Hello everybody and welcome to today's podcast. I've got with me today Kieran and Danny from Montterex. Thanks for coming in lads. Thank you. Um we're going to talk about the success really. This this is a a podcast really that does I'm not saying there won't be things in there that you've had to learn and things that have subtly gone wrong. But it's definitely not a podcast this where there's been some huge failure and then you've rebounded back from that. actually you've set up a brand and it's you're four years in and it's absolutely flying. It's fair to say. Yeah. Everybody in Liverpool will definitely have heard of it. Um but even now more so. I said this to you the other day. I was in Manchester airport the other day and there was loads of Monex flying around. So it's getting out further and further. Uh so we're going to talk about how you set it up. Um challenges along the way, what's gone right, what you've had to overcome. Uh talk about what it's like being, you know, how old are you now? You're 24, 26. 24 and 26. So you're young lads and um you're like to me you're like the new Beatles coming out of Liverpool. We'll talk about in a bit how you hide that Karen when you're on nights out. But um yeah, we're so we're going to have a good chat really about that. And uh yeah, and so before we do that again, we talked earlier, you're Liverpool and Everton. You're Everton, Danny. Yeah, you're Liverpool. Yeah, you've had loads of success, but it seems like it might be petering out a little bit. What's your thoughts on Liverpool? Yeah, tired system, tired players, no midfield. It's a bit scary, but uh I can still see us finishing above like you're level at the moment, aren't you? Level points the first time for a long time. But I I was saying and I've said on other podcasts, I do get quite obsessed me with organizations and how to behave. I think how organizations behave in the end will lead won't necessarily immediately but in the end they will lead to the right outcomes. Klopp wasn't successful from day one for example. Well, how do you think he's going to deal with it now Kieran? How do you think he's going to deal with riding that crest of the wave he's had for the last four or five years and now? I don't think he's Well, I'm not too sure to be fair. I think he's he's got to play it out, hasn't he? Till at least January. Hopefully uh players come back. I think he will find a system that's working. But I don't know if I knew maybe I'll be manager. I don't know. No, I haven't got a clue. I just hope it does turn around. It's uh scary times for us at the moment. And what about Everton? What? I mean, they've got Lampard in. What do you think of him as a leader, as a manager? Great. Like, but I suppose you got to give everyone a chance. Yeah, I'd keep him. I'd keep him. You can't keep sacking managers and expecting a new outcome. Like we've got to give him a chance and give him the money that he needs to actually be able to buy players. Like with all the stadium and financial fair play, he hasn't actually had the money to be able to buy anyone. Yeah. Or anyone of note. Yeah. So, we've sort of just got to let him play out and see how see how many players he can actually bring in. He'll do. Yeah. And we're going to talk about infrastructure of your organization now. You've built it in a bit. If we talk about Everton, what do you think the difference of having the new stadium will be? To be honest, it'll bring a lot not just to the club, but to the city as well. Like there's there's loads of opportunities and like when we add Carlo Anchelotti like it bring it attracts new players and it'll attract more more things to the club. So hopefully that's when we'll start turning and actually playing well. So Liverpool and Everton, how did you meet? When did you become friends? When we were kids really. We we lived across the field from each other from when we were like what 12. Yeah. Something like that. Just playing footy on the field outside ours. And obviously just became like best mates since well since we were 12 really just playing footy with like load of lads by ours. Um obviously he's two years older than me so we went to a different school but ah right. Yeah. We still always like kept in touch still best mates and like we still got the same group of mates. Yeah. when you um when you was at school, what what Kieran, what did you think I might be or I want to be or um I didn't know. Uh I always struggled a little bit of school, but I never knew what I wanted to do. I left school, went to do uh electrician. Um finished that, didn't like it, went on to be doing it in uh college, followed on to uni doing IT and come out being an IT engineer. But did you finish uni? Did you? I did finish uni. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, finished. I was at a gel or I just never liked what I've done really. I just thought it was one of those subjects in school that I have did all that. Yeah. And I just followed it all the way through. Yeah. Um, to the point where I got I got a job finished for it and then pretty much said to Danny, can't do this anymore. You need to think of something else. Yeah. Um, and yeah, and that's we started putting our heads together a little bit and thinking about stuff. And what about you when you was at school? What did you I was the same. I didn't really know. Um just wanted wanted to just play footy when I went to college. Yeah. And then after college was when I thought like what am I actually do college? Uh sports. So like literally just from school went straight to college done sports and then I actually started doing um it open university doing um business management right done like the first year of that and I was just like this is not for me. He sort of dropped out of that and then like he said then we just put our heads together and just thought of an idea. So So how did that work then? Go on. How did that how did the first Can you remember the first conversation you had about setting something up or a brand up? Yeah. Well Key obviously like you said then he was an IT engineer and we just had this mad idea one day about building websites. So we were looking for like different businesses to build websites for. Obviously failed and I like you were selling web build services. Yeah. Yeah pretty much. Yeah. But it was like very basic. So it wasn't like we were selling stuff you could do yourself online. We only sold one. So and when we realized we were like right what can we do now? What happened to that business? Do you know? I just got rid of it. Just changed. No. No. The business that the website you built Oh, I don't know. I've never kept Never kept up with