Business name: Mallzee
Based: Edinburgh
Website: mallzee.com
Person nominated: Cally Russell
Cally Russell, 27, is the CEO and founder of Mallzee. The original ‘Tinder for Fashion’ puts the entire high-street into shoppers’ hands, with over 100 fashion brands (from Topshop to Whistles) at the swipe of a finger.
At Christmas 2014 Mallzee was the most searched for app in the UK for 36 hours; Yahoo named it one of the six apps to change shopping forever; and Mallzee ranked in the top 100 apps in 48 countries. Following Cally’s appearance on Dragons’ Den, Mallzee ranked fourth in the App store for 36 hours.
When creating Mallzee, Cally observed the gap for a fashion aggregator app, and like all good leaders, he knew he’d need to rally a team that had the skills that go hand-in-hand with his marketing and PR savvy.
Cally hired a team of 11 (now grown to 16) – fostering a work hard play hard culture, where an understanding of every area of the business is encouraged. The team have developed their knowledge of the fashion and tech industries significantly.
A boss who is always looking for opportunities to help every member his team flourish while having fun along the way, Cally realises the wellbeing of the team is essential to the growth of the company. It’s not uncommon for team meetings to occur over pizza, and for the nerf guns to be broken out after a long evening of coding before a launch.
