Elite Business October 2018

helping hand Open Bionics is turning amputees into superheroes. No wonder the Dalai Lama is a fan

Here’s Waldo This startup’s vision for low-cost contact lenses is crystal clear

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ISSUE 48 OCTOBER 18 £4.50

723000

Forget AR — holograms are the future of marketing

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Holographic temptation

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Has Tinder found its match with the advent of themed dating apps?

08/10/2018 23:03

Elevate Business Performance and Better Manage Spend with Automation

Expense, Travel, and Invoice Management for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses AUTOMATED SOLUTIONS INCREASE VISIBILITY, EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION AND SAVINGS

Small and medium-sized businesses are increasingly embracing the cloud. This trend is reflected in the way businesses are adopting expense, travel, and invoice management solutions. Of organisations surveyed, over 76% use cloud-based travel and expense tools, and 82% use cloud-based invoice tools.

Mobile tools are also an important feature to organisations.

Of organisations using automated solutions, more than 58% reported that employees access the solution via mobile devices (i.e. tablets and smartphones). This trend will grow as the workforce continues to decentralise.

There is no denying the advantages of implementing an automated expense, travel, and invoice management solution. The benefits to users are numerous and impactful.

Automation helps firms overcome challenges and achieve positive business outcomes in a variety of ways.

Better data visibility: Organisations with automated solutions are better able to track cashflow over time,

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allowing them to make decisions that directly impact their bottom line. Even as the number of expense reports grows, companies have more time to analyse data because less time is spent processing expenses. One SAP® Concur® customer stated, “We are now able to better understand the total return on investment of working with a client, which helps us to manage workflow and gives us the ability to be more selective on the projects we work on.” —Director of Company Operations, Small Financial Services Firm.

Integration and employee satisfaction: One of the most beneficial features of an expense, travel, and invoice management solution is its ability to integrate with other software. Of firms surveyed, 73% integrated their expense, travel, and/or invoice solutions in some combination.

Integration helps to unlock the full benefits of automation by allowing firms to get a clearer picture of the expense narrative. According to a Travel & Expense manager at a large software firm using SAP Concur solutions, “The benefit really is the integration and how seamless it is. When you book a flight, it creates the report on the expense side. It’s one experience for [users], it’s one tool they are familiar with.”

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2018_09_27_UK_Ad_IrishTimes_275x340_V2_MIST-21323_TEST.pdf

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27/09/2018

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Employee spend happens in lots of places.

But you can manage it in one.

SAP Concur integrates expense, travel, and invoice management. concur.co.uk

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This type of integration is a key driver of employee satisfaction as it facilities faster expense processing and reimbursements. The same T&E manager stated, “Travellers love the mobile app. Take a pic of the receipt and upload on the go. Automatically, the time to do expense reports is cut in half.” Another SAP Concur customer stated, “Employees are happier now; with Concur we went from 3 to 4 weeks to 3 days to get people paid.” By increasing employee satisfaction, organisations can also boost productivity and compliance.

Improved compliance: Organisations with an automated expense, travel, and invoice management solution find that employees are less likely to submit out-of-policy expenses.

Additionally, finance and accounting managers are better able to flag out-of-policy expenses and prepare for audits.

“Using the system now allows us to pick up on lack of knowledge of certain policies. Now we have a better understanding of what is acceptable and what’s not.”

—Fleet Manager, Large Manufacturing/Construction Firm “When preparing for an audit, you have the peace of mind and comfort level that you’ll find the documents that you need and not have to worry that there is a handful that are not filed or misfiled. No more egg on my face when dealing with auditors” –Accounts Payable Manager, Large Technology Solutions Provider

Scalability: The time savings provided by an automated

expense, travel, and invoice management solution enable organizations to grow while maintaining the size of their accounting teams. A key decision maker within a large technology firm lauded the benefits of scalability afforded

by SAP Concur: “As we continued to grow, the system just absorbed new employees. The accounting team has remained stable as the company has grown over the last 3 years.”

Time and cost savings: Saving time and money is one of

the most valuable benefits of an automated expense, travel, and invoice management solution. Finance and accounting teams see an average time savings of 15% after adopting

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an automated solution. On average, organisations save nearly £22,000 per year after implementation. Firms using Concur Expense reported average savings of £29,000 per year. A Fleet Manager of a National manufacturing firm in Australia highlighted the company’s savings on travel with SAP Concur; “just on airlines we’re saving about [GP] £18K/ month compared to previously.”

