The spring term has seen the arrival of the Divisions’ new Tycoon team, REVIVE, which is hoping to follow in the footsteps of the previous Taylors’ Tycoon teams and reach the national final of this competition, run by the Peter Jones Foundation (PJF).
Writes Shaurjesh B. (Divs)
Hi, I’m Shaurjesh. I want to take you behind the scenes of what it’s really like to build a brand from scratch for the Peter Jones Foundation Tycoon competition. Our team is called REVIVE and we sell kits to help tackle the problem of dirty footwear.
The journey to where we are now looked nothing like we might have expected on Day One. When we first started brainstorming, we weren’t thinking about shoes at all! In fact, we were buried in blueprints for tech – specifically, heavy-duty power cables and modular power banks. We spent weeks obsessing over circuit boards and charging speeds, convinced that electronics were our path forward. But as we got deeper into the process, we realised we were just trying to join an oversaturated market of plastic gadgets. Instead, we wanted to build something tactile, something high-quality, and something we could actually engineer ourselves from the ground up. That’s when we took a massive risk and pivoted.
We looked at a problem everyone has – dirty footwear – and decided to apply an engineering mindset to shoe care. We realized that when you clean a pair of shoes, you aren’t just removing dirt; you’re extending the life of an investment. That was the birth of REVIVE.
At the heart of our brand is our custom-engineered REVIVE Shoe Scraper, designed and made by us in-house for people who actually care about their gear. Creating this was where the real work started: dozens of hours using CAD (Computer-Aided Design) software in Digital Prototyping, iterating on the geometry to get the challenging ergonomics right, obsessing over the angles to ensure the scraper could reach into those awkward sole grooves without damaging the more delicate upper materials of the shoe. After this, we went through a rigorous development process, including physical testing, where we moved from digital models to physical prototypes, testing different edge tensions. We were looking for that balance of tough enough to tackle dried mud and grit, but precise enough to be used on premium leather or suede.
After perfecting our scraper, we realized that different lifestyles require different tools. This led us to curate two distinct REVIVE Bundles, ensuring that whether you’re in the office or on the trail, your footwear stays in peak condition. Our Shoe Bundle is the ultimate everyday kit, featuring high-quality wax polishes, and a specialized water-reservoir brush for a deep clean. For those who push their gear to the limit, we developed the Sports & Outdoor Bundle, which swaps in a more aggressive sports scraper and a heavy-duty picking brush designed to handle the toughest outdoor grime. Every bundle is housed in a durable REVIVE bag with a utility carabiner and a microfiber cloth, offering a professional-grade restoration system delivering a lifetime of value to your wardrobe.
What I’m most proud of is that REVIVE isn’t just a middleman business – we wanted to be creators and we have achieved that. We have created a product and a small business and have been selling successfully at school and beyond, including at the Prep, since the start of March.
The biggest takeaway for me and the rest of the REVIVE team hasn’t just been about managing a budget or hitting sales targets. It was the realisation that your first idea is rarely your best one. If we had stayed stubborn and stuck with power cables, we never would have discovered the satisfaction of creating a physical product from scratch. Tycoon taught us to listen to the market, trust our design instincts, and never be afraid to scrap a “safe” idea in favour of a great one. We’ve come a long way from those first messy sketches of charging ports. Today, REVIVE stands for quality, engineering, and the belief that if something is worth wearing, it’s worth looking after.
If you want to make sure that you are looking after your footwear, there are two ways to buy your REVIVE products. The team will be selling at the home Cricket fixtures against Whitgift School at Taylors’ on Saturday 25th April or alternatively, you can order your REVIVE kits using the form below.
Please note that stock is limited and fulfilment of orders will be on a first come, first served basis until we are sold out. Payment must be made on collection by 2.30pm on Monday 27th April at the latest.
