Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Speaker A: All right, welcome, everyone, to the Onion podcast. I'm anaise, head of online community at Codebase, and today we're pulling back the layers. That's the thing we're doing at the onion with Ailey Mooch. Mooch.
[00:00:21] Speaker B: We went through how to pronounce my last name, and I knew if I said Mooc, you say that would get in your head.
[00:00:27] Speaker A: That's okay, Angela. Your business is your think. Yeah, that's a good one as well. Thank you for that. Thank you so much for joining us today.
So we met in San Francisco in February. Yes. And we are now back in Edinburgh, sadly.
[00:00:48] Speaker B: So that's nice.
[00:00:49] Speaker A: Exactly.
Which is better than what the San Francisco weather was for, I think we.
[00:00:54] Speaker B: Had, like, two really sunny days when I was there. I think the weather seemed like it got better when I left, which was.
[00:01:00] Speaker C: The sad part, I think.
[00:01:01] Speaker A: Yeah, you may have taken the rain back with you to Scotland. Thank you very much.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: We appreciate it.
[00:01:09] Speaker A: So, before San Francisco, in San. San Francisco, what do you do? Can you tell us a bit more about your background and what you do with your spin?
[00:01:18] Speaker B: Yeah, of course. So I set up your spin. At the very end of 2021, I graduated university, I went to uni and studied business management in Dundee. I loved uni more just, I loved the socializing, going out and drinking. It was great, but it was COVID disrupted. So in third year, I had to go home, move back home for a bit. And then fourth year, it was still kind of.
[00:01:45] Speaker C: Everything was up in the Edinburgh.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: Edinburgh's home. Been in Edinburgh pretty much all my life, apart from a couple years in Dundee. Love Edinburgh.
So because of COVID everything was kind of shut down, as you know. And to help combat that and make sure I wasn't going insane, me and my friends started playing a lot of games, and gamification was like a growing trend at the time. So we started doing a lot of online Zoom calls and doing quizzes like everyone was doing. And then when I went back to Dundee, we created our own fun in flats. So we had our games, nights and things like that, and we found that even when hospitality started to reopen, we were choosing to stay in and play those games and drinking games, things like that. And it was more fun than going out at the time because hospitality was really struggling. Everything was closing down.
It had a lot of rules and regulations, so we stayed in for half the price and had more fun.
[00:02:51] Speaker A: Sounds like a winner to me.
[00:02:52] Speaker B: It was.
I graduated from uni and I kind of funded my university through working in hospitality. I came back home and continued to work in hospitality. All my friends went down the grad job route, which as soon as I saw those applications, I thought, no way.
I've never been very good at academic work.
I'm quite badly dyslexic. So working in hospitality was a good shout before I decided what I wanted to do.
Business has always been something that I'm really passionate about and my dad actually set up a business when I was young and I watched him grow that.
[00:03:33] Speaker C: And exit that, so that's always been.
[00:03:35] Speaker B: A big inspiration for me.
[00:03:38] Speaker A: What was the business, if you don't mind me asking?
[00:03:40] Speaker B: It was a business called Raquela, which was a spin off off of Oracle. So he worked at Oracle for a few years and then did a lot of spin off.
[00:03:48] Speaker C: Oracle is actually an anagram of Oracle.
[00:03:55] Speaker B: Yeah, they did quite well. He worked on that for about ten years and then exit. And actually the downstairs of our house was their office.
[00:04:04] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:04:04] Speaker B: Literally, I would go down to school in the mornings and everyone would be working in the office. I remember at night I'd sneak downstairs and there was like, a big boardroom.
[00:04:15] Speaker C: And I would just play, like, pretending.
[00:04:17] Speaker B: I was the CEO when I was probably about six. So it's really just, like, come from there.
[00:04:22] Speaker A: It all makes sense now. Yeah, all makes sense.
[00:04:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
Nice.
[00:04:27] Speaker A: Yeah. We've got nothing on the sequin Valley houses in Edinburgh. It's happening as well.
[00:04:32] Speaker B: Yeah, it was very cool. It was great for sleepovers when I was very young because we had a projector, all the movies were on that in the boardroom. It was fun.
[00:04:42] Speaker A: That sounds like the dream.
[00:04:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:45] Speaker A: You're the best friends you have. You had a projector growing up?
[00:04:48] Speaker B: We had, like, the spinny chairs. Yeah.
[00:04:53] Speaker A: Even as a no longer kid, I still love that.
[00:04:56] Speaker B: That's so fun.
So that's kind of the inspiration behind it. And then I was working in hospitality post uni, post graduation, and I saw.
[00:05:06] Speaker C: This gap in the market where everywhere.
[00:05:09] Speaker B: Was closing down, all the pubs, everywhere you'd walk, they'd have staff wanted signs. No one wants to work in hospitality. And I thought, there must be a way that we can gamify it and add more fun and enjoyment and entertainment to hospitality in an easy way. So I kind of came up with this idea. I pitched it to a few people and then two and a bit years down the line, I'm here. Yay.
[00:05:35] Speaker A: Exciting.
So, yes, you separately scored your spin and what's your elevator pitch?
[00:05:43] Speaker B: Love it. So at your spin, primarily, we work with drink brands in hospitality sectors. And our USP is gamification and instant gratification. So our software allows brands to get.
[00:05:58] Speaker C: Closer to consumers by really helping them.
[00:06:02] Speaker B: To increase their sales, but closer to their consumers by offering them this game and the chance to win free things. But it gives them a platform where they can showcase their product and tell their story through this technology. And then really we use this game to collect data on consumers that we're able to give back to the drinks industry and so they can get closer to their customers, because really, the drinks brands, they know how many units they're selling in each outlet. Even that information can sometimes take up to three months for them to get back. Our thing is that we want to show them that we can get closer to their consumers. They can learn about them, they can collect as much data as they need without going too far in an instant way, so we can give them real time data. We don't have to wait three months to get it. They can get it there and then so we can work faster.
[00:06:56] Speaker A: That sounds bit mind blowing, the fact that people, or in my brain, are not able to get their data straight away.
[00:07:03] Speaker B: Yeah, it was quite a mind blow for me as well. Some of these biggest brands that they have to wait so long.
[00:07:11] Speaker C: Also, I'm sure it's frustrating for them.
[00:07:13] Speaker B: Because it's definitely been frustrating for us. If we go into a new venue, we're trying to see if we've increased sales, but we'll have to wait months until we get that data back.
[00:07:21] Speaker A: Yeah, kind of high turnover as well. Even the employees or the staff doesn't know the impact that they've had.
[00:07:28] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:07:28] Speaker A: All right, that's really interesting to hear. And I'd be curious to know, how does your startup change the world? You speak so passionately about the industry. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on that.
[00:07:41] Speaker B: Yeah, a good question.
[00:07:43] Speaker C: I think there's kind of three parts to this.
[00:07:46] Speaker B: The main one is I'd like to.
[00:07:49] Speaker C: Change the way that we have a.
[00:07:52] Speaker B: Relationship with brands in venues. I think the best time I've ever tried a new product is when either the staff will upsell something, which I don't know about you, but it hardly ever really happens when you go into a venue and you say, what do you recommend?
[00:08:09] Speaker C: I have.
[00:08:10] Speaker B: So it's great when someone's actually selling it to you, which is actually what I found was great in America. I think the people who work in north south are great over there. So.
[00:08:21] Speaker A: Culture, maybe, but there's something in.
[00:08:23] Speaker B: The UK, something in that. Yeah, probably something or there is like an experiential thing. So I don't know if you've done the Johnny Walker experience in that. Not yet.
