Batch LDN: How to easily get money to start your fashion brand

Everybody Wants To Be Us

The episode explores the entrepreneurial journey of Sam and Julian, the founders of Batch LDN, a brand redefining the traditional suit through a

Key takeaways

• Batch LDN utilizes a made-to-order model that achieves an exceptionally low customer return rate of 0.2%.
• The founders leveraged foundational business skills learned from previous roles at Punchy (soft drinks) and Oddballs (underwear).

Main topics

• Fashion entrepreneurship
• Made-to-order business models

Notable quotes

The traditional suit is becoming a bit of an outdated formality.

Conclusion

A practical deep dive into the operational and strategic realities of

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) Why out of all things did you decide to redefine Speaker 2 (0:02) a suit? I Speaker 1 (0:03) think the traditional suit is becoming a bit of an outdated formality. It Speaker 2 (0:05) needed a shake-up. That's why we've appealed to lots of celebrities and famous faces because what we are delivering is genuinely a lovely experience for people. Ant & Dec Speaker 1 (0:14) just wore it recently. Yeah, really cool moment. Speaker 3 (0:16) A lot of people, when they start in a fashion business, money is the barrier to starting. You raised pre-launch? No. Talk to me about your journey and process with funding and how that looked. Speaker 1 (0:27) Reaching out to people on LinkedIn said they've got... investor in their title and pitching the business that we were trying to raise money for. It's very hard to market a product that you haven't created yet without a brand to go with it. It's almost a reverse question, not what is the business worth, but what can you convince someone it's worth. How much are you paying rent at Comfarden? I'll tell you that. Speaker 3 (0:44) Really? North of... I guess. Choosing electrolytes can be overwhelming. There are so many different ones on the market, so it is essential that you pick the right ones for you. Humantra understand this, so they've put together this nifty little trial pack. For just £15, you will get eight sachets beautifully packaged in this box, which include two of each flavour, berry pomegranate, elderberry, Himalayan lime, and my favourite, lychee. And you will also get a free frosted bottle too. Click the link down below and start your electrolyte journey with Humantra now. You guys are unbelievable. Already tens of thousands of you have listened to and watched the podcast. Not for one minute did I think that in the first few months of release, we would already be at this point. We were even in the top 10 charts after the first month. The lineup of guests I have for you in the following months is amazing. Some of them have never even done public interviews or podcasts before, but trust me, you will definitely have heard of their brands and names. If you want to know as soon as they're released, please make sure you have subscribed and followed me, Ben Gallagher, on your favourite social media platform. That's B-E-N-G-A-L-L-A-G-A. This gets more eyeballs on our episodes, which gives us more traction to get even more amazing guests. Thank you, and I hope you enjoy this one. We've obviously got Sam and Julian. Speaker 1 (2:11) I'll Speaker 3 (2:12) start with you, Sam. How would you describe Julian? That's all that coming. What's he like? What are his strengths? And what does he add to Batch? Speaker 1 (2:23) That's a very good question. I would describe Julian as a hyper charismatic, very creative individual that's got a strong business now and an amazing ability to get shit done. Speaker 2 (2:40) I'll take that, mate. Thank you very much. And that's what he brings to Batch, really. I'm going to have to perform on this podcast now as well. Yeah. Hyper charismatic, Speaker 1 (2:46) do Speaker 2 (2:46) you say? I'll take that. Yeah, Speaker 1 (2:48) yeah. Speaker 2 (2:48) It's true, though. Speaker 1 (2:50) If there's something that we've come up with an idea for, Drew's the best person to get it done. So taking something from an idea to a reality and refining it and making it better along the way is probably his biggest asset to Batch. Speaker 3 (3:04) Cheers, mate. 20 quid Speaker 1 (3:06) later. Speaker 3 (3:08) Julian. Yeah. How would you describe Sam? What's he like? What Speaker 2 (3:12) are his strengths and what does Sam add to Batch? So Sam and I went to Newcastle together for context. So we were friends before business partners for a long time. And I think when you're friends, you never get the opportunity to appreciate somebody who's like business acumen. Sam approached me with the idea for Batch, well, couldn't find a decent casual suit. You know straight away then you're making the decision to get into bed with one of your mates, figuratively speaking. But yeah, he just impresses me every day, to be honest. He's super driven, very technically able, is great with numbers, is very analytical and has great commercial acumen. So great at coming up, seeing the bigger picture, being able to zoom out from the day to day and focus on what we need to be doing