Optometrist-led great British designs

What makes Cambridge Spectacle Co. unique?

We're an optometrist-led great British eyewear brand. We have a passion for expertise and we put that into our brand and our frames, whilst also keeping a focus on design and style. The brand was founded out of an ‘aha’ moment, when a patient said: “Why do I have to buy glasses which are expensive and fashion-focused, or go online where they are cheap and break? There has to be a middle ground.” I thought we could create that brand. We focus on building trust with patients at a fair price. That’s why we are so heavily-focused on the expertise that comes from being optometrist-led.

What has been the latest collection you released and what makes it stand out?

Our brand has always been inspired by the city of Cambridge. Each frame has the name of a location or a road that we have taken inspiration from, but there will also be something about the frame that relates to the location.

For example, ‘Varsity,’ was named after a student building in Cambridge. There is a classic, serious element to it, but then because it's a student house, it is also quite fun so it has clear fronts and quirky sides.

We are a really new brand, founded just over a year ago, so the frames we have available at the moment have been very carefully selected and we’re going to stick with those for now because we’ve tested them, we’re happy with them and have had great feedback.

We will be releasing more in the collection to give our customers a bit more choice. We’re working on that now and it’s been a lot of fun.

We focus on building trust with patients at a fair price. That’s why we are so heavily-focused on the expertise that comes from being optometrist-led

How is your expertise as optometrists built into the frames?

When we have seen customers looking at a frame – holding them and pulling them – we thought they should have either really great quality joints, or good quality spring hinges. Although they shouldn't, we expect some customers will take their spectacles off with one hand sometimes. We tell them not to, but it's going to happen. If you look at our current collection, all of them will have those hinges. In fact, at the beginning some of the frames didn’t and we went back to the manufacturer and asked for them to be put in.

The second thing is the materials. We knew it wasn’t going to be right for the brand to go for cheaper plastics, so we considered the material needed to keep the frames as durable as possible. Even though it's slightly more expensive, we looked at acetate because we want people to trust the brand.

How has the company developed in just over a year?

I can only describe the journey so far as supercharged. My brother is a co-founder on the project. When I, as an optometrist, needed business experience, it just so happened that he completed an MBA from Cambridge. We don’t look at this like any other optometry company, because we’re approaching this from the point of view of: ‘what would a fast-paced start-up do?’ We take inspiration from London and Silicon Valley start-ups. We’ve been really lucky and have grown fast.

We’re proud to announce that we have done a deal to supply Asda Opticians. I feel it is quite game-changing for both of us. They've been incredible, and when they looked at our brand they believed in our vision. They offer really great quality at really fair prices, so we fit in well with that part of their strategy. We're going nationwide in quarter one next year, which is incredible for us, and off the back of that we've received more investment.

Looking forward, I think our journey is only going to go even faster and we're ready for that. We've just opened a new operations HQ in Birmingham. We want to be able to supply the whole nation and we're in the heart of England here.

What external factors and considerations will you be observing as a company?

In terms of external factors, there are not just market trends. Everybody has to consider the fact that we're going into recession and we're about to have a new prime minister, so we’re keeping an eye on those things, and we're also looking at the cost of living problems. It’s a case of, are raw materials going to increase? What we really don't want to do is make a sharp increase in prices. We want to keep our spectacles at a fair price and I think that is important now, more than ever. But we also need to make sure that our costs are reasonable, and there is enough margin for us to keep the price low. We just have to watch and analyse as things go.

When the market gets better, we think we'll be ready for it. Probably more ready than any of the other companies out there, because we started during the pandemic so we’re somewhat used to this.

What is next for the development of the brand?

As a company we’re focused on growth and getting our product out there so I think you'll see a lot more coming in that respect. We're expecting more people to visit the website and we want to make sure that they see the brand as one that they want to be part of. Having worked as an optician for 10 years, and then being a CEO, I feel that there is a need for this brand out there, and we feel we can build a great community around it of people who are passionate about their vision, but believe in our social aims as well.

We’re partnered with a research-based charity, St Paul’s Eye Research Foundation. A lot of customer feedback has been that they love what we’re doing in terms of giving back. We want our community to be part of that and realise that when they're with Cambridge Spectacle Co, they're giving back to the community. 

We're really inspired by a chap called Ben Francis, who is the founder and CEO of GymShark. I feel that if you're someone who has a passion in what you do, you're going to create a good company. I've been really lucky in that we built this brand, and we just took off. I think that luck is part of the fact that we had a passion in what we were doing. We had a passion to get great quality eye care out there, being optometrists, and we also had a passion to help the community, because we saw the impact of sight loss. That’s been a great driver for us.

I feel that there is a need for this brand out there, and we feel we can build a great community around it of people who are passionate about their vision, but believe in our social aims as well

What are your main short and long-term goals?

In the short-term, we are speaking to big optical groups and think that we'll be able to close new partnerships in the next year.

In the long-term, there is an ambition to make this not just a global British eyewear brand – we want it to be ‘the’ global British eyewear brand. When you think of eyewear brands in America, you might think Ray Ban and Oakley, for Scandinavian brands, you might think of Lindberg. When people think British, we want them to think Cambridge Spectacle Co.

At the same time, we always want to be committed to research. The reason we chose St Paul's is that they are not just going to invest in the biological side, but into the mental health of people with sight loss. As an optician, when you’re doing an eye test that person might talk to you about their sight loss, or their family and friends’ sight loss, and they can start getting really emotional. You know that people are facing the effects. So when the foundation told us they were investigating that social impact, that was really important to us and we always want to support charities in that.

I think this partnership will help to engage more people in eye health and sight loss, because we can see through our website analytics that so many of the people coming on to look at the glasses, also click on our dedicated research tab. It really does help build awareness and we want to have that at our core because we never want to forget that we were optometrists and that's how we were founded.