Rory McLaughlan

Shirt in a Box

Founder of Shirt in a Box, the world's leading Mystery Football Shirt Retailer. 

In the space of 18 months, we grew from a bedroom start up to a hyper growth business, with over 2.7 million recorded in revenue and 70,000 in sales.

Founder

Numbers Game

Director

Rory's Football Shirts

Originally selling vintage football jerseys on online marketplaces, including Depop & Ebay, grew into a brand with 10,000 followers and a succesful website.

What initially started as a hobby way back in March 2020 when the UK entered a lockdown, would turn into over 2000 sales.

Business Owner

Hello! I’m Rory, the founder of Shirt in a Box and I’m on a mission to disrupt the football industry.

After setting up my first business at 17, I developed a huge passion for entrepreneurship, especially around what I live and breathe… Football. 

Fast forward to now, I have over over 70,000 sales & counting through two businesses, a team of 10 and collaborations with some major partners across the football industry. 

Shirt in a Box offers football fans a unique experience like no other. Once purchased, they are sent a high quality mystery football shirt. This allows customers to get a new shirt they may not have been aware of and clubs get their kit in to the hands of a different audience - it’s a win win! 

Through running 2 businesses, I have built a large entrepreneurial skillset including social media advertising (both organic & paid), management, supply chain and logistical management.

In my down time I’m a Web 3.0 enthusiast, a crypto investor and I play football semi-professionally, winning multiple Irish cups at youth level.

Feel free to send me a dm to chat all things business and football!

Founder of Shirt in a Box, the worlds leading Mystery Football Shirt Retailer. 

In the space of 18 months, we grew from a bedroom start up to a hyper growth business, with over 2.7 million recorded in revenue and 70,000 in sales.

A HUGE moment for Shirt in a Box!

Thanks to Gary and the Stick to Football team for a mention on this week's episode!⚽️

We loved hearing Jill Scott was a fan of her Bari top from us - clearly great taste! As for Roy...let's just say his reaction was a little less enthusiastic (no surprise there😅).

Either way, we'll take it!

Disrupting the Sport Industry / Founder of Shirt in a Box

It was great to catch up with Gary Neville yesterday & show him the progress we’ve made since we last met. 

10 months ago he took an interest in what we were building at Shirt in a Box & decided to share it with the world on Stick to Football - that kindness has helped open our eyes to what’s possible, and propelled us to greater heights. 

Congratulations on yesterday Gary Neville - a great occasion & fitting ceremony. Thank you to Queen's University Belfast for helping to facilitate this opportunity. 

The journey is still only getting started.

We're launching Shirt in a Box Turkey.
 
80 million people. Football mad. Jerseys retail for £90 (more expensive than UK).
 
The opportunity? They're deprived of authentic international shirts.
 
Will take 6 months to set up. Then Turkey becomes our gateway to Asia.
 
Sometimes the best business ideas come from travel, not just asking ChatGPT...

LinkedIn, I need your help.

Our box manufacturer has just burned us. Original timeline: delivery before Black Friday. New timeline: after Christmas.

We need 30,000 boxes urgently:

📦 Diecut

📦 Printed one colour

📦 330mm x 247mm x 19mm

📦 12mm DS tape rip seal

I know this is ridiculously late notice. But Black Friday is our biggest moment of the year and we can't let our customers down.

If you know a factory with capacity or have any connections in packaging/manufacturing, please DM me or comment below.

Any shares massively appreciated. There's got to be someone out there who can help.

We've worked too hard on this Black Friday to let boxes be the thing that stops us.

I love working at the Christmas Market, even if it's only a few hours once a week.
 
Why? It gives you a great insight into your customer & product that you can't get online...
 
I found out we were too cheap at the Christmas market last year.
 
We were charging £40 for mystery boxes when they're £45 online. We changed to match online prices on day 2, and finished 25% up on the previous year.
 
The market gives you real feedback you'd never get sitting online.

We purposely go 'late' with our Black Friday deal. We launch tomorrow, the Wednesday of Black Friday week.
 
Increasingly, I see brands going early, usual with the idea that if you don't, your potential customer will have spent all their money by the time Black Friday rolls around.
 
However, to make it work you have to run about 4 different offers across the promotion. Each one progressively getting better, and as a result decreasing your margin.
 
In my opinion, it's a lot of effort, for similar returns (according to those who can see the data across multiple brands like Stuart Worgan) as one mega offer on Black Friday week.

