Jason West, Founder of LUSSO Footwear / Sneakers

Jason West started his first online business aged 15, and he’s since gone on to pursue and engage in a list of projects, some of which have succeeded, and others which have failed. Taking the lessons learned from these early ventures - along with a finance degree - he's now turned his focus to an eCommerce business aimed at the limited edition and luxury trainer industry. LUSSO was founded in 2018 and the business aspires to become a success story in the secondary sale market for limited edition sneakers. The brand ethos is to provide the customer with the best experience of buying and selling apparel. LUSSO have experienced and talented team members which sell and buy a wide range of shoes and clothing, including luxury and exclusive brands.

In this episode of the MenswearStyle Podcast we interview Jason West, Founder of LUSSO Footwear about where his drive for entrepreneurship comes from, the priceless experiences gained from helping to digitally transform a business, and the process of starting his own company with help from digital marketing agency Visualsoft. Our host Peter Brooker and Jason also chat about the benefits of using Klarna for his customers, the importance of having the correct brand size guides, how to combat fraudulent orders, why profit margin matters, the meaning behind the brand name, and aspirations for the future.

Whilst we have your attention, be sure to sign up to our daily MenswearStyle newsletter here. We promise to only send you the good stuff.

Make More with Matt Heslin
Explore strategies to thrive financially, build legacy, and enhance life experiences.

Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Transcript

Unknown: 0:10

Hello, and welcome to another episode of The menswear style podcast. I'm your host Pete broca. And on this episode, I'm going to talk to Jason West director of lusso footware. I'm going to peel off a little info off the lusso website to set the table here and the website you can find at lusso hyphen life.co. uk lusso. We are very proud to have the most experienced and talented team members in T side, selling and buying a wide range of shoes and clothing including luxury and exclusive brands. We guide each one of our customers through the entire process of shopping, ordering, purchasing and selling, ensuring a hassle free experience for the customer. So this is a this is one of the most interesting chats I think I've had on the podcast. I knew nothing about Jason or blue. So going in, and I had about 20 minutes to prepare for the interview. It was arranged very last minute, I think that actually made for a very interesting chat. Jason talks about his background, the mistakes he made along the way. And you might be setting up an e commerce site on your own, you might want to listen to what Jason has to say about companies like klarna and what to look out for when fraudulent people try and scam you lots of great helpful tips for you to learn if you're an upstart or not to come but first, make sure you're checking out the website, menswear style.co.uk and the social app menswear style all the latest fashion news and a backloads is just an awesome article on the stylish Netflix series that you should be watching. So make sure you're tuning in for that. And if you want to tell us about your brand, your journey you can email the show at info at menswear. style.co.uk Okay. Let's get to it. This is a good one. Hope you enjoy it. Here is Jason West director at lusso footwear. Well, it's my great pleasure to speak to Jason West, Director of lusso footwear How you doing today, Jason? Very well, sir. Very excited to be on first podcast of ever doing so. Oh, wow. Excellent. Fantastic. Jason, tell us a little bit about yourself, your background and lusso Where to start? How old? Are you? 26. Wow. Okay. So depending on who you ask, that can be really old age of starting an online business or are very young. But for I mean, for me a bit of background about myself. I mean, I've always been what people, again, don't like using the terms entrepreneurs and stuff, but I was always somebody that was a bit of a Wheeler Dealer and wanting to buy stuff and then sell it on and make profit. So as a young I guess, as a young lad, I've always just had that ingrained in, in my personality. So first business I heard was selling, you know, parts of xboxes and games, consoles and computers. on eBay. I just buy the broken stuff for friends and family break it down if I couldn't fix it, I just sell it on. I don't know where that I don't know because there's nobody in my family that's kind of business owner or anything like that. So I don't know where that sort of drive or that instinct came from but it just seemed to, to spark something. And I guess since then, it's been a kind of a bit of a roller coaster of career paths and choices in terms of I always thought I was going to be an accountant, believe it or not. The guy stuck behind the desk, crunching the numbers but I went to uni did my my finance degree. So I've got a degree in financial management. And I got a trading contract at an accountancy practice in in Teesside. And just remember you went to uni, did you go to uni? Yeah, I went to Northumbria uni. So I went to open Newcastle moved away from home and studied finance there. But again, I got a training contract with