Shannon & Kelvin: The ‘Gone’ Entrepreneur Couple Rising Fast Through The Fashion Industry

Shannon Nicolas and Kelvin Botch, aged 19 and 21, are the co-founders of the clothing company ‘Gone Club’. Hailing from South and West London, they have combined their common passions for sport, music and entertainment to create an exclusive clothing brand that represents who they are.

How Gone Club Came To Be:

At the age of around 16, Shannon was keen on using her passion for clothing incorporated with her creativity to potentially create a business of her own one day. However, at that time it was only a dream with no plan as she didn’t know how to start a clothing business.

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This was until she met Kelvin, her partner, with likewise intentions and more experience in business to bring the dream alive. They wanted to create a clothing range as well as building a strong brand identity around lifestyle entertainment, sports and music.

To better engage with their target audience and create brand loyalty, they decided to name their Company ‘Club’ and merged ‘Gone’ – a popular slang word denoting a state in life, particularly one of notable success – meaning that you can be above the rest in your own way, a concept of being a step ahead.

Gone Club officially launched in October 2017, and has now been running for 6 months.

A Gone Club Classic Hoody

Challenges & Obstacles:

The pressure began to arise,  when they hit over 60,000 views  on their Instagram account, after posting a sneak peek of a yet to be released product.  This was a big turning point for their company,  but it came with high expectations from the public towards the brand at such an early stage in it’s development.

This meant that they had a short space of time to come up with new ideas and product releases, due to their rapidly growing demand.

Moreover, as a team of 2 and with a lot of things happening so quickly, organising the business became overwhelming. There were a lot of aspects within the brand that they weren’t putting their focus on, which needed planning in advance. Also, dealing with unreliable manufactures led to delays in their production lines, stalling release dates which ultimately reflected negatively with their customers.

Being able to overcome these obstacles mainly came down to making themselves aware of everything going on around them, and preparing for situations in advance.

They discovered that writing things down and recording every last detail of what they did, greatly helped them to stay on track with their goals.

Achievements and Advice:

Being able to create their own ethos and brand centered around their business, has been a success in itself. Running their own business allows them to work within their own hours, whenever they want.

Whether it is at the office or from home, they are in control of the number of hours they can work in a day.

As a result of being entrepreneurs, networking has been a key skill they’ve had to learn and develop along the way ( something we invest in heavily through our monthly networking events for budding entrepreneurs).

Meeting a variety of people through events and interviews, has enabled them to go beyond their comfort zones, and improve their confidence in order to build connections with the right people for their brand.

They now have multiple links with people who in some cases contribute to their business by editing and creating graphics for their designs, videography and ambassadors for the brand that constantly promote their products through social media. – Check out the great book below which has been used by many entrepreneurs so grow their business influence on social media.

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Shannon and Kelvin advise young dream chasers and future entrepreneurs, to continue to follow their dreams despite those who tell them they cannot succeed.

Future Prospects:

‘Gone Club’ are preparing themselves for their next product releases in the summer, while continuing to promote their brand as much as possible to the public until then. They will be showcasing their new releases separately for males and females, as opposed to only unisex.

Their aim is to become the master of their concept and be at the forefront of fashion as a recognised innovative clothing brand. As well as this, they plan to expand their brand further into the entertainment industry, becoming a massive platform for creatives of every kind.


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