We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Rob (Rango) Hutton . We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Rob (Rango) below.

Rob (Rango), thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

Allyness from the word ally is a slang expression used in the British army meaning cool and battlefield savvy. Pronounced as in the word ‘valley’ its history is linked back to the airborne forces from the Aden crisis, since then it has spread to all sections of the military in the UK and around the world.

Originally our company was going to be a publication and we thought of the name allyness magazine.

Rob (Rango), love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

As a ex infantryman and veteran of the war in Afghanistan I found the venture into civilian work a confusing minefield, alas after my tour of duty i could not hold a job for more than a year and i couldn’t understand why? I had rejoined the army and then left a few times before i knew the only option was to start my own business, i toyed with a few general ideas but found my passion for them was not lasting and aged 45 started to question myself on what to do?
I had been running an instagram page since 2016 focusing on my passion for military history, modern soldiering, humour of the army life and the kit that makes military life easier, the inspiration for this was the British army’s soldier magazine of which i found weak as a publication, boring to the average infantryman and seamed to be aimed at a child’s intellect? With this in the background i had returned to the army training young officer cadets and the pandemic hit, being sent home on pay for the duration there was no way i was going to wast my time on box sets and chill so i got to work building the instagram page allyness_magazine into a business.
After weeks of youtube guides on websites, shopifiy and photoshop i had a working base for the business and started to build ALLYNESS.COM
I had offered logo stickers to my instagram followers and started to create other ‘squaddie style’ slaps, this was a cheap way to build products and as most of the world were glued to their phones while the pandemic raged outside the interest grew and the products followed.
T-Shirts and apparel was the next development and then my artwork.
Going way back i had always been interested in graphics, art and photography and went to art college after i left school for a short time.
I never developed this into a career and ended up in the army but i always kept an interest in art and especially art from conflict and war.
One of my favourite artists was the german expressionist Otto Dix who had been in the trenches of World War One and the combat photographer Robert Capa.

There was also another force at work which was the mounting suicides of young veterans that was growing and growing, this was making me very angry as it seamed to be a problem no government could crack and mostly hidden from the general public, if this had been any other demographic there would be a media outcry.
I had argued on social media that the word ‘Battle-shock’ was a better condition than to label the veterans with PTSD and a retreat or a place for them to escape the civilian world was needed for them to talk.
So my aim was to raise the cash to build a suitable retreat.. how would i do it.. build my own business.
Allyness Ltd has now been going for 3 years and we are growing and growing, i have a veterans coffee bar in the studio that is open to any veteran that wants to chat, so the plan is getting there slowly.
Our social media grows internationally and we now have a 20k+ following over several platforms.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

As an ex soldier with a horrific credit history I had to build the business with zero capital and through constant cashflow monitoring. I have been able to use the Paypal working credit loans that are based from shopify sales to push the business forward.

I am now looking for investment to roll the business to the next stage.

How did you build your audience on social media?

The whole business was built from my instagram following. All of our followers are organic and we have never paid for followers.
Building a resilient social media involves creating engaging original content, placing yourself into your industry community, having a genuine interest in others content and the community, promotion of others, starting trends and not following them, revision of content that you have posted while drunk!

Instagram is like writing a book that never ends, you need to give it at least 2 hours fully per day minimum.
go international with it and search your business community in every corner of the globe.

Keep it honest, funny and original.

Contact Info:

• Website: allyness.com
• Instagram: allyness_magazine
• Facebook: allyness.com
• Linkedin: rob (Rango) Hutton
• Twitter: @allynessmag
• Youtube: @allyness8315