The Case For Success

“Sometimes you have to give up. Sometimes knowing when to give up, when to try something else, is genius. Giving up doesn’t mean stopping. Don’t ever stop.”

Those are the words of Phil Knight, chairman emeritus of Nike Inc, and they’ve certainly served as a mantra for Billy Johnson, co-founder of burgeoning North-East accessories company, TORRO Cases (torrocases.co.uk/). Having scooped Newcomer of the Year for the Northumberland and Tyneside region in the 2017 North East Business awards, TORRO is now recognised as a major player in the smartphone and tablet accessories market. Working in partnership with Amazon, their beautifully made but affordable masculine accessories have steadily built a global customer base, and their range has recently expanded from its core of tech-focused products to include clothing, wallets and umbrellas, all of which feature the exquisite quality synonymous with the brand.

However, despite his recent business success, Billy’s story has its fair share of surprises. Perhaps the most arresting of which (!) is that both he and co-founder Michael Farnsworth were serving police officers when TORRO was founded. Billy told us: “I joined the force at 18 following in my dad’s footsteps and although I enjoyed my career, it was never a passion for me. I admired those officers who were truly passionate but as much as I got a buzz from the job, I was very ambitious and always wanted to do more. That ambition surfaced in various guises before he found success with TORRO. Harbouring teenage dreams of rock stardom, he played guitar in several bands, including Country and Western outfit Texas Gold, but an unfortunate comparison to Chesney Hawkes led him to realise that he may never headline Glastonbury!

He has also operated a few other businesses over the years, and whilst some of them enjoyed moderate success, none ever really took off. In typically positive fashion, Billy views these experiences as valuable lessons, but it was the emergence of another of his business heroes which ultimately provided the inspiration for TORRO: “It sounds cliched these days but I really admired Steve Jobs. I really bought into the spirit of what Apple were doing and became an avid user of their products.”

Having purchased an iPhone 5 in 2013, Billy had his eureka moment when he began searching for accessories to protect his new pride and joy, but couldn’t find one commensurate with the quality of the phone itself.

“It was a business idea borne out of searching for something I couldn’t find.”

Drawing on his experience of manufacturing, he located an Italian tannery and pitched the idea of producing a batch of quality leather phone cases to fellow CID detective and tech-enthusiast Michael. Michael agreed to invest and once Billy had developed the distinctive TORRO branding, he commissioned £500 worth of stock. They sold out within a week via eBay, and it quickly became evident that they had discovered a winning formula. Despite their relative lack of experience, TORRO grew rapidly and they would soon face the dilemma of whether to continue as a parttime operation or go all in and leave the security of their police careers: “Looking at the numbers we were doing then (2014) I can’t believe we did it! But I really wanted to give it a go and didn’t see failure as an option.”

Luckily, the gamble paid off and TORRO went from bedroom operation to a £2 million turnover within 4 years. Going into partnership with Amazon underpinned this expansion, not least for the access it gave them to foreign markets.

There have been some rookie moments along the way, including a comical episode where Billy found himself googling “how to de-magnetise a magnet” after a problem arose with a batch of Samsung Galaxy cases. Suffice to say, the ensuing events (featuring a fantastical but tragically ineffective Chinese gizmo) won’t be earning him any science awards, but thankfully his business sense has proved anything but flawed!

Pondering their success so far, Billy reflects: “Our USP is that we provide the highest possible quality for a sensible price. We are also proud to have built a great relationship with our customer base, who have become loyal to the brand. For example, we recently added a leather glasses case to our range and initially only manufactured a relatively small amount thinking it may be quite an innocuous product. However, we sent a mail shot to our 10,000 subscribers and we sold out within 24 hours.”

The close relationship with their customers is something that Billy is keen to maintain but both he and Michael are also ambitious and look upon brands like Fossil and Cath Kidston as the sort of models they’d like to emulate in the long term: “If you think about Cath Kidston, they’re proud to have lifestyle accessories as their core business. Our vision was always to recreate that for the masculine accessories market. We are currently market leaders in quality phone covers but have used that platform to introduce our customers to our wider range, which will continue to grow as we do.”

The emergence of TORRO is an inspiring testament to the power of perseverance and having the courage to follow your instincts. In person, Billy is modest and naturally self-deprecating, but those qualities belie the steely determination underneath the surface. Don’t be surprised if he and TORRO realise their lofty ambitions. Just don’t mention Chesney Hawkes!