How Lick Scaled from DTC to Multi-Channel Without Giving Away More Equity

Lick is a UK paint brand built around curated colour choices and a community that creates its own content. Founded by Lucas and Rachel London, the brand launched in 2020 with the conviction that one of the country's largest and most offline consumer markets was ready for something new. Today Lick has over a million engaged fans across social and runs its own manufacturing facility.

The gap in a giant market

Lucas London spent years in finance before spotting an opportunity most people were too close to see. Paint is a massive market. It tracks GDP and it doesn't grow fast, but it is enormous, and in the years before Lick launched, it was almost entirely offline. Only around 5% of paint was bought online. The brands that dominated the category had been around for decades and hadn't updated how they spoke to customers in nearly as long.

The bigger problem was choice. Most legacy brands positioned themselves around the number of colours they offered. Two million options. The logic was that more choice meant more customers. The reality was that most people stood in front of a wall of swatches and left more confused than when they arrived.

Some brands pride themselves on the fact they have two million colours to choose from. Which is obviously a very challenging user journey. Most brands were focusing on choice and not supporting the customer to choose colour.

Lick launched with a deliberately curated palette, a colour consultation service, and a brand built around the emotional reality of decorating: that it matters to people, costs real money, and deserves better support than a wall of options and a paint roller.

Launched on lockdown day

The timing was not planned. Lick launched on the literal day lockdown was announced in the UK.

The supply chain complications arrived first. Lick was sourcing its tins from China, and when communication from suppliers went silent at the start of 2020, Lucas was among the first to sense something was very wrong. Then demand arrived, and it arrived fast. With the entire country at home, decorating became one of the few productive outlets available.

Very quickly it became apparent that everyone was at home. Home became more important in their lives as they work from home, exercise from home, socialise in the household. And we could provide a product that would keep them busy and make their house nicer.

Fulfilment couldn't keep up. Customers who managed to get hold of Lick paint were reselling half-empty cans on Facebook Marketplace. The demand was there. The infrastructure wasn't.

What happened next, partly out of necessity, shaped the company. Unable to run production shoots during lockdown, the team started asking friends and family to film themselves painting at home and send the footage in. One couple filmed an evening that included a dog, a glass of wine, and a carpet that didn't survive the night. The content outperformed anything Lick had made with a crew.

It was the moment where we thought: putting the community first, in a home that people could relate to.

Rachel London, CMO and co-founder, describes what the brand became from that point:

We kind of came in and made paint look cool. We created content in relatable moments and relatable homes. We made a brand feel accessible yet modern and elevated.

Today Lick has over a million engaged fans across its social channels.

Rebuilding to scale

The brand that came out of lockdown was thriving. The business that needed to come next was a different shape entirely.

Lick had launched as a DTC brand, and for a period that was the right call. But the customer journey for paint in the UK frequently ends in a DIY store. Large chains hold enormous market share, and being online-only meant losing customers at the moment they were ready to buy.

In order to scale, we had to become multi-channel. We had to completely rebuild the business. And we went through that journey and came out the other side and grew very quickly after that.

The channels reinforced each other: customers would sample colours on Lick's eCommerce site, then walk into a store on a rainy Saturday to pick up the tins. As the business moved across channels, the working capital requirements changed with it.

As we've moved from a DTC business to a multi-channel business, that has had different requirements for capital. It's been great to work with Wayflyer to enable us to have capital for different short-term cash requirements, whether it be inventory building or managing cash flow.

Lick has grown over 70% in litres sold to the consumer across six years. The brand now operates its own manufacturing facility, invested in from day one to allow for scale. And the community that began with a friend's dog and a spilled glass of wine has become one of the most engaged in the home category in the UK.

Interested in following in Lick's footsteps? Wayflyer has funded over 6,000 businesses worldwide with $6 billion worth of working capital, backed by world-leading financial institutions. Apply in minutes and access funds in hours. Start your application today.