[00:08:32] Speaker A: It's on my list. I know you recommended coming from you, I was definitely considering going and seeing next time. I've got some friends in town, I.
[00:08:40] Speaker B: Think because like doing that and the Guinness experience, they were two products that I didn't enjoy before. So I never liked the Guinness and I didn't like Johnny Walker whiskey. But going to these experiences and getting sold the vision and the brand and where it came from was just so nice and you kind of learned to like it.
Experiences are what really sells. So it's how we can do that in a scalable way, that's what I want to create. So if there's a game that entices you and teaches you about that brand and encourages you to try them and get closer to them on a different level, that's why I want to change in venues and then also the data side of it. So how can we actually learn about our consumers?
[00:09:23] Speaker C: But not in a preachy way, I.
[00:09:26] Speaker B: Mean, like most loyalty schemes. So when you sign up for a brand or something, you're just bombarded with emails. It's not actually something that you want personally. And if there's a way we can learn about consumers in a way that they're also going to be a winner, that's what we want to create. So we want everyone to be a.
[00:09:43] Speaker C: Winner, from the bar staff to the.
[00:09:46] Speaker B: Consumer to the brand. If everyone wins something in us, that's the way that we should go forward.
[00:09:52] Speaker A: Yeah, makes a lot of sense, I.
[00:09:54] Speaker C: Think from my point of view. It's also kind of consumer sort of.
[00:10:00] Speaker A: Taking back ownership on the experience, on the idea of having fun in a venue and being supported in that by the staff and by the venue itself and trying to just make a nice experience for everyone.
[00:10:11] Speaker B: Yeah. It shouldn't completely change your whole experience when you're out in venue. It's a really quick game and it's been designed to do that.
[00:10:17] Speaker C: But if it's something that will, you'll think back and think like, I won.
[00:10:23] Speaker B: This at this venue, I'm currently showing one of the prizes I won.
You think back to a fun time that you had at that venue and just if we can create more experiences like that and more memories for the brand and for the venues, then we're onto something.
[00:10:41] Speaker A: Can you actually maybe walk us through one of the experiences that you've designed with a brand and how that was delivered and describe us a bit more about it so the listeners can have a better idea.
[00:10:54] Speaker B: One story, actually, I love to tell. So we go into each venue and we can do this remotely. We can do it in person. It depends on the brand.
[00:11:03] Speaker A: By venue, do you mean kind of a bar, restaurant or hotel? Can be any of those.
[00:11:07] Speaker B: So it could be any of those. We've done kind of family style restaurants. We've done pubs. Definitely works best with pubs.
Hotels we've never tried before. It could possibly work, but we're trying to kind of nail the pub market currently. Focus on what quite big money, one area.
[00:11:27] Speaker A: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I think a lot of entrepreneurs tend to focus on lots of market. It grows arms and legs. There's a lot of value in the earlier stage on kind of focusing and becoming kind of getting to know your one customer for sure.
[00:11:40] Speaker B: Yeah. So one activation we were doing was with Brewdog. We went into a venue and we.
[00:11:49] Speaker C: Give every venue id card, and each id card is paired with an employee.
[00:11:56] Speaker B: So you'll get your own unique id card. And we teach them to upsell the product that we're linked to. So at the time when we were working with Brewdog, it was punk IPA. So every time someone goes up and they order a punk IPA, they get to play the game. If they didn't go up and order punk IPA, the staff would be like, oh, by the way, we're doing this promotional deal that you can play a game every time you win to see.
[00:12:19] Speaker C: If we get an upsell.
[00:12:21] Speaker B: So the staff were really on board with this, especially because the winner.
[00:12:25] Speaker C: So the staff member, at the end.
[00:12:27] Speaker B: Of the activation period, which tends to be four weeks, the venue staff winner, who got the most scans, won a night stay at one of the Brewdog hotels.
[00:12:36] Speaker C: Oh, nice.
[00:12:37] Speaker B: Yeah, Brewdog hotels are cool. They've got, like, your own keg in your room.
[00:12:41] Speaker A: I've heard that it's very cool.
[00:12:42] Speaker B: So they were all pretty excited from.
[00:12:45] Speaker C: The very start, which really helped us.
[00:12:47] Speaker B: I mean, sometimes too excited, where we'd have people going up to the bar and asking for two glasses of wine and they'd be like, are you sure you don't punk IPA?
We kind of said, like, if someone goes up and order attendance, maybe then suggest a punk IPA. But they were just kind of really thinking about Brew dog the whole time, which is great for the brand.
[00:13:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:11] Speaker B: The prizes you could win would be like, would range from t shirts to Brewdog lanyards to 20% off your next order, things like that. And you could also win venue specific prizes as well, which people liked. So it was bringing people back to the venue.
But at the time, I was in taking photos to showcase some of our board, and a girl had just won a Freddo, so she got a punk IPA. She played Duraspin, so she typed in.
[00:13:39] Speaker C: Her age, she got to play a.
[00:13:41] Speaker B: Spin the wheel game, and it lands on a Fredo. So she got a Fredo, and that was it. And I was like, oh, can I take a photo of you with your Fredo?
[00:13:47] Speaker C: So I was taking a photo, and.
[00:13:48] Speaker B: There was two younger girls behind me, and they were whispering, like, how come she got a Fredo?
[00:13:53] Speaker C: So I turned around, I was like.
[00:13:54] Speaker B: Oh, by the way, if you order a punk IPA, you can spin a wheel and win some free prizes. And at the time, they were holding a gin and tonic or some kind of spirit and mixer. I went outside and was taking more photos of people who I could see won prizes, asking survey questions, that kind of thing. And about 20 minutes later, I see these two girls, and they come up to me and they're both holding punk ipas and a brew dog t shirt. And they were like, we just won nice t shirts. And they were so happy. And that really was a big thing for me because I saw how they saw someone win, even though it was afredo, which are like 20 p.
She had that fomo of, why are we missing out? Because we've not tried that. And they obviously were not drinking beer on the day. They probably had a gin and tonic. So seeing consumers behaviors change so quickly by just watching someone win free stuff and play a game was, like, a big thing for me. So I love that, and that was great validation for us. And with that activation, we doubled their sales in a week. So they went from selling 200 pints of punk ipa to over 400 in.
[00:15:01] Speaker C: A week, which was crazy.
[00:15:04] Speaker B: So the venue was happy because that was their highest margin product that they sell, and the brand was extremely happy, especially because it was quite a student focused venue. And all these students were walking around with punk t shirts, and they were like, wow, that's pretty cool.
So that was great.
[00:15:22] Speaker A: Yeah, that's really cool. It's incredible seeing it immediately as well.
Yeah, I can imagine that. Just seeing a venue just fill up with.
[00:15:32] Speaker B: Really nice to see for a start. For sure.
[00:15:35] Speaker A: I can imagine. And to clarify, was the venue a Brewdog venue, which is not a brewdog venue. They were just trying to sell on that.
[00:15:42] Speaker B: Yeah, they were just trying to get people, because brewdog was not in any.
[00:15:47] Speaker C: Means the pint that was sold.
[00:15:50] Speaker A: The kind of leader.
[00:15:52] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:15:52] Speaker B: So that was a great venue for us to test on to see if we could influence that. After that, actually, we've worked with Burdog again in Orkney, which was very random.
That was a very random one.
[00:16:06] Speaker C: And that was our first remote activation that we'd done.
[00:16:13] Speaker A: Did you get to go there?
[00:16:15] Speaker B: Yeah, I didn't actually, which would have been the perfect opportunity, but we were.