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W inv fo

Business with an automated invoice management solution saw similar time and cost savings. The average finance or accounting team reduced time spent on invoice management by 16%. This translates to about 40 hours per week for a team of 5 employees, and average annual savings of over £25,000. Firms using Concur® Invoice reported savings of nearly £29,000 annually. This is just the tip of the iceberg, one firm stated: “I have saved over 500 hours/year of my own time… we’re talking north of £52K per year and that doesn’t include anyone else. Because we outsource accounting, there is a very tangible cost to adding employees… we are easily saving another £30-£45K a year on administrative cost.”

—Director of Management Operations, Small Financial Services Firm

KEY TRENDS DRIVING THE NEED FOR BETTER EXPENSE, TRAVEL, AND INVOICE MANAGEMENT Mobile workforce: 80% of firms have employees that

travel at least 4 to 5 days per month. As a result, employees and managers need the ability to submit and approve expense reports from anywhere.

Processing invoices from multiple suppliers:

The typical firm is working with 190 suppliers, and processingbover 156 invoices per month. This amounts to 28 invoicesbfor each Accounts Payable employee to manage eachbmonth. On average, finance and accounting staff spend 14% of their time each week processing invoices—more than 5 hours per employee per week.

An automated solution allows them to significantly reduce time spent processing invoices, so they can focus on other priorities.

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Business objectives and pressures: The top issues firms are grappling with include; pressure to reduce pricing, improve productivity, support geographically dispersed workforces, and manage restricted cashflow.

Sixty-four percent of businesses expressed that reducing operating expenses is a strategically important goal When considering an automated expense, travel, and invoice management solution, key decision makers should focus on the following features:

• Broad integration capabilities—An integrated solution can improve efficiency, bring down costs, and boost employee satisfaction in the long-term.

• Accessible via mobile devices—Automatically populating expense reports, allowing mobile receipt capture, and enabling managers to approve invoices while on the road saves time and boosts employee satisfaction.

• Strong customer support—A firm that places a premium on the customer relationship will continuously seek to

improve its solutions.

Benefits Across Industries

Summary of top benefits and annual savings by solution type and industry Finance T&E: Better visibility/analytic capabilities; Avg. savings/firm = £20K Invoicing: Cost savings through improved tracking; Avg. savings/firm = £20.7K

Manufacturing T&E: Better visibility/analytic capabilities; Avg. savings/firm = £22K Invoicing: Better visibility/analytic capabilities; Avg. savings/firm = £22K

Professional Services T&E: Better visibility/analytics; Avg. savings/firm = £25K Invoicing: Decrease of inaccurate entries; Avg. savings/firm = £29K

Retail T&E: Employee satisfaction/decreased inaccuracies; Avg. savings/firm = £24K Invoicing: Improved compliance/savings from better tracking; Avg. savings/firm = £24K

©2018 SAP Concur, all rights reserved. SAP Concur is a registered trademark of SAP, Inc. UK Elite 18/06

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08/10/2018 20:58

LEARNING TO LOVE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION There was a time when only the largest organisations with the deepest pockets could invest in the IT necessary to drive efficiency and innovation.

Thankfully those days are gone; cloud technology has made the same IT firepower that was once the preserve of only the wealthiest and biggest corporations available to SMEs. So, it’s no wonder so many SMEs are embracing the digital future and the amazing opportunities it brings.

Realise your digital potential A recent white paper by research firm IDC, The Road to the Digital Future of SMEs 1, involved a survey of 300 businesses and casts new light on the circumstances of British SMEs. But while there is much cause for celebration, there is still work to be done before all firms realise their digital potential.

Perhaps most concerning was that 45% of SMEs view IT as a necessary cost rather than a driver of competitive advantage. The truth of the matter is very different, so let’s take a look at what digital transformation can achieve.

35%

of respondents agreed digital transformation was one of the best ways to improve business efficiency.

