Direction A
Your club, looking like a real club, without paying more
A small club gets the look of a real club, inside the kit deal it already signs, at the price it already pays.
This direction drawn against the market as it is today
Swipe the picture sideways to see all of it.
- Big brands via distributors (Joma, Nike, Macron)
- Local sports shop (Deportes Polos type)
- Custom specialists (Aimar, Wade, Panda)
- EKANA todaycheaper than the specialists, no shop of its own
- Direction A
The situation
A small club in Madrid buys kit once a year. The only way it can look like a serious club is to wear a big brand's name on its shirt, at the highest price on the table, because the name does a job the fabric does not. Its own website and badge are years old, run by a volunteer, and nobody sells it a way to fix that it could afford.
What we saw
- A club trades up to a big brand for the name on the shirt, not the fabric. It is the only thing that makes a president feel his club is real.
- An agency would do the same job properly, but it costs more than the club's whole budget and reads as something for companies.
- A website and a season of posts have become cheap to make. Nobody has put them inside a kit deal.
More of what we saw
- That name is sold at a brand's cheapest tier and at the highest price on the table, and clubs pay it anyway.
- Clubs trade down to a specialist for a design of their own and flexible terms, then put up with looking like a small club.
- One person with today's tools builds a club a website and a season of posts in the time an agency spent writing the proposal.
- Every club has heard a kit supplier's pitch. None has seen its own club looking real before being asked to sign.
What we do differently
- Before he signs, we show him his club looking real: his website rebuilt, a season of posts and the kit designed for him.
- All of it sits inside the kit deal, at the price he pays for kit today, and the club is never billed for any of it.
- One set of templates, built once and recoloured per club. The club's own people post from them, without us.
More of what we do differently
- That work costs us hours and nothing else, which is why we can do it before he has agreed to anything.
- The produced sample follows his yes. It is made in Egypt, so it takes weeks, and no money moves until he is holding it.
- One page, already made, that the club can sell to a local business: the business's name goes on the shirt, on the club's website and in its posts all season.
- The club sells that page to a business it already knows, after signing, using our material. The money is the club's, not ours.
- The club's store and family payments come up to what the industry already does. That is catching up, not our difference.
What we stop doing
- We stop bidding the price down to win a club. EKANA is already the cheapest custom supplier on the board and still lost Carabanchel on price, so there is nothing left under us.
- We stop competing with the big brands' name. The club's own badge on a kit designed for it does that job instead.
- We stop carrying the whole catalogue: a handful of pieces made well, and no tracksuits, polos or bags.
More of what we stop doing
- We stop asking for money before the finished thing is in the president's hands.
- We stop promising to beat the brands on delivery. The batch takes what it takes, and we set the date with the club.
The message to the club
Your club will look like a real club, and it will not cost you more than the kit does today.
Who buys
The club president, or whoever signs the kit deal. He is buying the feeling that his club is a serious club, and today the only place he can get it is a big brand's name on the shirt.
Who pays
Families, as today, through the club's store, at the price they pay for kit now; the club keeps its cut. The design work is not billed to the club: it is our cost of winning the deal, built once as templates. A local business that buys the sponsor page pays the club, not us.
The package
Drawn as the club would see it, it is on what we would present to the club. Item by item, it is this.
What is in it
- The kit: the club's own design, fully custom, produced after the club has approved a sample.
- The club's website, rebuilt from our template in the club's colours, with the club store inside it.
- A season of social templates: match-day posts, results and squad announcements in the club's look, that a volunteer fills in on a phone — one before each match, one after, and the set pieces of the season.
- The badge: the club's own badge redrawn properly, the same one and not a new one, so it holds up printed large on a shirt, on the website and on a sign at the ground.
- Nothing paid before it is seen: the website and the kit designs are finished and on the table before the first meeting, and a produced sample of the club's own kit is in the president's hands before any money moves.
- A page the club sells to a local business: the business's name goes on the shirt, on the club's website and in the club's posts all season, and the money it pays goes to the club, not to us.
- The club store: families pay online and the club's cut arrives without anyone chasing it, the same as any other supplier already offers.
What is deliberately not in it
- Running the club's social media for it: we make the templates, the club posts. If we ran ten clubs' channels we would be an agency with one employee, and the club would depend on us for something we cannot sustain.
- Registration and sign-up systems: running a club's enrolment is a permanent service, not a template, and a club could never leave it.
- An assistant on the website that answers members' questions: it would have to stay simple across several clubs' own information at once, and we have not worked out what that takes.
- Faster delivery or single shirts in days: this direction does not change how kit is produced. The batch takes the time it takes, and a replacement mid-season is still a reorder.
- Clothing for the town to wear off the pitch: this deal is about how the club looks, not about selling shirts to people who are not in the squad.
- Selling the sponsor places for the club: we make the page, the president sells it to the businesses he already knows. Door-to-door sales in Spanish is not work three people with full-time jobs can promise.
Which exercise each part of this came from
- The strategy canvas
- EKANA's line sits on the specialists' line, only cheaper: so a big brand's name is the thing to stop chasing, and money back to the club is the one row a small supplier can win.
- The buyer utility map
- Looking good and feeling proud is fought over at the moment of ordering and untouched everywhere else: pride is where the open ground is.
- The three tiers of non-customers
- Clubs treat kit as an obligation and shop for the cheapest deal every season: they need a reason to choose a supplier that is not price.
- The six paths
- An agency sells a club the look it wants and the kit trade stops at the garment; nobody sells both, and one person can now make the look cheaply.