it. Was it Castor or anything? No. No. But yeah. And then we just sort of pivoted then changed changed what we wanted to do. We've always both loved sportsware. We've always both wore like Nike, Under Armour. Yeah. So, we we just thought let's just give it a go. Nobody else is doing it, so let's just try it. So, who built the site? You? Yeah. Well, to be fair, Danny put quite a bit of effort into it as well. Like, right. Yeah. What did you build it on the first one? Uh, it was on Wix, the very first website, and it was the worst worst worst platform we ever used. Yeah. We could couldn't integrate it with any sort of uh apps or even like delivery methods. And it come to the point where like every time we got an order, we were manually like typing out the address. And when we started getting a little bit busier and we found like a $100 orders coming in a day, we like this like a full-time job just typing out someone's address. It was a nightmare. Um but yeah, know that we uh we moved over to Shopify and it was like one of the best decisions we ever made. Yeah. Yeah. Really good platform. So So you're building a site. Who's designing who's designing your first product or products? What did the first collection look like of? So, we only had three t-shirts. A red one, blue one, and a gray one. Right. A big massive logo like that. Um, the gray was brown. What were they plain teas or? Yeah, just like a mild t-shirt. It wasn't right. Thought they were they were awful to be honest. The fit was awful. Everything about them was awful. But it was very slow at first. We only sold like I think when we launched that like one of our mates, Tommy, he bought three. Yeah. And then and then after that, he I think we had like one sale, right? And then I went to my uncle's wedding. The whole time I was away, we didn't sell one. Right. We were like, "Shit, what have we done here?" You still got your job at this point though? Yeah, we still have our job at this point. Yeah. Just before we go on to that part then, what the name? Where did that come from? Well, at first it was called Montega, right? So, obviously, cuz we were new to everything, we didn't actually know what we were doing. So, we done it just carried on like Yeah. Well, picked the name, carried on doing what we were doing, and then And why did you pick that name? Well, yeah. So, probably my story to tell this. So, I've got like bad dyslexia. We went out one night and we thinking what what should we call this? Like we were playing I think we were playing pool, weren't we? Yeah. Having a couple of uh having a couple of bevies. We like what should we call it? So, we just started like googling like mad stuff in different languages and I just said something. He went and I knew I'd said it wrong straight away. I went, "Oh, no, never mind that." And he went, "No, say it again." I was like, "No, I never had this name anyway." And anyway, I'd said it and I'd said it completely wrong. cuz I misread the work completely. Uh but he was like, "No, it sounds good there. I don't know how we spell it." Spelled it. And uh yeah, that's how how the name was like creative sort of thing. We've always had the same logo like the M like it was obviously Monte and then yeah, like I said, then we were just going about our daily business and got got this random letter one day saying like you're getting sued basically for having this name and we were like what have we done here? Right. um got like solicitors and stuff involved and then realized like you've actually got a trademark name. So then that's when we actually changed the Monster X. But walking back now that's the best thing that ever happened to us. Yeah. Yeah. So what's that other brand do? Sportsware. Oh they they build um well they don't build they have like ski coats and stuff in it. Yeah. Ski coats and then uh Yeah. It was it was a it was a foreign uh foreign brand. Nothing that you could buy in this country or nothing like that. Yeah. Um but yeah, so you changed the name to Montreex. Yeah. And so let's talk about the those original TE's, right? So you've put you've got three T's, three colors and an M on them. Yeah. And your mates are buying them basically. And then and then what what happens then? What's the next? So basically once Well, I think we'd sold about 20 at this point. So obviously we we hadn't even made the money back that we put in. Um and then what we just said to the suppliers, what what else can you do? So they were showing us all these different things and then we found the space die. Um so we we like right this is this is it. This is the idea. Um as soon as we got them it just went crazy. Like looking back now it's not crazy because it was like 50 orders in a day. But at the time it was like what was that how quick it went from a couple of orders or whatever? A few orders a day to doing 50 orders with a new product. Yeah. Pretty much. What was the new product? So, it was like this like the trail we've got now, like the space die. Um, actually remember we we got them we got we had the t-shirt and we bought like a pop-up photo studio like 50 quid off eBay. I put them on, got my mom to take a picture and like crop me head out and stuff like that. Put them online and then it just went like as soon as we put them on like posted on social media it just went crazy. And you didn't have a big social media following then the time. It got to the point though like where we were running around running around dropping them off to people and stuff like that. No, wait there. Let me interrupt. Danny went on Aldi and put the uh Oh, did he put the the live on the website and then realize we started selling more than 10. So he said if anyone buys by tonight, you can have free delivery same day, by the way. Yeah. So then he rings me and says, "Uh, oh, by the way, we've sold 30 t-shirts, but I said you can drop them off all tonight." cuz he's on Aldi. So I'm flying around in me car 30 t-shirts in the back to drop them to random addresses. Yeah. And he keeps telling me like, "Oh, by the way, there's another order." I'm like, "Dave, stop telling people." I was up till about 2:00 in the morning dropping t-shirts off for people. Brilliant. What the minimums you were ordering then? What was you ordering in? Hundreds or Yeah. Hundred of each color. Yeah. Right. So the first the first drop was 100 and then when we got the first lot of space that it was 100 and he sold out in like two or three days, right? And then we upped it to like I think I don't think we went too far. I think we done like 300. Yeah. Per color. Yeah. In like the space dye ones. We left the mile ones then. Yeah. Um and then done like 200 pairs of shorts in gray