Mongoose Cricket

Thomas Evans' passion for cricket equipment began at age 16 when he ran a cricket comparison website so obsessively he was banned from using the internet at school. He worked on farms sanding handmade bats, traveled to India to learn bat-making in Meerut (where 90% of the world's cricket bats are made), and returned to the UK in April 2009. Within a month, he was introduced to Marcus, an advertising expert with deep cricket knowledge who had conceived the Mongoose bat while recovering from a stroke in his hospital bed. Marcus recognized that cricket bats hadn't evolved since the turn of the century, yet the game itself had transformed with the introduction of fast-paced Twenty20 tournaments. "Within a week of our initial meeting, I had moved down to London to work with him," Thomas recalls.

The two worked with a small manufacturer in Cambridgeshire to design the bat, making critical adjustments like repositioning the splice. The bat was initially code-named the 'Albert Trott' bat, then renamed Mongoose because it was "small and ferocious." On May 22, 2009, they launched with a glitzy PR event at Lord's cricket ground. The launch was orchestrated by a PR agency that secured ex-professional cricketers to demonstrate the bat, and the distinctive design against Lord's iconic backdrop generated extraordinary coverage: every British newspaper ran a story, BBC Breakfast featured a 5-minute segment, and Channel 4 news ran 10 minutes of coverage.

The initial e-commerce site was a customized WordPress installation. In the first week post-launch, they sold 24 bats for around £5,000, all handmade to order by Hunts County, a family-owned manufacturer in Huntingdon. Thomas manually emailed Excel spreadsheets daily to coordinate orders and followed up by phone—the manufacturer's knowledge of technology was minimal.

Initial growth relied entirely on PR momentum and brand recognition. But acceptance required proof: professional usage. After raising investment from high-net-worth individuals, they signed cricket players as sponsored ambassadors. The first was Stuart Law, a veteran who played just one non-televised match. They then pursued bigger names, eventually signing 30 players over two years, including England bowler James Anderson and Australian star Matthew Hayden.

The business model centered on player sponsorships. Mongoose produced two bat models (MMi3 and CoR3) in four grades, seven junior sizes, and three adult weight variations—300+ SKUs total. Players were heavily incentivized to use the distinctive MMi3, as their performances would drive brand visibility. For a star batsman in the Indian Premier League's five-week tournament, sponsorship fees reached $100,000—roughly $7,000 per match before they'd even hit a ball. Contract incentives were wildly creative: if a Mongoose player cleared the historic Lord's Pavilion (last done in 1899), they'd receive £250,000 ($350,000) in cash.

In their final season (2011), Mongoose sold over 2,000 bats in the UK for £130,000 in revenue with £55,000 net profit. The brand achieved real market presence, stocked in every major UK cricket retailer from Sports Direct to online specialists. Matthew Hayden's 93-run IPL performance in 2010 using the Mongoose generated viral Twitter moments and a sense of genuine product validation.

But the math didn't work. Player sponsorship became the largest expense, peaking at £200,000 annually across all signings. Then Nike, Adidas, and Reebok entered the market, driving sponsorship costs up further—these multinationals weren't trying to recoup costs through bat sales; they were building brand association and selling trainers. Mongoose couldn't compete.

The Indian market, which should have been transformative, became catastrophic. Despite spending over $130,000 on the IPL sponsorship strategy, they sold fewer than 60 bats across India's 29 fragmented states. Internet penetration was under 10%, making direct-to-consumer unfeasible, and retail distribution was extremely complex. Physical product challenges compounded the problem: 60+ day lead times from Indian manufacturers meant they couldn't capitalize on demand spikes when players performed well. A 1,000-bat order took 45 days to produce, then 30 days to ship from Felixstowe. With 300 SKUs and unpredictable demand, cash flow was perpetually tight. Retailers demanded 90 days payment terms while Mongoose fronted manufacturing costs.

Thomas reflects: "I think it all boils down to the product. I don't think cricket is a sport which adopts innovation well. It's a classic, reserved, classically English game."

Mongoose entered administration but has since been bought out of administration and still exists as a brand, though none of the original team remains involved. Total investment was around $300,000. Thomas moved on to EmailOctopus, an email marketing SaaS platform, where he serves as COO. "Speaking 10 years on, I would have spent more time researching the size of the market and realistically forecasting how big we could be," he notes. Despite the failure, he cherishes the wins: watching one of the world's best players score 93 using their bat, seeing the brand trend on Twitter, and collecting a sports technology innovation award in front of sporting legends—memories no software business has yet replicated.