an accountancy practice. And just you know, you just realise that this is not this is not what I want to do for the rest of my company meeting and I guess, I guess I had this warped perception of thinking an accountant was the decision maker in businesses and they get involved in like the really kind of integral to the business but I guess when you're an entry level position, you get you get so and so from from around the corner who's got small business that brings in a Tesco bag of all of his receipts. Oh, yeah. knew all of his accounts based on some receipts that he's got here and that's me by the way. my accountant Yeah, he I guess the polar opposites between what I thought an accountant would do based on my finance degree. Which was looking at PLCs, and that kind of thing. And then the reality of standing in a smaller practice as a, as a kind of a junior trainee, it was just worlds apart, and I could never, I could never fully commit to it in terms of when I was actually there nine to five, like, I would just get distracted, I would. I wasn't really passionate about it, I wouldn't work as hard as what I've been known to work at, you know, personality wise. And work as a crafter, you know, from the age of 1516. I've worked at car dealerships, washing cars, you know, just trying to add money there and everywhere. So, for me, it was completely, it was a realisation that you know what, like, if I'm not passionate about this job, and I'm not working hard, there's obviously something here that's not right. And so I ended up moving into a local car dealership near me, I didn't, there was no job that was there. For me, a friend of a friend of my father had actually given me an opportunity just to come into the business and basically just see what was all about and learn and that kind of stuff. So there was no job role there. For me when I got when I got into that position after leaving the accountancy practice. Whilst I was there, there was there was a useful kind of gap for my skill set and knowledge whereby they'd been an independent car dealership, so they didn't have a PLC, looking out for them and future proofing that business and putting things in place in order to digitise the industry. So it kind of it kind of fell on me where I was coming up with ideas and suggestions that were naturally just feeding into the business and ultimately ended up creating this role as kind of like a social media guy, System Manager, whatever you want to call it. And we've got them on Facebook, and we just started kind of doing a bit of brand awareness on Facebook, that kind of thing. And that naturally led to getting involved in the website, the website at the time was really, really poor in comparison to where standards were at. Did you build a website from so I consulted on getting a new website. So I undertook some research and the market looked at who was doing really well online, and who are the leaders in in in websites for the automotive industry. And just let kind of lead that project and in ended up getting a brand new website and just help that business go from from from being nothing online at all, and not really not really relying on the website because everything was just dumped the water. Yeah, business was heavily leveraged on on auto trader, and that was where the majority of inquiries and stuff come from, and not even tapping into, you know, just the general online market. And so so I imagine you're learning everything as you go as well you're building and flying the plane at the same time, right? And the people are your boss is just investing in this like, hey, let's just get the Youngblood in, see what they can do? finger to the pulse, etc. And you turned up Trump's on right actly Exactly. So it was kind of it was, I think it was Richard Branson that said, Look, you just take it opportunity use learn, you figure out how to do afterwards. And so I guess it was a case of me finding out info going back to my bosses at the time and then sales manager and stuff and regurgitating that info as it is if I don't even know in this I wrote it seemed to work and it was working. And then the more the more you do that, and the more you do more research, you start to realise that it's not actually it's not, it's not the look, and then it's happening the I'm actually learning stuff and I'm understanding things and I've got a I've got a keen eye for this for this type of business transformation. And so over the three over the three, four years that was there and eventually became a marketing manager and just oversaw this this whole new job role didn't even exist within the business four years ago with a with a small team and whatnot but from from the start there's actually a news article that I can probably share with you in our local local paper but we took that business from doing around 19 million to 36 in three years revenue which when you consider that scale of volume doubling that revenue was just a was just a game changer but then once things like that start happening you then you've got that much fear from from the guys that are in the business in the managers division put that much interesting tear, you almost got free rein so I had free rein to travel things do things you know, there wasn't a case of I have to sit down and and beg for money to then try this. It was like approved they gave you the