[00:16:19] Speaker C: Testing to see if it really can.
[00:16:21] Speaker B: Scale and we don't have to be there at all. So this kind of great.
[00:16:25] Speaker C: And this was the kind of start.
[00:16:27] Speaker B: Of our automation journey. So it's all now automated, so we don't ever have to be. I mean, we could do an activation San Francisco pretty easily, because we don't have to be there. It's all automated. But that was our first kind of user case of that.
Orkney is quite a small place, so as soon as people heard about it, then we had lots of people coming. So our testimonial from that venue is great because it's kind of them saying how they think that they got new customers because of it, and they think that they're going to get people back because of it. So that was a really good one. They're excited for the next one.
[00:17:02] Speaker C: Nice.
[00:17:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I can imagine. And what sort of games are there? Because you need to find that sweet spot of something being quite easy, but not too long, but also fun.
[00:17:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
At the very start was us kind.
[00:17:16] Speaker C: Of thinking how it was going to.
[00:17:18] Speaker B: Work from start to finish, and it had to be something that people understood straight away. So that's why our first game is the spin the wheel game, because, you know, as soon as you see a wheel, you're thinking, can I spin it and see what it lands on? This is just a great test case, but also just to build the trust so that people understand what you're doing. And it's not a loyalty card that if you get ten stamps, then you'll get something in return. And you already know what, that you've probably had one of those coffee.
[00:17:49] Speaker A: I still have those.
[00:17:52] Speaker B: I used to have like five in my phone case. Like every coffee shop I'd go to, I'd collect these stamps. And the frustrating part was it was.
[00:18:01] Speaker C: Quite slow, but I wanted it to be a surprise.
[00:18:04] Speaker B: When I get to that end, it's not just a coffee, that it's kind of boring. I'm like, oh, great, my usual coffee that I get every time I want.
[00:18:14] Speaker C: The staff to be like, maybe like.
[00:18:16] Speaker B: Oh, you've won a surprise or something like that.
[00:18:19] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:18:20] Speaker B: So, yeah, going back to the game question, Finna meal was just a perfect test case for us, and we were able to build it really easily.
[00:18:29] Speaker C: Our next ones down the line that.
[00:18:31] Speaker B: We'Ve got kind of coming up, which I was doing all day on Friday, which was planning our next game. So this is the part of the job that I love. It's like, how can we create that return visit and return purchase through a game that's really compelling? So we've got a pub quiz round that's coming up.
[00:18:51] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:18:51] Speaker B: So it's more about competing with friends. And really where I want this to.
[00:18:55] Speaker C: Go is to have an interaction, go.
[00:18:58] Speaker B: Back to old school interactions where you kind of start speaking to people and ask other people for advice. So this is going to be to try and get people to interact with different tables, for example, and talk to them, ask different advice, all to win a prize. Because we love free stuff.
[00:19:15] Speaker A: We love the free stuff. Let's not forget about the free stuff.
[00:19:18] Speaker B: So there'll always be that element of you win or you lose and you.
[00:19:22] Speaker C: Want to try again, but to have.
[00:19:24] Speaker B: More of a skill base towards it. So, yeah, lots of games in the pipeline, but this was a really good way to offer us to validate what we're working on, make sure it works, and then we'll go from there.
[00:19:36] Speaker A: Yeah, that sounds good.
Who's in your team at the moment? Is it just you doing all of those games and all of those activations?
[00:19:44] Speaker B: So it's myself, my developer, Dennis, who has had a lot of experience with startups in the past, and he is the best person at saying, how can we simplify this as much as possible to validate what we want to do.
[00:19:59] Speaker A: That sounds like a great skills.
[00:20:00] Speaker B: You have a great person, because sometimes I'm like, let's do this. And he's like, well, what are we actually trying to achieve? And how can we achieve that without going all the way and putting hours and days or even months into something that we don't know is going to work or not? So he's great at being like, how.
[00:20:16] Speaker C: Can we test this quick?
[00:20:18] Speaker B: Which I think everyone should have on their team as that person?
[00:20:21] Speaker C: That kind of says, especially because I think founders get really excited really quickly.
[00:20:26] Speaker B: And they want to do everything all at once to kind of take it back and go slow, especially as a.
[00:20:32] Speaker A: Solo founder as well, having that good soundboard without being a co founder.
And welcome to you as well for being able to take that on board. Yeah, sometimes founders can take that personally or emotionally. It's hard to kind of learn to take that distance a little bit, ultimately, to build a better business and a better product. Yeah, I'm glad you found that person. It's quite rare, I think.
[00:20:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:57] Speaker A: Shout out to Dennis.
[00:20:59] Speaker B: She's great.
And then I have a girl called Emmy who runs our marketing.
[00:21:05] Speaker C: She's just great to have, just to.
[00:21:07] Speaker B: Speak to another female on board, and she's also very young, so she's in her third year at university as well. So we have quite a lot in common just to talk about. But I think she's learning a lot, but I'm definitely learning a lot from her as well. Great.
I have a great advisory board, maybe even too many mentors as well. It's a good problem to have. Yeah, definitely one that I wasn't aware that that was going to be a thing.
So, yeah, I make sure that I am always asking people for advice and taking on advice and learning from people's years of experience.
[00:21:45] Speaker C: I'm really happy and lucky that I.
[00:21:50] Speaker B: Have such a great board of people that have so many years of experience, so that when I'm ever feeling doubtful about my skill sets or the uncertainty of different areas, I know that I've got someone who's either been through that or has more industry knowledge that can.
[00:22:05] Speaker C: Go to them and ask if I'm.
[00:22:06] Speaker B: Doing the right thing or ask for advice.
[00:22:09] Speaker A: Yeah, that's really important. Do you mind if we do a quick segue on kind of board? Actually, I actually attended an event in San Francisco that was all about building a board for startups, and the panel was kind of sharing some of their knowledge. They were all white combinator kind of startups as well, and from previous batches, not from 2024, and they were sort.
[00:22:32] Speaker C: Of sharing how little information they found.
[00:22:37] Speaker A: About where you start with your board.
Obviously in the US, they were like either. I kind of talked to a lawyer that cost $3,000 an hour to kind of maybe get direction on all those things.
And, yeah, founders don't seem to talk enough about it. So just curious about your own experience.
When did you start considering a board? It just happened to you? How did you decide who was going to be on it? How often do you meet them?
[00:23:06] Speaker B: Yeah, really good questions.
Well, I was lucky enough that when.
[00:23:12] Speaker C: I kind of came up with the.
[00:23:14] Speaker B: Concept and idea, and I think this is great advice if you're just about to start up a business. When I was looking for investors and teams, I wrote down my skill set, which were an industry knowledge, which was lacking just out of uni. Yeah. And then I wrote anything away from.
[00:23:33] Speaker A: You, but it's a very good self awareness. Yeah, it's a good example as well.
[00:23:39] Speaker B: And then I wrote a list aside it of what was lacking and what I needed. So whether that was people with gaming experience, people with hospitality experience, people who knew brands and how they think, or people just who know about the investment group. So I wrote a list. The list was pretty long and tried to kind of narrow it down.
[00:24:01] Speaker C: And then in the early days when.
[00:24:03] Speaker B: I started going to some networking events, those were the type of people that.
[00:24:06] Speaker C: I was looking for.
[00:24:07] Speaker B: And that's the great thing about networking, is you should always be asking for something as well as trying to offer. Always be asking for things to be afraid to. So if there was someone I was speaking to who wasn't quite relevant, I'd be like, do you know anyone who knows brands or know.