and black and gradually built it from there. Yeah. So when you you're immediately selling and you and it's surprising you're delivering. You're on holiday. Um and then so then I guess you're you're thinking actually we could be out of stock here in a week or two weeks or whatever at this rate. So, so what did you do? Just reproduce the same t-shirt quickly and get it in pretty much. Yeah. And then we introduced two new colors. So then we had five t-shirts and two pairs of shorts. Um and then from there it was just about building quality then. So like we kept the same range but changed the logo. So we like the logo was smaller and reflective the way it is now. Yeah. Um and then from there then we had to start building ranges cuz we actually realized then right we're not actually just selling t-shirts now. We can we've actually got a brand that we can build on. So yeah, then we started introducing like tracksuits, woven tracksuits, fleece tracksuits, pretty much everything that we've got now. Yeah. We just had to start building it slowly. Who was designing that? Us. So both you he learned how to draw on um Illustrator, right? And then it was just like he drawing and then we just make changes between us and then even like down to the fits like we're just doing the fits ourselves and stuff like that. But and then creating tech packs to send to the manufacturer. Who was doing that or was you not that sophisticated? What was you doing? We were doing our own version tech basically. Yeah. More just a drawing and then like notes on it. Was it? Yeah. Sometimes it' be a PowerPoint with just like add this, change this, do this, do that. Yeah. Yeah. And then what samples were coming in and there must have been times samples coming in, they were shy or Oh yeah. Yeah. We've had loads like we've got we've got archives in the office there. some some of the samples are bad, but u but yeah, like it it was just more of like a test like a testing phase before us really. Yeah. And like obviously we were still learning. We're still well we're still learning now, but yeah, it was more like right that's definitely not going to work. Don't do that, but this could work. Or like merging two different things together and making a better product. Yeah. Yeah. And so you're starting to get momentum, but I mean you're only Are you four years old yet? I don't think you are. Three years old. Three and a bit. So, and your turnover in year one was pretty decent. So, it must have accelerated quickly from say the first three months. What kind of happened after it started to take off? What was then the next level of like now it's really taking off? Yeah. So, once we actually changed the name we sort of spun it and launched into Foot Asylum with the name. I think that was the turning point for us. Yeah, that was sort of Did they approach you? Yeah. So, from what from what we seen and like what we were told by the buyers is they see like they go out scouting. So they do like festivals, could walk around town, see what people are wearing, just to see what the trends are. Um, and when we released the space diet shirts, I think it was around the same time as festival season. A lot of people wearing them. Um, and they reached out to us and said, "We really like this product." Um, we can see it like doing well. Yeah. Do you want to launch into Foottown with us? Yeah. Um, but we had like an ongoing battle where we were still had the old name, but we couldn't actually launch into a shop without the IPO certificate or without it having a proper trademark. So, that was like postponed a couple months weren't it? Um, so yeah, once that was out the way, that was like the turning point thinking that first order when they seen the money, we were like, Christ, this is real. This is real. What did it feel like when you first started to see people dotting around in your t-shirts? What did that feel like? hard really. It was like a feeling where like you wouldn't ever expect it to feel like that. It was like pride. Yeah. Especially when it was random people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like obviously if you see your mates and you're made up, but like when you seen like randomers in town or like just by yours, it was like crazy. Yeah. And then going into foot asylum, so they approach you, but obviously minimums everything's it's a completely different ball game wholesale. And at that point, I'm guessing you're just dropping stuff. You're just designing it, getting crap samples, getting better samples, dropping it online. You're gathering that momentum. But then it's a whole different ball game when when Foot Asylum say we want to order whatever 10,000 units of what was the first order. Can you remember? 7,000. Was it I think it was like 7,000 units. But when they said to you, "We want to order 7,000 units." When they first said it, what did you think? How would how do we afford this? And um and and what was the next step? How did you do it? Um your dad helped us out, didn't it? Yeah, my dad helped us out quite a lot. My dad's got his own business and he had a bit of like sort of money there that he could help us out with. Um but when when they put the first order in um basically we drew up like a like a mini business plan, I think. And I know I know what me dad's like. He's awkward at times. And like I know for a fact that I want because I have in the business as well. I wanted us all to say like like this is serious. Now I was also if me and Danny have got a plan like we're asking for money here. Like I don't want to think like I'm going to the bank of dad or anything. I wanted to say like this is what we're doing. This is our plan. This is why we we want this money and this is where we're going to go to. So we sort of like sat there like done like a mini business plan. It sounds mad now but we done like a mini business plan. We went we said to me dad can we sit down with you for 5 minutes speak to you about it and show them sort of our ideas and obviously he knew what we were doing but he didn't know we were going into foot saled us we want this sort of this money is it all right if you lend us it yeah you can have it back in a month or 3 months sorry after the shipping and after the 30 days so yeah he agreed to it and he done it the following three times as well right um until the orders grew too much for them to help out um to where obviously we we sourced the money otherwise and we sort of had a little bit of cash behind us as well. But yeah, he was a massive help to us weren't anything. Yeah. And when you went into foot asylum, you was that even in your first year? I think in your first year towards the back end you had gone