Creating a new strategy and Sub Brand during lockdown

A great deal has been written about the lockdown experiences of businesses and the many challenges that companies, across all industries have faced, so I wanted to take this opportunity to document my own journey and how, out of adversity, we created a more robust and specialised business proposition where we are already seeing benefits.

The gloveglu business started back in 2012 with a single product - a spray to make your goalkeeper gloves tacky. For many years it ticked along as a “hobby company”, sitting alongside my other business interests, with a small number of new products being added along the way.

The business expanded globally and started to see success in territories such as USA, Japan and Australia.

In 2018, with outside investment and a push to widen the product range within the goalkeeper glove care category, gloveglu began to be recognised as the global leader and innovator in this category and continued to push new product development.

Funding was raised based on our strategy of taking this success and attacking other glove wearing sports with the gloveglu technology. Huge participation sports such as baseball and American football would become key targets for new product development and to grow the business.

Business plans, and future revenue assumptions, were based around this strategy and 2020 would be the time to begin tackling this evolution.

Then the Coronavirus hit.

Staff were furloughed. The business slowed down, and I found myself cycling daily to a deserted office and spending time thinking about the future.

For the first time I had an opportunity to step back, without day to day distractions, and rethink our plans. I had a chance to research. To plan. To review.

It hit me during these reflective days that to enter new sports would be a much harder challenge than growing our existing business with our existing customers.

It seems obvious now, but it’s clear that to go to new markets, where the brand is not known, with a product to make, for example, baseball gloves grippy, would be like starting from scratch.

It would take time to seed the products, gain credibility, stockists, traction and it would take investment too – all to gain listings for one of two lines.

On the flip side if I concentrated on our existing customer base and presented 10, 20, 30 new lines they would be much more likely to embrace 5 or 10 lines. Doing the maths it was clear that the better strategy was to look at option B and concentrate on our existing customer base.

'We need to go as wide and deep as possible in goalkeeping”, I told myself, and exploit the niche. After all, even during the early lockdown period, is was evident that those businesses exploiting niches continued to perform very well.

Yes goalkeeping is niche, but it is a global niche and one in which I believed, by going wide and deep, the gloveglu business could thrive.

But I had a niggle in my mind.

The gloveglu brand name had, of course, come from the original idea - the original “sticky spray”. It was OK to use this as a brand name on other glove care products I felt, but I wasn't sure that, as a brand name, it would work on items such as apparel or gloves themselves.

So, as I sat in my deserted office I began to develop the idea for a sister brand - a “produced by gloveglu - brand that would sit in these wider categories but still have its routes, its DNA, in gloveglu.

I looked around at brands I admire and how they had approached a similar problem and saw the Muc-Off approach.

Muc-Off is a brand based around bicycle (and motorbike) care. The core products have a similar ring to our gloveglu products - chemicals to clean, to replenish etc – and they 'own' the bicycle care category in the same way that we 'own' the goalkeeper glove care category.

I imagine that they had the same internal discussions around their brand as they began to think about other categories and whether the Muc-Off name would work.

Their solution was to launch several brother/sister brands – Athletic Performance; Filth, LAB.94 and I felt that approach was one that could work for gloveglu.

Thus, as I brainstormed in splendid office self-isolation, “GG:LAB produced by gloveglu” was born -

Created with the needs of performance athletes in mind and designed to help goalkeepers perform at a higher level in all aspects of the game.

Nine months of new product development have followed, then weeks of zoom customer presentations. Months of feedback. Months of anticipation. Product silos have launched – GG:LAB Protect and GG:LAB Active, and the final silo, GG:LAB Gloves, will launch on November 20th.

The pre order business based around this last launch looks set to have the most significant impact on the gloveglu business to date and is not only the culmination of the lockdown strategy review but is also, a time for a personal and career reflection.

Having had over 25 years in the sporting goods industry, 10 years with a leading glove brand developing the goalkeeping product knowledge and expertise, over 8 years building the gloveglu brand and nearly 12 months of product development, we launch a goalkeeper glove range to compete head to head with the best, but with the unique gloveglu DNA - Something that is hugely exciting.

As an entrepreneur Coronavirus has, without doubt, been the most challenging period of my business career, however it also gave me an unprecedented and unique opportunity to step back and think. To review and challenge the status quo. To prod, probe and poke the business plan, and to find a new direction.

It gave me the time to think about our business approach and the time to develop a new sister brand -something that I know will have a huge benefit for long term future of the business.

Many of us spent the time reflecting on our lives. Walking more and talking more, and I have vowed in the future to ensure that I do this on a more regular basis not only from a business, but also a personal point of view.

It took a global pandemic for me to draw these conclusions but time taken out every day, week, month, quarter just thinking about the bigger picture will, I have no doubt, continue to be a huge benefit and boost to my own business development plans and I look forward to addressing future business challenges with a clarity of thought that I didn't possess before.

So, if you're reading this, head down and just grinding from day to day, look up, step back and take some time to reflect. Let your mind wander and you might just find that the answers are in front of you.

Good luck!.

GG:LAB d:NA Goalkeeper Gloves produced by gloveglu launch on November 20th.

For more information visit gloveglu.com