The Journey to Seven-Figure Earnings in E-Commerce: Progress Jiu Jitsu's Rise

Ever wondered how an e-commerce business can skyrocket to a seven-figure turnover in just a few years?

Join us as we chat with the Founder and CEO of Progress Jiu Jitsu, James Tighe,  who shares the secrets behind his company's meteoric rise since 2018. Learn how the popularity of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu has positively impacted their growth, the challenges they've faced along the way, and how investing in technology and automation has been crucial to their continued success.

Brexit threw a curveball at many businesses, but Progress JJ found a way to turn it to their advantage, and better cater to European Union customers - find out how. In today's episode, James also reveals the role of the international market in their expansion plans, along with the technology and sponsorship strategies they're employing to achieve their goals. Plus, don't miss out on the discussion about leveraging social media and the untapped potential of TikTok to reach an even wider audience. This insightful conversation with James is not to be missed!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello, i'm Caroline and welcome to the Lightning 50 E-commerce growth hacking podcast. Today we're speaking to James Tai. He's the CEO of Progress Jujitsu, but before we get to the interview, a quick message from our sponsor. We have an exciting sponsor today People Fox, the warehouse management system helping ambitious e-commerce businesses scale.

Speaker 1: 0:21

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Speaker 2: 1:30

Nice pleasure, thank you.

Speaker 1: 1:32

So tell me a little bit about yourself and the business and what you do and who you sell to.

Speaker 2: 1:39

Yeah, well, i mean it started. I mean we actually started importing Giz around 2013. It was just a hobby at the time. I started training Brazilian Jujitsu in 2009 and just for a bit of fun, because Jujitsu, Giz the called or Kimonos do a really expensive. You can only really get them from Brazil or America. So we started importing them, just contacted a couple of factories and more, for a bit of fun really. And then I was training at a really good gym with people that were sort of winning medals at the British Nationals and things like that, so my teammates were wearing the gear and it went from there. In 2018, we incorporated, we went full time on the brand probably 2020, 2021 around COVID, and that's when things really kicked off for us, once we started putting all our time and effort into it. And it helps that the sport has actually grown a lot as well. There's loads of people training Jujitsu these days, which is great.

Speaker 1: 2:38

That's exciting. So what's made? now the time for Jujitsu to start exploding, do you reckon?

Speaker 2: 2:44

Well, i think. I mean I think it's on the back of the UFC. I mean, people have started really getting involved in watching mixed martial arts and training mixed martial arts on the back of the success of the UFC. A lot of people don't like boxing or getting punished or kicked in the face, so people naturally sort of gravitate to the sport which is a little bit less intense, which is Jujitsu, the kind of the gentle art. So it's kind of like a combination between sort of judo and wrestling, but you don't really get hurt unless you're unlucky. So I think that's why people love training. You can train sort of as well when you saw 40, 50, even into your 60s. So it's not like a lot of other sports where it requires a lot of physical attributes. Sort of anyone can train really.

Speaker 1: 3:29

So an accessible sport, what it's great to hear that it's going well. tell us a little bit more about how the business, as the knock on effect that has had on your business and, yeah, your growth rate, can you give us some examples of how well you're doing?

Speaker 2: 3:42

Yeah, sure, i mean, as I said, we incorporated in 2018, but then it was still sort of I still had a full-time job, so it's still sort of a hobby really, but it started taking over more and more of my time and obviously it was getting busier and busier. So after we incorporated, we were probably trading for about two years before we went full-time. That was around the time of Covid And since it was myself, my business partner and I got a couple of friends involved as well, and then it's just basically been a rocket ship ever since. Really, i think it's a combination of the sport growing internationally. It's literally growing in every country around the world, which is amazing, and also our market share and the brand is really growing as well.

Speaker 2: 4:24

So we basically, as I said, it was a smaller business a few years ago even just I think between 2020 and 2021, we went from I think it was 268,000 turnover to like 1.2 million, and then I think last year we ended up, or this current year, just the end of this financial year, we've ended up on 2.4 million, and then our current run rates looking for this the end of this financial year to be about four and a half million. We're growing at a really a really good rate at the minute, which obviously comes with problems and challenges, but we're kind of getting on top of things now.

Speaker 1: 5:02

Yeah, so tell me what have been the main challenges about growing at the speed that you have done?

Speaker 2: 5:07

Well, I think we just weren't. We weren't so up to it, We didn't have a solid foundation really. I mean, what we've done sort of in the last 12 months is put some real solid foundations in place in the business. So we've invested a lot into technology, We're automating a lot of our processes now And that's just enabled us to grow a little bit with a little bit less pain. Really, You know, it's freed up a lot of time so we can concentrate instead of like putting fires out. You know we can concentrate on growing the business in the right way.