opportunity. Yeah, essentially you became an entrepreneur within somebody else's business. It was almost like you were you were building this this digital side of the business that I thought was almost like my own kind of thing. Now, for the automotive industry, especially given what's happened with COVID, they've now been well placed in the market for a very long time to be an online, an online car dealership where you can buy get finance quotes, literally leave deposits, online, see 360 videos, if the cars go, it's just it was it was a it was a case of learn, and then feed it back. That's a great lesson for any other boss out there that's employing people is to give them enough range really, and give them ownership of their roles. And not to micromanage them into a way Well, look, you know, if you had someone looking over your shoulder every minute of the day going, what's going on? Where am I spending my money? What am I investing in here? You probably would have felt Jesus Christ. Yeah, give me a sec, mate. You know, you gotta, you gotta let me spread my wings in this job, because neither of us know anything about it. And you've got to take a punt on me. So yeah, I think that's a good message for a lot of bosses. And I wish I had more bosses be still in touch with the people down there that you work with. Yes. So enough, this naturally leads on to how, where we are right now. And the fact that obviously, I proved myself as being somebody more than capable of not just from a social media online, digital ecommerce point of view, but I was obviously a lot savvy or as a, as a business person. And, you know, I wasn't just a guy that did that I was I was quite clued up on, on business in general. And when you work in an independent business, you get exposed to a lot more of the, the, you know, the knowledge and the decision making and just that experience of being within a an independent team, because things are a lot more close knit, you know, the, the punches a bit more on the bruises on you, and they don't know exactly. So you know, when you have any more than me in you liaise directly with the owners of the business. You know, there isn't a board of directors that sit three or four levels above you that you never meet, you know, you you understand the business or the skills and lessons that you learn working in an independent business, were also invaluable to me, because the chances are, and the likelihood it would be a working in a PLC was going to be very slim, because I was always entrepreneurial, and knew at some point that I was gonna, I was going to do my own thing, I was going to work within my own my own business of learning that, again, if anybody's listening that is is fresh out of uni, and you're thinking Do I go graduate trading scheme? Do I go small, local, independent business and just look at where you want to do? You know, why do you want to do you want to get skills on a CV for middle middle management role that you can work your way up to, like, if that's what your your dream is, then then you know, go for it. But if you're somebody that loves to take a little bit of risk, you know, and you're willing to put you know, your career on hold for a couple years and take up a role within a smaller business and get more responsibility, or they might wear a few different hats. Yeah, make you a few different things, but you'll the things that you'll learn will just set you up to, to be a lot more capable of managing your own business when when that opportunity comes along. So you've also got to be you've also got to be curious as well, I mean, someone like you could have quite easily sat in that chair in that business and just kind of waited for the clock to roll around till five and then check out right but you decided to kind of learn from within the business and learn different skills whilst on the job at the same time. And I think again, that's a really good trait that I wish other people had if they were curious within the job they had, they might not really like the business they're working in, they might not like the boss but they're curious about business and getting on or even getting out of a job they don't like you really have to know the infrastructure of business of course and again, understanding the business on a wider scale than just your specific rule or department triggered me to start the shoe business because when you look at it on paper the business model for a car dealership that's independent I get a used a Pre Owned car dealership is buying good stock making sure it's it's you know mechanically sound that the bodywork is in good condition, all that kind of stuff, providing a level of service facilitating, you know, taking in a pipe change and that kind of stuff and selling the car to somebody else. When you look at my business model in the footwear industry, we're in the secondary market too. So we don't buy direct from Nike we don't buy direct from you know any desk because we can't we don't have those contracts. So in the secondary market that's been created over the last five years whereby, you know, the likes of Kenya West flowers is easy traders, the Travis Scott collaborations, the Jordans have researched and that kind of thing. So there's this secondary market whereby if you can get them first time around, people are willing to spend money on the secondary market to get So