Meet the former Man City player who is trying to build the biggest female football brand in the world
NATWEST HELPED GRACE VELLA SECURE £150K OF FUNDING AFTER SHE STARTED MISS KICK FROM A POP-UP STALL AGED 21
GRACE Vella had faced setbacks before.
All she ever wanted to do was play football and aged 17 signed for Man City. She played with the likes of Toni Duggan and Nikita Parris, who are all now in the Lioness team.
But a year later her dreams were dashed when she was released. A life away from football beckoned and she decided to concentrate on a psychology degree at the University of Manchester.
As Grace entered her third year she began to wonder if there was still a future for her within the game. So in 2018, aged 21, she designed dozens of t-shirts and sold them from a small stall at a football tournament.
And so Miss Kick was born and with it a fierce entrepreneurial spirit. This meant that when the second setback came Grace was well prepared.
Although the following 12 months were successful, Grace realised that she had hit a wall. She had never run a business before and did not have any money to take it further.
This was until NatWest stepped in. Grace joined the bank’s Accelerator programme in Manchester which eventually helped her secure £150,000 to take Miss Kick further.
Now the 24-year-old is looking to a brighter future thanks to the bank. She has a bunch of new products in the pipeline and is even donating a percentage of Miss Kick sales to support grassroots football through the Miss Kick Foundation.
We spoke to Grace about her plans to build the biggest female football brand in the world and the support she has received from NatWest’s Female Entrepreneurship Fund.
PUTTING HER BEST FOOT FORWARD
Grace is from a family of football fans, and
growing up she felt that her gender held her back in the beautiful game.
She said: “I grew up in Skelmersdale. When I was younger football was my passion, it was just what I loved to do and I grew up playing for my local team.
“When I was 13 I was fortunate enough to sign up for Liverpool, and I stayed at the Liverpool Academy for five years and then was signed for Manchester City at 17.
“I played the reserves team there and got to play with the likes of Toni Duggan and Nikita Parris, who are all now in the Lioness team.
“That’s what I thought I was going to do.”
GETTING BACK INTO THE GAME
At 18, Grace was heartbroken to find out that she had been released. Football took a bit of a backseat while she concentrated on her psychology degree at the University of Manchester.
During her third year, volunteering for a homeless charity helped her rebuild her confidence and she started to think of how she could still follow her heart in women’s football.
Grace said: “I think my confidence has been knocked through the whole up and down of football, but I was inspired to come up with something different.
“My idea for this brand was born out of the fact that my best memories were of football but I always felt like being a girl disadvantaged me. The way that people treated me as a girl was different.
“When I was playing, we would be put on the worst pitches on the field. We’d turn up to these amazing complexes and for some reason we were put on the one in the corner that wasn’t watered. It was just little things like that.”
Grace felt like she had to bring awareness to the inequality in her favourite sport and also saw that there wasn’t a football sports brand for women, so Miss Kick was born.
MISS KICK TEAMS UP WITH NATWEST
Miss Kick’s first launch saw 170 t-shirts sold at a female football tournament held by Grace’s dad.
Grace said: “It was very basic at the start because I didn’t have any graphics experience. There were slogans like ‘Girls Score Goals’ and ‘They’re not just my friends, they’re my Squad’.
“They were graphic slogans that looked to challenge the way people saw women’s football. They seemed to really resonate with the girls.
“I spent 12 months just really trying to see where I could get it, but I realised that I didn’t have any money to take it further and I had never run a business before. I needed extra support so
I joined the NatWest accelerator in Manchester.
“Women’s football at the time was growing, so it was the right time for the brand. NatWest helped me with free support and a free office space.
“They helped my put my pitch deck together and prepared me to go to meetings and I got help with my cash flow forecast. All this prepared me for fundraising for Miss Kick.
“I think it was just my passion and my enthusiasm that people bought into and they really believed in what we were doing with Miss Kick. It took about 12 months to get everything signed off, but now I have an incredible team of investors and we’ve managed to raise £150,000.
“NatWest really helped me in breaking down that initial wall and the accelerator taught me a lot of the fundamentals. It’s definitely forced me to grow as a person.”
MISS KICK FOUNDATION LEVELLING THE PLAYING FIELD
Through lockdown, Miss Kick has rebranded and now has a bunch of new products in the pipeline. Grace has faced some animosity but will not let this be a deterrent from achieving her dreams.
She said: “We’ve had comments from people online like ‘get back in the kitchen and stuff like that. It isn’t nice, but if anything, it fuels my ambition to prove them wrong.
“It’s not just us though, it’s not just the female thing - there is discrimination across the board, racial discrimination and gender discrimination. It is getting a bit better, but we’ve still got a long way to go.
“One thing that we have found quite amazing is that we’ve been able to connect with girls who are from all over the world. Through football and through the brand [Miss Kick] we’ve seen girls connecting.
“Like a girl from Singapore and a girl from the UK in our community have become pen pals just through Miss Kick and it’s so cool.”
Alongside Miss Kick, Grace has created the Miss Kick Foundation which gives a percentage of Miss Kick sales to support grassroots football. The social enterprise aims to inspire more girls to get into sport, and during lockdown has donated footballs and hosted free online football sessions.
Understandably entrepreneur Grace has some words to give those who are wanting to break out in the world of business.
She said: “I know it sounds dead cliché, but I always say to people to follow their passion and what they like to do. Also, if things don’t work out there is always other options.
“You have to stay open-minded to different possibilities. Like me with my football career, I felt like my world was going to end but I couldn’t be happier than how I am now.
Just follow your passion.”
FEMALE ENTREPRENEURSHIP FUNDING
The Alison Rose Review into Female Entrepreneurship (the Rose Review), first published in March 2019, demonstrated that up to £250bn of new value could be added to the UK economy if women started and scaled new businesses at the same rate as UK men. This is equivalent to one million SME businesses.
The pandemic has compounded the difficulties and expanded the obstacles faced by many women in starting, continuing and scaling their business.
Recent research by NatWest found that nearly three-quarters
(77 per cent) of female business owners found managing their business in the pandemic stressful, compared to
55 per cent of male entrepreneurs. Women are also 17 per cent more likely than men to struggle balancing business demands with family life.
In response to these figures, NatWest launched its female entrepreneurship fund in January last year to assist women in taking their first steps in the world of business. On January 28 this year it was announced that an additional £1bn would be added to the already existing fund to bring the total amount of funding to £2bn.
The Rose Review suggested eight initiatives that the private sector (and parts of the public sector) could take forward. Two years on significant progress has been made in several key areas including investment perceptions.
Investor attitudes play a crucial role in unlocking capital for women owners. The Council for Investing in Female Entrepreneurs brings together leading investment firms and institutions to tackle barriers.
Its three working groups have this year published best practice guidelines for Venture Capital firms (VCs), launched the Invest in Women digital advice hub and are developing guidelines for Limited Partners (LPs) and General Partners (GPs).
You can follow Miss Kick on Instagram and Facebook with @misskick and visit the website at www.misskick.com.
To find out more about NatWest’s business support and funds, including the Female Entrepreneurship Fund, visit the bank’s website at www.natwestgroup.com.