. I think that\u2019s because people are so passionate about it, and they shout about us so much, and they tell everybody they know about it. When we do something wrong, they feel like that reflects on them or that that\u2019s let them down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So they\u2019re very vocal about it. But in a way that\u2019s kind of good because it keeps us growing and changing and listening and trying to be what our customers want us to be. Without diluting the brand, obviously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is a challenge because sometimes people want you to be a bit of everything, and you can\u2019t, because there are contradictions there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeah, they\u2019re holding you to account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeah. And sometimes there\u2019s a group of people that say you need to do this thing, and there\u2019s a group of people saying that you need to do this thing, and they\u2019re totally different. They\u2019re total opposites, and you\u2019re like, what do I do here?<\/p>\n\n\n\n But it is really nice when we get reviews. The customer service team, they share all of the reviews, any nice feedback they get from customers they share it in this Google Chat group that we\u2019ve all got. And it\u2019s so nice. They\u2019re amazing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our customers stick up for us if they know the answer to something because they\u2019ve watched one of my videos, or they\u2019ve read something and then someone new comes on social media having a go us for something. I see them coming on and being like, \u201cActually no, it\u2019s this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I\u2019m like, it\u2019s okay to educate your customers, they\u2019ll actually fight your battle for you. And it\u2019s amazing because they understand it. And I think that\u2019s a big thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think educating customers on how businesses are run internally and why you make the decisions you make and not treating them idiots, not just treating them like you can market to them in sneaky ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just be honest with them. And it seems that\u2019s the best marketing tactic we\u2019ve ever had is just being honest and upfront.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In terms of being so honest and transparent with your customers doing the videos and really putting your face to the brand. Has that been quite tricky for you as someone who has suffered with imposter syndrome?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Absolutely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Have you had to find a new kind of source of confidence for this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeah, absolutely, I have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s funny, you\u2019ve caught me a time in my life and in a point with Lucy & Yak where I have just learned so much the last few years that I\u2019ve realised that I was holding myself back in so many ways by not believing in myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think this is a massive thing when you\u2019re from a working-class background. I never really realised it consciously, but you never got told at school to dream big or that you could do something like this. So you never expected it to happen to you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So when you\u2019re in that position you\u2019re like, \u201cI\u2019m not good enough for this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And it\u2019s really hard because what I would say, and this is both me and Chris, we\u2019ve both been quite similar in that where, in the early days, we listened too much sometimes to different people in industry or consultants or some members of the team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It really sent us off on a tangent that we were like, whoa, is this business even ours anymore?<\/p>\n\n\n\n And that happened for a couple of years. And there was all the Covid stuff, and we were in lockdown. It just didn\u2019t feel like our business and businesses were getting stick left right and centre on social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s hard when your face is on it, not to take it personally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But what I will say is through all the low times I\u2019ve had, they have honestly just made me come out of the other side incredibly stronger and just surer of who I am and what my values are and knowing that actually, don\u2019t ever bend on your values for anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No matter how scared you are, no matter how much you think it\u2019ll make you look a certain way because it honestly just makes you fall out of love with your business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then we got to a point where we were like, we can\u2019t run this business anymore. It doesn\u2019t feel like our business. And so it was either do something about it and stand up for what you believe in and stop running it in the way that you are or sell it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And we didn\u2019t want to sell it. So we knew we needed to turn it around so that we loved it again. And we have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chris has been much better at that than I am, and he\u2019s definitely carried me through it. But yeah, it is, it\u2019s tough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Did you turn to anyone for advice other than Chris during those tough moments? How did you pull yourself up and really think I\u2019m good enough?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you know what I owe a lot to a woman called Africa Brooke. Do you know Africa Brooke?