what we essentially do is we facilitate the, the exchange of the purchase between somebody that gets them and wants to sell them, versus the person that doesn't mind pin, pin additional. So on paper, took exactly what I've learned from the car dealership, replicated that model and just changed the product. Right? So all of the core principles are still the same, provide good customer service, and be honest, transparent, you know, put the customer first and it's not necessarily about making as much money as you can, but building that brand in that trust, because when you're dealing in high value items, like the cars and stuff, you know, car dealerships, notoriously salesmen, they all have terrible reputations, and they will smell of like the red Marlboro not like the light bulb, right? So the real you know, the harsh red mo Bros. Yeah. You've now got the template, you've got the formula from your business, you've, you've managed to switch that over. But what are the processes before you get lawsuits that were up and running, and you look for suppliers, you look to build up a website, first contacts, etc. How's it worked? So I am because it obviously worked with with the websites provided a basic understanding of what to do. So I just built my own website initially built my own website, and I put together kind of a bit of a not not forecast, but a bit of a proposal to the bosses of the car dealership that I worked at. So I built this website, I come to them with some basic profitability, you know, value proposition. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And just look like, obviously, you know, we've done this together. Now, you know, when I joined here, the type of person I was, this is what I want to go and do. And essentially just went to the mechanic pitch them the idea of it, and they were just like, yeah, like, it's as simple as that, you know, when you ask a question, you get the response that you kind of thing I thought was gonna be a little bit more than I didn't even have a chance to get on my knees. I was thinking, you know, I had all these like words and phrases in my head. And I had all these this research, I don't know how stadium goods got bought by Farfetch for 200 and $50 million dollars in the US, I had all these catchphrases and things online. And I genuinely did not need them. So what were you asking them for, for an investment or the the initial kind of investment to buy, or, I guess a selection of stock in the beginning, just to just to keep things rolling. So that they gave me that no problem, which we said led to me in my own time, while still working with the garriage to build up the website and create the social media and build a bit of brand awareness. And I can jump straight into the deep end with it. But what I could, what I quickly realised is, you know, the world of e commerce is a lot more complicated than what essentially a car dealership business model is. And so then I began to, you know, especially when you're dealing with high volume goods, that mail order, you have to then start factoring in things like the distance selling scheme. So if you sell a pair of trains online, and now like a 400 pound pair of trainers, if they do not like them, or they do not want them, they've got 14 days to send them back regardless. And so you have to factor things like that into your cash flow. So if you then if you then buy more stock with that money that you've just got in and then you've left yourself vulnerable and three people want to return three, eight, and you need that money in the bank, you need that cushion, right. Yeah, exactly. So. So that was one of the things that I quickly learned, you know, I'm going to have to be a little bit more proactive on the website side of things, you know, things like size guides, you know, putting the right descriptions information around how to measure yourself, you know, what the size is like a particular brand, a shoe, all that kind of stuff, but I couldn't do that myself. I wasn't kind of i was i was i was okay building websites, but I'm not professional. And so when I started looking into it a little bit further, I discovered a lot to me actually called visual soft, specialised ecommerce, digital marketing, that kind of thing and they're on their on my doorstep, but they're very good at what they do. We're a very big company at the time and quite well known within the fashion area. So I went to see them about a particular website and inquired about you know what, because I didn't know how complex ecommerce was at the time and you know, how all the different things tied together. So essentially, I walked out of walked out of that meeting with a potential job offer and because of my experience in sales and growing businesses, they offered me kind of a Part deal whereby they said they'd give me help with a website and do me a website. And if I could come and help them kind of guide other businesses and help them transform their online offerings, so I could learn from them while still building my own business, in a sense. So again, naturally, with no, like, no purpose are no particular reason. Like, call it fit, or whatever you will have, I've landed in this position again, whereby I can now extend on that knowledge further, I can build on what I've, what I know. And I can see how other successful people in the industry are doing