[00:24:22] Speaker A: Yeah, because you're not going to get anything if you don't ask. You hear it quite a lot as well.
I think for most people it is very much getting out of your comfort zone.
You're right. I think I try to do it.
[00:24:39] Speaker C: Sort of when there's nothing at stake.
[00:24:42] Speaker A: Just to get me used to hearing myself say that question or something like that as well. And it can just be something very trivial of like, oh, do you mind helping me clean up this coffee cup mess that I've just made very easy and then kind of asking and building on that.
[00:24:59] Speaker B: Yeah, that's good practice. Yeah.
[00:25:01] Speaker A: So lots of networking.
[00:25:04] Speaker B: Networking.
[00:25:04] Speaker C: And then I was lucky enough to.
[00:25:07] Speaker B: Kind of fill some of those checklists.
[00:25:09] Speaker C: That I had so that when I have these advisors, I'm not just taking.
[00:25:15] Speaker B: On mentors because they want to help. Because what I found is people are very nice and everyone wants to help. I think that was a surprising thing for me, is that people do just want to help, especially those who've been in the same background or been through the same kind of processes.
People love to offer their expertise and advice, which is so nice.
[00:25:38] Speaker A: Really good to hear.
[00:25:39] Speaker B: So, yeah, looking for those people who have some kind of interest as well, and something that they want to get out of it.
[00:25:46] Speaker C: I think your board should be people.
[00:25:49] Speaker B: Who are passionate about the same things that you're passionate about and you're trying to work towards.
[00:25:53] Speaker C: And if you take a step back.
[00:25:55] Speaker B: And your board has that, then you're in a really good place, but also.
[00:25:59] Speaker C: Just people that you can be truthful with.
[00:26:03] Speaker B: So if the business is not doing so well, you're not scared to say it because your business will never, always be doing amazing.
So being able to ask for them for help or say that I'm really struggling with our sales, how do you think we can increase it? And rather than fearing that they're going to be disappointed or they'll have regret, they'll be like, oh, well, they've come to me with this question. People love helping out, and if people.
[00:26:31] Speaker C: Are coming to you for advice, then they'll be helpful. So, yeah, that's kind of going back.
[00:26:38] Speaker B: To your initial question about board, is try and fill it with people who are genuinely interested in what you're doing and have expertise in that, and that you just have a good relationship too, because you're going to want to be able to call them on your lowest days, but also be able to celebrate them when you've hit some kind of.
[00:26:55] Speaker A: Milestone or achievement, no, that makes a lot of sense. I guess it's hitting that balance between accountability, but also that support. And as you said, being able to be transparent about your issues mean they're more likely to be able to help you and also do their role of advising you. So it makes a lot of sense laid out like this. But again, the first time, if everything goes well and you're happy to keep them in the loop, and the first couple of time where something is not quite as rosy, you're like, oh, it must have been something to kind of brace yourself to have that conversation and realize actually it's okay, kind of having those learning points. No, thank you so much for sharing about that. It's something I've not heard talked about that much.
[00:27:36] Speaker B: Yeah, that sounds like an interesting event that you went to. I kind of missed that one.
[00:27:39] Speaker A: Yeah, I took extensive notes, did a big post on LinkedIn about it. I've got almost a batting of every single speaker. Said it was really interesting.
One of them has been both on the side of being a startup founder and has also been on advisory board as a board member in various startups in Silicon Valley. So it was very interesting to have those kind of two sides of board experiences.
It was really interesting, and I'd love to see more events there in Scotland.
I feel like there's good investigation maybe around this, and we clearly have people to share experience like yourself. So I'm glad we can capture that.
[00:28:21] Speaker B: What would you say was the key learning from that, that you got from it?
[00:28:25] Speaker C: I think it was the fact that.
[00:28:27] Speaker A: A couple of them said founders don't talk to each other about this, that they just really struggle finding information which surprised me, because in Silicon Valley, every single person we met was a startup founder or has been on a startup.
[00:28:41] Speaker B: I love talking about that, too.
[00:28:43] Speaker A: I know, it was crazy. Everyone you meet, they kind of did. Startup number one didn't work out. Startup number two, they exited. Startup number three didn't work out. Startup number four is ongoing now. And of course it's AI related.
[00:28:55] Speaker B: Yeah, of course.
[00:28:57] Speaker A: So I was surprised that even in one or more mature ecosystems, when it comes to tech, startups still encounter some of those barriers when it comes to knowledge sharing. And, I don't know, it's almost a numbers game where.
Yeah, I don't know, you hit the number where people start sharing and then you hit a number that is so big that there's not. Knowledge happens in pockets again, it doesn't necessarily come out of it. Yeah, I don't know exactly, but I thought that was really interesting. And then they talked quite a lot around kind of talent retention and team as well, which is just a subject I really like. So it was quite interesting to hear about their first hires and how they retain people and a lot of.
But about the board, it was really the fact that even in Silicon Valley.
[00:29:46] Speaker C: They don't talk about it enough.
[00:29:49] Speaker B: It's a good learning and something that we see forward being in Scotland as well.
[00:29:52] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. I think.
Yeah.
[00:29:57] Speaker C: I think you talked quite a.
[00:29:59] Speaker A: Lot already about kind of what you did, but I had some more specific, maybe market related questions.
What was the most exciting developments in your space?
And would you say your space is more hospitality or gaming or tech or a bit of everything?
[00:30:18] Speaker B: Yeah, a bit of everything.
I think the hospitality sector is an.
[00:30:23] Speaker C: Interesting one at the minute because it's.
[00:30:27] Speaker B: Really struggling and so many places are shutting down. I think in Scotland, the rate that bars and restaurants are shutting down is.
[00:30:37] Speaker C: Double in England, which is insane.
[00:30:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:41] Speaker C: So a lot of innovation is coming.
[00:30:43] Speaker B: Out because of that. So they can't just be doing the same things. They have to be kind of changing it up and trying new things and trying to get people to come out more.
[00:30:52] Speaker C: A study just came out where I.
[00:30:54] Speaker B: Think, like, over 60% of people said that on Valentine's Day they'd rather stay.
[00:30:58] Speaker C: In than go out, which is crazy.
[00:31:02] Speaker B: People are deciding to be, I mean, we're in a really horrible crisis at the minute with cost of living crisis, and people would rather stay in and save, but it's. How do we get people to go out in hospitality more, especially with everyone working from home as well. People are going out way less, and no wonder they're struggling. So a lot of innovation is coming through that.
[00:31:23] Speaker C: And us as consumers, especially after COVID.
[00:31:27] Speaker B: When everything was digitalized, so we were so used to delivery, knowing our name when we went onto the app, everything being saved. And it's how we can move that towards hospitality, and we're seeing that slowly. But technology is expensive, and they have to be careful with what they're spending.
[00:31:46] Speaker C: Which is why it's great that our.
[00:31:49] Speaker B: Service for venues is free. We just charge the brand. Okay. So for venues to offer your spin.
[00:31:56] Speaker C: It is free because we want them.
[00:31:58] Speaker B: To be using it, and we want them to benefit from it. We won't survive if they're not there. So we want them to learn from it as much as us.
Technology is going to really play a big part. And it's interesting, and I love when I go into a venue and you can see what they're doing and they're trying. So a lot of experiential things are coming about. So there's a lot of, like, mini golf and axe rowing venues, things like.
As well as you'll see other venues just doing like spin the wheel, like happy hour things. Anything that they can do to bring people back.
[00:32:34] Speaker A: Yeah, neighborhood, like pop quiz as well come back. Lots of things.