into Foot asylum had you? I think it was this December weren't it? So we we started in the January officially started in January. I don't think we got any stock till like May uh June and then Yeah, it went in actually launched in May, didn't it? M into the store cuz Okay. Cuz of co and stuff like that. Yeah. Delayed a bit. Okay. So at that stage then you what do you feel like when it's in store? That was a mad feeling seeing it in the store. Like that was when you sort of realized like wow we've actually done this and like this is this is like serious now and it's Yeah. Again though like we were still working. So like it wasn't actually like a full-time thing for us at this point. We still had our own jobs. I think that's when we felt as well where Okay. It might be like we've got something serious here. Yeah. Like it's not just like something that we're doing after work as a hobby. It's like Yeah. We could potentially if we we work had it turn this into something big. So then I guess you decide to leave your job. So who left first or did you leave at the same time? On the same day. Same day. Oh, did you organize out all weekend? Oh, did you? So you'd already had the you was already stocked in foot asylum before you did that. Yeah. So we we started in foot asylum in the May and then left in the September. Right. Okay. So you still did a few uh months in your Yeah. So like we literally used to go to work as normal. Yeah. Finish at like 4:00 5:00. Well, I finished at 4:00. He finished at 5. Go to our own office. Like we had like a small office around the corner. Stay there till like 9 every night. Go home. Do the same again the next day. And who was picking and packing? Who was sending it out to us? We were doing literally everything. So we were designing, picking and packing, doing all the marketing. It was lit even like stuff like paying for asylum like sorting the bank out. We literally done everything. So there's not one area of the business like both of us haven't done. When did you bring on your first employee then? And who and what did they do? Who was it? One of our mates actually. He was um he was working in a factory and didn't like it and we were like well we need a picker and packer. So we brought him in and like we at first we thought right we're too busy to pick and pack now it's like getting too much there's that many orders and then when we actually brought him in he was picking and packing and then on the week that he started we sold out of everything and he was just like dry he had nothing to do for like two weeks until we got more stock. Um but yeah, he was like, "Why have I left me job?" Like, "You could do this." No, we can't. Believe us. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just we had a bad like dry patch for like two weeks where there was no stock, no sales. And where you when you And so where where do you just sourced a little like unit or something to put? Yeah. At first we did. Yeah. So there was like a business park by ours and we just had a small office like 200 square foot. Yeah. And then we moved into like a it was like a lockup kind of thing, weren't it? Like a garage. So it was like I think that was 400 foot or like 300 of it was warehouse space. Yeah. And then the back bit was the office where we sat. It was freezing in there. No heating. Horrible spiders everywhere. And then we finally decided to move into um like what was it? 3,000 3 and a half thousand square foot. 3 and a half thousand square foot. And on the like we see we seen it. It was it was close by and we seen the um the advert and we like right we need to go and see it. And the girl had co so we couldn't go. When she finally said we can go, we had to isolate. So I went and right right we'll have it. Because there was loads of people trying to view it. Right. Sign a lease and then he turned up obviously when he was better and was like this is massive. This is well too big. Right. There was there was no one in it at all. Then when we actually put the shelves in, we filled it in like two months. Right. And then we were like right now what do we do? I was going to say, was there ever a time when you looked at what you was doing or you had to make a decision? and you thought canel this is all a bit real you know like signing for 3,000 square foot of office or something or yeah like when we got when we first moved into that we had everyone helping us out we had all our families friends and stuff like that and we were like all hands on deck getting it getting it all done we had it done in a week and then when we moved in it was yeah it was only me and him in there at the time cuz we moved in in November yeah and we got the first employee in the February so again it was just me and him in there and we were like what have we done here this is too. Yeah. Yeah. But back then we didn't know like anything either. So like we moved in like we signed a lease for too long. We shouldn't have done that. Yeah. We moved in and we tried to convince them to like furnish it and put floors down. There was no lights in there. There's no floor. So we literally spent like every night flooring like doing it ourselves instead of just getting someone to do it. Yeah. Like we wasted loads of time like doing stupid stuff like that where and we have done every office we've had since really cuz we just want it the way we like it. But we wasted like so much time on stupid stuff like that and could have got someone to do it. But it was all because like at the time we were so scared to like spend money cuz I think at that time as well the office was actually we were paying more off the office than we were actually paying ourselves. So we were like or we weren't taking anything at that time cuz we still working. We were like this has got to work cuz Yeah. can't afford the office. Yeah. Otherwise. Yeah. Yeah. the second year then. Um, so the first year was pretty successful, but the second year kicked on massively. What was it about the second year? Was it the the sales in Foot Asylum? Um, it was both really. At first it was primarily sales from Foot Asylum. Yeah. But then we we obviously realized like you can't like they could drop you at any time and then your business is sort of done. Yeah. Or in bad trouble. So we sort of like spun it away where we invested in like the creative side of social media and like the paid side of social media and started pushing our own DTOC channel. Yeah. And then we just sort of kicked on from there really and then we had I think the percentage split was like 60 40 then more sales towards our own website. Yeah. And the team you built, how many did you have in the team by the end of the second