Want to know more about the man behind the brand? Meet Dan Marsden, the Co-Founder and CEO of Lounge.
Dan’s always had a big business brain, there’s no doubt about that. We’ll be totally honest…since launching in 2015, we’ve had quite the ride. We’ve expanded our Female Family like never before, our number of Loungers is at an all time high, we’re moving HQ’s for the third time (we’re quite the movers) and we’re constantly launching new products at a rapid rate.
It’s safe to say we’ve been busier than ever and we couldn’t have done any of it without our incredible Loungers and Female Family by our side. So, we’d like to say a huge Lounge THANK YOU to all of you!
Dan co-founded Lounge in 2015 with his partner, now wife, Melanie Marsden in the comfort of their very own Lounge. Since launching, Lounge has scaled to phenomenal heights, bringing Comfort Made Sexy into the lives of women worldwide, changing perceptions of traditional beauty standards and celebrating women of all shapes and sizes, everywhere.
Recently, we were named as the 5th Fastest Growing Company in the UK and of course, once things return to normal, we’ll be celebrating with our Loungers at our new HQ with all the bubbles and fizz!
We caught up with Dan to talk about all things Lounge and what being a CEO of a multi-million pound brand looks like. From early beginnings to what we’ve got coming in 2021, we’ve got all the details. See what Dan had to say below.
What does your average day as the CEO of Lounge look like?
There’s no average day really, every single day is different as it presents new challenges and opportunities. I’m still very involved in pretty much every part of the business so I keep in touch with all ‘heads of’. Most of my days are filled with meetings discussing pivotal points in the business and bigger decisions on the future.
Dan with his wife and CBO, Melanie (and Pip)
Has your day to day changed much since the pandemic?
My meetings are filled with Zooms rather than face-to-face meetings but apart from that, the general structure of how we work is almost identical. We were extremely lucky to be a pure Ecom player so COVID only increased our exposure and demand.
At what moment did you realise Lounge was going to be a success?
We started Lounge with £1,000 and still have never had any outside investment, so the brand has grown totally organically. When we started, the aim was to just sell 1 set a day but within a few weeks, we had a large influencer in AUS post and we woke up to 12 sales - I couldn’t believe it! I pretty much knew at this point that the company was scalable and different to anything I had started in the past.
Which campaign has been your favourite and why?
The recent Black Intimates campaign was awesome. The designs were like nothing we had done before and the concept behind the shoot worked a dream. I remember when we had the edits of the shoot through we knew it was going to be special.
Another would be our latest #FeelYourBreast (Breast Cancer Awareness) campaign. There’s just something super special and fulfilling about running that campaign bigger and better each year.
What has been your biggest challenge as the brand's CEO and how have you overcome this?
Just the fact we have grown at a rate that very few companies have ever experienced and then multiply this by the fact that the Ecom/social space is brand new so there’s few you can take learnings from in this field.
We have constant growing pains as the company continues to scale globally but I’ve always said these are ‘good problems’ so I'd never complain. We have the same issue that lots of businesses in this space do such as recruiting world class talent, marketing locally and delivering that perfect offering/service but that’s all part of the process.
Lounge's 5th Birthday Sale is coming up - exciting! Has this been a challenge to orchestrate with the team working from home?
We’ve been extremely lucky as a company that we literally switched everyone from in-house working to remote working within 24 hours and everyone dealt with it amazing. We are very fortunate to have such a young team with an average age of around 25 so working with technology is second nature to these guys. They’ve been raised in the digital age so this style of working is just natural.
How will this year's Birthday Sale compare to previous sales?
I don’t want to count our chickens but from how this year has turned out so far, I think we could be looking at 150-200% YOY growth which is just insane. Once again, we have invested heavily in our tech stack and infrastructure as we prepare for a biggie!
The brand has grown enormously over the last 12-18 months which has even prompted a new office move. Tell us all about the new home of Lounge!
This is without doubt the biggest risk we have ever taken as a brand but one that is needed if we want to fulfil our full potential as the world's biggest underwear brand.
It's 53,000 sq ft of glass fronted potential where we are investing £3m over two phases fit to offer the best facilities possible to attract and retain best in class talent. It was named ‘Operation Sunny Side’ internally, but this new global headquarters for Lounge will be a special place to work come Summer 2021!
What's coming for Lounge in 2021?
2021 is set to be a huge year for Lounge. The year we go from a social born brand to a true global player in the Ecom world. We have huge plans from everything in product design & development all the way through to our continued focus throughout Europe and America as we continue to scale up.
We really are continuing to push on all fronts in what is set to be yet again our biggest year of growth to date!
Want to find out more about Lounge? Read our story below.