I posted about our box supplier crisis last week. 30+ shares, flooded with DMs. Fred Lill came through. Boxes arriving just after Black Friday.

Grateful for everyone who helped. A reminder of the power of building in public.

Other stuff I discussed in EP14 of Building the Box…

Christmas market opened with our best weekend ever.

Visited our first claw machine in Sheffield at Yardball (class venue - street football mini golf). 200 plays in week one.

Flew to Manchester to meet suppliers. The progress from one in-person meeting beats six months of emails.

Testing Australia/New Zealand markets. Early signs promising.

Black Friday strategy: Everyone goes early with 10 offers. We go late with 1 killer bundle. Similar results from what I’ve seen, less complexity.

Full episode now on

YouTube: https://lnkd.in/ed7iRrGC

Spotify: https://lnkd.in/e-Z5uNQE

Interested in how Shirt in a Box gets a shoutout on one of the UK’s biggest football podcasts?

In Episode 16, I break down how we featured on Stick to Football, chat about the whirlwind of Black Friday sales, and share why taking new staff out for lunch is our secret to building trust (and having a laugh).
 
Whether you’re a football fan, a startup enthusiast, or just love a good underdog story, this one’s for you.
 
Watch & listen now:
▶️ YouTube: https://lnkd.in/eRimwNMF
🎧 Spotify: https://lnkd.in/eFK5FVxT

Open video: EP16: How we got on Stick to Football, New Staff & Black Friday Madness on youtu.be

EP16: How we got on Stick to Football, New Staff & Black Friday Madness

Jake Summerhayes

Kurogo

Head Of Client Services

We work with CEOs and Founders to build powerful personal brands. 

Why? Because reputation matters. 

- 82% of customers trust a company when their senior management members are active on social media

- Brand messages are shared 24x more on personal accounts compared to company accounts

- Customers are willing to pay 13.5x more for elite industry experts

As your personal brand manager, I oversee the planning and delivery of your personal brand strategy. From initial ideation through to full development in-line with your goals.

If this sounds like something you want to jump on board with, or even just have some general questions and curiosities about personal branding shoot me a DM. I'm always about for a chat 😊.

Personal Brand Manager

ReputationDefender

We believe that everyone has the right to be empowered online—whether that means controlling the spread of your personal information or the way you are portrayed to others. Our aim is to make sure people find quality, truthful information about our clients at the top of their search results.

I oversee the development of the online reputation management campaigns for my client base and as such I am the primary point of contact between themselves and the business. Day-to-day this includes regular reporting, search results monitoring as well as analysis of potential reputational threats and opportunities.

In this digital age the importance of a positive online presence is a necessity across industries and professions as such our client base is incredibly diverse. We work with private individuals, SME's, directors, multinational corporations and everything in between.

Account Manager

Uber

Bicycle Courier

L'Arche Internationale

L'arche supports those with learning disabilities, and their loved ones, to live in ways that allow them to be as independent as possible, while providing high-quality, person-centred, individually tailored care and support.

My primary aim as a Care Support Worker was to create a home for our service user and in doing so enable them to maximise their independence. Specific day to day task included:
• Supporting individuals in their leisure, social, practical, physical and spiritual needs
• Providing personal care with dignity and respect including supporting people with complex health and physical needs both in daily life and end of life care
• Helping people with physical needs including some aspects of moving and handling

Care Support Worker

Working with founders and business Leaders to craft powerful and authentic personal brands. 

Why? Because reputation matters. 

- 82% of customers trust a company when their senior management members are active on social media

- Brand messages are shared 24x more on personal accounts compared to company accounts

- Customers are willing to pay 13.5x more for elite industry experts

Yet only 1% of LinkedIn's 700 million users share weekly content. 

Our mission at Kurogo is to solve that.

Kurogo is derived from the Japanese ‘Kuroko’ referring to the black clad stagehands in traditional Japanese theatre.

The convention of wearing black implying the invisibility of the wearer on stage. 

We are your Kurogo. 

Directing, driving and delivering your personal brand from the background. 

Giving you the spotlight to excel in what you do best.

I’ll save you this morning’s LinkedIn scroll. Here’s what’s happening today:

– AI comment x1,802
– Infographic that is literally impossible to read
– 4 mirror selfies for a post on ‘authentic’ branding
– Personal branding is pretty important, it seems
– Someone’s worried about AI taking their job
– Someone else has automated their entire life with AI
– Hustle culture is… good? Bad? No one really knows
– The algorithm has changed… again, according to one study.
– Another AI comment
– Old man hates Gen Z
– Another company posted a job without a salary
– More culture stuff (A LOT more)
– Someone turned their morning coffee into a 7-step storytelling framework

Oooh another AI comment.

