Entrepreneurs: The laid-back boss who’s filling his boots selling comfy slippers
Plenty of chief executives claim to “live the brand” but, for Ankur Shah, it isn’t too taxing. All he has to do is put his feet up.
The serial entrepreneur’s latest venture is an online fashion retailer, Mahabis, which has built its marketing around the idea of clearly defined downtime.
“People almost need the licence to relax. Because you have brands like Nike, Adidas and Lululemon who are rightfully brought up on the idea of non-stop doing and so we joke that in our down time we move from just doing to just being,” explains Shah, adding that boasting about being busy has been replaced by social media posts about being cosy (see the — admittedly waning — British love of “hygge”).
To this end, Shah is attempting to make working for his Scandi-inspired slippers-to-watches seller as relaxing as possible.
He introduced a four-day week at a previous start-up and has expanded on that, with a work-when-you-want, remote-working ethos.
When we meet at Mahabis’ new offices by the Rich Mix cinema in Shoreditch he seems proud as he stares out at loads of empty white desks.
His staff are (presumably) beavering away at home in their pyjamas.
“Working patterns have changed, it doesn’t need to fit a 9-5 — we’re not working in Victorian factories any more. If you don’t need to be tethered to a location, why bother?”
He adds that it “doesn’t make sense” for his staff to suffer lengthy commutes at the same time as the rest of London.
But if Shah talks a good game on down time, his chocker CV tells a different story.
Mahabis
Founded: 2014
Staff: 20
Turnover: Over £20 million
Business idol:
“I don’t have one deliberately. I don’t think you should try to emulate others.”
Best moment: “To see your product come off the conveyor belt for the first time is incredibly exciting because you’ve made something. ‘Look mum, I made this’. That said, I think she tells everyone I’m a barrister so I have to tread very carefully!”
Worst moment: “When people return something for the first time. You feel like your entire life is over. We’re really active in responding to them on social media but it’s still terrifying. We’ve sold nearly a million slippers now, when you sit here thinking there’s a million people around the world wearing our product that’s terrifying and exciting. I go to weddings and I’m sitting next to someone who knows it and you hear their complaints and joys.”
The Lancastrian trained to be a criminal barrister and joined the bar after a lengthy study on the impact of conflict for the UN and the Dalai Lama’s office.
It took him to Rwanda, Kosovo and Jordan, visiting refugee camps. “It was amazing to see how optimistic all the young people were despite the very recent trauma, and it was humbling to come back into the thick of London,” he says.
Read More
Back in the UK, his career in the wig was punishing, and early-morning trips to the courts of the south coast saw him become “the domestic abuse champion of Southampton, that’s probably not a proud flag”.
He was about to take up a place at Costa Rica’s UN University for Peace when he used his coding skills to develop Facebook apps.
A bet with a mutual friend resulted in him creating a social media agency, Techlightenment, in just five days, eventually selling it with a blue-chip client list to Experian.
The company, part of the original Silicon Roundabout Shoreditch tech scene, rode Facebook’s rise and drew attention with an app promoting a Bob Dylan single, which allowed users to customise his Subterranean Homesick Blues video.
With Costa Rica forgotten and a wedge from Experian making life comfortable, he began dabbling in start-up investing: coffee shops, tech, several of his own projects including a “YouTube of opinions” called Opinsy.
But, after a career in marketing tech, he had an itch for something more tangible: “I wanted to make money by buying a product for X and selling it for Y.” What followed was some intense Googling, deliberation between slippers and flip-flops and visits to remote Polish slipper factories where puzzled veterans raised eyebrows at his quirky designs.
Now Mahabis is established as a mid-market brand, built out from slippers to selling everything from backpacks to candles. Shah has used his social media marketing nous to raise awareness and added TV ads to the mix.
Barring some hiccups such as the heatwave (“trying to sell a wool-lined slipper in 37 degrees heat wasn’t fun”) growth is strong.
Revenues are more than £20 million and Shah still owns 100%, vehement in his desire to self-fund his ventures.
There are even plans for a physical store in the West End next year though he’s reticent to ramp up the brand’s wholesale operation with the spectre of House of Fraser’s demise hanging over many out-of-pocket fashion suppliers.
And there’s a string of other ventures, as well as his seat as an adviser to King’s College to consider.
Before all that, he’s off to Spain for a month. After all, who needs to turn up at the office?
