It started with pop-up stalls selling second-hand sporting goods at student events and has morphed into a £3.5 million-turnover mouthguard business boasting high-profile relationships with movie franchise Marvel and YouTuber KSI.
Safejawz had the humblest of humble beginnings when university friends Ewan Jones and George Dyer were offloading unwanted kit and clothes before deciding to specialise in designing and selling snazzy versions of this otherwise mundane piece of safety equipment.
The pair, both 35, are now firmly embedded in the Black Country, with an 11-strong team based at offices and studios in Aldridge and are hoping to show the world that the humble mouthguard can be fun as well as safe.
Ewan, who grew up in various towns across the UK and is now based in Cheltenham, opted to study criminology at University of Manchester after being inspired by Eddie Murphy's Beverly Hills Cop movies and was planning a career in either the police or legal sector.
He met Erdington native George who was studying business and management and the housemates started to think about teaming up to launch a business after graduating in 2010.
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Speaking exclusively to BusinessLive, Ewan picks up the story.
"It kind of happened slowly. We were selling second-hand sports equipment we would pick up from wholesalers at pop-up events at university and the initial ambition was to have a bricks and mortar sports shop," he said.
"We didn't have the capital for that so we had an online sports shop but we realised we couldn't compete with the likes of Sports Direct so had to be more niche. There were a couple of products we honed in on that were selling quite well - one was whistles and the other was mouthguards.
"Not only was it something a big portion of the population needed to wear for sport but the sector had also been stagnant for so long. They hadn't changed in years - they were uninspiring, boring and had become that product you had to have because you were told to by your coach or mum.
"We really thought we could make it something people actually wanted to wear so that's when we brought out the designs."
To fund development and conduct market research, the duo set up a website called The Mouthguard Shop, selling competitor products in order to learn what customers did and did not like.
They eventually launched their own mouthguards on that site and it became the best seller which told them they were onto a business winner.
Ewan says it took a while to gain traction in the market which he mainly attributes to a lack of capital as the pair have remained staunchly self-funded since day one.
That self-funding came via a string of "side hustles and night jobs" which included George working in bars and on construction sites while Ewan was doing shifts as a pub doorman, on-call firefighter and even a best man for hire.
Safejawz as a standalone business was established in 2014 but a landmark moment came three years later when they were able to ditch the part-time jobs and concentrate on the business full time.
The co-founders called on their own experiences of rugby and boxing to develop the mouthguards, working through 120 different iterations of their chemical compound before landing on the final mix.
Safejawz's designs include bright hues, fangs and gold teeth and yes, they even do a simple, single-colour product and, unlike some brands, the guards can be remoulded which is particularly useful as children grow and their teeth mature.
Earlier this year, they struck the deal of a lifetime when they became an official licensee of movie giant Marvel which enables them to use superhero graphics on their mouthguards such as Spider-Man, Captain America and Hulk.
The tie up is also set to benefit from the forthcoming Deadpool & Wolverine movie which hits UK cinemas in late July.
Ewan explains the relationship started by them chancing their arm and sending a speculative email three years ago but this was met with a response saying they were too small for Marvel to work with them.
"About a year later, we heard from a licensing account manager saying the company was planning to do more in sports and they felt the link made a lot of sense if we still wanted to explore it," Ewan said.
"They sent us a presentation about how it could look - it was an amazing experience to actually be pitched by Disney (Marvel's owner).
"That was about two years ago so it's been a long process with lots of due diligence related to finance, intellectual property and legal but it has now finally gone to market. It's a really exciting thing to see it come to life and they've said we could move into other products with the licence."
Since launching, they have sold more than one million units and can count England rugby player Joe Marler and Birmingham's own mixed martial artist Leon Edwards among their celebrity fans.
But it was a diamond-encrusted piece for YouTuber KSI which really thrust the company into the glare of the national media spotlight.
Prepared for his bout with Love Island star Tommy Fury last October, the mouthguard had more than 100 diamonds, 24-carat gold leaf and the logo of KSI's soft drink brand emblazoned across the front.
All of this time and craftsmanship meant it carried a hefty market value of £40,000, prompting a fair few enquiries from some wealthy individuals about doing their own pieces.
"It's crossed our minds that there could be an elite concierge mouthguard service to add to the business model at some point," Ewan said.
The firm's revenue mix is roughly 40 per cent in the UK, the same for the US and the remaining 20 per cent across the rest of the world - a strong global performance which saw the firm receive a King's Awards for Enterprise in the international trade category earlier this year.
Latest turnover sits at £3.5 million, with predictions of hitting £5.5 million in their next financial results and expectations of topping £10 million over the next couple of years, boosted by a listing with that high street staple Sports Direct.
So what of the future?
Ewan says he feels there is still so much growth potential in the domestic and global mouthguard market that this must remain the company's sole focus rather than chasing customers with a raft of new products.
He concluded: "The licensing route is definitely something we're looking more at now whereas it was never really a thing for us.
"We're open minded to expanding this side of the business but Marvel is going to be a really good test of how that can go.
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