As an avid sports fan & a guy that likes to wear branded sports wear products, I was fascinated by the growth of the new brand “Castore”.
From seeing it first when watching Wimbledon & worn by Sir Andy Murray, to now seeing this brand being used in many many sports. This included EPL teams Newcastle & Wolves. The England cricket team now where this brand.
They had taken the place of the big boy brands – Addidas, Nike, Puma & Under Armour. Wow !
So I was fascinated to find out where they came from & how they became a business success story.
Castore was set up 7 years ago by Tom & Phil Beahon. Tom played football for Tranmere Rovers & Phil was a cricketer. They had that sporting background. They were 22 & 19 respectively when they decided to start Castore – that’s brave on its own.
They followed that classic lesson as a start up. Cut your costs. They moved back to the family home to commence their new venture.
In the early days of the business, Tom and Phil, would travel down from Liverpool pounding the streets of London and persuading gym and fitness instructors to wear their product and help spread the word.
It worked and eventually the business racked up its first few hundred thousand pounds worth of sales. Not wanting to bring investors on too early, until they had proven their concept, the pair bootstrapped the business through its sales and their earnings from their jobs in finance.
But to grow, you need investors & they persuaded some very well known ones to join them:
1. Arnaud Massenet (whose ex-wife Dame Natalie Massenet established Net-A-Porter.com)
2. Robert Senior (former CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi )
3. Issa Brothers (owners of Asda)
But they most famous backer is Sir Andy Murray.
So with the right idea & the right backers, you certainly can take on the big boys.