That’s all for now.

Ps. What’s your LinkedIn pet peeve?

Client Services Director @ Kurogo | We create thought leaders through Personal Branding

Another successful Kurogo Christmas social boxed off 

We had….

2x Nights at Milton House Bedford
Flights in from: South Africa, Spain, France, India and Hungary
Christmas dinner laid out by Emily and her sous chef, Megan
Quizzes and an ongoing game of traitors led by Emily and Olivia
Kurogo Awards, put together by Sam 
(Shout-out Stagehand of the year Megan and unsung hero Irene)
A look at our 2026 plans and strategy
Plenty of shenanigans 

Every year these socials get bigger and better, and this wasn’t even all of us…

So a final shout-out to everyone who couldn’t make it this year.

I bloody love this team. 

(As much as is allowed by HR)

Checking your next post after going 'viral'
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Things to leave behind in 2025

- Complaining about the algorithm
- Reducing your screentime
- Taking your shirt off at a hyrox (and posting it on LinkedIn)
- Blaming your problems on immigrants
- Acting like a knobhead on LinkedIn
- Tesco Meal deals
- Twitter

I once spent 3 years trying to onboard a client who paid £6k but ghosted. 

In that time…

I moved house twice
We hired 3 different salespeople
I onboarded and ran 150+ other client campaigns
The entire company was bought, sold and restructured

I never did manage to get in touch with them.

Sometimes I lay awake at night and wonder where they are.

If there’s a client management lesson here, I don’t know what it is.

Genuine career advice:

Be easy to work with.

“You're right — thanks for catching that. Let me correct myself.”
“Thanks — want me to rewrite the whole thing with the right info?”
“Let me give you a corrected version that actually matches what you asked.”
“Good call — let me update my reasoning.”
“You’re absolutely right. I oversimplified that earlier.”
“Here’s the updated version — this is bulletproof”

Just so you know… 

We manage content for an exec team on here who are generating over 10x the reach of their company page with a little over a third of the followers.

This personal brand thing is not a fad. 

We even wrote this guide on how we do it: https://lnkd.in/e7JFPcaE

LinkedIn ‘Experts’:

- Comment on 20 posts a day.
- Post selfies to “build connection.”
- Spend 3 hours engaging before posting.
- Be chronically on LinkedIn for 8+ hrs per day.
- Use productivity carousels as inspiration (steal them).

Me: 

- Fuck that.

Here’s the 6-step blueprint to follow instead:

1) Position yourself as an expert in your industry.
↳ Define what you want to be known for, the market won’t do it for you.

2) Engage with the right people, not just anyone.
↳ Quality > quantity. Especially when it comes to engaging.

3) Create a repeatable posting cadence.
↳ So you don’t have to spend more than 5 mins for an idea.

4) Post only 3 types of content inside clear pillars.
↳ Growth → To get seen by new people.
↳ Authority → To build trust & authority.
↳ Conversion → To generate opportunities.

5) Turn your lived experience into content.
↳ If anyone else could’ve written it, don’t post it.

6) Make your profile an inbound sales page.
↳ Your profile is your digital real estate.
↳ If optimised, it’ll sell before you even speak.

You don’t have to take every guru’s word as gospel.
Otherwise we’d all be full-time linkedinfluencers.
You just have to do the right things consistently.

Focus on what actually moves the needle.

Everything else is just fluff.

ps. What’s the worst LinkedIn Influencer take you’ve heard?

—

Find this useful?

💾 Save it to come back to later
♻️ Repost it to help your network

People do not buy from strangers. 

They buy from people they trust.

And trust starts (or ends) at your profile.

I have seen world-class founders lose deals because their profile looked like it was built in 2017 and left to rot.

The reality:

→ A blurry photo ruins credibility
→ A cluttered banner confuses your message
→ A headline with no value prop or proof gets ignored
→ A featured section with random links does nothing for you

Your profile is not a CV. 

It is the first “yes” or “no” in your buyer’s head.

Here is my simple framework to audit your profile today:

1️⃣ Promise: Does your headline show what you deliver, for whom, and why you?
2️⃣ Proof: Do you show numbers, case studies, or clear wins? (If not, why should anyone believe you?)
3️⃣ Packaging: Is your story clear, your experience relevant, and your next step obvious?

If your profile fails any of these, you are leaking leads daily.

