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Wondering how to support your favourite businesses this Small Business Saturday? Shop Small Engage Online Share Your Favourites Leave a Review Every little action makes a huge difference to the businesses you love.

@britainsmallbiz relaunches the ‘Small & Mighty’ programme. This free, CPD-certified six-week course is designed to supercharge some traders and micro businesses. inkfire.co.uk/link-in-bio

Today is possibly the Inkfire team's favourite day of the year, and that's National Doughnut Day. This year, we've treated ourselves by ordering from doughnuttime.co.uk to be delivered to each of our team members' homes throughout the UK.

🚨 Latest News: Google Cloud accidentally deleted a customer account, causing significant downtime and data loss. UniSniper, an Australian pension fund, experienced two weeks of downtime and lost all records and backups of its 647,000 members retirement funds.

We're so pleased with how this gift box turned out – according to Jolie, they were quite delicious and didn't last long in her house. Thanks to Sweet Mems (instagram.com/sweet.mems) – a great idea for private or corporate gifts when you want something that little bit different

Congratulations to our friend and colleague Jolie on the birth of her beautiful new baby girl, Nellie. On behalf of the whole Inkfire team, we're wishing you the very best as you recover and get to know your little one.

We're proud to be supporting crohnsandcolitis.org.uk this World IBD Day! Our Co-Founder, Imali, has been dealing with Colitis symptoms for several years. She's subsequently had emergency surgery to receive a Stoma bag which has in her words "Totally changed her life!".

Read the full Leeds 2023 case study on our website - inkfire.co.uk/leeds-city-of-… (Hashtags) #Inclusive #Accessible #DisabledLed #Inkfire #SupportBusinesses #Spoonies #RemoveBarriers #Branding #Portfolio #DisabledEntrepreneur

Wondering what some of our portfolio looks like? 👀 inkfire.co.uk (Hashtags) #Inclusive #Accessible #DisabledLed #Inkfire #InkfireLimited #SupportBusinesses #Spoonies #RemoveBarriers #Branding #Portfolio #DisabledEntrepreneur

@tombrown @gorgiasio you’re seriously missing a trick if you don’t jump on this!