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48%

of larger SMEs which viewed IT as an enabler of business efficiency also reported the highest growth numbers

Source: virginmediabusiness.co.uk/insights/transforming-business-whitepaper

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Standing up to the competition

Getting connected

Digital transformation is a way to increase competitive advantage and that first-rate connectivity is key in a world shaped by cloud and wireless/mobile technologies. Paradoxically, at the same time, a lot of SMEs are held back by a lack of willingness and knowledge to invest in ICT to drive their digital transformation.”

Having a fast, reliable internet connection means you can be more open to new ideas and technology – it’s about being ready for the future. The IDC white paper says, “UK SMEs run the risk of not having the right ICT infrastructure or internet connectivity and therefore cannot take advantage of the opportunities in a data-driven digital world.

Clearly, leveraging digital technology provides a distinct competitive advantage to SMEs willing to make the investment to drive future growth.

45% put innovating products and services among their key challenges

“From Voice-over-IP (VoIP) to accessing the cloud, the benefits of flexible working, improving digital marketing and enhancing customer experience mean that reliable, high internet connection speed is a necessity for the future. IDC believes that it is important for SMEs to embrace an investment strategy to drive growth.”

A growth sector In other words, investment is necessary in order to win market share against larger organisations.

To take advantage of transformative technology costs far less, thanks to the cloud and digitisation of telephony estates.

The big benefits of digital transformation

The customer is king

---------------------------------------------------------1. Improved customer experience

Digital transformation can improve customer experience. This could make a crucial difference to the 51% of SMEs that reported finding new customers was their biggest challenge. In fact, many SMEs feel their ability to provide excellent customer relations is a crucial advantage over larger organisations.

2. Reduced operating costs

So how can digital transformation help? In short, by giving customers what they want from a business’s online portal. That means a regularly updated website, customer support and social interaction.

IDC concludes: “All SMEs (and small SMEs specifically) should focus on improving their customers’ digital experience. For example, if small businesses are difficult to find online they are limiting their audience and thus growth.”

That sounds like sound advice.

7.

3. Easier to acquire new customers 4. Find and retain the right staff skills with more success 5. More innovation in products and services 6. Increased ability to manage suppliers and partners Faster adaption to changing

regulations --------------------------------------------------------

Ready to see how digitally transformed you are?

Take our test virginmediabusiness.co.uk/DigitalSurvey

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44 Beyond

bionics

Joel Gibbard and Samantha Payne are revolutionising the prosthesis industry with Open Bionics by making 3D-printed, affordable and high-tech bionic arms 8

ELITEBUSINESSMAGAZINE.CO.UK OCTOBER 2018

Contents.indd 1

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34 issue 48 October 18

REGULARS 11 12 19 82

From the editor Upfront The big idea The crunch

columns 21 Nakul Sharma 31 Anil Stocker 32 Gary Stewart

22 Changing lanes Jaguar Land Rover’s startup investment company InMotion is racing the future of transport

34 Eye spy 40 Funding Waldo founder Ashleigh Hinde seems to have the eagle eye for entrepreneurial success

56 Sextech’s on fire

Technology can revolutionise the sex industry but faces many challenges

female founders It’s time for women

to get the financial support they deserve

52 Holo, is it me you’re looking for?

AR and VR is old school.

Holograms are the new holy grail in marketing

70 Love at first swipe

The dating scene has changed over the years but themed apps are taking over

62 Judge tech

How can more artificial intelligence in the legal sector benefit your startup?

66 Fair play

Doing the conventional interviews when hiring? It could be time to play games OCTOBER 2018 ELITEBUSINESSMAGAZINE.CO.UK

Contents.indd 2

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08/10/2018 23:25

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For a no-obligation quote, call us on 0800 231 5405, or visit connect.totalgp.com/eb-business-energy TOTAL GAS & POWER Untitled-2 1

08/10/2018 21:56

EDITORIAL Zen Terrelonge – Editor Eric Johansson - Acting Web Editor Varsha Saraogi - Junior Feature Writer Angus Shaw – Editorial Assistant Yoana Cholteeva – Editorial Intern Anne Struijcken – Editorial Intern editorial@cemedia.co.uk DESIGN/PRODUCTION Darren Marriott - Head Designer Vrinda Sejpal – Designer Dan Humphris – Designer Lizzie Thurgood - Junior Designer production@cemedia.co.uk Dan Lecount – Web Development Manager dan@cemedia.co.uk SALES Lewis Horgan – Head of Sales & Marketing lewis.horgan@cemedia.co.uk Alanna Green - Marketing Assistant alanna.green@cemedia.co.uk CIRCULATION Amy Coleman - Data Compliance Assistant amy.coleman@cemedia.co.uk ACCOUNTS Sally Stoker – Finance Manager sally.stoker@cemedia.co.uk Colin Munday – Management Accountant colin.munday@cemedia.co.uk DIRECTOR Scott English – Managing Director scott.english@cemedia.co.uk Circulation/subscription