year? Do you remember? I was like 10. Yeah. Between six 10 or something like that to 10. Yeah. And how many was in the marketing team? One. Really? Yeah. One of your market really lucky with you didn't have massive I mean you spend quite a bit now but you didn't have massive budgets. No. We met I think I met you I don't know the end of year one or something like that. I guess somewhere like that. And I remember looking at your P&L and being like where's the marketing budget and you was like it was it was like a few grand from memory or something like that. what point did you start building that team out? The main like the paid social side of things and like um PPC we only started doing that like October. Yeah. In the second year. So for from the January to the October like you said it was minimal like we were only really paying for Yeah. Like that was that was all the marketing budget was going on photo shoots and that that was about it. Yeah. like there was never any paid paid activity on any of the channels. And the other thing then that if you're not spending on paid is the other everybody else is spending on influencer. You weren't really doing that either, was you? I mean you you you have backed you can talk about some of the athletes you've backed because it's kind of part of the fun I guess of uh of of the position you find yourselves in. But it wasn't like I was looking for the paid ads. There wasn't many of that. Then you're looking for it must all be influencerled. What was your influencer strategy? I don't don't really think influencers work as such anymore. Like the people who come out of the reality TV, no one cares about them. Yeah, it did work for a long time for girls stuff as well. But that's at that time like I think our sole market was Liverpool. So like we know we wouldn't listen to it. We were designing clothes that we would wear. Yeah. So we knew we we we caught on quick that it's going to have to be marketed in a way that we would buy it. Um so the first thing we done was looking at like sort of athletes instead of influencers. Um and we found sort of an easy route to speaking to boxers, MMA fighters. Um finding them really down to earth and the fact that half the time because they're that busy in the train all the time. If if you were to send them just free clothes, they didn't want paying for it. They just wanted something to train in. Yeah. there's not like it's it's few and far to come through with like a unless you're a massive massive name. Um you're getting a AJ Under Armor deal and stuff like that. So yeah, for us like being being new and us wanting to be a sports brand, we were sending them and getting really easy content back from them cuz they were literally posting about being in fight camp or training daily. We're just robbing the pictures and posting them ourselves essentially. So um that was like our first sort of like strategy into marketing. Who were the first few that you that you um I think some of the Smith brothers have really helped us out. Yeah. Um then we got into Leon Edwards um MMA fighter from Birmingham. Well, now world champion in the UFC. Um from the very beginning he just said, "Yeah, send me it down." Yeah. And we thought we'd made it cuz I can't remember what fight it was, but remember seeing on telly BT Sport, he was doing a commercial for when he was fighting and we went, "Oh my god, there's our logo. Another one of them moments. Yeah, it was like one of those crazy moments where we thought we'd made it. Um then we got like Jazza Diffens and we just threw it out to a load of boxers and MMA fighters who were just keen to wear it for free at the time. Yeah. Um so yeah, that that helped massively in our strategy. And do you think that's I mean I I I'm answering my own question here but do you think that's one of the reasons why this s is been so so successful is that you are the customer. Yeah. You are the customer at first definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You've got we'll talk about that you've gone into different um you've got different consumers now different product but in them early days really you was going into you've MMA fighting fans anyway. Yeah. And you and your um and and I guess the the the general custom in the early days would have been 20 odd year old lads from Liverpool I guess. Yeah. Our first. And so you you end your second year and you're flying and then this year we're in which is the we'll be coming up to the end of the third year. You're flying even more. So what's this year been like for you? Crazy. Like this is what when we done this the business plan Kieran was talking about earlier this was like 10 years down the line where we are now like we didn't we knew we'd get there but we never expected to get there as quick as we have. Did you did you know you'd get there? Yeah, we believe that we'd get there from the beginning. What made you think that just early success or early early success like the drive and always we've never wanted to work for anyone else? We've always been like that since we were kids. We've always wanted to do more and be more and work for ourselves. So we knew with the drive we had, we'd definitely get there, but it was like how fast we'd get there. We didn't know. We'd never really give up either. It was like we'd be up till silly hours like doing stuff like we've never actually like thought like we need to give it a rest or we need to have a break. Like probably only this year we we took our first like holiday. Yeah. After 3 years of doing it. And uh I mean you all know we've had a couple of old days this year as well because every time you ring us you ask us if we're in the country but we do actually do a lot of work as well like behind that. Um but yeah like this I think this year for me personally has been like like the bit where I've learned the most. Yeah. Where I've needed to like sort of massively grow up find out like this is like the time where like this is like business for us. Yeah. This is what we Does it overall you that at all or do you just embrace it and enjoy the challenge or is it times where you think I feel a bit outside of me both really like there's some obviously stressful days but a lot of the time it's it's nothing that we can't deal with like we've always had adversity from literally the get go even like the worst one for example was having to change the name we thought that was it we're done like we've lost all our savings and all the money we've put in but obviously it just depends how you bounce back really doesn't it and how you how you pivot and change your strategy. Yeah. You seem to be enjoying it as well. But at the same time, um what