Rory McLaughlan

Shirt in a Box

Founder of Shirt in a Box, the world's leading Mystery Football Shirt Retailer. 

In the space of 18 months, we grew from a bedroom start up to a hyper growth business, with over 2.7 million recorded in revenue and 70,000 in sales.

Founder

Numbers Game

Director

Rory's Football Shirts

Originally selling vintage football jerseys on online marketplaces, including Depop & Ebay, grew into a brand with 10,000 followers and a succesful website.

What initially started as a hobby way back in March 2020 when the UK entered a lockdown, would turn into over 2000 sales.

Business Owner

Hello! I’m Rory, the founder of Shirt in a Box and I’m on a mission to disrupt the football industry.

After setting up my first business at 17, I developed a huge passion for entrepreneurship, especially around what I live and breathe… Football. 

Fast forward to now, I have over over 70,000 sales & counting through two businesses, a team of 10 and collaborations with some major partners across the football industry. 

Shirt in a Box offers football fans a unique experience like no other. Once purchased, they are sent a high quality mystery football shirt. This allows customers to get a new shirt they may not have been aware of and clubs get their kit in to the hands of a different audience - it’s a win win! 

Through running 2 businesses, I have built a large entrepreneurial skillset including social media advertising (both organic & paid), management, supply chain and logistical management.

In my down time I’m a Web 3.0 enthusiast, a crypto investor and I play football semi-professionally, winning multiple Irish cups at youth level.

Feel free to send me a dm to chat all things business and football!

Founder of Shirt in a Box, the worlds leading Mystery Football Shirt Retailer. 

In the space of 18 months, we grew from a bedroom start up to a hyper growth business, with over 2.7 million recorded in revenue and 70,000 in sales.

A HUGE moment for Shirt in a Box!

Thanks to Gary and the Stick to Football team for a mention on this week's episode!⚽️

We loved hearing Jill Scott was a fan of her Bari top from us - clearly great taste! As for Roy...let's just say his reaction was a little less enthusiastic (no surprise there😅).

Either way, we'll take it!

Disrupting the Sport Industry / Founder of Shirt in a Box

It was great to catch up with Gary Neville yesterday & show him the progress we’ve made since we last met. 

10 months ago he took an interest in what we were building at Shirt in a Box & decided to share it with the world on Stick to Football - that kindness has helped open our eyes to what’s possible, and propelled us to greater heights. 

Congratulations on yesterday Gary Neville - a great occasion & fitting ceremony. Thank you to Queen's University Belfast for helping to facilitate this opportunity. 

The journey is still only getting started.

We're launching Shirt in a Box Turkey.
 
80 million people. Football mad. Jerseys retail for £90 (more expensive than UK).
 
The opportunity? They're deprived of authentic international shirts.
 
Will take 6 months to set up. Then Turkey becomes our gateway to Asia.
 
Sometimes the best business ideas come from travel, not just asking ChatGPT...

LinkedIn, I need your help.

Our box manufacturer has just burned us. Original timeline: delivery before Black Friday. New timeline: after Christmas.

We need 30,000 boxes urgently:

📦 Diecut

📦 Printed one colour

📦 330mm x 247mm x 19mm

📦 12mm DS tape rip seal

I know this is ridiculously late notice. But Black Friday is our biggest moment of the year and we can't let our customers down.

If you know a factory with capacity or have any connections in packaging/manufacturing, please DM me or comment below.

Any shares massively appreciated. There's got to be someone out there who can help.

We've worked too hard on this Black Friday to let boxes be the thing that stops us.

I love working at the Christmas Market, even if it's only a few hours once a week.
 
Why? It gives you a great insight into your customer & product that you can't get online...
 
I found out we were too cheap at the Christmas market last year.
 
We were charging £40 for mystery boxes when they're £45 online. We changed to match online prices on day 2, and finished 25% up on the previous year.
 
The market gives you real feedback you'd never get sitting online.

We purposely go 'late' with our Black Friday deal. We launch tomorrow, the Wednesday of Black Friday week.
 
Increasingly, I see brands going early, usual with the idea that if you don't, your potential customer will have spent all their money by the time Black Friday rolls around.
 
However, to make it work you have to run about 4 different offers across the promotion. Each one progressively getting better, and as a result decreasing your margin.
 
In my opinion, it's a lot of effort, for similar returns (according to those who can see the data across multiple brands like Stuart Worgan) as one mega offer on Black Friday week.

I posted about our box supplier crisis last week. 30+ shares, flooded with DMs. Fred Lill came through. Boxes arriving just after Black Friday.

Grateful for everyone who helped. A reminder of the power of building in public.

Other stuff I discussed in EP14 of Building the Box…

Christmas market opened with our best weekend ever.

Visited our first claw machine in Sheffield at Yardball (class venue - street football mini golf). 200 plays in week one.

Flew to Manchester to meet suppliers. The progress from one in-person meeting beats six months of emails.

Testing Australia/New Zealand markets. Early signs promising.

Black Friday strategy: Everyone goes early with 10 offers. We go late with 1 killer bundle. Similar results from what I’ve seen, less complexity.

Full episode now on

YouTube: https://lnkd.in/ed7iRrGC

Spotify: https://lnkd.in/e-Z5uNQE

Interested in how Shirt in a Box gets a shoutout on one of the UK’s biggest football podcasts?

In Episode 16, I break down how we featured on Stick to Football, chat about the whirlwind of Black Friday sales, and share why taking new staff out for lunch is our secret to building trust (and having a laugh).
 
Whether you’re a football fan, a startup enthusiast, or just love a good underdog story, this one’s for you.
 