in 6, 12, 18 months time. Stuff that I... probably am less good at, so we balance each other out nicely. So Speaker 3 (4:02) from what I got from that, so Sam, your operations, think with your head more than your heart, quite detailed orientated. And then Julian, your creative, think more with your heart, quite... Speaker 1 (4:26) Impulsive? Yeah, Speaker 3 (4:27) for Speaker 1 (4:27) sure. Yeah, it's kind of a balance of those two things. It's like... I've got a good ability at coming up with big ideas that make sense later down the line and then Jude's got a really good knack of refining those big ideas and making it happen. Whereas I take like twice, three times, four times as long as I should to get something done because I'm caught in this other space which is thinking about it and strategising and trying to be efficient. And if you try and be too efficient, you become inefficient. Whereas Jude's very good at making that happen. making it look beautiful along the way. Speaker 3 (5:04) How did you two meet? University? Yeah, Newcastle Uni. Playing rugby. Playing rugby? What was that like? Speaker 2 (5:12) Nice. Well, I mean, it was a mixture of, like, the rugby club, nights out, late nights out, where you get to know people very well at university. So, yeah, it was a pleasure. Sam was in the year below me and in my brother's year as well, and there was lots of mix in between the years. So we're still in the big same friendship circle that we have now, which is amazing, which has been, like, our support network for a batch in London is that near enough every single person from our uni moves straight down to London. Speaker 3 (5:36) When you were friends in uni, did you ever think, I'm going to start a business with Speaker 2 (5:40) this guy? No, to be honest. No. If I'd have had to be able to pick people in my friendship group, Sam would have been high up on the considerations. Speaker 1 (5:50) I wasn't planning on starting a business at uni. Speaker 3 (5:53) What were you planning on doing? What was your thought process of, when I leave uni, this is what I want to do? Speaker 1 (5:57) Sorry, that's not entirely true. I started a little night at uni, as I'm sure lots of people did. A night? What's that? DJ night. Okay. Making bookings at clubs and getting my mates down to come and see it. And so that sort of gave me the sight, oh, it's quite fun to run your own thing. It's quite fun to be your own boss. But what I took from that was, like, I like doing lots of different things at the same time. So I want to be a project manager. And I left uni, went to try and be a project manager. You can't get a job without experience. You can't get experience without a job. So you're just stuck in this cycle. About two weeks into that search, a friend of mine had just started a, a friend of my girlfriend, sorry, a friend of my boyfriend had just started a business. And he was looking for some part-time sales help. So when I joined this startup called Punchy who makes soft drinks and it was just a really strong fit from the start. I was like, I love this. Startups are cool. I want to work in startups now. And it kind of went from there as opposed to being at uni being like, I can't wait to start my own thing and do my own thing, if that makes sense. Speaker 3 (6:56) Yeah, I just want to hold on that point where you said when you're looking for a job, you need experience. Speaker 3 (7:02) But then to get experience, you need to get the job. Like, I feel like that's a reality for so many people. So many careers. How did you get out of that kind of like ruts or kind of move to figure out that to get experience, I have to do X, which is not doing the job. Speaker 1 (7:21) I actually got lucky, to be honest. I didn't work out a proper plan. I just had this thing put in front of me and when it took it, I had to go and work part-time selling drinks at a festival. And that then led to like, okay, cool, I can add value here beyond just selling drinks. I can add this, I can add that. Speaker 3 (7:42) Was that out of your comfort zone though? So like to go and do sales, was that something that you thought you would be good at or was it like, oh, I don't know, I'll give this a go? Speaker 1 (7:52) No, I think I knew I'd be quite good at it. It wasn't massively out of my comfort zone. I think it was just quite an easy sales job, to be honest. It was giving out free samples and then making up a good reason as to why someone should come back and buy more, which just, to me, made sense. That was an easy thing to do with the right pointers as to here are the key things that make people want to drink this or buy this. Speaker 3 (8:17) And this was a brand called Punchy, which was a start-up. Speaker 1 (8:20) Yeah. Speaker 3 (8:21) And you left uni... Julian did something very similar with a brand called Oddballs. Speaker 2 (8:25) Yeah, that's right. That's an underwear company based in Newcastle. My parents are Geordies, so settling in Newcastle for a couple of years was fine. I was going to ask if you're a Liverpool fan. Presumably you are. Of course. Big result last night. I actually missed it. So