[00:32:40] Speaker C: I think it's maybe also due, when.
[00:32:42] Speaker A: I think about act throwing of that sort of thing, I think a lot of them also dry activities, so there's no drinking alcohol in them, which I think is also a trend. It's a conversation I've had with my friends. I'm in my thirty s, and we've had to sit down and say, what can we do that is not the pub another Friday night.
So I think there's definitely something around that where we're looking for venues that bring different thing that may bring also nonalcoholic drinks a bit more. Well, not just a glass of coke or trying to bring some things into that.
[00:33:16] Speaker C: So I don't know if that's what.
[00:33:18] Speaker A: Brands are ready to do as well.
[00:33:21] Speaker B: Yeah, this is an interesting one. So this is how hot party is changing as well, because people are drinking less. And that could be a reason why people are going to venues less, is.
[00:33:30] Speaker C: Because if me and my friends are.
[00:33:33] Speaker B: Doing dry January, we're thinking, okay, well, it's a Friday night, we don't want to go to a bar because we're not drinking. But really that's not the case. You can still go. And there's so many non alcoholic products out there.
Diageo just spent a lot on a campaign that they've done, which is all around moderation, and it's kind of crazy coming from them. They're spending so much on promoting.
[00:33:58] Speaker A: Diageo is a big brand behind a lot of the kind of Johnny Walker.
[00:34:03] Speaker B: They own a lot of brands and they're doing this massive campaign which is about reducing the amount that you drink. So in the video, you're watching someone drink a Guinness and then it gets topped up with water and they're like, that's your next order is just water. Which is, I think is really cool coming from brands because they're kind of jumping on that trend. And again, it's how we can help with that. So with your spin, we offered a free non alcoholic Asahi on the wheel in a venue in London and we had consumers trying that for the first time and actually really liking it and.
[00:34:36] Speaker A: Then was doing alcohol as well.
[00:34:39] Speaker B: Theirs is not bad, but so many brands is now part of their strategy.
[00:34:46] Speaker C: Is how they can work towards that.
[00:34:49] Speaker B: Trend of people drinking less, which I.
[00:34:51] Speaker C: Think is really cool.
[00:34:53] Speaker B: There's a lot of non alcoholic spirits and things, and I know we've spoken about this, there's still a gap in the market there, but people are really.
[00:35:00] Speaker C: Trying to help with that.
[00:35:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I think so. If anyone's listening out there and wants to start a non fizzy soft drink, I think there's definitely something for grown up that is not just diluting juice and that can be compared to kombucha, can be kept in maybe out of fridges a bit longer. There's definitely something around there that's not just juice, definitely not to challenge. So, yeah, probably something entrepreneurial mind up.
[00:35:27] Speaker B: It's definitely a trend that I'm loving and I'm really interested in.
[00:35:31] Speaker C: And especially being at uni, where I.
[00:35:35] Speaker B: Wasn'T a massive drinker and then going to uni, it's all about drinking the whole thing. And I think I was actually on my way here, I was speaking to.
[00:35:44] Speaker C: My younger sister on the phone who's.
[00:35:46] Speaker B: At Glasgow uni, and she's like saying, when I come home for Easter, I cannot drink anymore.
Like three days straight because of the paddock, same stuff. And she's like, I can't do it anymore.
I think that should be something that we're focusing more on at your spin.
[00:36:02] Speaker C: Is how can we jump on that trend where making people go to the.
[00:36:06] Speaker B: Bar and ordering a non alcoholic product is just as cool as ordering an alcoholic product. So if we link your spin to Guinness zero rather than a Guinness, and people are playing that game and they're winning free stuff, and people are like.
[00:36:19] Speaker A: How are you doing that?
[00:36:19] Speaker B: It's like, oh, we ordered a Guinness zero. Pretty cool. So I think the options when I was at uni is for going sober was there was this sober night that they kind of posted about. I remember pitching that to my flatmates at the time, and I literally got laughed out. They were like, haley, we're not going to a sober night because it just wasn't cool. So it's, how can we bring that?
[00:36:42] Speaker C: How can we make not drinking but.
[00:36:44] Speaker B: Going to the pub? So cool.
And if there's a way we can link our product to that, then I'd be on board.
[00:36:50] Speaker A: No, definitely. As you said, again, it's everyone that you could fit. Shame. So that we can change with you on that. It's venue, it's brands, it's consumers. It's all of us as well in that. And I remember that when I was at uni, as soon as they would give you free soft drinks, if you were the one driving your friends back, so you would give them your keys, and you could only get them back if you had soft drinks all night, you had little different colored bracelets, and they would make you do, like, an alcohol breathe test before using your keys back. And then, yeah, you had free soft drinks for the evening, which was just sodas and stuff as well. But it was kind of nice.
[00:37:33] Speaker B: You feel special.
[00:37:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:34] Speaker B: Makes you feel special.
[00:37:35] Speaker A: Makes you feel responsible.
[00:37:36] Speaker B: They were like, it's great.
[00:37:37] Speaker A: You're doing great things. Thanks so much for getting everyone home safe. People were just super pumped up about it. When they get your keys, which is kind of cool. And as close. As close as I got to a valet experience in my life, which was kind of nice.
[00:37:52] Speaker B: I've never heard of that before.
[00:37:54] Speaker A: Yeah, it's something that I like to think back on, and definitely, I think I like going to a pub, unless you drink every time. And I love the idea of maybe linking up more games around that, segue on that.
[00:38:12] Speaker C: Who's your ideal customer?
[00:38:14] Speaker A: Because you say you charge the brand and not the venues, your customer, then, yeah.
[00:38:21] Speaker B: This is the hard part, is that we've got a lot customers. I think when we've done kind of business strategy and we're going straight to.
[00:38:30] Speaker C: The core of our business, our brands.
[00:38:32] Speaker B: Are our main customers in terms of the people that we charge. But then we need our venues on board, we need the staff on board. So there's a lot of customers in that, and it's how we can win.
[00:38:44] Speaker C: Them all over brand wise, it's someone.
[00:38:47] Speaker B: Who has a really cool product, one that wants to get closer to their.
[00:38:53] Speaker C: Consumers in an innovative way, and that.
[00:38:58] Speaker B: Kind of in line with what we.
[00:39:00] Speaker A: Stand for, story building, like an attachment to it. But I guess there's so much storytelling.
[00:39:06] Speaker B: Out there, it's hard to get your message across, stand out, and someone who is fascinated by data and will know what to do with it as well, which is sometimes a hard thing, sometimes. Some of the activations we've done, we give them all this data and they're.
[00:39:22] Speaker C: Like, this is great.
[00:39:23] Speaker B: What do we do next with it?
[00:39:25] Speaker C: And then for venues, it's a venue.
[00:39:30] Speaker B: That'S just going to be open and sell it to consumers. So that really comes down to the.
[00:39:34] Speaker C: Staff, which is why we always try.
[00:39:36] Speaker B: And get really good staff prizes from the brand, because that makes a big difference.
We've had post Malone tickets for staff members, and they got taken to the hydro in Glasgow with Heineken, and they got put in the Heineken suite, and they got free Heineken drinks all night while they're watching post malone with this amazing view.
[00:39:56] Speaker C: Those are the kind of things that.
[00:39:58] Speaker B: It probably didn't cost Heineken that much, but it meant so much to the staff at the time, and the whole thing was just still about know. They're being immersed into that experience of like, wow, Heineken's a really cool brand. They've taken me here just because I uphold it. And that was in a venue in Edinburgh where we did Beer Moretti, one brand that's owned by Heineken. And that one, again, the staff were just beer Moretti the whole time. That was what they were selling, because they can see what the brand's trying to do. They're trying to get closer to their.
