It’s highly unusual for a business to break even in their first year of operation. Let alone when the business model incorporates ongoing donations, or when the founder is a mother of two toddlers and has just had brain surgery.

But then again, there’s nothing usual about Jo Tutchener-Sharp’s story. Here, she tells us about leaving her role in PR to found a brand with the motto ‘a superhero has my back’….

I started my career working in PR, representing brands like Estee Lauder, Tom Ford Beauty and Dolce & Gabbana Parfums before setting up my own PR agency when I was 30.

I went on to run my PR agency for 8 years where we represented NARS, Topshop Beauty, Christian Louboutin Beaute and many more high profile beauty brands. When I started a family, even though I had loved my time working in PR and was so proud of the agency I had created, I knew the PR life wasn’t sustainable anymore if I wanted to get to spend time with my children. So after I’d had my second child I decided to sell my shares in my agency.

It was after the sale of my agency that I suffered a brain haemorrhage. Exiting yourself from your own business is extremely difficult, and I was under a huge amount of stress, not to mention having a newborn and a toddler at home too. I found myself in hospital with an acute headache, to discover I’d suffered a brain haemorrhage and had a lump on my brain.  

My life changed forever at this moment, as facing death had a huge effect on me. As well as being terrified of leaving my boys (who were then just 1 and 3) without a mum, I couldn’t shake this feeling that I hadn’t done enough good in my life. It’s true what they say about finding yourself at the pearly gates and looking back over your life when you face death. I didn’t realise doing good and making a difference was so important to me until it was almost too late.

When I came out of theatre and realised I’d been given a second chance at life, the need to give back was so strong that I made myself a pact that my next business would be one full of purpose and something that truly helped people. In fact the first product I designed for Scamp & Dude was from my hospital bed, and was what I had wished had been available to comfort my children while we were apart. I didn’t see my boys for 10 days while I was recovering as one side of my head was shaved and I had a very visible cut across my head with 20 staples which looked terrifying. I wished I’d been able to give them a Superhero to watch over them and imagined a cuddly Superhero toy with a pocket on the cape to hold a photo, so they could have held me close while we were apart.  Creating these Superhero Sleep Buddies to help kids who had to be apart from their loved ones became a get well goal for me.

When I launched Scamp & Dude in 2016 on our website and into Liberty in London, we were primarily a kids brand, with just two adults sweatshirts in the collection. Our kids clothing was unisex and infused with superpowers, but just as kids loved wearing our clothes, so did adults and we couldn’t keep the adults sweatshirts in stock. We are now 80% womenswear, having seen our womenswear collection explode over the last 5 years. And in addition to our classic jersey loungewear, we now have many new categories for women including dresses, bags, jackets and knitwear and are about to launch denim jeans too.

My brain surgery was in Jan 2016, I registered the brand name Scamp & Dude in March 2016 and launched into Liberty in the November of the same year, 11 months post surgery. I look back on this timeline and can’t actually believe it myself. It is not easy recovering from brain surgery and it certainly isn’t easy creating a brand. I can only put it down to a relief for being given a second chance at life and a new fire in my belly to make a difference. I had a real sense of purpose creating Scamp & Dude and was in my element designing clothes and creating my very own brand. It was as if my whole career had been training for this moment and nothing was going to stop me.

This was a magical moment in the Scamp & Dude journey. I received an Instagram DM from the then Beauty Buyer of Liberty, Sarah Coonan (who is now Head of Buying for Liberty), asking to meet as she’d heard on the grapevine that I was starting a beauty brand and wondered if it would be interesting to Liberty. Another example of how important working hard and networking is, as Sarah said that she knew that if I created a brand it would be interesting as she’d watched me create and run my PR agency for many years. Hard work pays off! I told her that it wasn’t actually a beauty brand, but a kids brand – which we were solely at the time - and she replied “well as fate would have it, I’m now head of beauty and kids so let’s meet.” A really magical twist of fate. I went to meet Sarah at Liberty without a single sample to show her, but talked her through my business plan, showed her all of the designs and told her the story. She said it was the most special brand she had seen in years and they would take it all. Hands down one of the best moments of my career.