did I, unfortunately. You're a Newcastle fan? Yeah. Anyway, where was I? Working for Oddballs in Newcastle, selling underwear, basically. license all of the Premier League football clubs, the premiership rugby clubs, England Football England, Rugby England, cricket, etc. So it was a fun job for me to go into. But similarly to Sam's, it's a sacrifice that you have to make. You basically join a startup. I was on 18K selling pants. I was like, this is a stepping stone to be able to move down to London. What quickly became clear was that the business was scaling really quickly. I was getting paid quite well, having a nice lifestyle. Speaker 2 (9:18) eventually was able to persuade my bosses to allow me to move down to London. That was pre-COVID before working from home was a thing. So managing their basically their retail sales independently from the business. So kind of running my own business for the business, which allowed me such great autonomy, which. Fast forward four and a half years into that, Sam approached me with this idea for Batch and then I managed oddballs and Batch and Sam did Punchy for a while at the same time for about the best part of 18 months until the time was right to be able to knock oddballs on the head and go full-time with Batch. Speaker 3 (9:49) So what number employee were you of Oddballs? Four. So I saw a video literally just before and it's like number two is the best position to be in in a company, which is very similar to what you were. So number four, but Speaker 2 (10:02) it was a co-founder's or was it three co-founders? No, Speaker 3 (10:04) no, Speaker 2 (10:04) it was one managing director, somebody that worked in the warehouse and a head of design. So essentially I was kind of like the co-founder's right hand man to a lot of the areas of the business. So Speaker 3 (10:13) similar, similar idea. Speaker 2 (10:14) So, Speaker 3 (10:14) so yeah. So being the number two is. the best position in a company to be in because you don't have the stress of the business, the finances, and you've got the freedom to do your own thing. And that sounds like exactly what you did. And I think I would probably urge everyone if they didn't have the capital or didn't want to take the risk straight from university or straight from school, becoming an early person in a startup will give you that experience of doing your own thing anyway, just with minimizing the risk completely. I was third Speaker 1 (10:46) into Punchy. Same thing. Joined two co-founders. And you were exposed Speaker 3 (10:51) to everything? Speaker 1 (10:53) Yeah. You have to be. Most of it, yeah. You have to be in order to be able to do your job and there's a team of three or four people. You have to know what's going on in the warehouse, what's going on in finance, when the next production run's coming. If you don't know that, it's impossible to go out and sell. Speaker 3 (11:10) Did being exposed to everything in a start-up build any sort of resentment because it wasn't your thing? Speaker 2 (11:21) Not necessarily for me, to be honest. I was happy to work under and for somebody. Providing that I had a nice lifestyle and I was getting paid equitably for the amount that I was making for the business, which I was, was fine by me. Obviously, in the back of your mind, you're like, one day I'll be able to do this and it'll be my own. But for now, I was quite humble and happy working and learning under other people. Mine was slightly Speaker 1 (11:40) different because over time, when you do become exposed to the stress of running a start-up, It's not easy. Very rarely goes right. And the business I was working for wasn't in a position to pay me equitably. So I felt like, oh, I don't have as much equity in the business from an ownership perspective. I'm not earning as much money, but I'm putting in as much work. And so over time, that starts to grate on you. And it's like, there's an imbalance here, and this doesn't feel fair. Which was part of the reason I got to the point where I was like, OK, I know enough, now I'm ready to start my own thing. The other part was that it would have taken the business to take quite a big jump for me to be out of my comfort zone again with what I was doing. I kind of had that bit down packed. So it was like two things aligned at the same time. And then I had an idea and I was suddenly like, oh, hang on a minute, this might be it. Speaker 3 (12:32) Was there ever any point where you felt that the company that you were working for was resentful towards you for working on another project? Speaker 1 (12:42) Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I got a big earful for that. Partly because it came out to them at a time that it shouldn't have. It was, like, told a family friend I had this idea at a barbecue and they made the mistake of running up to them, not knowing they didn't know, and being like, oh, my God, what do you think about this new idea? So at which point they felt like I was going behind their back. In reality, it just wasn't formed enough yet for it to be worth talking about. They didn't even know if we were going to register the business