are the things you enjoy the most about what what you're doing at the moment? Doing it with your best mates. I was wrong. Doing it together. Like if you if you're doing it on your own, you never fall out. Not really. Hey. Yeah. You said no. And he said yes. We never fall out. Obviously disagree and argue, but we've never actually fell out properly. Yeah. No, we just I think the best thing is we call each other on like Yeah. Like that's always been like how it works so well. I think you've never fell out. But like there's been like some daft ideas thrown in the pan before. Yeah. And he said no and I've said shut up, stop it. Like Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I think that's like what makes the working relationship good. You know what I mean? Now we've split. We've had to split our job roles. We know what we're doing even though we're doing separate things. Like going back to where you said you'd ever struggle doing this or that. Yeah. Like I know I can struggle Danny just give us a hand on this or vice versa. And like no no no question really stupid and no like scenarios like stupid for us. Yeah. Like where you find yourself being. So yeah. And the main thing as well is like if you're doing it on your own you could let it slip a bit like we know like if I slip I could I'm like ruining it for him and vice versa. Like you've got to do you sometimes feel that pressure? So, I mean, you do a lot of things together, but um would you do you ever feel that pressure of a bit like I can't not I can't go out on a Sunday and not come in a Monday person down. That's it. Like you can't like let each other down like you can't not go in one day and he's in. Like I couldn't stay off and he's in for no like just stay off for no reason. Obviously, if you're not well or you're doing something then fair enough. But we know what we're doing though as well. Not that we know what we're doing. We know what each others are doing most of the time. Yeah. So like there's not really like you can't really lie to him and say I feel sick today. And we lived across the field from each other. Do do your mates treat you any differently? No, just the same. We've always been with them really. Like there's never there's never been like oh well that's like a us and them kind of thing. It's it's always just been the same. Like nothing's really changed in that respect. Yeah. Same with like family and stuff like that. We're just the same people really. Like we've we've not actually changed at all, have we? No. don't well I don't think we are unless everyone's have to ask them what um what do you enjoy most about what you're doing what's the best part it's not like a boring subject is it no like you're you're working in fashion you're working in sports you're getting to deal with all these athletes you we've got a really good team around us there's no one like we don't enjoy seeing like we just love like going to the office every day and even like being there till late and being on your own Like it doesn't feel like work. Yeah. It's it's a weird I don't know how to explain it really. It's a weird feeling. But working for yourself, it's a I don't think there's anything better. What's the worst part about what the parts that you enjoy least? There isn't really anything to be honest. It's just we know what we've got to do and we just get it done. Like there's no like there's no part that's bad. Yeah. It's all like you said then like you're doing it for yourself. Like if you were doing it for someone else, you'd be like, "Oh, I don't be bothered doing that today." But like I you've got to get it done or no one else can do it for you. So you've just got to do it. I've never had a meeting with you where you're stressed out. No. Any of you do you get stressed out? No. You do. Yeah, I do. Stressed out both of us get stressed out every day. But it's just how you deal with it. And yeah, you like like you said before, like when you're doing stuff for yourself, the stress will never last. Like you know you know for a fact like if you do it, you'll overcome it and then that's it. Then you're done. and you can move on from it and you don't get stressed out that some people have this and I have it to be honest with you. I constantly wake up I remember doing Pete Cowgill from JD on it and he used to throw up every day. He used to throw up with a stress every day of going backwards or it ending. Um you you don't have that kind of anxiety that we're riding a wave here. What happens if what if? Just taking it every day at a time really. Um I yeah I think that can be like quite dangerous thinking like that sometimes like if you're thinking that I mean it's good to plan ahead but like all sort of like it's a negative thought as well. You're putting too much negative pressure on yourself then you're only going to put more pressure on yourself to fail as well. Yeah. You're keeping positive and you're keeping like your clear and you know what you're doing sort of. As long as you take it day at a time and I feel like that's the best way for me anyway. So do you think it'd be different if he was doing it on your own? One of you, have you ever thought if I was doing it on my own, what would it be like? Yeah. Cuz no one else would understand what what the problem was. Yeah. Whereas like if I'm stressed or he's stressed, like you can talk to each other and then in the end you're like, "Oh, it's not that bad." Yeah. But then if you were talking to somebody else who didn't actually understand the situation, who's never been there, it's hard to sort of put it across in that way. Yeah. What's the operation look like now? You're in your third year. How many's in the team? give us a me indication of what kind of volumes you might do in a day online in terms of actual number of orders or whatever. Um and how are you structured and what's the challenges? Yeah, so we've got like 25 in the team now. Yeah. Um like Kian said before, we've split it. So like I'll take care of like marketing and product side and Ken will do like the warehouse and the finance side. Um it's just basically there was we were both trying to do the same thing at once and it sort of got a bit messy but like we both tried to do the same thing and not knowing what the other one was doing if you know what I mean. Yeah. Just a like lack of communication and yeah with the more people coming in more people Danny might be saying like can you do this for me that and I'll be saying exact same and jobs might have already been done or something's been missed out because not one of us have said the right thing on that day. Yeah. then it was easier to separate it and me and Danny just have a catch