The best personal brands I’ve built did not start with fancy content. They started with a profile that did the selling for them-before a single DM was sent.

Check your profile right now. If you were a prospect, would you trust you?

If not, fix it before you post again.

ps. Want the exact checklist we use to optimise profiles? 

1600 people already viewed it, but this is your last chance to join them for free. 

https://lnkd.in/eQUeqAc5

Next week, this won’t be free…

Spotify Wrapped 2025 is out, and you can connect it to your LinkedIn. Bit weird though...

We’ve built 350+ personal brands in 5 years. 

Here’s what works (and what doesn’t) for 2026:

1️⃣ Positioning:

You need to be seen as the expert.

→ Clear “Promise, Proof, Packaging”
→ Profiles that show credibility, not just job titles

2️⃣ Amplification:

No one gets remembered by posting once a month.

→ Monthly content calendars
→ Content pillars that mix authority, growth and conversion

3️⃣ Conversion:

This is where most people fall short.

→ Lead magnets (guides, webinars, etc) tied to your content
→ Funnels that nurture connections into clients

Now look, I could go on for ages here…

About how we helped one client 7X his followers
Or how another generated millions of views in a few months
Or how Olly got 10X ROI on his personal brand in 1 year 

But I’ve got character limits. 

So we’ve put our entire blueprint (+ examples and exercises) into this neat Ultimate Guide to Building Your Personal Brand in 2026. It took us ages to make, so it would make me very happy if you read it: https://lnkd.in/em3fAVA7

I’m 29. I’ve spent 10 years managing clients.

Here’s what I wish I knew in 2016: 

- happy clients leave all the time
- the customer is not always right
- clients pay you to have an opinion
- traffic light your clients every week
- being a yes-man ruins your authority
- confront any negative sentiment head on
- every great campaign needs uncomfortable convos

Most people spend years chasing client happiness. I chased it too. Then learned that clarity, honesty, and authority are the real keys to retention.

If you build your reputation on being a “yes” person, you become replaceable.

If you build it on clarity and leadership, you become essential.

Ps. I once chased a client for 4 years who paid £6K to start and then ghosted us. Wild.

Most agencies lose clients in the first 30 days. 
(even if the client doesn’t even give notice) 

Here’s how I delight clients in the first 30:

The first month is do or die for client retention. 
Most agencies wing it and hope for the best. 

I prefer a system.

Here’s the framework that keeps clients sticking around:

→ Set deliverables, timelines, and responsibilities up front. 
If a client doesn’t know what to expect…
They’ll fill in the blanks (badly).

→ Overcommunicate. 
Give updates before clients even ask. 
Progress reports, blockers, wins - no surprises, ever.

→ Use a delivery dashboard. 
KPIs, deliverables, blockers - all tracked weekly.
If something’s off, we spot it before it becomes a problem.

→ Gather feedback constantly. 
I want to know what’s working and what’s not
Get this direct from the source. Then adjust fast.

→ Get early wins. 
Even the small ones count. 
Clients need proof they made the right call.

→ Send value before they ask. 
Quick insights, a new template, or a small win 
Drop it in their inbox to keep engagement up.

Most agencies guess. Don’t be most agencies.

The first 30 days set the tone for everything that follows.

Make them count, and you don’t just keep clients-you turn them into your best sales team

In light of the UK budget being announced today I will be staying away from LinkedIn for the next 24 hours.

To those that stay, good luck 🙏

People can copy:

- Your offer
- Your funnel
- Your product

But no one can copy You.

They can’t do you like you do.

Because you have a unique combination of skills, experience, expertise, personality and values no one else does.

And by presenting those strategically online, you’ll:

- Build an audience of advocates
- Attract high intent buyers
- Farm opportunities

But the reality for most people?

They have a lot of value to offer.

But they’re not positioning and presenting it online.

So they have no audience

Struggle for leads

And miss opportunities

You don’t have to become a celebrity or fake a persona.

Package your existing value in the best way possible instead.

We’ve built a system for scaling this across exec teams.

Want to know how we do it? Get the blueprint here:

https://lnkd.in/e7JFPcaE

Ps. You seen any big brands doing this yet?

taplio

The Battle

Rory McLaughlan

Jake Summerhayes

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreRory McLaughlan's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreJake Summerhayes's LinkedIn Performance

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taplio

The Battle

Rory McLaughlan

Jake Summerhayes

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Rory McLaughlan's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreJake Summerhayes's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreRory McLaughlan's LinkedIn Performance