or not. How did you Speaker 3 (13:10) resolve that situation? Speaker 1 (13:11) I just had to have an honest conversation with them and assure them that I was still going to do 100 % of the job that I'd been employed to do and that I was working on this other project in my spare time, which was the truth. We were doing, like, probably 40 and 50 nowadays for a while to get it to the point that we could start to build something from without quitting one job and moving to the next. So we took the strain on it and they, I think, through gritted teeth were like, yeah, fair enough, and eventually it got to a point where... They needed to fill my role. I was ready to move into the next thing, so we parted ways. Speaker 3 (13:46) What about you, Julian? What was your experience? Speaker 2 (13:48) Mine was probably a lot calmer. But the business was doing it like... Punchy and Oddballs have gone through different stages of business, and I think Oddballs was probably making a little bit more revenue, so there's less stress coming from them on me. I'd stayed with Oddballs for slightly longer than Sam did with Punchy, and to be honest, it went pretty smoothly. They were understanding of the situation. It was at which point when we took a shop, In Spitalfields, they were like, how much work are you actually getting done? Especially because mine as well was revenue-based targets. If you're hitting those, there's only so much issue that they can really have. But it got to a point where it was obvious that I was doing two to three hours' work of oddballs max a day. We were raising at the time, and me leaving oddballs was contingent on the raise being successful, which they gave me the grace period to be able to do, to the point where we raised, and I was like, right, guys, we've raised, thank you very much, and left very amicably. So it was pretty calm overall. Speaker 3 (14:42) What is the biggest thing you two both learned from being so exposed to a startup before starting your own thing? What was the most valuable thing we learned? Yeah, what did you bring to batch that you learned from being involved in a startup? Speaker 1 (14:58) For me, it was like basic business skills on one side, i.e. how do you do a cash flow? When do you register for VAT? all the little things you don't really get taught, but they are so crucial to running successful business. Plus an understanding of how hard you've got to graft to get something from nothing to something. And I think it's so often over-glorified. It's like, oh, it must be amazing. You've done your own thing and you work your own hours and you're your own boss. But what's often missed is like... amount of resilience and determination and everything sacrifice has to be made that goes on behind the scenes I kind of been exposed to that to a certain degree yeah so carrying that through made almost doing it for the second time a lot easier because we approached it from both of us similar experience with a much more relaxed Speaker 2 (15:45) It's the commitment, isn't it? You have to accept that it's essentially going to become your life, whether you like it or not. You're going to be thinking about it. You have to allow that it's going to take up a significant amount of your thoughts and your brain all the time. And if you're cool with that, then it should run smoothly. And that's what it was like with my time at Oddballs. It was like my life, part and parcel. I was happy to work on weekends. I was happy to work late. I didn't bat an eyelid at it. So knowing that that's how you basically make a startup work. It kind of came naturally to both of us. I think also one Speaker 1 (16:16) thing that I missed is we both learned that things go wrong the whole time in a start-up. There's one thing that is consistent, it's that things go wrong. Because we carried that through from our last job, so when things did go wrong, it wasn't like panic stations. It was like, OK, another thing's gone wrong, how are we going to solve it? And looking at it from a completely different angle rather than this is the worst thing that's ever happened. Stress levels are through the roof. Pure panic. then it's much more difficult to solve the problem. Speaker 3 (16:44) Yeah, I love the phrase like unhappiness occurs when expectations don't meet reality. So that's why a lot of people fail when they start a business because they don't know what to expect. Whereas with you Speaker 2 (16:55) guys, because you were so exposed to a startup, you Speaker 3 (16:57) knew that so many things were going to go wrong, Speaker 2 (17:00) right? And I Speaker 3 (17:02) used to say this all the time as well, when people would be like, what's your role in the company? And I was like... A firefighter. Because that's all you are every day. In a startup, that's all you are every day. There are issues every single hour of the day. And it be from super small to really big. And whether it's just like having to go out and get paper because there's no paper to print off the A4 orders to ship in with the parcels or whether it's someone who wants to leave the company. Do you know what I mean? Like