As any retail expert will tell you, creating a successful pop-up shop complete with websites, logos and display materials can take months of intense prep work.

Here on the Escape the City Startup Tribe, we thought it would be fun to challenge our 54 hopeful founders to take over an entire shop in the heart Brick Lane on Father’s Day; creating 6 unique brands and selling to customers, all in less than 36 hours.

Huge tip of the hat to our product partners at Doisy & Dam, Takuro, Sandows London, Elvis and Kresse, Stand 4 Socks and Sir Plus.

Saturday was spent frantically pitching for products, hustling for the best space, creating pricing models designing logos, building websites and using old fashioned craft skills to get their shopfronts looking top notch in time for Sunday morning.

24 hours later…

After an early start the six teams crafted some superb looking stalls and at 10.01am they had their first customer…

We talked to Tim and Ian, two curious shoppers and asked then how long they thought it would have taken these teams to organise the pop-up?

“I would have said weeks…” — Tim

“…probably about a month.” — Ian

I think seeing the teams act so quickly on all of their plans has been the thing that’s stood out for me. So much of the work that we do is around breaking down barriers and getting across the idea that it’s just as simple as doing it. So seeing them say there’s not enough time to think about it let’s just get it done has been the most amazing thing.

Walking in here this morning, I was quite emotional because I was just so proud of everybody…

— Emma, Tribe Leader

Stubble & Cuddle

The Pitch: Stubble & Cuddle is partnering with Doisy & Dam chocolate and Perky Blenders coffee for a one day only Fathers’ Day pop up. For a taste and texture sensory experience of healthy indulgence, get down to 133–135 Bethnal Green Road, 11am-5pm Sunday for a bit of rough and smooth.

“Adrenaline fuelled intense teamwork crazy fun times. Deadline pressures on Saturday were way more stressful than Sunday- planning event was so much fun, super cool to work as a team, loved it. Amazing to get a glimpse at how everyone shines in different areas of the whole experience :) thank so much for organising such an epic weekend! “

— Anne-Laure, Team Stubble and Cuddle

“The highlight was when we found out about our product, the Doisy and Dam chocolate, I really love the product, we didn’t necessarily think it had the highest markup but we wanted a product that we were passionate about and could talk about and happy to genuinely say that we love it. Another highlight is that when we got to that point today when we say our stall finished and it all just seemed to come together form nothing. Today it has been difficult getting people in the store, with the chocolate people are really keen to sample but it’s tricky to convert them to walking in through the store.”

— Jo, Team Stubble and Cuddle

Riches

The Pitch: Gorgeous, premium products made from leftover materials. We see beauty in what others reject. We champion what others don’t value.

“I guess probably working on the streets just now, sounds wrong… but for the last couple of hours I’ve absolutely loved going out onto the streets and meeting members of the public and saying to them if you’ve forgotten to send them a father’s day card for free and people have been genuinely touched and it’s become a bit of a responsibility to actually make sure that we do send these cards. Through that I’ve met people to potentially rent my flat and two potential manufacturers for my dress collection.

Yesterday was quite a tough day for us, we learnt quite a lot about how to pitch and how not to pitch — we didn’t take out product into the pitch which was a school boy error… and I think we were all feeling a bit low after that which made us fight quite hard today and push our social media as a result.”

— Anna, Team Riches

Lesson #1— you’ve got to swallow you’re inherent English Britishness and just be a shameless whore on Facebook. I think we’ve got about 100 likes in 24 hours.

Lesson #2— it’s easier to get people attracted to your store if you’re giving away free stuff (and girls are better than boys at doing this!)

Lesson #3 — getting the team to work in an effective way when everyone is doing something distinct but connected. One of the big challenges is that half the time we’re all working on the same thing…”

— Simon, Team Riches

Dust to Glory

The Pitch: For one day only come and immerse yourself in the Dust to Glory experience. We are pioneers in the new Cold Brew Coffee revolution by Sandows. Come & get your Sunday caffeine kick with us. Damn Good Cold Brew for Damn Good Sundays.

