The role licensing has played in the growth of Crafter’s Companion, the business founded by Sara Davies MBE – the youngest female investor on BBC 1’s Dragon’s Den – was one of the main focuses of her keynote on day two of Brand Licensing Europe 2024.
Sara took to the stage alongside moderator Ian Hart, senior digital editor UK & EMEA, License Global, to share the story of how she started Crafter’s Companion while still at university, after recognising the untapped opportunities in the crafting supplies sector.
Sara confessed: “When I first started we were a tiny little business, and it wasn’t until about five or six years in that licensing really came up on my radar as an opportunity.” The opportunity in question was the chance to produce Flower Fairies branded products, which Sara sold primarily through TV shopping channels. “I’d signed a £1,000 minimum guarantee with the brand, so they clearly weren’t expecting me to make an awful lot money. And the first royalty check I remember writing for them was for around £24,000.”
(Sara is pictured above with Linda Pooley, formerly of The Copyrights Group, who inked the Flower Fairies deal).
What made the licensing partnership so successful was “authenticity” – Sara’s number one consideration when choosing which brands to collaborate with. “I can remember standing there on air with my Flower Fairies products, and I got my Flower Fairies book out and I said to everybody, this was my book that my mum used to read to me when I was a little girl, and it’s the book that her mum used to read to her. I made it personal to me, and that story was authentic, and the customer bought into that authenticity.”
Crafter’s Companion’s own brand story – primarily Sara’s mission to encourage people to discover the love of crafting – is a powerful one in itself, but with licensing, “you can add two and two and make more than five,” she stated. “I know we can develop the best product, but all of a sudden, by bringing your licence to it, we can tap into this whole new customer base that wasn’t open to us before – people who would never have considered craft or looked at our products, but they will now because of their interest in the brand.”
Too many companies try to dive into licensing too quickly, but putting in the groundwork is crucial, Sara believes. “It’s about managing expectations. Yes, you can walk up to one of the booths [at a trade show] of one of the big licensors, but do you understand how licensing works, how they’re going to need to work with you, what their expectations are? Can you deliver on that? Have you got the team in place?” Sara pointed to Mood Bears, a brand she invests in, as an example of a company is going about licensing in the “right” way. “They’re not just going with the massive, big companies to start with. They’re growing their licensing business as their business grows,” she explained.
Sara pointed that the crafting industry has changed monumentally since she entered the sector nearly 20 years ago, and particularly so in the past couple of years. Many smaller businesses have gone bust, and the remaining players are struggling to meet immense customer demand in the face of ongoing supply issues, as well as rising costs and reduced consumer spending. “I think what has set Crafter’s Companion in good stead is that we’re leaning into that change in the market,” Sara said. “The world has changed, and the new world going forward looks incredibly different than it did pre-pandemic. You have to adapt your business model to change with it.”
In difficult trading circumstances, licensing can be the “fastest and easiest way” to unlock new customer bases, Sara said. Meanwhile, for brands, the craft industry is still largely untapped, and Sara, who has become a household name thanks to Dragon’s Den, is happy to be its most outspoken ambassador. “I recognise the opportunity that I’ve been given to go out and sell crafts to the world, not just Crafter’s Companion products,” she says. “I’m no longer fighting for my slice of the pie. When you get the biggest seat at the table, your job is to make the whole pie bigger.”
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