the issues are just... Big to small. Yeah, absolutely. Speaker 3 (17:37) How important do you guys think it is to have a co-founder? Because I'm obviously a co-founder with my brother. So I'm really interested to speak about this topic with you guys. Speaker 1 (17:46) It's like because I've been in the starts for a while now you get a lot of various people approaching and asking for advice So they've got an idea they want to know how to take it to the next step And my first piece of advice always is find a co-founder Pretty not not quite always there's some exceptions to that but generally it's like go and get yourself a co-founder because It's not really someone to share the lows with sharing those with people is easier than than it sounds like your mum will understand if you're having a low point It's someone to share the highs with, to help you step out from that moment you're in and recognise you've just done something fucking amazing, which is really hard to describe to mum because she's not really going to understand that you've just got a new retailer and what that means and the knock-on effect, to use it as an example. It's Speaker 2 (18:32) quite frustrating when your parents just don't get it. Speaker 1 (18:34) Yeah. And you just really want someone to give you a big pat on the back. Or just to let you know that you need to give yourself a pat on the back because you... rather than going from one thing to the next thing and what's the next goal and how are we going to get to the next target? Speaker 3 (18:46) It's Speaker 1 (18:47) been like, oh my God, we just got a really cool investor. Let's go and have a pint and celebrate that, even though we don't really want to do that. Let's take this moment to do it together. Speaker 3 (18:54) Yeah, celebrating wins together. That's it. Of course. Anything Speaker 1 (18:58) else? Just shared responsibility. All the decisions don't fall on one set of shoulders. You've got someone to bounce ideas off of. It's Speaker 2 (19:05) the accountability, which is great as well. You know, you tell your co-founder you're going to do something you have to do. If you tell yourself, you can let it slide far easier, right? So that's always been useful for me. As well, you have to accept that you're basically bringing in, like, another person, like, really close into your life, which is quite intense. Like, we have quite an intense relationship, which... It's perhaps one of the negative sides of having a co-founder, because you have to share literally everything. And it's like, where do the boundaries lie? They're so blurred. If you've got other people that... It's a very complex relationship to have with somebody, especially with a friend. So managing that is really important as well. But ultimately, we're in the same camp. I mean, I wouldn't want to do a business without a co-founder. Yeah, it Speaker 1 (19:47) is. Especially a Speaker 2 (19:48) business as heavy touch as ours. We would have been screwed without two of us. It wouldn't have been possible. So Speaker 3 (19:52) it's the extra hands. Because also, like when you described each other at the beginning, it would sound like if it was just you, nothing would get done, but everything would get planned. And if it was just you, everything would get done, but not necessarily right. Do you know what I mean? And it's very similar to me and my brother. And the accountability thing is just so important because, like you said, the things that are easy to do are also easy not to do. So but whereas if you tell someone you're doing it you're like even if I don't want to do it I've promised this person. Yeah that I need to do it Speaker 2 (20:29) works a treat. Yeah That's one of my favorite things to do is I'll be done before 9 a.m Tomorrow morning, which means I have to get up at 6 and like get that work done But then it's done and we can start the day and that job has been done Chances of doing that if you're just working for yourself is slim slimmer Speaker 3 (20:44) Why out of all things did you decide to redefine a suit? Speaker 1 (20:49) Good question. Wanted a casual suit, couldn't find any good ones. So I noticed that I had a couple of traditional suits in my wardrobe. I'm straight for this bit. They weren't really appropriate for a lot of the occasions that I wanted to wear a suit. There's something nice about putting on a suit, right, where you feel confident. It's even like wearing a two-piece, it's a similar idea. You look put together, you feel confident, but with a traditional suit, it's not that comfortable. Quickly it's become overly formal. where, like, you know, if you go to a smart business meeting that you would wear a suit to, you can't then go to the pub because you do look like a bit of a twat dressed in a suit at a pub, whereas there is another realm to that, which is what we wanted to create and have created, where you still can wear it to a business meeting, where you still feel put together, it still gives you that lift of confidence and you put your shoulders back and stroll into a room, but then you can also go to the pub afterwards or you can wear it to your