[00:40:30] Speaker C: Consumers, but in a way that they're.
[00:40:31] Speaker B: Giving their consumers free stuff. It's a nice trade. Staff get that, and the fact that they're rewarded because they're trying to help out as well is what works quite nicely with that.
[00:40:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I can't help but think if one of the impact you have is on hospitality staff in the way that they're empowered to upsell and to do that sort of thing. Maybe not quite part of the british culture as much as we've been in San Francisco, but also exposing them to the gamification aspect of it, kind of the way brands work with venues and with other companies, sort of giving them that overview of know it's not hospitality as an island in the middle. There are other things that are connected, that can act into it as well.
[00:41:16] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. And a way that brands can get closer to their staff.
[00:41:20] Speaker C: Know, Heineken probably have no idea what.
[00:41:23] Speaker B: Staff members are working in a venue.
[00:41:25] Speaker C: In Edinburgh who's actually the one thing.
[00:41:29] Speaker B: That kind of bothered me in hospitality.
[00:41:32] Speaker C: When I was working was that if I did upsell something, I would never get recognition from that.
[00:41:40] Speaker B: Really.
So you weren't ever really monitored on? Okay. Ailey sold this much at the end of the night and you don't really get tracked by that. So it's a nice way for them.
[00:41:49] Speaker C: Know, if Sarah at Piper's rest in.
[00:41:54] Speaker B: Edinburgh sold the most Heineken products, she should really get rewarded for that and for the brand to say a personal thank you. We're going to take you to this really cool venue and you can do this concert.
It's a nice way for them to get closer to them.
[00:42:09] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. Because if you think in any other industry, most sales positions are linked to commissions and to results into having that in hospitality, especially from a different. If you don't have that. Yeah, definitely. Interesting to put that. Yeah, I really like that.
[00:42:29] Speaker C: All right, I've got a couple more.
[00:42:32] Speaker A: Questions, maybe kind of around your market and that sort of things. I know we briefly talked about it before we kicked off the podcast as well. Question that often comes back with startups is how big is a tan? So total adjustable market, and another bunch of acronyms with it as well.
But you mentioned, and you touched on the fact that hospitality is sort of declining something as well. How do you approach that? What is your total addressable market? How do you see it changing in the next few years?
[00:43:02] Speaker C: So this is an interesting one, especially.
[00:43:05] Speaker B: Going for raising investment. Most decks I look at are like our industry is going to increase, like doubling at an insane rate.
[00:43:16] Speaker C: And our side is like our industry.
[00:43:19] Speaker B: Is struggling and it's declining very quickly. But we see that as a positive and we're there to help hospitality, really. And we want to bring back some of those old school interactions so that.
[00:43:32] Speaker C: We can help it increase again, because.
[00:43:34] Speaker B: We need hospitality, we need people to go back. So yeah, our side is different from most, probably.
So we look at the amount of hospitality sectors out there. We do kind of touch on the fact that we could.
[00:43:49] Speaker C: I mean, this is another thing.
[00:43:51] Speaker B: When I speak to new people about it, they're like, have you thought about going to hotels or have you thought about going doing retail? And that's the hard part, possibly, but we just need to focus on one area at the minute. So we're focusing on the hospitality sector, and then we have a list of brands that we want to approach. The great thing about the drinks industry.
[00:44:11] Speaker C: Is a lot of brands just own.
[00:44:13] Speaker B: A lot of products that you wouldn't. So, like Diageo, like we spoke about, they own a ton of different products. You probably wouldn't relate to Diageo as a whole. So we need to just approach these massive brands that have different products in.
[00:44:26] Speaker C: Their pipeline that we can approach.
[00:44:27] Speaker B: But also working with the smaller companies.
[00:44:29] Speaker C: Is, like one that we want to.
[00:44:32] Speaker B: Do, and that's kind of close to our vision.
[00:44:35] Speaker C: But, yeah.
[00:44:35] Speaker B: So to touch on that, our slide is right.
[00:44:40] Speaker C: These are the hospitality sectors.
[00:44:43] Speaker B: This is how many is available. Although it's declining, there's still like 40,000 pubs in the UK that we can target. So although that's going down, still pretty huge. And then these are the drinks brands. And then the fact that going to San Francisco and speaking to drinks brands and them saying this could probably work.
[00:45:01] Speaker C: Better in the states because staff are.
[00:45:04] Speaker B: A lot more confident to upsell things because the tips are close to it. And I kind of saw that. So sometimes when we go into new venues in the UK, staff are more hesitant because staff aren't very pushy here at all, whereas seeing it in the States.
When I was in America, I went to Walmart, actually, and I was buying sweets.
[00:45:25] Speaker A: Walmart is just the standard supermarket in the US. Absolutely massive.
[00:45:29] Speaker B: Yeah. And I was buying sweets to take home and the checkier was like, are you sure you don't want some mascara? And I was like, no, thank you.
No, thank you. She was like, I need to sell ten today, this week to get my commission. Like, I think you'd look really good on you. And I was like, oh, no, just buy sweets. Like, I don't have a space for mascara. She was like, I really think you should. And I was like, let's just not get this in the UK. Like, imagine Sainsbury's. I was just like, I know you're buying sweets, but do you want some mascara?
[00:45:56] Speaker A: That seems. Yeah, I feel even when you go to sort of boots, you can sort of book an entire hour to get a free makeup. And they've never been pushy to sell you anything.
[00:46:07] Speaker B: They really, really don't. Yeah, I found the market completely different, but, yeah.
[00:46:12] Speaker C: So that was a great thing about.
[00:46:15] Speaker B: Going to the States.
[00:46:16] Speaker C: I could experiment to see if it.
[00:46:19] Speaker B: Could work and fix the brands and get their input from it. And the fact that they're saying that it could work in the States should be our next massive one. Especially if they think it could work better.
[00:46:30] Speaker A: No, definitely.
Yeah. That's really cool. I think I told you about this one when we're in San Francisco, but in Asia, there's quite a lot of gamification by nature in a lot of things. I lived in China and I just remember so many brands and working with some brands and it was ten years ago to just activate lots of different things around, like fashion and beauty, and it was just everywhere there as well.
[00:46:56] Speaker C: And I think sort of data privacy.
[00:46:58] Speaker A: Laws are very different from what we have in Europe, in the US as well, it's different, but it's really fun to see those kind of gamification trends come around. Yeah.
[00:47:08] Speaker B: And how they're different in each place.
[00:47:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:10] Speaker B: Probably needs to be my next trip then.
[00:47:11] Speaker A: I think so, yeah. You've gone west, now you need to go east.
[00:47:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:47:16] Speaker A: Explore the entire.
I think one of the other question I had is a question I quite like is asking. Let's picture you in five years. Okay, so that will be what, 2029?
Where do you see yourself? How many people working for your startup? How many continents are you on? What kind of turnover are you aiming for? What does your spin look like in 2029?
[00:47:50] Speaker B: I'd love to say that we've got a big team, so it's been two years in the making. The first year was pretty slow for me, just kind of getting to grips with what a startup actually is and what it's like running a business. It was a lot of working out what games would work well and how we could influence intimate behaviors. And then last year was really us starting to work with brands and build that up.
[00:48:15] Speaker C: And now we're in a good place.
[00:48:16] Speaker B: Where we've done enough target market research, we've worked with brands, we've got this really cool product that's so scalable now that we can go into. So it's really just about selling. So now we're ready to build our team and get those salespeople, get more people that are doing what I'm doing, so I can kind of delegate and I'm not doing absolutely everything.