it. So all while this all this is going on the websites getting built in the size guides, and then the actual functionality, the websites and make it easier, it's gonna be a lot more professional, it kind of looks the part now. So when you're, when you're on our website, you to me, I feel like if you would never heard of us before, but you'd landed on our website through either social media, Advil, Google Advil, whatever it might be, that I'm fairly confident that I've given you a reason to give me another five or six seconds of your time, because we look like we're a business that does this on a global scale. So it looks great, man. Really good. So last, oh, my sorry, laso hyphen life dot code at UK. Yeah, what have they built this saw? So you got Kleiner on the I was gonna ask you if you got Kleiner on. So I guess that, like you were saying with returns and kind of giving yourself a cushion? Does. What's your opinion on cloud? Have you have you had a chance to really road test it properly? Yeah, so cloud con is actually one of our biggest avenues of customers. And it's, it's not so much because our customers can't afford our products. It's not the case at all, our whole marketplace is based on the premise that people pay above market value for for the product. But conifa always is an opportunity for people to just break down that cost, I suppose. And, you know, if you have got the money there at the bank, while it's still better being in the bank, than it is just outlet in that initial cost. You know, if somebody said to you, you can get a house, the same premises a mortgage, and we will give you the house, you know, we'll give you three months interest free, or we'll give you the 25 year mortgage with no capital repayments or interest payments, it just, it's a no brainer. So So, and for you as well, right kind of protects. So it protects the seller as well as the consumer in that way. Of course. And what it means is we don't wiscon in the way that kind of works is you don't actually capture the payment until you dispatch the item. So until I physically put that item through the process and packing labels on it, and it's sent out, does that payment and get triggered from Canada myself. So the customer has got peace of mind knowing that when they place an order, they know they're not going to get the money taken until it's been dispatched, officially. But it also means that if they bought down paid less than 30 days, if they do need an exchange or to like a different size, if they've not fully understood how the shoes fit, then they're not then having to fork out another X amount of pounds to buy another pair in the meantime, send that one. Yeah, but isn't that breathing space, especially with footwear, because it is so different, you know, between the Yeezys and the Jordans and everything and the Italian turn is particularly full size, big. Size nine, you know, a normal night, you might be a nine and a half in easy, but you might be a size eight in Gucci. So if you're not familiar with with how these different sizes works, and you buy the wrong pair, I don't want to have to like what the majority of the industry does in the secondary market is they just say, well, you bought it now it's no problem. Yeah. Because the way that they want to work is essentially like a one hit wonder for them. And then so essentially they go right, well, when you buy it from motors, you're actually buying it from somebody else that we're selling for. Right. So that that cancels out any kind of think legal right to actually get a refund, because it's okay, you know, a middleman between two buys. And I mean, if you buy the wrong size, you're gonna you're gonna have a pretty knackered experience, because you know, we'll have to try and sell that one now. and invite the new says, Yeah, and so I don't want people to have that I want people to, if they get the wrong size, no bother. Just let me know if I've got it in stock. I'll change it. I haven't got it in stock. I'll buy it in and when I have got it, I'll actually end up no problem. So climate fits in with that business model nicely because then there's no pressure from from the customer wanting to rush that exchange, right? Yeah, they're like, Oh, come on, we need to get it down. Is it 14 days is what 12 days plus delivery. I mean, there's always a sweat on isn't there when it comes to returns. It's given me a little bit of resistance. gives the customer a bit of breathing space knowing that when they order it, they've got peace of mind that they can get it changed. And they haven't. They haven't been asked to fork out that money. But But going back to your original question on what the platform's built on, it's actually visual soft on proprietary software. So they, they have their own platform, and especially in the footwear industry, there's people like Charles clinkard, that you might have heard of. Daniel footwear, mortar impeller, there's a lot of footwear, retailers, raker. Kickers, those types of people that are on that platform. So from a footwear point of view, as a retailer, and as a brand, they're obviously going to know the needs that I that I have as a as a footwear retailer, if it was a no brainer in terms of going to them. I wonder if that's a northern thing, Jason, in terms of community. So me being in London, if I'm looking for a car, I need to get some help