“We’re not taking it too seriously despite lots of decisions being made, but we’re hyper motivated. We made our name by going on hipster name generating website and then it was done.”

—Team Dust & Glory’

‘We were jumping through tasks without completing them as a team. In hindsight we’ve learnt we need to focus on the bigger picture and how we going to pimp up our product, increase the price point.’

— Jessica

It probably should have been the sale but it wasn’t, it was just the excitement of yesterday morning of getting started and the feeling of actually doing it. I’d never sold before, I’d never done retail and was quite scared before the weekend — and then on Saturday morning got off to a really good start.

I had quite a good start on the streets,but when my energy dipped I really noticed the impact disappeared and I wasn’t connecting with people with all my energy, so that was a learning for me that it can be quite hard to sustain that energy (even with the coffee).

When I emailed to pitch for the product we hadn’t even Googled them or looked up the brand — it felt like such a rookie error and it’s not a mistake that I’ll make again…”

— Jessica, Team Dust to Glory

“Aren’t people great?! Thanks to everyone entered into our “2 words to describe your Dad” wonderwall competition! I really loved the 2 grown men who wrote Post its for each others’ Dads and were in absolute stitches over it. The human spirit is a wonderful thing.”

—Vicky, Team Dust to Glory

Super Socks

The Pitch: Last Minute Present Panic For Father’s Day? Get super socks for your super dad! Empower him to wear his favourite cause on his ankle by choosing some fun socks from our amazing range!

“I really enjoyed the pitch for the product, it’s really fun to think outside the box and what will catch their attention, so instead of an email we sent a video — explaining how we wanted to market the products with our super hero branding.

I’ve learned it’s a lot harder to hustle strangers on the street that I previously thought — and how tiring and exhausting it is to be really positive while keep being told no, no, no. I think that now when someone hands me a flyer on the streets I’ll be much more responsive and more polite as it gets quite demoralising!”

— Adaleide, Team Super Socks

“I had absolutely no experience in this field and this experience gave me a good feel of all the different aspects that needed to be tackled to put something out there and look credible ( branding, customer experience, getting traction, knowing your product, social media, team effort, when to eat?).

“Who wants what product? 3/7 went for the socks. Everyone had a different idea for pitching — we go barefoot in the bar. Then we made a video which won us the pitch — then we self-delegated the tasks based on whose good at what”

Of course, not all works out as planned or expected so you have to be pretty good on working out plan B! Good energy and met some very nice people!”

— Olivia, Team Super Socks

Venture

Pitch: East London’s most exclusive niche brand is here. Limited edition products, hand produced in small runs and made in the UK. ‘venture brings the best of British quality and style whilst guaranteeing you individuality. And for that added feel good purchase, a portion of profits are invested back into society.

Venture even started pitching our pop-up photographer Jamie who tried on the backpack and took a photo with his camera…

Lüx

Pitch: Think your dad’s a hero? Give him something unique, that supports other heroes too. Come to lüx good’ s stall at ‘Pop ­a father’s day pop­up shop’ in Shoreditch, to buy unique, beautifully wrapped, British accessories, with a social and environmental mission.

“All day yesterday was a high, so much fun organising, thinking, planning, strategising and also I’ve been part of the most amazing team. Everybody has just pulled together so much and been really supportive each other.

I was surprised how well the team gelled and how quickly we were able to make good decisions early on — we decided everything in about 15 minutes as a group. I don’t know how we managed it.”

— Claire, Team Lux Good.

1. Amazing energy and ‘can-do-ness’ in the room which shows how much can be achieved with a positive attitude.

2. Customers arent as scary as they seem.

3. Selling is difficult and personal style can both help and hinder. Honing this is important.

4. Price is key to your strategy- drive high volume vs high price decisions and in order to do thi right do your sums properly at the beginning. Need to know what your range is before you go in.

5. Believing in what you’re selling makes is fun and made me a better salesperson.

6. Teamwork is vital. Only as good as your people

7. If in doubt, hug it out.