[00:48:36] Speaker A: Sounds like the dream.
[00:48:37] Speaker B: Yes, because. Yeah, it's hard because I currently am doing everything from our VAT returns to our pitches for these massive companies. So really, in five years, I want to be able to delegate to other people. I want to see us in other places and I want to. When I go into a bar, I'll be disappointed if I don't see your spin.
[00:49:02] Speaker A: Love that.
[00:49:03] Speaker B: And for some people to think like, I've just bought this product, why am I not playing?
Why am I not being full of something? Yeah.
[00:49:14] Speaker C: And really, I'd like it to influence.
[00:49:18] Speaker B: Hospitality in a positive way. So whether we are encouraging staff or encouraging brands to teach staff about the story so that they know more about where the brand comes from and what it stands for, because that's a massive thing. Because although the hospitality sector is going down, there's more and more brands that are coming out each day and competition is getting higher and higher and it's really hard to stand out.
[00:49:43] Speaker C: And if brands are spending time working.
[00:49:45] Speaker B: With their top salespeople, which is the.
[00:49:48] Speaker C: Staff members in the bar, and teaching.
[00:49:50] Speaker B: Them about the brand, then the staff will sell it, because people like that story aspect, so if we can help them do that, then that'd be great.
[00:49:58] Speaker C: So, yeah, really, it's to have a.
[00:50:01] Speaker B: Really strong team who are all in line with the same ambition and to see us in lots of venues and not just the UK. I would love to go back to San Francisco as soon as possible, so if we can work and see ourselves there next time there, that would be really.
[00:50:18] Speaker C: That's.
[00:50:18] Speaker A: Yeah, that's really nice to hear. I love how you're trying to put the kind of human back into some of, like you mentioned, that only a few big players at the end of the day, kind of competing among the dream sector in the UK, but the fact that we're trying to relay to the importance of the story of the individual brand that they have and also making room for new brands is very interesting because there's so much kind of storytelling washing out there, you don't know what to value, what to trust, and empowering people to become your ambassadors in that regard seems like a really strong approach to be doing that.
[00:50:54] Speaker C: Yeah, I guess.
[00:50:57] Speaker A: What's stopping you from doing all of those things right now? What other bottlenecks to you doing that right now?
[00:51:03] Speaker C: So, like I said, it's kind of.
[00:51:06] Speaker B: Our team at the minute. So one of our main focuses now is growing the team.
[00:51:11] Speaker C: We did an initial raise as soon.
[00:51:15] Speaker B: As I kind of came up with the concept investment, and now we've learned a lot. We've built a product, we're working with some brands who we are generating revenue, but we're working on this bigger investment round now so that we can build our team, because that is what's really holding us back for growth, is that.
[00:51:34] Speaker C: I'm trying to work on my priorities.
[00:51:36] Speaker B: And just focus on some things, but I can't do everything. So we need to grow that team. It's just finding the right people who are on the same kind of journey and like that startup life, which not everyone loves. Yeah. So I'd say our team is really.
[00:51:52] Speaker C: The main thing and that's what's holding us back.
[00:51:58] Speaker B: So hopefully when we start to hire and get more people on our team.
[00:52:01] Speaker C: That'S when we can kind of excel and do things just a lot faster.
[00:52:06] Speaker B: Than we are now.
[00:52:07] Speaker A: Yeah, I guess you've got a scalable product now. You need a scalable team, scalable team to put that in place. That makes a lot of sense. And you mentioned investments as well.
Can we quickly talk about it as well? I mentioned you raised investment. Was it angel investment?
[00:52:22] Speaker B: Yeah. So this was the part when I had that list of people. So I went to a lot of networking events and got speaking to other people.
[00:52:31] Speaker C: When I found those people who had.
[00:52:34] Speaker B: Similar interests as me, they had experience going to them and saying, this is where I want to get to, this.
[00:52:42] Speaker C: Is how much we need for that.
[00:52:45] Speaker B: I managed to get five angel investors in a room and I kind of sat them down.
[00:52:50] Speaker C: So this is the vision, this is.
[00:52:52] Speaker B: How much I think we need. And I split it up into two tranches. So I said, if you invest this amount at this valuation and in the next three to four months, if I achieve what I said I would do, then they'd invest the same amount at the same valuation. And this was a good way just to build their trust because like I said, I was straight out university, I didn't have any experience, and it was a big thing to ask people for investment, especially when we had no product. So this time it was a concept, it was a way to build their trust so that when I think actually I ended up seeing three months later, I got them into a room together.
[00:53:31] Speaker C: And I said, okay, well, with that initial small amount of money, this is.
[00:53:35] Speaker B: What we've achieved, this is what we've raised. So with the next round, this is.
[00:53:39] Speaker C: What is going to get us. So that was a good way of doing it.
[00:53:43] Speaker B: And now we're on a journey. We've got case studies with some major brands, so we're again trying to go.
[00:53:49] Speaker C: For investment, but not just say yes.
[00:53:52] Speaker B: To whoever will give us the investment. We're looking for people who have experience.
[00:53:57] Speaker C: And have what we don't have with.
[00:54:00] Speaker B: Our current team of investors and advisors, looking for people with experience so that they're value add investors rather than just investors. That makes a lot of sense.
[00:54:11] Speaker A: I've heard from a lot of people similar to the board as well, having that investor that it should be a two way thing if possible, and if it's not, it should just be someone that gets you the foot through the door of certain thing that you need and you can make.
No, that's. Thanks for sharing on that.
[00:54:28] Speaker C: I think it's investment is so hard.
[00:54:31] Speaker A: Entrepreneurship is really hard. Investment is really hard. It's something, again, maybe cultural that I noticed when we're in Silicon Valley. Just everyone in San Francisco constantly talks about the money. People don't shy away from the big amount. No one bats. An I read if your precede round is a million because obviously that's going to cover staff costs for a couple of people and legacy operational costs and infrastructure costs. And I thought that was really interesting.
And I don't know if your time there has changed anything on your views on the way that you're looking at.
[00:55:10] Speaker B: Raising investments in shares.
[00:55:11] Speaker A: Is anything you wanted to share around that?
[00:55:13] Speaker B: Yeah, this is hard because I think in the states their valuations and their ask are insane. And if I asked for some of that here, people would be like, are you crazy? Because it's just a completely different culture.
[00:55:28] Speaker C: And I think sometimes I've heard of kind of horror stories of people in.
[00:55:34] Speaker B: The states raising too much before they've kind of actually worked out what to do.
[00:55:39] Speaker C: So that's another thing is in an.
[00:55:42] Speaker B: Ideal world, it's having that balance of the vision that people have in the states, which is crazy. But then also we're quite good in the UK of being careful with our spend and we can achieve quite a lot on small amounts too.
[00:55:57] Speaker A: Thrifty Scott is definitely.
[00:56:02] Speaker B: The two. It's great, but it's also taught me.
[00:56:06] Speaker C: That I'm seeing some businesses that are.
[00:56:09] Speaker B: Raising millions on just those ideas and they don't even have a product working. So it's really helped us with this round of investment now is that when people try and lower valuation, we're thinking, well, actually we've got some amazing testimonials, we're making revenue, we've got a product that we're ready.
[00:56:31] Speaker C: So it's nice validation for us to.
[00:56:35] Speaker B: Think that actually we have achieved quite a lot.
[00:56:39] Speaker C: But the states, they think a lot.