<\/p>\n\n\n\n She\u2019s got quite a big following on social media, but she\u2019s a consultant who works with entrepreneurs and sort of people in the public eye, who are struggling to stand by their values and feeling terrified of being themselves in a public space because of everything that\u2019s been going on in the world the last few years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I reached out to her because I\u2019d been following her for a while, and she talked about all this stuff a lot. And I ended up having 10 one-hour sessions with her over a period, and she was absolutely amazing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because she just helped me realise that actually the stuff that I valued and what I did care about, they were all okay. Because in my head I was doing crazy sums like this equals this, and I don\u2019t want anyone to think that. And she was like, \u201cNo, you\u2019re looking at it all wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And she\u2019s been really amazing through it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But also actually friends, I\u2019ve got some great friends that have carried me through it as well. And a lot of the team actually have been amazing as well. So yeah, lots of people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I know that Lucy & Yak is now one of the fastest-growing companies in the UK. What would you say are some of the big challenges or mistakes you\u2019ve made as you\u2019ve scaled the brand?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well that was certainly one of them sort of trusting your own gut. I have not known a time when your own gut is not right, it always is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s like even if it\u2019s just a niggle, but you have to be so in tune with what\u2019s going on that you actually can read it. And that\u2019s where I was struggling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So that\u2019s a massive one for me. It doesn\u2019t matter how experienced someone is and how much more experience they might have than you. They\u2019re not necessarily right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Listen to people and figure out your own way with it, but don\u2019t just take someone\u2019s word as gospel because they\u2019re speaking confidently because they\u2019ve been big mistakes that I\u2019ve made. And that\u2019s at every level. That could be someone\u2019s junior or someone really saying it really doesn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I mean fashion\u2019s a tough one in general with supply chains, they\u2019ve been some of my most challenging moments of figuring out how to fix all of the problems when it comes to supply chains with Covid and things like that. They\u2019ve been an absolute nightmare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I think it\u2019s accepting that they always exist. They don\u2019t ever end in fashion. They get easier as you\u2019ve been going for longer, but they never end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Have you looked at moving your suppliers closer to home?<\/p>\n\n\n\n We have. We did experiment with it a few years back, but to be honest, the UK is challenging because the UK used to be a massive manufacturing place, but because it\u2019s not anymore, you might have a factory, but they don\u2019t have the infrastructure around them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s so many moving parts to making a garment. And when we originally experimented with it, we were like, \u201cOkay, so we make it closer to home.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But that\u2019s not actually any more sustainable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I mean obviously it\u2019s good for the economy, and it feeds into giving people jobs, but it\u2019s not any more sustainable because we can\u2019t grow cotton here. So we still have to import the cotton. And if you import in the whole roll of cotton, you\u2019re actually importing the waste as well, which is actually more than just importing a garment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So in terms of the sustainability and the miles it has to do, it still has to come from a country that grows cotton regardless. If you are using material like natural materials, I think we make a little bit of linen in Ireland, but it\u2019s really small scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And to be honest, when we did, we got so many questions from our customers that were like, \u201cWhat about your workers in India? Are you taking work away from them?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I didn\u2019t realise there was as much desire for it as we\u2019d initially thought. And then it\u2019s very expensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We pay a living wage, so we pay a living wage as per the livingwage.org, not the government\u2019s new labelling of the minimum wage. And we also do a four-day working week and when we reduced down to a four-day working week, we still kept everyone on salaries as though they were working five days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So that means the hourly rate of our warehouse staff is, I can\u2019t remember off the top of my head, but it\u2019s about \u00a313 an hour or something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So that would\u2019ve been the same in the factories. And then we realised we just couldn\u2019t make it work. People weren\u2019t willing to really pay that extra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What was behind the decision to move the entire workforce to a four-day working week? And what impact has that had on productivity?<\/p>\n\n\n\n So it happened during Covid, actually. Everyone stayed at home, so we shut the warehouse even though they didn\u2019t ask us to shut the warehouse, but we were like, \u201cI don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on here? The government\u2019s really confusing us. Is it essential? Is it not essential? Well, it\u2019s not essential, but it\u2019s a warehouse, and they\u2019re not mentioning warehouses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But anyway, we shut our warehouse for a period of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And then when we brought people back in, we brought them in on fewer hours so that we could spread and not have as many people in the warehouse at once. So we split the days. And we noticed that productivity didn\u2019t really drop. And so we were like, well this is interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So we put it to the staff, we were like, \u201cLook, we\u2019re going to try out this for 12 months. Productivity has to remain really good. But we expect it to drop a little bit because it\u2019s a full day you\u2019re losing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But it really hasn\u2019t. I feel like that last hour of the day, that last hour before you\u2019re due to finish, I think everybody just stops working anyway. Everyone takes a little bit longer on their breaks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because we\u2019re not a company that\u2019s like clock-in, clock-out, check your breaks and stuff. Everyone would take a bit longer, getting back from their break and go on their break a couple of minutes early, have more toilet breaks and just saunter around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I feel like, because we said to them, \u201cLook, we\u2019re only able to make this work if we still have the output that we need because we\u2019re already paying a living wage, and this is going to increase it even more.