Gilley Ltd
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Gilley Ltd
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Gilley Ltd
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Sir Peter Thompson Award
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The 2024 Sir Peter Thompson Award, supported by Michael Collins of Goldcrest Custom Homes Ltd – the University’s most prestigious award for entrepreneurship – has been won by International Business and Marketing graduate, Trib Gosain, and his business partner, Reid Jacoby, for their business, Gilley Ltd.
About Gilley Ltd
Trib and Reid’s bold ambition is to create the best umbrella in the world and build the next iconic British brand.
“Our aim is to elevate a purely functional product into something that is aesthetically elegant, synonymous with high end quality and something that people aspire to own because of the essence and heritage of the brand itself – like Hunter wellington boots,” says Trib.
The Gilley umbrella is windproof, with a reinforced structure so it won’t blow inside out. It also has a unique feature that makes losing your umbrella almost impossible – and a lightweight but sturdy case that doubles as a handle. This means that a wet umbrella can be safely stored in its watertight case, rather than being put aside to dry and easily forgotten.
Kickstarting the business
Gilley started trading at the end of 2023 and has already seen sales of over £150,000. The launch followed a month-long campaign on the fundraising platform Kickstarter, which raised their target finance within ten minutes of going live.
This catapulted Gilley into the top 2% of Kickstarter campaigns of all time, and made the founders realise that their instincts were right and that they were onto something big!
Support from Spark
“I graduated in 2020 and hadn’t realised that the University supports entrepreneurs up to seven years after graduation like this,” says Trib.
“By complete chance I was still subscribed to Spark emails and came across one about the Business Plan Competition, so we entered and came second, which was fantastic.
And now the Sir Peter Thompson Award – winning this is such an honour! The £5K prize is wonderful timing as we’re currently fundraising again so that we can make further refinements to the Gilley design. Although we are now based in London, it is great to know we have Spark advisors offering their expertise and fresh perspectives to draw on.”
Kairen Skelley, Head of Business Start-up at Spark, which runs the award, said: “Gilley has it all – this is clearly a very high-quality product already, with huge market potential, and Trib and Reid demonstrated clear future growth plans with a great handle on the financial aspects of the business. The judges were all extremely impressed by the ambition to re-imagine and elevate a humble, everyday product into a contemporary aspirational brand.”
Hoping for rain
Working from offices near London Bridge, Trib and Reid are delighted when friends and colleagues tell them they spotted a Gilley being used.
“Ironically, we have yet to see one ourselves ‘in the wild’ as we call it, but I know we’ll be so excited when we do. Reid and I may be the only people in the UK that check the weather forecasts and hope for rain!”