Launching our womenswear collection into Liberty has also been a major pinch me moment for me personally as we are next to so many more established womenswear designers and it is so amazing to see Scamp & Dude proudly hanging in such a beautiful store.

Because I had started my career in fashion PR and studied fashion at university, that gave me a great base knowledge of the industry. Then my work in building brands was invaluable when it came to creating a brand myself. And of course the extensive network I built over 20 years has been integral to spreading the Scamp & Dude word. I’m in my element when designing, it is one of the things I love most but I have had to learn on the job. I love to constantly feed my brain with new information, I love to learn, it’s so important to keep learning and evolving.  There were areas I knew nothing about, like production, finding a factory, the legal side of creating a clothing brand, forecasting and a lot more, but post surgery I don’t see barriers anymore. I have a very can do, positive attitude and the challenge and opportunity to learn excites me a lot more than the fear of the unknown.

I should have been a bit braver in our early days when it came to employing a fulfilment agency to pack our online orders. I packed every single online order myself for the first 6 months until it got to the point where all I was doing 16 hours a day was packing orders. Liberty asked me when they could see my next collection and I panicked as I hadn’t got time to do anything apart from pack orders! It definitely wasn’t the best use of my time. When we moved to a fulfilment agency it was game changing and I could actually grow the business.

Our slogan “a Superhero has my back” started off as a way of telling kids that a Superhero is watching over them, even when they can’t see you. The aim was to help with separation anxiety and to give kids strength and courage when apart from their loved ones. Every garment has a neon embroidered lightning bolt ‘Superpower Button’ for kids to press when they need a burst of Superpowers or courage. We were tagged in the most amazing video of a little boy with cerebral palsy pressing his Superpower Button to give him the courage to go on an unaided walk, and this moment was one of the stand out moments since launching Scamp & Dude. To know that what I’ve created is working, and helping kids feel stronger, and filling them with courage, means the world. Now 5 years on and with the brand having evolved into a womenswear brand with a smaller kids collection, it’s still about filling kids with Superpower strength when they need it most, but it is also about adults looking out for each other too, having each others back. Scamp & Dude is just that, it’s powered by kindness and we‘ve now donated over 3500 Superhero Sleep Buddies and over 3000 Super Scarves to people having a really hard time (we donate one for every one sold) and we’ve also donated over 400k worth of sweatshirts to NHS staff and patients in their care too which makes me very happy.

Model wears the Scamp & Dude Super Scarf

Giving back has forever been at the heart of Scamp & Dude. It’s why I started the brand and it will always be a part of everything we do. I have certain products in the collection where we donate one to someone having a really hard time for every one, sold and these products are the very heart of the brand.

It wouldn’t be financially viable to donate one for one with every product in the collection as I wouldn’t be able to pay staff or grow the business, in fact I wouldn’t even have a business! But it works well for us to have a collection of products that aren’t about profit and are purely about goodness and giving back. We broke even in our first year which I’ve discovered is pretty unheard of, which shows that it is possible to be a profitable business and give back.

Running your own business is not for the faint hearted or work shy. The hardest part is that you can never switch off, your brain is constantly whirring with ideas and things you need to do and you are ultimately responsible and accountable for everything. Also as a founder you are impatient and get frustrated that not everyone works as quickly as you do, which is something I’m trying to work on.

I usually have a number of Zoom calls with the team each day, whether it is a trade meeting or marketing update. One day a week I have a meeting in person with my buying team to approve samples, lab dips and fits. I still run the social media for the brand and lead the design of all of the collections as well as running the brand, so it is extremely hectic and no day is actually the same. One thing I’ve learnt is that you can’t multi task when it comes to the kids and work. I make sure I stop when the kids get home in the evening and give them my full attention. Trying to multi task with work and kids doesn’t work, the kids know you are distracted and you get so stressed trying to answer emails and no one gets your full attention. It is best to put your phone down and focus on the kids in the evening, then bring the laptop out again when they are in bed. That was a game changer for me and reduced stress levels massively.

The moments that mean the most to me are the emails I get women who have received one of our Super Scarves or their child has received a Superhero Sleep Buddy. To see something I’ve created help so many people is definitely the biggest high. We also have a Facebook group called Scamp & Duders, and to see the joy our designs bring to so many women is the best feeling.