with my e commerce site. I'm in London, let's use around, no one's gonna go, Oh, you have your chyzyk boy as well, let's, let's, let's do this together. And let's let you know, make a meeting of the minds and see how we can push it forward. I don't think there's that kind of. I've lived in London about three years, I don't think there's that real sense of community willing to help each other out. Now, I don't put words in your mouth, but I think it's slightly different from where you are. Yeah, yeah, I think it is best. Yeah, I guess so. And I think there is a kind of a cultural difference between the North north and I'm not talking like Birmingham leads in like, you can't believe that that level of North we are cuz we're so far out the way we do have to stick together, you know, the industry appears is not as vibrant as obviously London, it's not, it's flourishes on a lot of mining towns and things have been open the North. So we're still in this, we're still in this period of kind of transition from being very industry led area to now being kind of leaders in technology, you know, we've got a great hub in Middlesbrough. Now, technology wise, with the uni and digital city, what's going on? There, the everybody just wants to get us to if you're in, in digital, or you're a retailer, it's like, Let's all be part of a winning and winning kind of formula. So I think so I think we need a bit of a slice of that down here. And I'm not speaking for everyone in London, I'm not speaking for every bearer. But you know, from my experience of being down here, I've not really found everyone's looking out for each other, you know, and that kind of post aware it. But anyway, I digress. A smaller scale that that kind of business goes full circle. So if you're working with a local business, you're spending money with them, they're ultimately then spending it with another local business and at some point that that money is going to go back to you anyway. So if you keep all of that, within within the industry, then you within local space, or you can you can amplify that and build on it. Whereas if you own if you're looking to outsource work down to London, where that money that you're essentially earning in in Teesside, for example, then gets, you know, passed down to London words, the chances are, it's never going to come back to the north again. I know we tried to get the Brixton pound up and running at one point, so Brixton was going to get its own currency. That was a while ago, I'm gonna have to Google that I'm still around. They might be a museums by now. Or it could be a flourishing economy. I don't know. Right, there is a bit of community in that sense. But if if I desti if I had been in London, whilst I was I was trying to achieve what I've achieved. I might not be where I am, at this moment in time because people have literally gone off on a, you know, a complete whim to to help me you know, they've took massive Gamble's in just allowing me to have free rein of development projects, you know, literally centres are we like what you've done with the business that you were with, why don't you come and help us do that for other people not actually fully understanding or asking too many questions about what I want to do I want to achieve that we just like yeah, we know we know you can help people No, no, come on work for us kind of thing. And so people have gone gone out and took risks for me which I'm you know, forever grateful for because I do think I'd be in a different position. I might still be in that accountancy practice, you know, looking at a screen nine till five every day just you know, I'm feeling like it's it's nine till never. Yes. It has helped me get to where I am. And I guess where we are now is the businesses in a growth period. We've took some massive knocks along the way, I guess as an e commerce business. What was new to me was, especially in high volume good sec, there was fraudulent orders. Oh, talk to me about that. When I when I launched my first website on He was on WooCommerce, which is a WordPress kind of plugin for e commerce. It doesn't really have any fraud indicators, it doesn't give you any inclination of you know that this might be potential fraudulent order, just double check it or didn't even you, I wasn't aware that you had to look out for certain things that might look suspicious, right. But what had happened is within a couple of weeks, I've got some some some orders through for traders that I was doing a bit of Google advertising on. And some of the sizes that come through, I didn't have in stock. But essentially, if I get an order through, I've got a network of people where I could source it, find it and supply it anywhere. So that wasn't an issue. But what happened was I dealt with the money for the trainers, and sent them out, I'd captured the payments through PayPal or whatever it was at the time, I can't remember. And then a couple of weeks later, I got a notification from PayPal to say that the buyers had opened cases against me. And essentially what they said was that it was not them that made the purchase, they run their bank and said it wasn't them that authorised it. And because I didn't have any fraud indicators or any data to back up that those were real genuine orders placed by that person. The banks will 99 times out of 100 always side with the customer. So I lost