The journey to entrepreneurship differs for each individual. Some entrepreneurs are taught, others have a natural knack for it, while it is an necessity for some. For Luxury brand owner Chris Jenkins, entrepreneurship has been a natural part of his life from an early age.
The 12-year-old Website Developer
“My entrepreneurial journey began when I was 12 years old. My dad took an evening class on website design, and when working at home on his coursework, I used to sit behind him and watch what he was doing.”
After watching him for a few weeks, he decided he wanted to make his own website, so his first real business was born.
Chris shared how his gaming website quickly gained traction and started to entertain thousands of visitors daily. He started to host advertisements for casinos and other companies who would contact him regarding placing these ads. “I remember a time when I was 13 years old, I got home from school and the house phone rang, and my Mum shouted to me upstairs saying it was for me. It was a casino in Gibraltar that wanted to discuss buying ads. Other days it would be casinos in Israel or media companies in the U.S. I still to this day wonder if these companies knew they were dealing with a 13-year-old.”
As time passed and Chris got older, he eventually got caught in the rigors of an everyday 9-5 with dreams of making “big money” as a telephone engineer for a large UK company. Unfortunately, his dream was never realized, and neither was his talent.
eCommerce and Dropshipping Giant
“After a total of 7 years of working as a telephone engineer, I was fed up and had nowhere to go – zero opportunity to progress, zero recognition of my talent anymore, my future seemed pretty bleak.”
He eventually tried to explore his desire to become an entrepreneur moving to Dubai, where he worked in real estate temporarily, then did dropshipping and website creation from Thailand, Bali, and Vietnam. His stint with website creation was successful, but he really struck gold with eCommerce after being officially introduced to the industry by an acquaintance named David. David had been making huge sums daily and had financial freedom with the ability to work from anywhere in the world.
“I still, however, couldn’t shake off the idea of doing eCommerce after seeing how well David was doing. He was driving around in a new Range Rover, had a warehouse in the UK, and regularly flew between Bali and the UK like he was getting the bus. All of this from eCommerce.”
After trying his hand at eCommerce, Chris found the right formula and has since sold thousands of products worldwide. “Cutting to the present day, I’ve now had the chance to continue this lifestyle and spend time in Mexico, Colombia, Australia, Dubai, and also my time-tested favorite of Bali multiple times. I’ve sold hundreds of thousands of products across the world and been fortunate enough to do it all remotely from my laptop wherever in the world takes my fancy.”
Birth of Giovvani
In 2020, after seeing a significant change in the eCommerce and dropshipping industry, Chris decided it was time to focus on building something long-term. This is how Giovvani was born.
“During my travels, I needed some casual trainers or sneakers but found it incredibly difficult to get anything which wasn’t covered in excessive designs and branding. This led me to spend lockdown of 2020 designing the shoes and developing relationships with suppliers which can meet the high-quality standards I’ve set for the product.”
Giovvani is a luxury sneaker brand with a focus on clean, luxury and minimally designed shoes for those with high taste.
“Throughout my journey in eCommerce, I have always been involved in men’s and women’s fashion, so this feel likes a natural progression within my field of experience and is also something I am very passionate about.”
All shoes are hand-made and thoroughly quality checked to ensure they meet stringent requirements. The brand sells purely online through the Giovvani website.This enables them to focus on quality design and materials. Another advantage of this is that customers are able to save since they are getting the shoes straight from the source.
Chris has high hopes and intentions of building Giovvani into a successful brand.
“Whilst I still own and operate some dropshipping stores, I am now focused on growing Giovvani into a well-known global brand with a reputation for product excellence.
He encourages other entrepreneurs to build resilience as they navigate business success. “If you start something, you will likely fail, and then probably fail again, but you only truly fail when you quit, and you must understand that if you continue to keep moving forward, it is inevitable that you will be successful eventually. The only thing that separates the winners from the losers is who has the grit and persistence to keep on going.”