Speaker 1: 5:38

So talk to me a little bit more about the automation side. Are you using technology there to help you?

Speaker 2: 5:43

Yes, yeah, absolutely We've. We basically use, I suppose, the main players. Really We use best in class across most of our tech stack. So we use Shopify Klaviyo, We use Gorge yes, for our customer service platform, which is really good, And we also use Mundicom to manage our workflow. So that's been, that's been amazing, to be honest, because instead of us just sort of emailing each other and what's happened to each other, we've actually got a really good project management platform there where we can. We can action all our meetings, We can put deadlines on things, assign people.

Speaker 1: 6:21

No, i'm sure. So when you think about the growth over the last couple of years, do you put that down to one particular thing? Would it be maybe people marketing your product or even anything else? Is there one thing that you can be like yeah, that's really helped us grow?

Speaker 2: 6:38

Well, i definitely think it's all the above We've. we've recruited some really good people, which has helped a lot. We've got a really strong culture at the minute And we kind of got a culture of like continuous learning in the business. So we're always looking for, you know, we're always doing things like listening to podcasts like this your commerce podcast, business podcasts. we surround ourselves with like really good mentors as well.

Speaker 1: 7:00

Fantastic. So talk to me about the teams. How many people do you have on board at the moment?

Speaker 2: 7:05

We've got six full-time, we've got one part-time. We also work with some consultants as well, who obviously aren't on the payroll, but they're sort of crucial parts of the team. We've actually had work with VA's as well, so we work with some overseas virtual assistants. They've really helped, to be honest as well, because it's obviously a cheaper way of accessing highly skilled people really. So that frees up a lot of our time. That's enabled us to focus on driving the business forward as well.

Speaker 1: 7:37

Fantastic, and when you've got a team of six core people, a couple of consultants, va's it's still a little bit staggered. You're growing really, really quickly. How are you bringing all of your people together? I've got some notes here to say that you're pretty hot on learning, development and things like that. Tell me what you do there.

Speaker 2: 7:57

Yeah, definitely. I mean, continuous learning is one of our brand values, So we're all really big on continuous learning, whether that's like podcasts, reading books. We've also got, like I mentioned before, about the board advisors, So we've got really strong board advisors at the moment who've been great. They've worked with some really big e-commerce brands and now they're helping us with learning from their mistakes. We're basically just trying to surround ourselves with as many sort of experienced and skilled people as we can. It's kind of like you don't know what you don't know and that's kind of accelerated us our knowledge really.

Speaker 1: 8:31

That's the recipe for success surrounding yourself with people that are cleverer than yourself, but this coming down from the top down, you're the CEO, learning and development being so important, and with your team, what did you do in a previous life? Has that always been quite important to you about pushing yourself and learning more?

Speaker 2: 8:52

I've always kind of been quite entrepreneurial. So, believe it or not, before we had the Jiu Jitsu business, i used to run hairdressing salon. We're a business partner. He's actually my business partner now in progress. He's like you know, he's like head of design and brand But before he was a hairdresser and I used to manage the hairdressing salons that we had. So you know, i've kind of I've always been sort of involved in management. Before that I was actually a manager for weather spoons. So it's been a bit of a varied career, but I've always been involved in management at some level and, you know, leading people.

Speaker 1: 9:28

And that's so important, isn't it? And learning development is such a big part of that. So, going back to growth at the minute, so your focus right now is it growth or is it profit?

Speaker 2: 9:41

It's a bit of both, to be honest. Traditionally, it was always over the last few years it's always been growth. You know, growth, growth, growth, really just trying to gain as much market share as we could. We sacrificed a lot of profit in favor of gaining market share. So, for example, like we were flying stock in as opposed to getting it by sea, we were making probably a lot of mistakes really, but we just wanted to. We were just super ambitious and really wanted to gain market share and, you know, become a dominant brand in our industry. Really, i think now we've kind of quite established as a, you know, strong brand in our market. We're probably going to slow down the growth a little bit in favour of just maximising our profit. I mean, we're in single figures sorry, single figures for net profit. So the goal is to get that up to double figures, you know, over the next year or two and then kick on from there.

Speaker 1: 10:32

Really, Yeah, that makes sense. And you mentioned mistakes. you know we don't really like using the word mistake, because I'm sure there's loads that you can learn from that and take forward, but what would you say has been some of the biggest learnings from said mistakes or mistake in the past? What's the one thing that you know you can take it away from you and go yeah, that happened, but I really, really learned XYZ.

