Sosandar co-CEOs share how they built their brand

Entrepreneurs Ali Hall and Julie Lavington remember the very first item of clothing they sold: a leopard-print shirt dress. The duo, who founded womenswear pureplay Sosandar in late 2016, describe watching their first sale as something of a pinch-me a moment – a sign that the fledgling but ambitious business they had begun from Hall’s spare bedroom was beginning to take flight.

“We’ve come full circle,” Lavington laughs. “It started with a leopard-print dress, and we still sell a lot of animal print today. We started the business with workwear and going-out clothes, but now our aim is to fulfil every single wardrobe need for our customers and be a one-stop shop.”

Hall and Lavington, who are co-CEOs as well as co-founders of Sosandar, had already worked together for more than a decade as the editor and publishing director respectively of fashion and celebrity magazine Look before launching the brand. It was during their time running the title that they spotted a gap in the market that would become the genesis of a multi-million-pound business.

You have to be able to sell your vision clearly

Ali Hall, Sosandar

There was very little choice, the duo noted, for women who had outgrown budget brands constantly chasing trends and were searching for a fashion-forward, high-quality alternative at an affordable price point. That focused concept became Sosandar’s north star and has helped the business grow at pace.

“From the start, we had complete and utter faith in what we were doing – combined with an extremely detailed business plan to show potential investors,” Hall tells Drapers. “That was so important to our success. You have to be able to sell your vision clearly.”

Lavington agrees: “We knew absolutely everything about the business from the bottom to the top and who our target customer was. Our vision was always one of high growth and we presented that to investors from the start. We didn’t go into it thinking it would be a small business. We saw ourselves on the same trajectory as businesses like Boohoo and Asos.”

Hall and Lavington’s clear vision of the road ahead helped the business to overcome some early hurdles. A retail business is nothing without good suppliers, and like many new fashion businesses, Sosandar initially struggled to find partners who were willing take a punt on a new brand.

“At the beginning, finding suppliers who would do really small quantities was one of the biggest challenges,” says Lavington. “We started with really small quantities to mitigate any risk – we had a broad choice of products but very low numbers of each style to prevent us holding too much stock. We had to really sell our vision of the future to persuade suppliers to work with us.”

The pair’s early confidence has proved well founded. Revenue at Sosandar soared by 35% to £12.2m in the year to 31 March 2021, despite the volatile economic backdrop of the pandemic. In the three months to June 2021, revenue grew 256% year on year to reach £5.7m.

And the fashion industry is taking note of Sosandar’s growth and unique offering. Retail giants Next and John Lewis began stocking Sosandar online in August 2020, hotly followed by Marks & Spencer in March this year. The business was named both Best New Online Business and Digital Team of the Year at the 2019 Drapers Digital Awards.

It may have all started with a leopard-print dress, but Sosandar has expanded rapidly into new categories and now sells everything from footwear to accessories. Knitwear, denim, and outerwear are all performing strongly, as are activewear and leisure wear, the brand’s newest categories, which launched in January this year.

An agile mindset has enabled the business to fast-track new product developments, such as the activewear range, to reflect changing consumer demand over the past 12 months. A combination of gut feeling and data analytics has allowed the brand to stay close to its customers’ evolving needs.

“We operate on a test-and-learn basis on everything we do, whether it’s a new type of marketing or a new range,” explains Hall. “We start small, we test it, we learn from it and then we go big.”

We knew that our customers would demand a seamless service

Julie Lavington, Sosandar

Hiring the right people, at the right time, has also propelled Sosandar from start-up to success.

“We made some big senior hires, like a marketing director and a finance director, early on because we understood the business would be nothing without a really good team,” says Lavington. “When you’re a small business, every hire is critical. There’s nowhere to hide in a team of 50 people.”

Hall urges fellow entrepreneurs to employ people who aren’t afraid to get stuck into the realities of running a rapidly growing business: “You need people who can go high and low – people who will roll their sleeves up and do some of the less glamorous tasks as well as the more strategic work. In a start-up business, you also need people who not only embrace change, but are excited by change.”

A best-in-class logistics offer has been a key factor in the business’s considerable success. Lavington explains that from the outset, she and Hall knew that Sosandar would need a delivery, returns and refund proposition that could keep pace with the industry’s largest and most established pureplays.

“We knew that, even though we were a start-up, our customers would demand a seamless service. We did a lot of research into logistics providers and identified Clipper as the best, because of the services they provided and the calibre of the clients they worked with,” she says.  “Partnering with them was one of the best decisions we ever made. Their expertise means we can concentrate on what we’re good at and we’ve been able to scale up with them as our business has grown.”

Our spirit of collaboration has never been more apparent

Tony Mannix, Clipper Logistics

Tony Mannix, group chief executive of Clipper Logistics, adds: “Despite the challenging business circumstances surrounding Covid-19, we have seen the Sosandar business go from strength to strength. We have worked with Sosandar as an extension of their team, providing them with a scalable solution to facilitate their needs, enabling them to start small and grow quickly through the use of our shared-user warehousing and distribution network. Our spirit of collaboration has never been more apparent, and the partnership is a testament to our agility matched by ability ethos.”

Creativity and a keen eye for a winning product are hallmarks of all successful fashion businesses. However, Hall and Lavington also stress the importance of a firm grip on finance for any brand.

“We’re a creative business, but it is underpinned by brilliant infrastructure,” says Lavington. “We’ve had very stretching financial targets from the start, which has meant we never sit on our laurels. We’re constantly modelling and remodelling our current and future finances. Very good financial management means we never feel that the growth of the business is running away with us.”

Hall and Lavington have some simple – but effective – advice for fellow fashion entrepreneurs.

“If you put your customer at the heart of everything you do, you’re well on the road to a good business,” says Lavington. “Put yourself in the heart and minds of your customer and do what is right for them, not what is right for you.”

Hall adds: “Growing a business is always overwhelming. If you think about how you’re going to go from day one to your overall goal, it can feel insurmountable. Our approach has always been to sit down together and break every goal or challenge we’ve faced down into simple, manageable steps.”

Sosandar has hit on a winning formula growth – a well-targeted proposition that combines the agility of a start-up with the infrastructure and team of a much larger business.