up now like once a week we sit down for now and say right what's going on your side what's going on this side what do we need to do what's our plans and then like sort of set out our like weekly goals as well with the team on a Monday morning sorry yeah you've um you've been ripped off a few times when I mean ripped off there's people copying you and and some of it is absolute blatant copying um what do you what when you when you see that kind of thing. What What do you do? Well, you can do we don't we don't owe own our designers don't own space die. It's not something that like we can't stop people doing. Um if it was the logo, then maybe the name maybe. Yeah. Um but at the same time, it's obviously working. People obviously looking up to us, want to be like us, want to Yeah. It's like flattering really. So just a compliment, a back end of compliment really. And if they're copying it, they can't ever be a headache, can they? No, true. You never let I've asked you before. I've gone, "Have you seen these? Have you seen these?" And you've always seen them. And it just never bothers you. There be other people. And I think there's some things that you guys do that you don't know you do. But I know you do it because I can see other people do other things. I can see lots of other clients where they'd be really offended by people copying them. So much so they'd be diverting attention to seeing what the other lot were doing. You never you never let anything like that get into the boat, do you? No, there's no there's no point because you can't stop them doing it and they're going to carry on doing it anyway. So, there's no point worrying about it. The way we feel now as well, like we we know like we've got like massive plans coming. We know how big we are all we're getting. Yeah. So, I'd rather put more time and focus into that and then let people think, oh, like they're actually working hard. They're doing this. Like, yeah. This is where they are now. Yeah. Whereas if if if you like you said, if you're putting time into someone else's brand or someone else's business, it's not healthy. You're not focusing on your full attention on yourself. So, what are your biggest challenges at the moment? You're more than doubling in size every year, aren't you? Yeah. What are the challenges that that brings? It's hard cuz we've never done anything like this before. So, it's knowing what to do next. Yeah. No one's our boss. No one tells us what to do. It's figuring that out for ourselves I think every day is the biggest issue like putting new systems in like having having a team having a HR having like you guys accountants like needing to know what finances we need to do this time of year finding all that out for yourself is is obviously one of the biggest issues and is stressful like with finance you you miss a deadline it's going to cost you money potentially same with uh foot sal delivery or whoever else making sure everything's running smooth like the dayto-day as well like say for example when I worked in the factory like I knew I had this job to do like I had to go and get the job card do this job and then that was done whereas now like there's no there's no set thing you need to do every day you just got to sort of get in and like right what do we need to do now and that's the hardest bit cuz when it was just me and him or like when the team was smaller we knew that we had different jobs to do but now we actually have all departments covered than most bases covered So, it's like that's what they're doing, like what are we doing? Yeah. How do you You've got 25 staff. My guess is next year you'll have 50. How do you um do you enjoy that? Do you enjoy Yeah. having the team? Yeah, definitely. And um you've both found leading that team easy or difficult or Yeah, pretty easy. Like like I said, we've never changed so like we're sort of just one of them kind of thing. Like we don't we don't see it as us and them. We don't boss anyone about as such. We just get on with everyone. Yeah. Yeah. It's very relaxed work space. Yeah. We've always had the opinion as if if you don't take the piss, we're never going to take the piss. Yeah. Um so it is what it is. And like we're always open, aren't we? Like we are we've only just like when we moved into our new unit, got our own sort of office. You just moved and you well recently. Yeah. Moved into a new unit. So what size is that now? Uh it's 16,000 foot that one. Yeah. And we need a new one already. You've been in it about six months. Yeah, six months we've been in it and realized it's too small. He's starting to get too too big for it now. Yeah, I think I think by uh Q1 Q2 next year, we might sort the struggle to go to fit stuff in. And in terms of the landscape of like I asked you earlier how you were doing, your figures just tend to go up every single month. There were other retailers who were struggling a little bit now. was struggling around the queen. You know, August can be a difficult trade month anyway because a lot of people are on holiday. So, you've got August is usually not great. You come back this September. There's a lot of issues uh a lot of nonpurchasing around you know the Queen um situation and then some of them are a bit like it's not bounced back this in October. Now we're thinking there's a recession type or a lack of confidence in the market. But you don't seem to be getting that, do you? You just keep climbing. Yeah, pretty much. Potentially it might be that that wave you talked about that keep us going through those times. But it is something that we think about and it is something that like I think we mentioned it earlier like you take one day at a time like hopefully we we don't go into recession people don't struggle that much that they can't stop spending money that they enjoy stuff on. Yeah, it is going to be difficult over the next couple of months, I think, but I think we've got that sort of like maybe hype and that that bit where people are going to continue purching from us. So, and I think you're right. I don't think it's true of all trade, but when we had a be the standard event live in Leeds, Cowgill was speaking and he said in his opinion, it doesn't really matter in what you wear on the street and you've got, you know, you're a sportsware brand, but you certainly wore on the street as well. It it's a sign and it's a symbol of who you are and what you are. So, people in a recession will always find they might not be able to afford a BMW. They might have to downgrade a BMW to to whatever vehicle, but they will always find money. Yeah. Because it's kind of a symbol, an emblem of who you are and your status. Yeah. It's a good it's a very