Eskeez - Challenger Business

An insight into what makes South West England business Eskeez successful.

Transcript:
Our business started one day when I was standing on the edge of a rugby pitch watching my son's play rugby in November, sleet, rain, everything, and I thought they're going to absolutely freeze to death and putting something on the outside of them wasn't an option, and a lot of them had some base layer products on already, but were making little or no difference to their warmth or thermal value, so I thought there must be something out there that will be able to keep them warm, and I searched and there wasn't, so the idea of Eskeez was born.

Well the next thing to do when we had decided to move this thing forward, we realised there was a huge gap in the market. A lot of the sportswear brands that are supplying to children are literally producing mini versions of adult sport systems that are designed for muscle compression. Eight year old boys don't have those muscle compression systems so we thought, okay, now we need to find a fabric, and with the help of Business Link we managed to find a really talented textile designer right on our doorstep, and so that was the first stage to be able to move the product range forward.

Up until now we've been a web based business and mail order but, in order to meet demand, we're now having to move out into different retail sectors and retail channels in both adults and children's markets.

Our main problem has been that we're in a very very competitive market and as soon as you mention the idea of base layers to people then they say yep, yep, you know I've seen it all before and I know it, but actually we have a unique product that has some really unique qualities which knocks most of the other base layer brands out of the market, so it was just trying to communicate those issues to the target market.

Our best business decision I think has really to realise that although we've got a great idea, and many of the skills that's been necessary to run a successful business, that you can't do it all by yourself and so trying to get the right director level skills and source those regionally has been probably the best thing that we've done. There's lots and lots of talent right here on our doorstep and Business Link has pushed us in the right direction to be able to find the right people to suit the holes in our skill set.

We have a unique product which we're really really excited about. It is the warmest thing on the market. It fills an enormous hole in the market for keeping children warm and for solving people's problems with keeping that thermal value up whilst being able to perform really well but without adding lots and lots of bulky layers. The applications the varieties that it can be used for are almost endless and we think that we're going to make a real dent in this market.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Business Tips
• South West England
• Challenger Business
• Business Link
• South West RDA
• Eskeez
• Entrepeneurs
• Business Interview