mum's birthday or... I think the traditional suit is becoming a bit of an outdated formality and needed a shake up. Speaker 3 (21:53) Why do you think it's so formal now? Why have they become so formal? Because at one point in Speaker 2 (22:00) time, everyone wore them, right? Yeah, I think society and culture has moved on and things have become a lot more flexible and lucid. Post-COVID, everybody got very used to being casual at home. And when we were reintroduced back into the workplace, that expectation for such formality was kind of unnecessary. So I think there's been quite a rapid change on that in recent years, especially in the workplace. events have become far more informal. You know, weddings. I only wear batch suits to weddings now, as you would expect, obviously, but I never feel underdressed, even with people in traditional suits. So I think just, like, the world has become a little bit more of a forgiving, relaxing place and such, like, archaic standards of how people are... what smartness is perceived to be has totally changed and things have become a lot more casual. I think there's a bit of a Speaker 1 (22:47) negative connotation that's developed through society as well. particularly around like from media and films and television where you've got a slimy car salesman who's wearing a suit who's out there to do one over you and that sort of spread a little bit into if someone's trying to sell something to you in a suit there's certain industries that that makes sense for them to be in a suit and if they're not wearing a suit you won't trust them but more and more so someone's wearing a suit there's a little bit of mistrust that's fallen into play particularly around sales roles. So I think there's a slight connotation that's developed over time. Speaker 3 (23:21) What industries would you say still should wear Speaker 1 (23:24) suits? Speaker 3 (23:25) I Speaker 1 (23:26) think it's like top-end lawyers, top-end bankers, where you're dealing with people that there's a certain expectation that you should be making the full effort. There's an effort that goes into dressing in a traditional suit, wearing a shirt and tie, putting yourself through a slight discomfort because generally they're not that comfortable. so that you've shown full effort to go and... that you do, you really care, you really care about what you're doing. So I think there are occasions where it still makes sense. There are still lots of occasions that I would wear a suit to. There's just... they're few and far between and there's more occasions that you could wear a casual suit to that you wouldn't on a traditional. When doesn't Speaker 3 (24:06) make sense wearing a suit that people still wear suits to? Do you guys think? Speaker 1 (24:13) That's a good question. Speaker 2 (24:18) A bit stumped on that one. Probably like, I think there's a lot of expectations in media and people that are necessarily on TV to be really well turned out. But I'm compromised on that answer because despite making more casual suits, which there's clearly a need for, we do still both believe that the traditional suit has its place in society. But I think weddings is a key example of that. I think now that people that get the attention at weddings are those that are in funky suits. and have considered maybe a slightly more stylish 70s piece or a nice chilled shirt and chinos or linen trousers. That's made people really stand out at weddings. All of a sudden, so I wore this to a black tie wedding, rather than everybody asking, nobody asks where you got your black tie from. Do you know what I mean? But everybody asks you where you got your nice casual suit from. I'm like, oh shit, I could wear that. Well, Central Sea turned up to a wedding in a tracksuit, Speaker 3 (25:10) didn't he? Speaker 1 (25:12) I think a better way of phrasing that question is where are the places that we used to wear suits to that we don't any longer that a casual suit would fit and provide that same... So if you look back to the 1920s, right, everyone rolled around in their suits. I'm jealous of that era because everyone's so turned out all the time. When I look at old films, I'm like, that was a cool time to be alive. Whereas we've lost that because suits have become a bit overly formal because the workplace, because the social places. casualised a bit but things like date nights things like going to the theatre things like even going to the pub with mates special occasions semi-special occasions mum's birthdays etc are all amazing occasions that you would love to make an effort for and look good for and feel confident in but you wouldn't wear a traditional suit to because you'd be completely overdressed yeah so I think that's how it like it's almost the inverse of that Speaker 3 (26:07) yeah yeah because yeah that's a really good point Because going to the cinema back in the day, you'd wear a full-on suit, wouldn't you? You'd wear a full-on Speaker 1 (26:15) suit, and it was cool. It's cool, so cool. And you feel good. And suddenly that cinema or theatre occasion is so much more special because you've made the effort, you've stepped your