[00:56:43] Speaker B: Quicker and they fail a lot faster, which is like a massive thing, which has also taught me that we have.
[00:56:51] Speaker C: To work quickly and fail quickly too.
[00:56:54] Speaker B: So if something's not working, I think in the UK we get really upset.
[00:56:58] Speaker C: About it and we try and be.
[00:57:00] Speaker B: No, no, I can make this work when really, sometimes you just have to like, okay, it's not working. Let's scratch that idea and start from fresh. Rather than keeping like, I can do it, I can just change it slightly and then everyone will love it. But really just listen to the feedback.
[00:57:13] Speaker C: You get and change.
[00:57:14] Speaker B: And don't be afraid of failure, because failure is actually a really good thing, which I've learned from being in the states. Yeah, some of the best people have failed more than most.
[00:57:23] Speaker A: Absolutely. It's so true. I think it's something we try and do at code base. Normalizing those stories of failure and saying it's okay, failing fast also mean you might succeed faster.
And you need to eat right. You need to keep trying.
And the quicker you do those changes, the quicker you're going to get to market, have a better product.
And I think even if some founders are in that mindset, often after I've been spending time in the US or other things, I think there's something around the system, around them and the ecosystem, and how can we be the one supporting more of that failure, which is something we love talking about with the team and with people and trying to normalize in every way possible. So I love. That's one thing you took back from the US.
Yeah, exactly.
[00:58:18] Speaker B: Really good advice, actually, just for anyone who's speaking to, too.
[00:58:22] Speaker A: Yeah, no, that's very true.
[00:58:24] Speaker C: Yeah, thank you for that.
[00:58:26] Speaker A: I think you mentioned startup life earlier.
[00:58:29] Speaker C: And I've got two quick questions.
[00:58:32] Speaker A: One is about what is your favorite thing about startup culture, and then what is the least favorite thing you have about startup culture. So you started your company just out of uni, you worked in austerity before, so you've been in that startup culture quite a lot, including even growing up in it.
[00:58:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:58:49] Speaker A: So, yeah, favorite thing, least favorite thing about it.
[00:58:52] Speaker C: So my favorite thing is probably the pace.
[00:58:55] Speaker B: So actually, what I've learned with working now with some of the brands are massive, is how slow that they operate and how slow they make decisions, whereas startups decisions are made so quickly. And again, you learn quickly and you fail quickly. And I love that part of it is you can decide to kind of pivot really fastly fast.
So I love that part of it. But I also just love the ecosystem that's around startups. Like all these networking events. And people are so open to help and give advice, and there's so many people that have been in those situations, and you can really have quite deep conversations with people where they're so open about. This is the struggles I had. And you can relate so much with people, so easy to start with. It's so easy to have conversations with other startup founders. I think you've got so many similarities.
[00:59:47] Speaker C: And because it's such a hard sector.
[00:59:49] Speaker B: And startup life is really difficult, it's so nice that people are so open about like, oh, I really was going.
[00:59:57] Speaker C: To down or this part or I.
[01:00:01] Speaker B: Have regret making these decisions. It's so nice that people are so open about it. So I think the speed that startups.
[01:00:07] Speaker C: Work and also just the people that.
[01:00:10] Speaker B: Are involved in startups, I've had really good experiences with it.
[01:00:15] Speaker A: That's really good to hear. Yeah, I love that as well. I think especially founder to founder support, I think there's nothing quite like it. I think there's a lot of talks out there about kind of founders mental health being quite bad sometimes because you're your business and when things are not going well, you kind of have to put that smile on and go out there and pitch your business to investors and can't really say the whole truth.
But I think you're right, this kind of founder to founder connection will always be quite transparent, people being able to support one another.
So I really like that you said that. It's very reassuring to hear about existing in Scotland as well.
[01:00:57] Speaker B: It's something that I wasn't great at at the start, surrounding myself with other founders. I was very know all my friends were in these frag jobs, so couldn't really relate to what I was doing. So I was really trying to be like, why? Everything's going great.
[01:01:09] Speaker C: I love it, but really it's hard to be honest.
[01:01:12] Speaker B: And I think that's another thing.
Be truthful where you are and if you're speaking to other founders, you can be so honest and then they'll have great advice for you. So going on San Francisco trip and being surrounded by other startups is just a big thing too, which is something.
[01:01:28] Speaker C: That I don't do enough of.
[01:01:31] Speaker B: And signing up for tech scalers where you're instantly got other people that you can speak to and kind of lean on and think like, have you ever had this happen to you? And they probably.
[01:01:45] Speaker A: No, that's really good to hear. I think I know some founders didn't know each other before they went to San Francisco. They could have grabbed a coffee in Scotland, in Edinburgh, Glasgow, but in that 1 hour, it wouldn't have been the same as an hour of walking in San Francisco and going into really deep stuff just because you're a bit uprooted from your usual environment, brought to sharing a bit more, especially when it's someone that has such similar experiences around the struggles of building a business.
It's hard. Again, I know we've said it a couple of times, but building a business is really hard. Can be lonely. So I'm really glad that you've been able to surround yourself with a lot of your people to kind of make that a little bit easier and allowing you to hopefully kind of focus on building your.
[01:02:35] Speaker C: Yeah, I think we're coming to the end.
[01:02:40] Speaker A: Is there anything else that you wanted to share? One last advice, one last thought, one last lesson from Silicon Valley and lots of anything you'd like to share?
[01:02:51] Speaker B: I guess you touched on a lot of how the differences are from the UK versus the state, but I think before I went away, I mean, it was such an amazing opportunity that I got, which I kind of wasn't expecting.
[01:03:05] Speaker C: Because it was quite like, I think.
[01:03:06] Speaker B: I heard about it a couple of months before and I wasn't sure it was actually happening. And then when I went away, I got so much from it, but it was such a big thing for me.
[01:03:15] Speaker C: Because it was nice to be in a different setting.
[01:03:19] Speaker B: I think when you're working on something for so long, and especially in Edinburgh.
[01:03:24] Speaker C: Which is so small, you get kind.
[01:03:27] Speaker B: Of close minded by the vision of where you can take it, but going somewhere else, being with completely new people and pitching your concept to people that are so far away from home and.
[01:03:39] Speaker C: They kind of understand it, that was.
[01:03:41] Speaker B: Like a massive thing for me as well.
[01:03:45] Speaker C: I guess what I'm trying to say is if that opportunity does come where.
[01:03:50] Speaker B: You can move away or just always be pitching your concept, even if you're far away from home, and just changing my environment was a massive thing. So as soon as I came home, I was like, I've got so much new energy for the company and we've got completely different vision, and that was just a massive thing.
[01:04:09] Speaker C: So get out of your comfort zone.
[01:04:12] Speaker B: Of, like, I know this market quite well and go test it on different ones, and you'll come back with, like, a fresh mindset of, okay, this is actually what we need to focus on, or you'll understand your priorities a lot more.
[01:04:23] Speaker C: I think I love that being out.
[01:04:27] Speaker A: Looking is something that is sometimes underrated because you see it as like, oh, you're just spending time elsewhere, but I think the way you phrased it about getting out of your comfort zone, challenging yourself, and still having that focus on meeting customers or potential customers, and that's building your business as well. So changing that environment. So, yeah, what a lovely note to finish on.
Thanks again so much for your time, your energy, best of luck, as well as your spin.
[01:04:55] Speaker B: Thank you.
[01:04:56] Speaker A: I'm sure we'll catch up soon as well. Thanks, everyone, for listening in.
[01:05:00] Speaker B: Thank you.
[01:05:00] Speaker A: Thank you. Bye.
