Hey everyone,

In short: we need a little help, and we're asking our customers rather than a bank. Buy a gift card now for something you were going to buy anyway, and we'll top it up with some extra £££ as a thank you. Details below.

I’m calling this the FERTILISER FUNDRAISER to raise funds for new developments and production. There's a long story and a short story. The short story follows this sentence; the longer one is below. If you want the super long one, find me in person after I've had half a glass of wine.

We need to raise money for three things we are genuinely very excited about: a sweats programme a handloom fabric project and a secret project we’re calling Hammock (nothing to do with hammocks sadly). 

We work with materials and people that are not standard, which means that when we make something, we are almost always making it from scratch. Sometimes we can do a small run. A lot of the time we can't, because there are thresholds below which it simply doesn't make sense for anyone involved. Not because the customers aren't there. They are. It's purely financial.

We are the squeezed middle. We're the first to pay suppliers and the last to get paid, and no amount of careful planning can fix that. Usually a brand would borrow, sell part of their business, or their founders would be wealthy enough to put more cash in. We don't want to do the first if we can avoid it, the second isn't us, and the third is laughable.

So we're asking you instead. That’s the fertiliser fundraiser.

It works like this:

You know you're going to buy something at some point in the future. Tomorrow, next month, next year, whenever. Instead of waiting, you buy a gift card now and we'll top it up as follows. For example, if you buy a gift card for £50 now, we'll give you an extra £12.50, so you'll have £62.50 to spend when the time comes. This offer will run for about a week but there's no time limit to spend your gift card!

Spend £24 now, get £6 extra = £30
Spend £50 now, get £12.50 extra = £62.50
Spend £100 now, get £25 extra = £125
Spend £250 now, get £62.50 extra = £312.50
Spend £500 now, get £125 extra = £625

I'll also make a list of everyone that helps and, although I'm not sure how yet, give you something, or an opportunity to get something or do something special, as a further thank you in the future. You’ll all be my FERTILISER FRIENDS.

Story mfg was literally built on this kind of thing. In our first two years we asked you to buy stuff we hadn't made yet, you did, and here we are.

Thank you, thank you in advance! The fundraiser will run for a week, or end sooner if we hit an internal goal we have.

The longer story:

This industry is nuts, the world is upside down, and as a small business we are the squeezed middle. We're the first to pay suppliers and the last to get paid, and no amount of careful planning can help that. The more successful we are, the bigger the bills we have to pay, and the later we are paid (for lots of maddening reasons). It's tedious, boring, upsetting, and we have been at it for years. We have built entire systems around us so we don't have to rely on the fashion industry, and we are almost entirely free of it all.

It's important to say, we are okay as a company. We are nowhere near bankruptcy or any of those scary things. This isn't a "save us!" situation. We are SO careful with money. Like many companies, the last few years have been disaster after disaster: tariffs, rising costs, wars, and most of the fashion industry imploding, with stores vanishing and leaving us out of pocket.

What we do have is two projects we really want to make happen. A sweats programme and a handloom fabric project. Both are things we've been circling for a while, and both are the kind of thing only we would do in the way we want to do it. The problem isn't demand. We know you're there. The problem is that the materials and makers we work with are not standard, so we build almost everything from scratch, and scratch has a minimum. Below a certain threshold these projects don't work financially for anyone involved. Getting above that threshold requires money we currently don't have sitting around doing nothing, because every penny is tied up in the usual maddening cycle.

As they say, it's hard to live, laugh, love in these conditions. I'm tired of delaying things because someone decided not to pay us on time. Us not paying those we work with isn't an option, obviously, so we have to find solutions.

This is very us. Very old Story mfg. We started the brand on Reddit and fashion forums, asking people to pre-pay for jeans we were dreaming up because we couldn't afford to fund it ourselves. Twelve years later a lot has changed, but a good idea is a good idea. We plant seeds, we wait, things grow. That's always been the way.

So, if you ever planned to buy from us, please consider grabbing a card today.

I saw another company in another industry do this and thought, "why haven't we done this before?" It makes so much sense.

Once again, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Katy, Saeed and team Story mfg.