about 1200 pounds in sales, and 800 pounds in stock that I bought that I now lost. So they took it away from me, but they also got good shoes as well. So other warnings that what are the red flags? How would you? How would you prevent that in the future? So typical red flags, it's there's no guaranteed formula to prevent it. But if the delivery address is different to the billing address, for example, that's a bit of a just double check that if the actual delivery address is a you know, a million miles away from the billing address, like if it's 600 miles like that the order addresses in the north. All right. Is it London? just double check it, you know, and all it takes is a quick phone call to the customer just to say, Look, I'm Mr. Jones or Mrs. So and So Miss Jones or just received an order, I'm just wanting to make sure that you're not being a victim of fraud before I process it. As you know, does klarna protect you from anything like that? Yes. Yeah. So I don't make this like a clown or episode. I'm just intrigued, and you're giving us a like, firsthand, you know, ground zero experience there. So yeah, I'm just curious. Yeah, it's, I suppose it's a combined element of the actual platform that you're with, and the payment providers that you work with. So they will all have elements of traffic light systems and signals and so klarna and that confident they can spot fraudulent orders, that if it passes there, if it passes, they're processed criteria, and they allow the audit to go through, right. If you dispatch that order, and you get a chargeback, Kleiner will will take the hit from it. And However, if you processed an order, and you haven't dispatched it yet, and they then 24 hours later flag something or 12 hours left flag something, they still give you options and say look, if you've dispatched the order, let us know who it's with, give us the tracking number, and we'll try our best to divert it. And if they can't, then you still don't get penalised for that. But if they can't, then they've obviously you get the item back and they refund the artists or with climate, there's a lot of protection from a payment point of view. And what the visualsoft platform that I'm on also has a traffic light system, whereby looks at IP address was the automated in the UK, for example. A lot of artists tend to come from Asia like Malaysia, Thailand, that kind of thing whereby somebody either bought a list of personal details that have been leaked, or whatever it might be, and they're just trying to get quick wins. So it will highlight things it won't say whether it's a fraudulent order or not. Because nobody can actually tell. It just basically says to you look at this a bit more. Yeah, carefully, you know, and it is a phone call. Right? If I didn't know that back then I saved myself two grand. Yeah. But I mean, you learn by mistake, Sonia and you just kind of set like you say there but when you set up a business, no one tells you about these kind of initial kicks to the nuts that you're going to get along the way, right? You're just going to go cry here. That would have been nice to know in school. Well, that would have been nice. And now instead of like studying frickin anyway, that's my life. The more it's I'm glad it happened at the stage that I did. Not further down the line when my, my, my products were a lot more high value and I had more because I could, because I was still operating and it's not a full time job consultant visual stuff, etc. I could take that financial hit. You know, it didn't it didn't completely destroy my business or anything like that didn't have any overhead it was just a case of website stock. You know, that Facebook advertising here and then. So I bounce back from that. But again, if you're if you don't have that luxury and you have gone out on a whim entirely and yourself in this bootstrapping this from the ground up, and hit like that comes along, never been put somebody off business altogether. Yeah. You might think well, what's the point like, your margins and the fat on business, when you start up a business is so small, I mean, it's, you're like a, you're like a bikini athlete. You've got like naught point 3% body fat on your business when you start with ground up, right? And anything that can blindside you can really just take the jam out your doughnut and just knock you lightsail. Right from a business. Right? Jason, tell us how big the business is now, is it just you you still the one man band there? What's it looking like now. So as in terms of turnover wise, we're probably in in for, for 200,000 revenue sales this year, I'm really into, we're only just come to our second financial year ending now. And so going from a zero standing start to 200,000 in two years, is is pretty good going. by my standards if if you're still employed, and you've got decent margins in your product, you know, because sometimes turnover when people come out with these figures it can be, it can be more like a vanity metric. Because if if I'm earning if I've sold 200,000 pounds worth of trainers margin of X amount of pounds, and somebody is doing 400,000 pounds at half the margin, then on the on the bottom line, we've both made the same amount of money. Now, people will see them as being more successful. Yeah, because they've generated a high turnover. I think sometimes people do get caught up. And