people move to London and Manchester when we needed and wanted them here. As Little Lies grows, so too will the jobs and learning.” Stuart agrees: “We want to attract talent to the area. Having our roots in Perthshire is important for us for both personal and business reasons. We want our daughter to grow up here but it’s also a central location for distributing across the UK and internationally. “We’ve spent eight years with our heads down, working hard, but this is our time. Up until now, we’ve self-funded the business, but this may change as we look towards the future. Developing a board of directors, looking for investment – these are all on the horizon, I’m sure.”
Investment Timeline 2015 Little Lies launches as an online platform
2016 First three team members join
2017 Move to small retail unit with basement
2020 Move to distribution and Head Office in Glencarse
2021 Stuart joins full time as MD, £1.9 million turnover reached
2022 Chamber of Commerce Business of the Year winners
2023 Launched Little Lies own brand label
Developing as Directors Although both Jade and Stuart started their Little Lies journey with years of experience between them, they have had to develop new skills and business acumen including how to show up as leaders of a brand. “When we started, Stuart was in full-time employment as a mechanical engineer, leading a design team working on innovative tech for Apple and others; this gave us an income but he travelled a lot, and in those first two years most of the major decisions around finance and legals were made over video-calls or between his trips. “Meanwhile, I was running Little Lies from the spare bedroom. I did everything from curating collections, to uploading web images, running the social media, photography, pricing, dealing with customers, and all the picking, packing and shipping. We turned over £12,700 in year one and the learning curve was steep! “Now, we have 14 employees, and this is only going to grow in line with the business as it develops.
“Leading the team has been one of the greatest challenges. We were so clear in our vison and ethos but, along the way, we’ve had to ensure every person recruited buys into those same principles. We now have a warehouse team, product team, marketing and content creation team and they all need to play their part in delivering on the Little Lies promise.” In early 2023 Jade and Stuart joined the Accelerator Course, run in conjunction with Perth & Kinross Council and Elevator. The six-week course is designed for high growth start-ups and existing businesses in Perth & Kinross and focuses on the fundamentals needed to fast track business. “One of the key benefits to us was getting out of the office! Making the space together to work on the business instead of in it has been productive. It is easy to become insular when you are focused on working hard and networking among other likeminded businesses all looking to grow brings fresh perspective to how you’re approaching things.”
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