Can you still in 2024 successfully build, launch and scale a DTC brand? And by successfully I mean – profitably. There are 2 versions of this story... --- 1) The short (ish) version: In late 2023, I decided to test my mettle by launching a new DTC brand in public. The question was simple: could I replicate my past success today? I planned to white label a product and document every step of the journey, from conception to launch, all in public. To manage costs, I invited sponsors with a strict rule to only partner with those I authentically believed in and could talk about transparently. No BS. Today, the project has grown significantly (putting it mildly) from its small initial concept. We're a team of 6, we've got a factory and are just weeks away from launching. We've got a dedicated group of integrated partners and a (hopefully) robust strategy to launch and grow. This is mildly terrifying. I have no clue how this story is going to end. --- 2) The long version: In October of last year, while at an event, a question was seeded into my brain – did I still have what it takes to launch a new DTC brand, and could I do it in public? The number one question I get on advisory calls and in DMs is: "How do I do this? How do I grow? I get the theoretical, but how in the real world do we do this?" Having documented (behind a paywall) everything about building my last brand back in 2021 – for what was only supposed to be a 3-6 month experiment that I completely expected to fail – 3+ years on the brand is still alive and kicking. But given how much the market has changed, I wondered if I was in fact still capable of doing it again. Was is pure luck? Did I actually know what I was doing? Could I replicate the results again now after all the impacts of iOS 14 + Meta + global financial shifts? There was one way to find out... I approached a couple of good friends in the space in Nov '23 and told them my plans: • White label a product • Document everything • Build it all in public • Bring on sponsors to help me facilitate the cost of editing and distribution (sponsor criteria: I wouldn't shill just anything, I had to use the product, believe in it and wouldn't allow competitors.) • I knew going in that copycats would rip off my product within weeks I figured – worst case, even if the brand failed after 6 months the audience would have (hopefully) learned a ton about what works and what doesn't, and that sponsors would have gained a ton of exposure and content from it. Win-Win. In early Dec '23 Taylor Davies (@Oddomadic ) agreed to help me as an advisor and lend services from @itsOddit where they could. If I was crazy, there were at least now 2 of us in this madness. In late Dec '23, I sent out a sponsorship deck (that was brutally long – apologies to those who had to suffer it!) to service providers I knew and wanted to work with. The response was overwhelmingly positive and there was one thing we all agreed on: "There is so. much. BS. in this ecommerce/DTC space; we need authenticity & transparency." Sponsors got it almost immediately. In some cases I think they saw it clearer than I did. As Jan '24 progressed, myself and Taylor started pulling together a list of products we were interested in, brands that inspired us, and spaces we saw where we could add value to the customer, cut costs and deliver a better service. Somewhere around late-Jan/early-Feb '24 Taylor mentioned he had a conversation with Ali (@AliPetrabrands ) and Geoff (@hefffaye ) from Petra Brands a year earlier. Should he reach out? They had factories and more ideas seemingly than they could possibly execute. Ali and Geoff got it immediately and wanted in. From Jan-May '24 is somewhat of a blur. Before I knew it the team had grown into a powerhouse: • Me • Taylor • Ali • Geoff We had a factory and the factory owners were now coming on as equity partners, as was Oddit. We quickly added: • Shaun (@brandtify ) • Cam (@camjservice ) All parties (Tom, Oddit, Petra) now had a vested interest in seeing this brand launch and succeed. Now it really mattered that this brand was successful and didn't flop after 6 months. And we had an enormous moat. With Petra Brands coming on board we now had: • Access to the lowest COGS in the industry • Insanely low MOQs • The ability to produce high-quality and highly customized products within 24-48 hours We also had an operator with 10+ years of experience (that's this guy) and Oddit, who brings a wealth of brand, design, CRO, marketing and business experience. What does that also mean? • We have a high AOV (we're estimating $400+ ish) • We have a high margin that should allow us to be able to spend a healthy amount on marketing (more on this later) • We have a ton of experience on our side So where are we today: Holy heck... in no particular order our integrated partners are: • Oddit (@itsOddit ) • Petra (@AliPetrabrands ) • Replo (@replohq ) • Junip (@juniphq ) • Recart (@Recartapp ) • Fermàt (@fermatcommerce ) • Presidio (@PresidioDev ) • Kynship (@kynshipco ) • Archive (@archive_dot_com ) • Omnisend (@omnisend ) • Superfiliate (@superfiliate ) • BRND Labs (@BRNDLabs ) • Wonderpack (@wonderpackeco ) • Creative OS (@creativeos_io ) • Inkfire (@Inkfirelimited ) • Jansy (@BerlinPackaging ) • Redo (@trobs30 ) This is extraordinary. We initially thought we'd launch this in January as a very simple white-label product with a brand wrapped around it. It's morphed and grown enormously. We're weeks away now. We've got months' worth of call recordings that we're working through. (Side note: we're still trying to find a knock-out video editor.) In the coming days and weeks there will *finally* be a lot more I can start to share with you about: • What the brand is • Our Go-To-Market strategy • How the heck we're doing any of this, plus how the tools & services above play key roles in the business I can't wait to unveil this. My only goal with this is to keep it as real, transparent and authentic as possible. DTC Unscripted is delayed, yet so nearly here. Love ya'll. The support from everyone these past 5 months has been ridiculous. 💙

@tombrown Good things are worth the wait!! Can’t wait to see how much this grows 👀

@tswifterastour “You can hear it in the silence”

🚨| Taylor Swift has been silenced on TikTok

The NEW Inkfire website has officially launched - inkfire.co.uk! All our services, content and case studies can be found in one easy to reach place. #NewWebsite #TeamEffort

At the heart of what we do lies our values. These influence everything we do, the way we provide our services, and how we work with our customers. #BreakdownBarriers #ChangingTheNarrative #DisabledCreatives

The first of our kind, Inkfire is here to change the narrative around working with disabilities. Join us in making the world more inclusive, one business at a time. #InkfireLimited #WorkingWithDisabilities #Disability