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And honestly, it\u2019s been incredible. And then obviously in the offices as well, it\u2019s amazing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Obviously, there are weeks when they have to do a little bit more, but that\u2019s kind of like when you think about fashion offices and stuff, they normally do five days and have to do a little bit more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So it\u2019s kind of like sometimes certain times of the year they might have to do a little bit more, but it\u2019s rare. And most people get their three-day weekends and people love it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think, certainly one of the teams said, \u201cI just don\u2019t feel like I need a holiday. When I\u2019m trying to book my holidays, I\u2019m like, well, I\u2019ve got long weekends every weekend. So I don\u2019t really feel like I need to use that many holidays.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you think your staff are happier?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Definitely. And do you know what? I think it came from when Chris and I worked in sales. We worked six days one week, like 12-hour shifts and five days the following week, and we never got two days off together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And you just can\u2019t recover. It\u2019s just not enough time to recover. I feel like that Friday\u2019s a great day for everyone to do the chores, do all the rubbish stuff that you don\u2019t really like doing, and you don\u2019t want to waste your time on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Life admin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeah. You need to do it, but you don\u2019t want to use your Saturday on Sunday. And then you\u2019ve got your Saturday on Sunday and you feel like coming back to work on Monday, you\u2019ve sorted all your life admin out, because there\u2019s nothing worse than stuff like that hanging over your head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When you\u2019ve got to go to the dentist or the doctor\u2019s, but you haven\u2019t got time. And when that stuff\u2019s hanging over your head, it probably affects your work as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So what\u2019s next for Lucy & Yak? Tell us about new products you are launching into or markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So this map behind me, I\u2019m actually in Chris\u2019s office and Chris is in charge of our retail side of the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So we\u2019re growing in the USA. The USA is slowly becoming quite a big percentage of our customers, specifically California, New York. So we are looking at how we can grow more in the US.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So Chris and I are actually doing a bit of a trip to California in a couple of days, but I don\u2019t know when this podcast\u2019s coming out. So we might have already been.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And we want to sort of scope out maybe opening a couple of shops, maybe testing some pop-ups first, just sort of seeing how that goes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because I just feel like online advertising is just getting tougher and tougher, and it feels like more robust to have some physical presence in a country that you\u2019ve actually got a big customer base in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I think it builds trust as well. If you come across the brand in the USA, you don\u2019t know if it\u2019s legit or if it\u2019s one of these brands that, there are a lot of these brands that have popped up and just kind of copy everybody, and they\u2019re really cheap, and it\u2019s not great quality when it comes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I think having a base at least in a country that puts trust in them. So I think that\u2019s a big thing for us. And that\u2019s really exciting because it allows me and Chris to almost go back to the start of the business where when we first started, we\u2019re trying to figure out how to sell stuff and what people want, it feels kind of brand new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even though we\u2019ve got customers in the US it feels like it\u2019s whole new thing for us to sort of figure out. And that\u2019s the bit that we love. And I suppose most entrepreneurs will tell you that. That\u2019s the fun bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeah, you miss that kind of gritty, tough startup stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeah, really hands-on, and now as time goes on, you feel like I\u2019m just in meetings, and you\u2019re not as hands on. And don\u2019t get me wrong there are parts of that which I love, but I do miss the sort of scrapping around and trying to figure stuff out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And then in terms of new products, we are expanding our quite a lot. We obviously started as dungarees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We know that dungarees are not for everybody, and we want to own dungarees, and we will always want dungarees. But we\u2019ve already expanded into other areas, but we want to keep just expanding that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So knitwear is actually a big category that we\u2019re going to grow into at the back end of this year, and we\u2019ve got some amazing new knitwear coming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also, I feel like prints are as much our thing as dungarees. So we really want to expand on that and keep just adding amazing prints to everything that we do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And also obviously our buyback scheme is something that we really want to focus in on, that circularity. We\u2019ve got an in-house upcycler now as well who works for us full time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So there are loads we\u2019re doing around that. I mean, we want to convert a camper van into a sort of mobile react station that can drive around different towns and fix people\u2019s dungarees and stuff. So we\u2019ve got a lot of exciting ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s a great idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And if you had to sum up your vision for the company in one sentence, what would it be?