Speaker 2: 10:55

Yeah, i think probably the biggest mistake we've made, if you like, is we've we probably split ourselves a bit too thin and tried doing a bit too much at once. So we basically tried like taking over Amazon, taking over all these different market, international markets, and obviously that's had a lot of cash, it's split the team, it's spread us really thin. So we've kind of like realised that that was a bit of a mistake. we're putting the effort into the wrong areas and now we're kind of like centralising our efforts into like what's you know our biggest markets and basically what our customers want, instead of like bringing out random products that you know we didn't do a lot of research about and people actually don't need. So we're kind of going back to focusing on our core market and our core business model.

Speaker 1: 11:39

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Speaker 2: 12:30

I mean, to be honest, i think it's a really good time to get into e-commerce or to grow your e-commerce brand. I think if you do the basic try you know you always learn about what's happening in the industry and keeping up with technological advancements, i don't really think you can go far wrong. It's like super cheap and easy to get into e-commerce and grow. I think people sometimes probably overcomplicate e-commerce, like we've certainly done in the past. I think if you just follow best practice and keep up today with what's going on, it's a really good time to be in e-commerce, yeah.

Speaker 1: 13:01

What are some of the trends that you're seeing at the minute. That is exciting you in this space in terms of e-commerce.

Speaker 2: 13:09

I just think things are getting easier and easier, more and more accessible. Ai is obviously just launched. We've not really looked at AI yet, to be honest. I just think with platforms like Shop is like Clavio, you know all these other big market leaders it just makes life really easy. It means you can reach markets you probably never reached before. Even with, like couriers you know most couriers DPD, dhl, ups you can basically ship your products anywhere in the world really quickly, really deep. I suppose Brexit has been a bit of a nightmare in that respect, especially for our market. That was a big headache because we had a lot of customers in the European Union. Last year we actually opened up a warehouse in the European Union in Spain, just to sort of try and win some of those customers. Back then we lost Brexit. But I think political things like that is probably your only problem. Really everything else going the right way for us.

Speaker 1: 14:08

And those kinds of things. You can't really worry about them because they're so far out of your hands and you're a business model. What will come will come. But yeah, so you decide let's dig into that a little bit more. So Brexit happened. You obviously could foresee what might happen. How quickly were you able to get that kind of Spanish warehouse up and running, and how has that helped you?

Speaker 2: 14:30

Well, it was a lot slower than we'd liked, i mean partly because obviously it's not the easiest place to open a business spade. But I mean we. I think we're in a really strong position now. It's finally open, because a lot of our competitors chose not to make that decision, which was great for us. So I think originally we were obviously still getting orders from the European Union, but we were either passing on the input costs to our customers or we could actually prepay it for them. So it was smoother for them but obviously more expensive for us, killing our gross profit. But we opted to do that for our customers for a short term And then, once we opened, it was amazing because we can literally just redirect European Union traffic purchase straight from the Spanish store. It was the only problem really was obviously cash flow, because we had to sort of keep two warehouses full And that was obviously that was a challenge. But we got some support with that, which was good. But I think that's been, you know, really big driver.

Speaker 1: 15:28

Where else is on the maps internationally for you?

Speaker 2: 15:31

Ideal. we would like to be on the ground there at some point, And I think that's that time will come.

Speaker 1: 15:35

That's exciting, and how do you think the technology side of things is going to help you? maybe progress there or in other opportunities?

Speaker 2: 15:43

Yeah, i mean I think at the moment we've got I'm really confident in our business model. So I think what we can do is kind of optimise it, get even more market share over the next couple of years, and then we'd hit the ground running there and just basically rinse and repeat exactly what we've done in the UK. We've already got some good connections over there. We're kind of we'll be hitting the ground running because it's not like we're going into a market where nobody knows us. We sponsor you know, we sponsor some world champions which are known with household names over there. So I think it's kind of like not over complicating the process. I'm just kind of doing what works here, replicating it in America, and I don't see why it shouldn't be a success there as well.

Speaker 1: 16:25

Fantastic. Talk to me a little bit more about your sponsorship side of things. Are you using, like social media hand in hand with that? Does that kind of form part of the marketing strategy?

Speaker 2: 16:36

Yes, it does. Yeah, it's a big part of our marketing strategy. About a year ago, we took on a full-time content creator on the staff, which has been a game changer for us really. It's just meant that we can get to gyms, we can visit our athletes, we can sponsor more athletes. So, again, that's probably a differentiator between us and our competitors. We are. We're building content with our, our sponsored athletes and the gyms that we support, the competitions and events that we support, whereas not a lot of our competitors are doing that. I think our customers love it. You know they can't get enough GJC content. You know they want to learn from world champions. They want to watch GJC videos all day. So that's been, that's been really good for us.

Speaker 1: 17:19

Incredible. Is it a kind of area that's taken off on the dark depths of TikTok? yet Is that something that you're looking at?

