Tim Hayden is the founder and CEO of Hagley West, a watch business that in recent years has experienced exponential growth thanks to the incorporation of modern-day marketing tactics that harness social media as an incredible business growth channel. 
Hayden hasn’t been short of challenges throughout his career, but through perseverance and a positive attitude, he has made his vision a reality. Those life experiences have helped to form the underlying ethos of Hagley West ‘Love Your Journey’. Ultimately this strapline is something that every single person can relate to at some point in their life and has formed the backbone of the company’s marketing strategy. Hayden loves hearing about other people’s life journeys and is still very much on his own adventure with Hagley West.
The business started trading in 2017, and it was re-launched in its current format in 2020. Tim runs Hagley West from his own kitchen in Hertfordshire. He started out with nothing and planned how he could build his brand as a true competitor in the watch industry. He recognised that other businesses were growing through social platforms and researched what worked and what didn’t. His businesses launch then timed perfectly with rise of social media platform TikTok.
Soon, Hayden began to experience a significant increase in his TikTok following and business’ turnover. It wasn’t long before he began to invest more time into his social media content to engage with his audience and market his brand in new ways. Hayden coordinated watch giveaways, live streams, and launched his now famous ‘Find Tim’ challenges to maximise his output on the platform and grow his brand awareness. The strategy proved to be a great success as he saw a significant rise in followers, going from zero base to more than one million followers in just two years.
As more and more people became inspired by the ‘Love Your Journey’ messaging, Hayden decided to launch dedicated product ranges to honour people with inspirational stories. An example of this is his 2021 ‘Inspirational Women’ range which celebrated the journeys of five incredible women, each with a unique story to tell. Hayden explains “Their remarkable stories uphold the ethos of our brand, focusing on gratitude, joy, happiness and the love of the journey.”
The 52-year-old has always been extremely engaged with his audience, continuously encouraging them to ‘Love Your Journey’, and it has proven to resonate with millions of people across the world who’ve chosen to wear Hagley West watches on their wrists and follow Tim on social media as he travels the world interacting with his audience. Thanks to an ongoing partnership with South African cricket legend Jean-Paul Duminy, Hagley West has also caught the attention of high-profile cricketers including West Indies legend Chris Gayle. All of this has helped further raise the profile of the brand and support Hayden on his entrepreneurial journey.
Hayden adds: “It’s been an incredible couple of years for me. Not just because of the business’ success, but I’d say even more so because of the incredible reception I’ve had on social media. To be able to interact with so many people from around the world and even visit them, gift them my products, and hear their stories, is something I could never have envisioned being possible.
“We’re looking forward to making 2023 another record-breaking year for Hagley West with even more exciting projects and even more opportunities to give back to the incredible people supporting our story”. 
Hayden has started the year with a trip to South Africa which included the first ‘Find Tim’ of the year. In February he is relocating to America for more than six weeks where he’ll be taking on the biggest expansion of his business yet, streaming new challenges across his platforms for millions of people to interact with.
The next stage of Tim Hayden’s entrepreneurial journey is as yet unwritten, but you can be sure he’ll be loving it.
For more information on Hagley West, visit www.hagleywest.com or follow founder, Tim Hayden on TikTok @timhayden6.
