Helen Hardy says her business selling women’s football shirts and merchandise is a 'genius idea'.
You’d be forgiven for mistaking this declaration from the 32-year old businesswoman as bravado, overconfidence, even. But that's not it.
Most of us were on the backfoot until the Euro success of England's Lionesses. Their performance brought the power of women's football to the masses but Helen had seen it all along.
Just three years ago, the boss of Foudys, the women's football kit retailer said she was 'screaming into the ether' about her business idea.
But this year's triumph has changed everything. The lifting of the trophy silenced the critics and naysayers with absolute surety, showing the women’s football had earned its place in the spotlight - should always have been there, actually, if it wasn't for so many factors pulling it back - from ground level sexism to the power of big business, not risking budgets on anything other than a sure bet.
Helen, who has been shortlisted for retail business of the year in the North West’s EVAS (Enterprise Vision Awards) for women in business, always saw it. She saw it growing up in Newcastle where the likes of England players Jill Scott and Beth Mead were training just a stone’s throw away but being told herself to clip her own ambitions on the pitch, because it was not a sport for girls.
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Turns out it is. Turns out girls are very good at it, actually - bringing home a trophy that the boys couldn’t despite a 50-year ban, decades of zero funding and being told 'no'.
Helen said: "It’s really easy to see something coming when you have grown up inside that world.
"I fell in love with football when I was a little girl but I was told it wasn’t a girl’s sport.
"But in fact a third of the England squad have come out of the North East - Lucy Bronze, Jill Scott, Beth Mead all started at the Sunderland Academy.
"Little did I know I was living down the road from women’s football royalty."
By 2015, her passion was fully reignited when the BBC aired the women’s World Cup from Canada at 2am in the morning.
By 2017, she was travelling to the Netherlands for the Euros and to France for the 2019 World Cup won by the USA.
It was while attending the women’s games that she was struck by the number of fans she saw wearing men’s kit.
"The fans were wearing football shirts with Beckham on the back and I was like, 'how are these fans travelling around the world and Europe and still not being able to wear the correct kit', so I asked them and it was an accessibility issue, simply not being able to find the right merchandise."
And that’s when the start of her business idea was formed.
Now, she is on the cusp of big expansion plans with her online women’s football merchandise store Foudys, named for Julie Foudy the American midfielder and the taliswoman in the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup-winning U.S. national team.
Founded just two years ago, Foudys is the first online retailer selling only women’s football shirts and merchandise.
Helen's USP is an encyclopaedic knowledge of the game and unlike the big sports brands and retailers - Foudys only offers women’s football gear.
In 2019, she felt like she was ‘screaming into the ether, when nobody was interested in my business’.
Now, the bottom line figures have skyrocketed and that’s down to the continued exposure of the women's game
"It’s as if you are looking at two different businesses." she said.
Even though there is clearly a huge and growing following for the sport, (there is an estimated 1.12billion worldwide fanbase for women’s football) , for big retailers, the scale will never be big enough to knock merchandise for the men’s game off the homepage.
Instead, the women’s range is often tucked away 'somewhere on the website'.
She said: "In 2019, there were 12 million people watching the England v USA final, that’s a seventh of the entire English population. That’s enough for me to have expected a change in mindset for the major manufacturers but it didn’t happen.
"I really don’t think that anyone is on my coat tails at all.
"Our USP is that we are genuinely interested in women’s sport. Fans are sick of being an afterthought."
She said she doesn't see the large retailers as rivals. "I don’t think they would even be interested in putting women’s football front and centre like we do."
Helen explained the legal loopholes Foudys had to jump through to secure the right to use the official fonts and badges for the Women’s Soccer League( WSL).
Gaining that industry recognition gives customers confidence in the brand.
Now, the business is expanding. Soon to be a team of five, it is moving into new office space in Manchester and is in talks to team up with a major brand in the supply of its women's shirts.
But getting to grips with starting a business isn’t easy. Helen gave up a career in marketing to launch Foudys, she is also a WSL commentator and founded the Manchester Laces inclusive football team.
Since launching in December 2020, Foudys have sold jerseys to over 35 countries and received hundreds of five-star reviews from customers.
She admits her 'kryptonite' is finance and accounting but has since got help with making sense of the numbers.
She has secured finance with NatWest and has taken part in its Entrepreneur Accelerator programme in Manchester, where she received guidance, training and support to help her grow her business.
She has worked with a mentor to help formulate a five-year business plan so she has a growth path for the firm.
Helen said she has come a long way in two years and learned a lot.
Her first shot at funding was 'a learning curve', she said, describing her first ever pitch to an angel investor.
She said: "I got on the call and I was so apologetic, pointing out all the things that were wrong with my business and what I planned to do about it, trying to justify myself.
"The feedback from them was 'I think you've got a great business but I don't believe you do'.
"I was thinking: 'I know I’ve got a good business' so I learned from that," she said.
After that, she presented a mock pitch to three investors as part of her NatWest accelerator course.
She said: "I was so nervous because I hadn’t done anything like that before but it turned out that one of the investors on the pitch, I actually work with now. We had a lot in common, both being from the North East, he could understand where I was coming from.
"My advice would be, if you are talking about your own product then nine times out of 10 you are really passionate about what you are speaking about and which probably goes back to something that’s really important to you."
She said comparing sales before and after the Euros, she is selling three times the amount and the level of interest in the site has shot up.
Helen said: "It's so exciting, looking at that customer base and thinking about what we can do."
For the first time, she is spending money on marketing and looking to partner with brand ambassadors. Her growth plan also includes strengthening ties with clubs and major brands and broadening the ranges available on the website.
Her sights are set on the Women's World Cup next year.
"You will be seeing us as the go-to brand for women’s football, there is no doubt in my mind." she said.
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