How we went from wild idea to Dragons' Den

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I'm Sam, founder of Yes Friends, there's a rumour I used to believe that goes like this...

"Ethical clothing needs to be expensive"

But after years working in the fashion industry I discovered a secret nobody wants you to know.

It's not true.

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In fact, it costs just 65p extra per tee for good wages and organic cotton.

So I had an idea. What if we could make an ethical, sustainable tee for the price of a pint in London?

But there was a catch.

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To make it work we'd need to sell 3,000 T-shirts in a month.

Or it was game over before we even started.

So I put together a team of five and in 2021 we launched Yes Friends.

To start all we had was: One follower. A few laptops. Some very supportive friends. And our life savings on the line.

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12 weeks later, we hit the launch button and started telling everyone we'd ever met what we'd been working on.

Then something crazy happened... we sold over 4,000 T-shirts in a month.

It was a rollercoaster - radio interviews, national press and the highest rating from ethical directory Good On You.

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So we went all in.

We designed new collections with you. Raised over £21,000 for garment workers and even got invited to the wedding of our factory owner's son. We went. It was wild.

Then one day we got a "No Caller ID" phone call.

It was either a scam or a prank call from my niece. I answered anyway.

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It was the BBC asking us to pitch Yes Friends to a panel of multi-millionaires on national TV.

So we drove up to Manchester and at approximately 11:16am, after fumbling over a few words, started to tell our story...

You'll have to watch to find out what happened next.

But for now, we wanted to leave you with an invitation.

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We're on a mission to transform the fashion industry.

Step one. We pay garment workers well.

Step two. We use the best fabrics (for you and the planet).

Step three. Then charge unbelievable prices.

How do we do it?

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Small margins and... a seriously good team (which now includes you).

Plus, you can even tip your garment workers.

Together, let's transform the fashion industry. You in?

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Help pick our next collection

We design every Yes Friends collection with you. Thousands of you have had your say on what we make next. Help pick our next collection by tapping on the flaming hot orange button below.