Watch & listen now:
▶️ YouTube: https://lnkd.in/eRimwNMF
🎧 Spotify: https://lnkd.in/eFK5FVxT

Open video: EP16: How we got on Stick to Football, New Staff & Black Friday Madness on youtu.be

EP16: How we got on Stick to Football, New Staff & Black Friday Madness

Flywheel (formerly eVouch)

Flywheel helps email marketers turn existing customers into their most powerful acquisition channel, not a single referral link or affiliate code.

Consumers don’t post referral links to Facebook anymore, they share stories, tag brands, and keep it real. Flywheel taps into that shift, prompting authentic UGC at key lifecycle moments, seamlessly tracked with zkTLS, no screenshots or links needed.

As sharing evolves, so will we. We're always building for how people actually connect

CEO and Founder

As Head of Growth, I built and scaled growth systems that turned acquisition and retention into a repeatable, productized engine. From structured creative testing in paid media to systemized influencer strategies, I focused on making growth scalable and systematic across both B2C and B2B.

I ran hundreds of experiments, from leveraging university club interns as ambassadors to strategically buying ads on Tinder, automating cold outreach via personal Instagram profiles, and mass engaging with restaurant videos to boost TikTok visibility. We even hijacked Zomato reviews and partnered with Uber Eats drivers to drive viral acquisition.

The result? 1,500% MAU growth (from 1,000 to 15,000+) by continuously testing, iterating, and embedding growth loops directly into the product.

On the B2B side I lead a team of 3 to scale our restaurant marketplace from 15 to 200 in 1 year.

Head of Growth

As eVouch’s first hire, I built the restaurant sales process from the ground up, creating a system that onboarded our first restaurants and drove growth across Auckland. I led a team of three sales representatives, managing outreach, acquisition, and client relationships.

To improve retention, I developed an account management system that reduced churn by 35% and transitioned the sales process to HubSpot to streamline operations and improve tracking.

Sales Manager

One to Many

I write One to Many, a no-BS newsletter delivering high-ROI growth hacks in under 5 minutes each week. Each edition features an actionable strategy designed to inspire bold, outside-the-box marketing moves.

HMU if you have a cool story to share

Writer

I’m Alonzo Nieves, a Gen-Z founder who scaled a restaurant marketplace from 0 to 20,000 MAU in 6 months and personally walked into and sold over 200 restaurants in my city. I saw firsthand how powerful word-of-mouth can be for sales — and how tough it is to scale. That’s why we built Flywheel.

Flywheel turns your entire lifecycle, from email to loyalty into a growth engine. Customers share at key moments, and it’s all tracked seamlessly without referral codes or affiliate links. Organic, on-brand, and built to scale. 🚀

Alonzo Nieves

Accidentally hit 9M views on TikTok this week and the data is kind of fascinating

Posted a video of two ducklings hopping across lily pads. No strategy, just thought it was cute. Woke up to my phone absolutely losing its mind.

9.1M views 
2.1M likes 
459K shares

𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲'𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴:
That share rate is insane - we're talking 5%. Most viral content doesn't crack 1-2%.

And when I looked at the comments? Almost every single one was people tagging their best friend, their girlfriend, their boyfriend, their homegirl. "Us fr" "this is so us" "me and you"

Two ducklings = instant relatability trigger. People saw themselves in it? maybe?

𝗠𝘆 𝗵𝘆𝗽𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗶𝘀:
The virality wasn't driven by watch time (average was only 5s on a 9s video). It was driven by shareability. The "I need to send this to someone" impulse.
Cute + relatable + simple = people spam tagging their people.

Not sure if I'm gonna lean into making "tag your bestie" content or whatever. Might experiment with it and I'm not saying I'm pivoting to become a duckling influencer (but the offers are kinda rolling in 🦆).

Anyway, back to building. But also keeping my eyes open for these random moments that just hit different.

If anyone's keen to see the video I can chuck it in the comments!

Scaling Word of Mouth for DTC Brands | CEO @ Flywheel - prev eVouch

𝗚𝗼𝗹𝗳 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝘀𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗼𝗻?

Played in a tournament yesterday sponsored by the New Zealand Philippines Business Council (shoutout Paul Familara for the invite).

Haven't touched clubs in a while but honestly? Felt good to be back out there and get the W.

The entry fees go to a good cause which makes it even better. 

If anyone in the network wants to join next time, hit me up. Always down to get more people involved.

Netflix found a way to launch games to 260M subscribers with zero downloads and zero CAC here's how 👇

It started with a LEGO game and a QR code on my TV.

I’m on the couch with my girlfriend, Netflix open. A QR code pops up. We both scan it. Our phones instantly become controllers for Lego Party.

No App Store. No download. No signup. Just 𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘺.

Instead of sending people out to random licensed mobile games, Netflix can now:
• Host games inside their own ecosystem
• Plug them straight into 260M existing subscribers
• Keep you bouncing between watching and playing in one place
  
Whether a partner studio builds the game or not almost doesn’t matter. The 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗯𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘆 𝗶𝗻-𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺.

Now imagine this pattern at scale:
New show drops → Netflix features a simple party game for it → people play on the couch with friends → they talk about it more → they watch more → they stay subscribed longer.

Execution is still a bit janky (our controllers kept disconnecting). But strategically, it’s a clean play:
• Own the IP
• Own the distribution
• Own the experience
  
And only then worry about how deep the games go.

If they keep pushing this, “new show night” and “game night” stop being two separate ideas.

They become one default behaviour… for 260M people, inside one product.

taplio

The Battle

Rory McLaughlan

Alonzo Nieves

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreRory McLaughlan's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreAlonzo Nieves's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Rory McLaughlan

Alonzo Nieves

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Rory McLaughlan's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreAlonzo Nieves's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreRory McLaughlan's LinkedIn Performance