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think to just continue bringing joy to people\u2019s lives. Whether that\u2019s people internally, whether that\u2019s people in the factories, whether that\u2019s our customers. I think just trying to do business in a good way and continuing that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wherever you\u2019re listening or watching, subscribe to Sound Advice on Apple iTunes<\/a> here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We are also on Spotify<\/a> and anywhere else you get your podcasts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Join our community to share your insights and stories on Twitter @SageIreland<\/a> using the hashtag #SoundAdvicePodcast, on Instagram @SageOfficial<\/a> or in the comments below!<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can check out Lucy and Yak on their website<\/a> or Twitter<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nHow travelling with no money led to an accidental business<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Kate Bassett:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Lucy Greenwood:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Kate Bassett:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Lucy Greenwood:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Finding a tailor in India<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Kate Bassett:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Lucy Greenwood:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
How to ensure quality and transparency with your tailor as your business scales<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Kate Bassett:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Lucy Greenwood:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Kate Bassett:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Lucy Greenwood:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Make sure you have someone on the ground and overseeing things in your factories<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Kate Bassett:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Lucy Greenwood:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Tackling overproduction and waste with a buyback scheme<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Kate Bassett:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Lucy Greenwood:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Kate Bassett:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Is having physical stores important for a clothing brand?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Kate Bassett:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Lucy Greenwood:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Building a customer community based on transparency<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Kate Bassett:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Lucy Greenwood:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Kate Bassett:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Passionate customers will hold you accountable<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Kate Bassett:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Lucy Greenwood:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Kate Bassett:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Lucy Greenwood:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Don\u2019t let imposter syndrome hold you back or impact your business<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Kate Bassett:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Lucy Greenwood:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Kate Bassett:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Lucy Greenwood:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Seeking help to overcome your imposter syndrome<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Kate Bassett:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Lucy Greenwood:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Listen to others but don\u2019t take their word as gospel<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Kate Bassett:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Lucy Greenwood:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Moving suppliers closer to home isn\u2019t always more sustainable<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Kate Bassett:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Lucy Greenwood:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
A four-day working week means high production and happier staff<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Kate Bassett:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Lucy Greenwood:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Kate Bassett:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Lucy Greenwood:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Kate Bassett:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Lucy Greenwood:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
New products and adventures for Lucy & Yak<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Kate Bassett:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Lucy Greenwood:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Kate Bassett:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Lucy Greenwood:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Kate Bassett:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Lucy Greenwood:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Inspired by this small business story?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Want to know more about Lucy & Yak or Lucy Greenwood?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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