Entrepreneur has ambition to scale heights with e-commerce start-up

A new e-commerce start-up founded by a University of Nottingham graduate says it wants to climb to new heights on the back of this year’s Olympic Games.

Luke Northbrooke, a passionate climber, has set up Dyno with the aim of building a digitally focused business to “disrupt the elite-focussed and digitally poor incumbent options”.

Having only been founded a few months ago, and whilst maintaining a full time position at a Nottingham marketing agency, Dyno is on track to hit £24,000 in sales for its full year.

Northbrooke said: “Indoor climbing alone is currently one of the UK’s fastest growing sports at 15-20% annual growth. We hope that with the inclusion of the sport at this year’s Tokyo Olympics, we are going to see continued growth in the numbers of passionate newcomers we serve”

Dyno says it also intends to build up a portfolio of informative content in the form of guides, blogs and videos. These will be optimised for beginners and newcomers, to help remove some of the complexities in the sport.

Northbrooke added: “Our dream is to build a space for climbers not just to buy everything they need to take up this amazing sport, but to create a community for climbers of all walks of life to come together, share their experiences, and learn all there is to know about climbing.”

He added that it has been forecast that UK consumers will spend £141.33bn online this year, up 34.7% from 2019 – accounting for more than 30% of total retail sales in the UK for the first time. Combined with the increasing popularity of the sport, Northbrooke has aims to grow Dyno into a national brand, centred in Nottingham.

He said: “As someone who only began climbing a couple of years ago, starting the sport as a beginner presented many barriers. Apart from the climbing departments in large outdoor stores and smaller shops at climbing wall facilities, there was very little choice in terms of equipment and advice that would suit a complete beginner – especially online.

“When Covid hit in early 2020, the need for a trustworthy online-focused brand that could impart advice and equipment to beginners became even more apparent. With many of our competitors providing an objectively poor online experience, I set out to create Dyno to fill that gap and help the thriving community of novice to intermediate level climbers.”