“Inspiring” is the word that comes to mind when describing Yusuf Flynn’s account of his endeavours to date to found and develop his start-up company into a dramatically successful business.
Members and their guests enjoyed a lively and entertaining presentation from Yusuf Flynn, founder and CEO of Headhunter Sport, a Bruneian company now designing, manufacturing and selling rugby kit across the region.
A rugby player himself, Yusuf saw a market for comfortable, affordable rugby kit, customised to a team’s requirements. There is an enormous potential market with some 122 million rugby supporters as well as players in 14 countries. Yusuf realised that supplying Brunei’s own requirements was one thing, but the future of doing successful business lay in securing a sizeable export market.
Yusuf has already signed a contract with the Singapore Rugby Union for the supply of kit. He is also signing up with Marvel and the HSBC World 7s. He claims that his success is largely due to delivering on time and to specification the custom-designed kit required. To do this he has been resourceful, not least in coping with the challenges of logistics in Brunei.
However, Yusuf is adamant that without the support he got from Government he would not have got this far. He is thankful to DARe and for the Ministerial attention he received. This helped him to establish his factory where he now employs 20 people, including designers.
But ultimately it is Yusuf’s own enthusiasm, determination, self-belief and sense of humour which have been the key.
We wish Yusuf and Headhunter Sport well and will be watching their progress with interest. At the same time the BBBF will be working with DARe to help other start-ups with the advice our own members can give to help them achieve similar success.
A video of how Headhunter started is available here