Speaker 2: 17:25

It probably is, but we're not quite there yet. We do actually have a TikTok account, but we don't really use it too much at the minute. Instagram is big for us, though.

Speaker 1: 17:32

Yeah, yeah It's. it's still quite mystical kind of area of social media where, depending on who we speak to, it's either quite terrifying or something that people are jumping on top of.

Speaker 2: 17:45

But I can imagine GJC would be quite yeah, i mean, i'm probably a bit, to be honest. I probably need to recruit someone that's like 20 years younger than me to run the TikTok for us. But I've heard that the the row actually can get on on TikTok ads is really good.

Speaker 1: 18:00

Yeah, exactly So. it's definitely maybe an opportunity for next year, what? or this coming year, even what? what is on your to-do list in terms of tech and future growth at the minute?

Speaker 2: 18:13

Well, we've got a few things up our sleeve for this year. We've just done a soft launch of SMS marketing, which we're quite hesitant about doing for a long time And just to me it felt a bit intrusive, but we know some real big brands have had a lot of success with it. So we've launched SMS. We've again we've done a soft launch of our loyalty program which is going to be called Legend Pints. So that's hopefully going to really help out with our retention. And then, obviously, we've got the USA sort of a bit longer term And we're probably going to sort of put a bit more work into our affiliate marketing.

Speaker 2: 18:52

So, as I said, we sponsor some, like some really high level professional athletes in the sport, but we're going to probably roll out more of an affiliate based program where people that we don't officially sponsor we can do, we can sort of work with them with, like, a promo code. There's a lot of Shopify apps that can support this, where you know they can offer a promo code and then we can automatically pay them a percentage of any sales it brings in. So that's something we're looking at as well in like in different markets to help us gain a bit more market sharing those areas.

Speaker 1: 19:25

Fantastic And you know the podcast is all about growth And in a moment I'm going to ask you for your top like two or three tips in terms of e-commerce growth that we can share with our listeners. But when you look at growth in the business now, where would you like to be in five or 10 years time? What's your idea of growth and going forward? What would be a really great situation for you to wake up in five years from now?

Speaker 2: 19:49

Well, i'm not sure about numbers wise, but we want to be the biggest and most respected brand in Jiu Jitsu, so that's kind of like our five year goal. We've got a lot of work to do, first, because there's some really good, there's some really good brands in our space that are doing a great job. But I think the way we're growing, i don't think there's any reason why we can't be sort of top of the tree in the next five years.

Speaker 1: 20:13

And it does sound like you're well on your journey to do so. This is an incredible growth story, james. So, yeah, as I say, before I let you go, i have to ask for your two or three top tips in terms of e-commerce, growth and scale. What would you like to share with your, with our listeners, as your secret source of speak?

Speaker 2: 20:31

Well, i think I'm learning from my mistakes. I'll take it organized early. I'd say use a really good project management tool like Mondaycom or SANA and set really clear goals which you can sort of review on a regular basis. Hold the team to account. That's really going to help you grow.

Speaker 2: 20:49

What we do is like every month we'll pick a project And we all obviously as a non-negotiable commit to doing it that month, and then, before you know it, you know a year has gone past and you've, you know your business has skyrocketed. So I think that's probably the best tip I can I can suggest. The other thing is, as I invest in like your tech stack and make sure you've got like the best in class like, for example, i wouldn't. I've made this mistake where we've kind of like gone for a cheaper alternative when it's like, let's say, for example, clavio is quite expensive So you might go for a cheaper email marketing solution. When it's like you just should really go for the best in class, even if you've got to pay a little bit more, because you've got all the support there And it's going to basically propel your business.

Speaker 1: 21:35

Yeah, no, fair enough. Oh, James, thank you so much. That was a really interesting conversation. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast.

Speaker 2: 21:43

Just a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1: 21:45

So that was a really interesting chat. I feel like we learned loads about setting clear goals and having a laser focus, obviously investing in the best quality technology on offer And, yes, some really great tips on going international there as well. So don't forget to head over to the usual podcast platforms to listen to previous episodes of the Lightning 50 podcast. And in the meantime, don't forget furniture, box, natural baby shower and beyond retail are just a few of the ambitious retailers who have integrated Peoplevox warehouse management system to take their e-commerce stack to the next level With lightning. Fast pick and pack workflows, easy user training and 360 degree transparency into your warehouse operation. Anyone who has used Peoplevox will tell you that the platform is a genuine game changer. Not only does Peoplevox enhance your customer experience by tightening inventory control and cutting out packing mistakes, it also boosts your efficiency and unlocks growth for your business. So if you're ready to transform your business, head over to peoplevoxcom today And to our listeners out there. Thank you so much for listening And until next time. Goodbye.