'It's been an unbelievable journey' from KSI to Marvel – gum shield start-up business celebrates success

The two Walsall-born businessmen had the idea of starting a business that re-sold refurbished sports gear, soon seeing a gap in the market in fun and attractive mouthguards.

After spending months developing their first mouth guard, the duo rose to fame by making personalised and custom gum shields for a mixed range of sports and celebrities, including the most expensive gum shield ever made for star YouTuber KSI.

Now, Ewan and George have shared their story of starting from their Manchester bedroom to opening their warehouse facility in Birch Lane Business Park, Walsall.

Ewan said: "It's been a journey. We don't actually know when we first had this idea.

"We just always knew that we wanted to start something like this. We always had these chats about ideas about doing something like this.

"We had the idea to sell sports gear and then that turned to developing unique gum shields. We noticed that there was a gap in the market there."

Ewan and George started developing the businesses from their bedroom in Manchester before raising enough money to buy a unit in Walsall when they moved back to their hometown.

Ewan said: "It was hard. It was like every new business. We decided early on that we would focus on making a steady stream of income instead of going hard.

"I think what we focused on was making a stable revenue.

"We looked at it like a weight-loss routine, you can either lose weight fast and most likely fail in the long run, or take it slow and really build something stable that will last."

The group shot to fame after being commissioned to create a $40,000 diamond-encrusted 'Prime' mouthguard for YouTube personality, boxer and businessman, KSI, that featured 108 high-clarity gems.

Talking about the mouthguard, Ewan said: "This was in last year, we actually took part in making the world's most expensive mouthguard, which was for KSI.

"We had been making gum shields for KSI for a long time, but we were fitting his mouth guard and we ran this idea past him and he was hesitant at first, saying that he wasn't sure, but his managing team was all for it, so we got the go ahead."

The mouthguard was painstakingly designed and created by Safejawz, who spent weeks developing the mouthguard, inserting each diamond by hand and painting KSI's name in goldleaf.

KSI went on to use the gum shield in a number of promotions, including his bout in 2023 with cruiserweight British fighter Tommy Fury.

During the promotion stage of the fight, KSI could be seen standing next to a Lamborgini wearing the gum shield, with his reaction featuring in Ladbible, TalkSport and SportsBible.

Ewan added: "He actually used it a lot as a promotional tool. He wore it when he did the Lamborghini stunt. We actually paid for it as well, which is fantastic, especially with all the positive press we got.

"We actually had our 10 minutes of fame that day, it was everywhere, Ladbible and that, it was an amazing project and it's things like that that put us apart from the competition."

George and Ewan said that their next steps include utilising and forming new business partnerships, including their newest project with Marvel, which saw a new line of Marvel inspired gumshields hit the market featuring the offical logos of each superhero.

George said: "We actually recently got on the shelves with Sports Direct, which is a huge deal for us, they are the UK's biggest sports retailer so we are really excited about getting that going. We also launched our Marvel partnership range. Which has been very popular.

"Our plans now are just to keep that moment going. We really don't see ourselves slowing down anytime soon, we just have to keep going and going."

The latest range can be found in Sports Direct, Amazon, and various other dedicated sports shops.