"Not so cutting edge"

Welcome to the story of SmoothEdge, the upcycled glassware company that started from a simple hobby and how it turned into what it is today. In part 4 of our series, we pick up the story in early 2022, after a busy Christmas period and shortly after Sam decided to go full-time.

After a busy Christmas period January hit and SmoothEdge continued hitting its targets and goals. With people still in lockdown, it was much easier to target new customers and spread our message. Everything was going swimmingly until the U.K lockdown was lifted around February 2022, and orders dropped drastically. With no real marketing experience between the team, SmoothEdge struggled with Sam missing a few pay days and effectively working for nothing. It was really tough, so the team had to learn quick how to market, beginning with social media. After a couple of months hard graft on socials, SmoothEdge started to see result and ended up going viral - this helped a lot with SmoothEdge spreading it's message and resulted in an influx in orders. This shortly followed with BBC south east visiting us and creating a piece on SmoothEdge, and pages such as LadBible posting about us. In hindsight, despite the negative impact of the drop in sales, it resulted in a learning experience, which pushed the team to appreciate and learn marketing skills which are essential in the making and running of a business.

After going viral SmoothEdge started to gain traction and reach, to not just more people but also to businesses. We struck our first ever deal with Crafty Distillery, upcycling their waste and 2nds bottles into unique glassware for their gift sets. This sparked another avenue for SmoothEdge to explore and led to discussions with other brands, such as Bombay Sapphire. In August 2022 Sam and Leah went to the Bombay Sapphire distillery for a casual meeting, this turned out to be a huge driving force in what

SmoothEdge is today. Bombay agreed to give us all their waste bottles on a monthly collection basis as well as selling the upcycled bombay sapphire glasses in their distillery shop in the lead up to christmas.

These business ventures were huge for SmoothEdge, meaning the team could invest in more equipment making the process more efficient, both in terms of time and energy used. This new deal with Crafty Distillery also meant we had to alter our method, as the original technique did not have a high success rate, and so we had a heavy reliance on this new equipment working… However, it took time learning new techniques and getting used to the new equipment, which, along with delays in receiving equipment, proved stressful. Eventually, with a lot of hard work and determination, we got there, and sent out our first batch of beautifully handcrafted, upcycled glasses.

Following these new partnerships, Christmas was also fast approaching (which we were a little unprepared for), and so we figured we needed some more hands on board to help out. This saw us bring on our close friend, and now first employee, the amazing James. During this time, SmoothEdge also moved into its new home (much to Justin and Janes relief), where it would be based. The 2022 Christmas period for SmoothEdge proved busy and we were astonished by everyones support. It was much busier than expected and this would help SmoothEdge start the 2023 year strong and meant they wrapped up 2022 with a couple of milestones.

Sam, Leah and Justin would like to thank you all for your support so far and for joining us on our journey. This wraps up the Story of SmoothEdge blog series so far, which we hope you enjoyed reading and learnt a few thing about us on the way. Keep an eye out for more blogs about SmoothEdge’s journey as we hopefully progress the business throughout the years to come.

CHEERS to more SmoothEdge stories…