UK Edition
Snag Tights founder: The key to success is preparing for the worst
Customers who shop at tights brand Snag won't find any hosiery in small, medium or large, as founder Brie Read has abandoned the scale. Instead, the start-up's size guide runs from A to G – each letter influenced by a combination of dress size, body shape and height. A person who's 5ft 8in, curvy and traditionally wears size 12-14 clothes would be a D, for example, while someone with those same measurements and a flatter stomach and buttocks would wear C.
The key differentiator is width – an important adjustment "when you consider the contrast between size eight and 32," explains Read. The start-up's custom-made tights sport "soft" seams and a "comfortable" waistband that "stays put even if you've been on your feet for 12 hours".
A self-confessed "numbers nerd", Read used to work as a marketing data analyst before becoming chief executive of Diet Chef, a meal delivery service that she grew to an annual turnover of £20m. When it sold, she co-founded Facebook advertising firm ForceTenDigital, which closed last year due to a "challenging market" following the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
She came up with the idea for Snag while walking up Edinburgh's George Street one day. Her tights began to sag. "I was doing what I call the 'tights dance' – where you keep stopping and struggling to pull them back up, but it was futile," recalls the founder, whose hosiery fell down.
With friends sharing similar tales, Read wondered how many others had suffered the same. She carried out a Google survey of 1,000 people. Nine in 10 (90pc) of the women said that their tights didn't fit properly, while seven in 10 (70pc) believed that if they did, their lives would be "fundamentally" better. "It was a huge issue in a massive global market that wasn't being addressed," she says. "I saw a chance to fix things."
Following months of product development and market research, Read raised some seed money via friends and family, and secured manufacturing partners in Italy.
She officially launched the enterprise in April 2018, saving on costs by running the operation virtually (without a physical office). "It can be hard to build a vibrant team spirit, but we get around it with regular team meet-ups," she says.
Finding the right logistics partners also proved challenging. The brand has gone through several postage companies so far, as each one hasn't had the right support in place for when things go wrong. "You don't think about the worst happening when you're just starting out," explains the entrepreneur. "When negotiating, you have to ask about what happens when something doesn't work, how long it will take to sort and how to escalate."
It's important for businesses to get it right the first time, she adds. Shipping faulty or wrong products, or not delivering anything at all can be damaging (and fatal) for new start-ups with no track record.
Snag has succeeded so far, reaching sales of £2.3m in its first year of trading to March 2019. It turned a profit, which Read will use to bootstrap the business and fuel further growth. The enterprise claims to have sold 300,000 pairs of tights so far to consumers in the UK, US, Germany and Australia.
An innovative product has helped to achieve such numbers, but so has including customers in business strategy and planning, explains Read. Snag's 100,000 customers are consulted on everything from product names to the marketing language that they prefer. Importantly, the team acts on that input, even if it means going against what they think is right. "For example, people really wanted green tights, which I thought was a terrible idea, but they're now one of our bestselling products," says the founder.
"Our customers feel like they co-own the brand, so they're more loyal," she adds. "It's a proper dialogue; we genuinely care and don't just pretend to."
Open communication can also help when things go wrong. "We've had some postage issues, but we always do a public post to say sorry, explaining exactly what happened and why," says Read.
The public tend to be more understanding if you're honest and transparent with them, she adds. "We get messages that say thanks for letting us know and not to worry."
While Snag doesn't generally use the term, Read supports the many "plus-size" brands that are doing "amazing things" to promote body positivity. But she does take issue with firms who exploit it as a business opportunity. "In our ads, we use a range of model sizes – and importantly, you see the same when you come to our website," she explains. Others will advertise that they're inclusive, but if you go into their shops or visit their online store, it's "all size-four models".
Aside from order confirmations, the company doesn't like to email its customers. "Best case, people open 10pc of the dozens or hundreds of messages that they get each day," states Read. "That's not an effective way to communicate."
Snag uses Facebook and Instagram – places where users are actively browsing or bored. She recommends the approach to other enterprises: "Don't bother customers or make their lives more difficult."
Read, who's a founding partner of two other firms but works on Snag full-time, wants to continue to expand internationally. Later this year, the brand will also relaunch a range of tights that are sweat-wicking and prevent thigh chafing. "It happens to men and women of all sizes," says the founder, who adds that it's great to see people enjoying wearing tights again.
"A lot of our customers tell us that they had given up on them completely, but now they're buying again, which is great."