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

Oliver Duffy-Lee

Authority Agency

Website: https://www.authorityagency.co.uk

Welcome to the age of Thought Leadership.

Most B2B brands are drowning in a Sea of Sameness, unable to differentiate themselves from their competition.

And so they spend their time:

- Scrapping for low quality opportunities
- Unable to build an audience
- Failing to fill their pipeline
- Struggling to sign new clients 
- Pricing their services too low
- Stagnating and not growing
- Struggling to make pay day

The problem isn’t caused by lead generation, marketing or sales…

It’s a positioning problem.

Strong positioning will:

✅ Differentiate the business
✅ Attract high quality leads
✅ Convert them into high paying clients
✅ Grow the business month on month

And the strongest way to position in 2024?

Build Authority.

If you want help becoming the Go-To Authority Thought Leader in your space, book a call below:

https://content.authorityagency.co.uk/

World Products Ltd. 

Website: https://worldp.co.uk/

World Products Ltd. is the parent company of multiple online retail outlets. Since 2016, the WPL has expanded into foreign markets, as well as nurturing domestic growth. My primary achievements within this position so far have been:

► Steering the transformation of World Products from a low-margin online seller to a high margin e-commerce consultant.
► Driving all client acquisition efforts, steering a total company rebrand and instigating all marketing efforts.

Marketing Director

Kurogo

Website: https://www.kurogo.co.uk/

On a mission to create powerful personal brands for CEOs and Founders.

Helping one of the UK's most ambitious Personal Branding agencies to grow and scale internationally.

Advisor

CWA Creative Agency

I work with clients to create messages that engage their audience. The challenge for our clients isn't deciding how to reach their audience, it's knowing how to touch and move them. This is, and has always been, achieved with creative, simple and impactful messaging

Account Director

Account Manager & Show Producer

Founder of Authority Agency & Komms | 800+ Agencies Mentored | Previous clients include Volvo, Porsche and Unilever

We turn Agency Owners and their Agencies into Go-To Leaders in their space.

Hey, I'm Olie, and over the last 10 years I've built 2 agencies of my own, worked as CMO in 2, helped 800 more and sold to global clients like Volvo, Porsche and Unilever. 

I've now developed the Authority Agency system to help agency owners like you scale to 7+ figures.

If you’ve been growing your agency for some time, but feel like you’ve hit a brick wall, it's because: 

1. You can't generate high quality leads consistently
2. You're working in your agency, not on it
3. Low-paying legacy clients are tying you down
4. Your agency is not positioned authoritatively 

We remove these barriers to growth by: 

1. Attracting high quality leads with our proven plug & play system. 
2. Freeing up your time to work on the business. 
3. Implementing our industry authority blueprint
4. Giving you complete clarity on your positioning

The result? 

You can finally live the agency life you dreamed of...

High value clients see you as an authority and are willing to pay premium prices for your work. You never struggle to generate leads again. You convert, service and grow those clients with ease - without the 80 hour week sacrifice. 

You become an operator, not a slave to your agency.

And after helping 800 agencies, we've nailed this system down to a tee. 

Check out some of these results:

🚀 Sam grew 300% two years running since joining the program
🚀 Phil converted £150,000+ of business in 2 weeks
🚀 Ozzi doubled his MRR in 3 months 
🚀 Elle grew her MRR by 3000%
🚀 Claudiu smashed through $10k/month and signed a bluechip client
🚀 Shruti tripled her prices without changing her offer or delivery
🚀 Niall & Morgan increased their MRR by 50% in 3 months
🚀 John signed a monster $19k/month retainer in his 4th month

Book a free Agency Growth Audit here to see what's possible for your agency:

https://www.authorityagency.co.uk/contact-us

Big Announcement from us this morning 🙏

I’m delighted to tell you that RARE CONTENT are now part of the 21six Group 🥂

I’ve known and worked with Timothy and David for over a decade.

From our very first project together I recognised that they’re both world class at what they do… Creating the world’s best creative content.

Since that day, we’ve worked together across the world… Shooting together in London, Gothenburg, Amsterdam, Turin, Barcelona, Bangkok, Singapore, Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro and a few other amazing places…

I can’t say enough positive things about these two - the work they do is exceptional.

And now, they’re part of our team.

They bring with them experience delivering for the biggest clients in the world…
The likes of Aston Martin, Riot Games, The Ritz and so many more.

Not only is their video production world class, but their AI content generation is leading edge.

They are the perfect foil to what we have built at 21six - a world class agency set up to deliver for the biggest companies in the world.

This is a big day for all of us. I couldn’t be happier about it 🙂

Welcome guys 🙏

CEO at 21six | The Agency for Brands That Care

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Oliver Duffy-Lee

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The Battle

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Oliver Duffy-Lee

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