Sid Sethi remembers the day that changed his life.
The entrepreneur from Delhi, India, had come to The University of Manchester to complete his Masters and was busy revising for a key exam when disaster struck.
Three days before his corporate accounting exam his glasses broke.
“I’m as blind as a bat without my glasses,” he admitted.
However, when he went out to find replacement glasses, he was quoted prices between £150-£600 and realised the industry was dominated by a small monopoly of companies.
Sethi, who has spent the last week at Web Summit, in Lisbon, decided to do launch his tech-backed Specscart.
He started the business in 2018 with a focus on fashionable, low-priced eyewear, sustainably-made in its in-house Bury HQ and delivered within 24 hours.
Today Specscart is on track for a 2024 turnover of £5m and has resulted in Sethi being included in BusinessCloud’s Northern Leaders Futures list and Forbes 30 Under 30.
He said Specscart still offered quality products but at ‘sensible and affordable prices’.
“We’re moving the industry forward,” he said. “Our industry hasn’t moved with the times. We’ve done a lot of things to make the industry simple and bring the price down but make the high quality products.”
The startup has three stores in Manchester, offering free eye tests and 24-hour delivery.
“If you have a prescription and you need a pair of glasses you can go online, select the frame and combination of lens you’d like, upload a prescription,” said Sethi. “It’s as easy as WhatsApp and our team will do the rest.”
Specscart has been completely bootstrapped and has grown to 26 staff and a turnover of £5m.
Although it’s underpinned by tech, its founder said its secret sauce was its staff and community-focus.
“Yes we’ve got tech,” he said. “You can come into our stores and we can take your orders in two minutes but the human element is really important. We want the team to talk to people and build those relationships.”
Kind-hearted Specscart customers have recently donated a whopping 50,000 pairs of their old glasses for a charity recycling project.
Each of Manchester’s three Specscart stores has a Bury Lions Club recycling bin where broken, out-of-date or unloved spectacles are dropped off by customers – who have recently passed the 50,000 milestone.
Lions Club International’s Recycle for Sight campaign has been recycling unwanted spectacles and hearing aids for almost 50 years and donating them to people in need from 25 countries worldwide.
Sethi said: “This 50,000 donation milestone is a fantastic achievement – that’s a pair of glasses for every fan at a sell-out match at the Etihad Stadium – and something we’re immensely proud of.”
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