then types of vanity metrics. As long as you're making a profit my bottom line and it's scalable, you can you can, then you're onto a winner. But at the moment, it is just employed by the business, it's me. But I'm still in the growth stage whereby I'm not taking any money out. So I'm not taking a salary from the business. I'm not kind of dipping into it for my own personal gain, I tend to use a lot of freelancers and contractors and suppliers again, you don't have you don't need people to contract with supply wise because it's you can't It's not like I can just call somebody and say right, I want 100 of them, I want 50 of them once empty then because the market, the market determines what's available. Right. So if you know one of these bots, these software boxes is bought up on a footlocker stock on the day of release and they want to hold that or ship it and export it off to China then that reduces the amount of available a new UK which then bumps prices up and there's so many different factors it would be it would be hard for me right now to just I couldn't just go to a recruitment agency in fashion and go find me a buyer because there'll be that used to dealing with suppliers and sourcing from Italy and that kind of thing that they wouldn't know where to start in this sure I'd have to if I was to employ somebody find somebody that's entered the industry has been doing it a bit as a hobby buying and selling here and there knows the groups knows where to look. Yeah and no exam. Because the end that's another massive thing for for our business. We only deal in legitimate trainers. And it takes a keen eye to be able to tell the difference between what's real and what's come straight from a factory in China you know as an authorised replica, so, I'd love to have you on for another episode Jason and we'll go into the minutiae of the face because that'd be fascinating. But listen, it's been great talking to you just quickly how how does the name or how, what's the meaning of Lhasa Lucia is actually the Italian term for luxury. When we started the business essentially we wanted we wanted to be perceived to be a luxury brand, a luxury retailer that would happily when you think of end clothing flannels browns, you know, we wanted something high quality that was gonna, that was going to sit along along those types of names rather than things like I'm not going to mention anybody but things incorporate the word crap or kick or trainers or something like that. It just didn't fit with the way that I wanted to do things Number Five excellent customer service. I mean, look, our reviews are all five star reviews on trustpilot. We're wanting to build a brand, is it? I guess is that is the main focus for Rosen, we're working towards that on a long term basis, we're not interested in any quick wins, where we're going to build something from the ground up. And who knows, you know, Mike actually might come along in three or four years time and go, I'm sick of you, you know, profitable, my news feed you there and everywhere, which is bring you in as part of that group in whatever, you know, you never know. But that's ultimately, what we'd love to do. Yeah. And why not? I mean, he buys up companies all the time and looks for investments. He doesn't want to just kind of sit on his sit on his millions, right? He wants to, you know, build a build the Empire. Exactly. Listen, Jason, thanks again, so much for your time. And I felt like we can get you back on and have you as a consultant will employ you everywhere you go for an interview someone if we let the running theme, but yeah, we need to but I'll get back to Craig. And so we need to put Jason on the payroll. need two hours about anything as well, we'll have a story about anything like in fashion in our footwear, whatever it might be. There'll be a be a story or something that I'm doing somewhere. Yeah. I have just started a new brand actually just added new footwear brand. Talk to you for new three hours about, you know, yeah, we'll make it a trilogy. things happening, Peter, honestly, I could just talk for hours, but I want to be respectful of your time and know that I've had you on the horn now for close to an hour and it's been great talking to Jason. And again, lusso lusso iphon life Dakota, UK, we'll put all the information up in the show notes over on mens style. Dakota, UK, recommend you check it out. It's a great website, great trainers. And you might find something that might not be around at the moment. So you can go and get your exclusives over there. In the meantime, have a great night night. Enjoy the weekend. And I look forward to getting you back for another five episodes. Enjoyed this. Thank you very much. Thanks, pal. Thank you so well, how about that. I honestly I could have spoken to Jason for hours really smart tuned in young gentlemen. Hopefully we'll have him back on to talk about his own trainer brand. In the meantime, the website once again is so hyphen life dot code at UK that's the place to go. Thanks for tuning in everyone. The ratings are up, Craig, my editor sends me the stats at the end of every month. And if you like what you're hearing, maybe leave a review. Maybe there's a brand or a person you think would make a great guest on the show. So put your suggestions and comment on iTunes or wherever it is that you listen and until next time.