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

HyperGrowth Recruitment

Partnered with Abbott Lyon, Ocean Bottle, Spacegoods, Shirt in a Box, Studio Underd0g, Swytch Bike, Fly Sports, Invicta Kuru, Gymproluxe, Boux Avenue, Vitl, Copycat Fragrances, eClarity, Kokoon Technology & Xite Energy! 

At HyperGrowth we work with high growth ecommerce brands to help them unlock their full potential through talent attraction. 

Working directly with our client base or as an extension to private equity businesses, our focus is on building excellent retained relationships to best benefit the brands we partner with.  

We’ve been there and done it. With hands on experience across start ups at early series funding, PE backed SMEs, all the way through to companies pre and post IPO. We get the stresses of hiring accurately.

HyperGrowth Recruitment, hiring high performing teams for hyper growth brands!

www.hypergrowthrec.co.uk

Director & Founder

Swytch Bike

Managing talent attraction across Swytch Bike’s key hires.

Fancy making the swytch? Check out our live ads here; https://apply.workable.com/swytchbike/#jobs

Talent Acquisition Partner via HyperGrowth

I manage recruitment across Swytch Bike. We have huge growth plans and have a hiring strategy to unlock that potential! 

We are creating great, innovate & sustainable products and are building an impressive team to continue to develop in the E-bike space. 

Fancy making the swytch? We are looking to scale from 50 to 100+ team members in 2023, check out our live ads here; https://apply.workable.com/swytchbike/#jobs

Key achievement: Completing the search and selection of Swytch's new CMO and CFO

Talent Acquisition Lead

Ruroc

As Lead Recruiter across Ruroc, I supported each department with its growth plans through targeted recruitment campaigns, sourcing and attracting the very best talent. 

I created a direct recruitment model across the business, hiring approximately 100 new staff members per annum, on an agency spend of £0. 

Key achievement: Owning a full C-suite reshuffle. Reporting directly to our Private Equity investor, BGF.

Lead Recruiter

Pertemps Network Group

I managed the Permanent and Commercial Divisions at Pertemps Gloucester. 

We recruited for permanent vacancies across Commercial & IT sectors with my specialism being in hyper growth tech and ecommerce brands.

Key achievement: In 2020, Top 5 performing permanent division nationally and top in my region. I was working as the sole contributor.

Recruitment Consultant 

Cheltenham Town Football Club

Having signed for Cheltenham Town as a 10 year old, I worked my way up the ranks and made my full debut in the FA Trophy. 

Key achievement: Man of the Match on my first team debut.

Football Player

Director at HyperGrowth Recruitment | Hiring Scale Up Teams for Ecom Brands 🚀

HyperGrowth Recruitment are a dedicated search firm in the e-commerce and consumer goods scale-up space. Working directly with our client base or as an extension to private equity businesses, focused on a retained partnership model to attract the right talent for our partners. 

We have a holistic approach to best match a person to their next employer. We offer a ‘real world’ service that goes deeper than corporate stereotypes. We understand our customers almost as much as they know themselves, so much so that we have a waiting list for new business relationships. This gives us the time to fully understand a company, it’s ethos and direction before partnering. 

We mix speed, accuracy and deep market expertise which has enabled a 100% success rate on searches we take on.

We’ve truly been there and done it. With hands on experience across start ups at early series funding, PE backed SMEs all the way through to companies pre and post IPO. We get the stresses of hiring accurately.

HyperGrowth Recruitment, hiring high performing teams for hyper growth brands! 🚀

Contact me on sam@hypergrowthrec.co.uk to find out more!

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Rory McLaughlan

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The Battle

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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

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