Transcript
Entrepreneurial Case Study: Made-In Chelsea W****r
The Setting
I was 19 years old when I had just begun my first term studying at Regents Business School. I had
chosen to follow the entrepreneurial path by selecting business school over Chelsea School of Art,
to the dismay of my mother who had attended in 1976 and has painted ever since. This choice had
left me with a problem; my mother had taught me how to paint so I knew I could to take to art
school like a fish to water. However choosing Regents meant defining a new, unexplored path….in
business. One I knew could only ever begin with starting my own venture, due to my inherent lack
of being able to follow orders and sit in the slow lane.
With my first class over I began to feel the pressure of my choices amounting, I didn't know where
to start! Every idea therein for the next few months would pop forming an image of my mother
shaking her head attributable to a lack of success surrounding her son.
The Idea
During my first year of university, very little work was physically achieved unless one could call
going to the same nightclub three nights in a row, the ‘hat-trick’ as it was acutely know amongst
most circles, an accomplishment. This did, however, provide the backdrop to the first case of one
of my entrepreneurial abstracts being pulled from paper to terrifyingly tangible, land of failed
ventures. Both myself and my partying partner in crime, Dominic Smith, began to see a gap in the
‘clubbing’ industry relating to customer loyalty programmes, rewards and clubbing traffic.
The first of our “revolutionary" ventures was founded upon ‘clubbing’ customer loyalty programmes
- after noticing how we were attracted to this one club, three nights of the week, for months on end,
we began realising it was because of the way in which they treat regulars. Both by the way in
which they act towards you, conversing differently, but mainly because of free drinks and the other
such individualised promotions. For us, this was a clincher and something which we felt we had
earned for our loyalty. We were students with very little money and London clubs were a sink-hole
for bank accounts.
We thought to develop a system, Qlub, whereby clubs could track customers habits; collect data
on where they went during the week, which days they went out on most, which drinks they
purchased most frequently to formulate a profile of this individual. In return, our clients would
supply ‘points for pints’ and ‘rewards for referrals’ and other special promotions to their customers
for the loyalty and brand advocacy, all funnelled through an app and fob key. We sought to change
the way pubs and clubs worked by hosting all a customer’s info: name, age and profile on their
own fob key, scanning it any time they entered and made a purchase. The fob key would act as
your entrance and purchases tab; keeping track of what you bought and when and where you
bought it applying the necessary points in each instance. This also meant customers pay at the
end to reduce waiting times at the bar.
All connected pubs, bars and clubs could see who their most loyal customers were, being able to
extend promotions to those individuals but also being able to extend geo-located promotions to
individuals in the local vicinity. Myself and Dom thought we were about to alter the drinks trade for
ever.
Getting Started
After running through the concept over and over again, we noticed we lacked the experience and
credibility to attract both investors and proprietors of the establishments we wanted to onboard. We
routinely met up with an immensely popular and respected individual previously gracing the
screens of E4’s Made in Chelsea, who had certified experience in this industry and loved the
concept. He was always very inquisitive and we felt this person could help breathe life into Qlub
and get the concept on its development track. Once sworn in, our new partner began exercising his
wealth of connections and experience to pitch and onboard our first set of ‘titanic’ clients alone,
whilst Dom and I focused on the finding of secure suppliers for the fobs and readers as well as
designers and developers for the app.
After two months we had hooked suppliers in China, developers in the Ukraine and burnt through
£5,000 on an unnecessarily expensive web designer to produce something far from what was
acceptable or even understandable. Despite our naivety and uncontrollable excitement leading to
poor decisions, Qlub was on its way to a September launch with 25 clients signed up and those
midday dreams of motherly pressure were replaced in part by a proud figure with thumbs pointed
to the sky.
Snake in the Grass
We were about 5 months away from launch when we received our first sample batch of readers
and fobs to test alongside a very crude MVP of Qlub. Everything had still been kept from collapse
and was continuing to gain pace. During the morning we were carrying out some user testing, we
received a call from an acquaintance who runs a bar in Mayfair, one of the first and only myself and
Dom onboarded ourselves. He stated over the phone that there was a competitor, very similar to
us, we should be aware of, gaining traction and signing up major establishments and chains but
also beginning to test the product on site.
This was a slight shock to the system as there were no leads on this party beforehand, no trail, as
if they had set up over night. We immediately went into panic mode to try and discover as much
about this invader as possible so we could continue the fight to the bitter-hopefully-sweet end.
Over the next two days we discovered a sizeable amount about them apart from the team in
charge - the process was a similar format, card and app, they were launching in July with their
trump card; restaurants. In particular, one premium group linked with our third partner.
After some light questioning, it slowly became apparent our third partner had been cloning our
concept under different branding, using his network to establish a greater array of features
alongside a more diverse client base. Unfortunately, whence he joined us he had his own goals in
mind, we were too naive and excited to recognise neither what his true agenda was nor look over
what has sprouted from his assigned tasks - we were too consumed in our tunnel vision.
In the process, we had not been on boarding our own clients instead he had been registering their
interest ‘exclusively’ in his version, Phantom, leaving us with no clients and little access to
anymore. We thought to file a lawsuit to tackle the issue of ownership however we had no IP, no
Trademarks and no capital to even think about hiring a lawyer. We thought to attempt a social
media outcry and campaign against his actions but instead thought to concede to save face.
It was at this point we thought to abandon Qlub. This individual had managed to suck most of the
oxygen out of the room leaving little for us to burn, any capital spent past this point would’ve surely
been lost forever.
It was at this point I exclaimed I never like going clubbing anyway