good way to put it, I suppose. Yeah. And so I think you guys will be all right. Um, if you look at Well, come on in a minute to the future, but and again, I talked to you earlier. We've been around fashion for years and friend of mine used to own Henley's that you was massive. Before that was Ringspun, a massive Northwest brand. Talked a bit about Super Dry and there's a few others I know of where they've really had a slipstream at some point and then they've not been able to maintain that. So for you guys, what's the kind of what what are the things you will look at in the future that you've got an eye on to think we need to maintain this level of momentum to not become the victims like some other brands have done in the past. Yeah. Um to be honest, it's more for us now about expanding into other territories. Like we haven't we haven't even scratched the surface yet. Yeah. So I think until we get to that point like we won't actually know what the next step would be. Obviously you've got like Europe, America's even like Australia and stuff like that. Um, do you do much in the other territories at the moment? No, we don't. We don't actually have international shipping on at the minute. So, Right. It's literally just UK and then a bit of Northern Ireland. Yeah. New territories? Anything else? Yeah. Going into Ireland and Europe. Yeah. And then eventually America. But like I said, at the minute it's literally just the UK. Yeah. And if you look at Castor, another brand that's been around probably just a little bit longer than you, they have thrown a serious amount of money at every sport. There's people playing tennis in it, golf in it, you know, they're doing the team wear stuff. Um they're inc they've got cricket, they're doing almost everything and they must be massively funded by investors. Um you're obviously not going to do it that way. But do you see yourself breaking into that top four in the in the future? And if so, what do you think you need to do to do that? Do you need to do teamwork? Um not necessarily. No. I mean, I think in the future it'd be good if you if you got a big team, but if you got like a I don't know, say a Newcastle for example, like nobody outside of Newcastle is going to buy that kit. And then the thing the thing with Castor is the main line is so expensive. So nobody who's going to buy a Newcastle kit is going to buy a 70 training t-shirt. Like it's like they're too far apart if you know what I mean. Like the the main line and the kits. Yeah. like to the two two completely different audiences like you'd never you'd never actually see anybody wearing that kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Whereas if say for example they were more priced like us then I'd say well that probably would work. Yeah. We got the perfect sorry I think we got the perfect opportunity to go into every sport as well and branch out and it is something that we want to do. So there is potential for something like team wear, but it's not going to be our focus. Yeah, we do want to branch into the sportsman only scratching the surface of like boxing and MMA. Yeah. Trying to get like the athletic star going at the moment, but like potentially we do want to be a full sports brand. We don't just want to be known as a boxing brand or an MA brand. We want to be known as a sports brand. So hopefully in the future we can get there. In the past, Under Armour had AJ and um Reebok the pump back in the day and they had all the NBA stars wearing it. Do you just think part of that evolution is bigger bigger more widely known from different territories endorsements and ambassadors? Is that how you see it? Or when you're going to say you went into the US, how would you think you'd do that? Go in with a retailer, pick a number of sports athletes. Is that how you do it? Pretty much. Yes. obviously go into big retailers over in America. Get big stars. Obviously, we've got Leon though and like I said, he's the world champion. So, he's massive in America himself. And then we've got like a couple of athletes in America already. Don Cruz, Roman Bravo, young. So, we just expand the roster. Yeah. Yeah. Terms of advice, you're still obviously you're very young. Advice for other people that want to start a business. What would you say to them? Do it. Yeah. Do it. Don't look back. Whatever put everything you've got into it and just don't be complacent. Like don't think I'll do it tomorrow. Just get it done and start. It's like everyone gives the same advice like don't be scared and just go for it. But you actually have like it is right. Yeah. Like we were scared like we didn't know what to do and we just thought we've got this money here. We saved up. Like what's the worst that can happen? Yeah. Yeah. Like we're not going to lose out. We did have our daytime like our day jobs. So just just going for it and even if you do get it wrong like we still get something wrong. We we're doing stuff wrong every single day. Yeah, it's one of them and it's how you learn from it and now you tack on the next day and just leave it. You you do work hard. You do play quite hard but you do work hard. There are some people that launch a business that think it's going to launching a business itself is going to make it to be a success. You guys, you're not scared of failure, but I'm pretty sure that you would you you've kind of got a belief that you would do whatever it took to make it work. You would do the hours. Do you switch off at the moment or not? Um, not really. Like it's like a 24-hour thing for us. Um, like we we still we still put the hours in. We still work to like 8 9:00 some nights and it's just that's just what you've got to do if you want to get to the top. Last question for you both. Um, when you look in the future, do you have a vision? What does it look like? What does Monontrax look like? Global brand. One of the biggest brands in the world. Not just across sportsear, across everything. Um, we want we've always started this not not for money, but to to build something reputable and to like have like a legacy, I suppose. We don't want to sell out. We're we're here to stay. like we want to build something and be a part of it and hopefully carry that wave on for the next 10, 15, 20 years, keep it going for as long as we can. So, we're not here to like make quick money or get out of it. Yeah. When we can. We uh we want to, like Danny said, we want to be the biggest brand possibly can be. Well, lads, thank that's it. Thanks for coming in today. Bring you on in a couple of years and see where we get to. Compare us. Yeah, exactly. Thanks for coming in. That's the end of today's podcast. Thank you everyone for listening.