Hungry, humble, smart: what Hayden Hill taught our Sixth Formers over breakfast
Hungry, humble, smart: what Hayden Hill taught our Sixth Formers over breakfast
Careers & Pathways Business Breakfast, Tuesday 13 October
At last week's Careers & Pathways Business Breakfast, Sixth Formers heard from Adam Denton-Smith and Karol Caballero, the husband & wife founders behind the Sherborne-based lux garment care brand, about how a £5,000 moth-prevention business packed by hand in an unheated shed became a B Corp-certified global company with its HQ a few minutes from school.
From moths to fashion week
Moth prevention took off, largely because Adam and Karol spent time talking to customers and let those conversations shape both the product and the marketing. Adam recommended The Pumpkin Plan by Mike Michalowicz to anyone wanting to understand why focusing on fewer, better things beats chasing everything.
Hayden Hill itself began as a different idea: an "ethical ASOS" selling other people's sustainable fashion. It pivoted into its own brand and showed at London Fashion Week for eight seasons. The PR investment didn't grow the business, and fashion, the Adam and Karol said honestly, is an industry where even talented designers often don't make money.
So, they followed their customers again. Today Hayden Hill focuses on garment care and storage: premium organic cotton storage bags, hanging bags and dust bags, designed in the UK and handmade in India. The newest line, a travel range, now exists because customers kept asking for it.
Ethics that cost something
Adam and Karol have visited the factories in India many times to check for themselves: fair trade, no child labour, reasonable hours, and overtime that is voluntary and paid. Right now, the business is short of stock. They could push the factories harder, but they have chosen to take their time and do it the right way.
For sixth formers weighing what kind of employer, or founder, they want to be, it was an interesting look at ethics as a real trade-off rather than just a slogan.
Two careers, many chapters
Adam studied Monetary Economics at the LSE and qualified as a chartered accountant. He co-founded and ran Ascension, a multichannel fashion retailer in Dorchester listed on AIM. He was brought in to turn around Local Food Links in Bridport, and later became CFO of Brightpearl, a Bristol-founded retail software company, where he helped raise $30m and grow the business across the UK and US. He ran Verticly, a cloud marketing platform, before going on to build Hayden Hill.
Karol studied Biology at Santa Clara University in California, then built a career in sales and franchising: as a regional vice president at United Franchise Group, then at Brightpearl in San Francisco, where she and Adam worked together, and for five years in franchise development at Gymboree. In 2019 she joined the moth-prevention business as business development director, and in 2021 became co-founder and Head Designer of Hayden Hill.
Their shared reflection: Nothing is wasted if you learn from it!
Lessons for Sixth Formers
Start with who you know. Your immediate community is a bigger network than you think. Don't underestimate who people know, as six degrees of separation works in school and Dorset too.
Be hungry, humble and smart. Leave your ego at the door. In a small team everyone carries boxes and cleans the loos.
Start scrappy, but be honest about cash. Cash is the hardest part of any business. Be realistic about how much you actually need.
A shop is more than a till. Hayden Hill's Sherborne store doesn't make money on its own, but it earns its keep as marketing, storytelling and a direct line to customer feedback.
Giving back
Hayden Hill is a certified B Corp and contributes to its local community, including funding school meals and residential trips for children. It's a reminder that a business can be commercial and good for the place it calls home.
Our thanks to Adam and Karol for an honest, generous and insightful start to the day!
Where Next?