UK £18, Europe £38, Rest of World £60 Elite Business Magazine is published four times a year by Channel Edge Media, 1st Floor, Regency House, 16 Victoria Road, Chelmsford, CM1 1NZ Copyright 2018. All rights reserved No part of Elite Business may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the editor.

Elite Business magazine will make every effort to return picture material, but this is at the owner’s risk. Due to the nature of the printing process, images can be subject to a variation of up to 15%, therefore Channel Edge Media, cannot be held responsible for such variation.

The perfect match E

ach business comes from a big idea and muzmatch, the dating app for Muslims, is no different as we found out from CEO Shahzad Younas. Indeed, the niche dating app market is thriving as entrepreneurs recognise a onesize-fits-all approach to romance isn’t necessarily the best way to win hearts.

Elsewhere, on the finance front, what does it take for female founders to find funding? From blatant sexist attitudes to a lack of confidence, women have hurdles to overcome in order to secure the right coupling – but it’s possible.

You need only look at the story of Ashleigh Hinde for proof. Having founded Waldo, the contact lens delivery startup, Hinde had absolute

faith in her concept, which has now secured £5.7m of investment and a growing presence internationally.

And in the case of co-founders who make the perfect match, we point to Samantha Payne and Joel Gibbard. The dynamic duo have given amputees a connection to superheroes through innovative 3D-printed arms and, with the approval of the Dalai Lama and Disney, it’s hard to believe they’re just getting started as Payne reveals the journey so far.

Zen Terrelonge - Editor zen.terrelonge@cemedia.co.uk

contributors

Nakul Sharma Our former cover star and the CEO of Hostmaker shows us the chops of an international entrepreneur by talking about how you can sail overseas with your company.

Gary Stewart The Wayra UK director unravels the challenges of running his company since seven years and how evolution is a part of the game in business led by a good team and leadership.

Anil Stocker It’s not only important to combine your passion and work when launching a business but also picking the perfect partners and the MarketInvoice founder surely knows that.

Yoana Cholteeva It’s not easy to source the best talent. Not only was our former editorial intern an example of that but she also threw light on how gamification can be your new recruitment strategy.

OCTOBER 2018

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ELITEBUSINESSMAGAZINE.CO.UK

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09/10/2018 15:59

The investment rounds that rocked the startup community last quarter

Series

B

Mone se

$60m

This fintech startup has raised $77m to date and having more than 600,000 users under its belt across the UK and Europe, it now plans to expand internationally and make the app accessible to more people.

Series

e

Fast-food workers go on Strike

Employees from various food companies participated in rallies for exploiting them over long hours and a lack of pay rises

Business leaders must be more aware of their workers’ needs. Especially when you’re at the helm of a big brand with hundreds of employees.

On Thursday October 4, employees from fast-food joints protested for being exploited. Workers from McDonald’s, TGI Fridays and Wetherspoon, as well as Deliveroo couriers and UberEats drivers staged rallies in disputes over pay and

union recognition. The demonstration was held across the UK with support from the Trades Union Congress, the trade union centre. The workers are demanding better working conditions across the hospitality sector and a pay of £10 an hour.

These chains have undoubtedly increased their profits over the years but maybe it’s time for owners to treat their workers better.

D a r k t r a ce

$50m

Scoring money from angel investors

A $50m funding round secured by Cambridgeheadquartered AI cybersecurity specialist Darktrace values it at $1.65bn. It will now increase its global reach, having launched eight offices last year.

Series

B

Quantexa

$20m

Offering companies ways to manage their data generates some serious business. And Quantexa knows it, having not only secured a $20m series B but sees HSBC as a customer.

Series

c

Bl oom & W il d

$19m

The flower gifting brand has received $19m in a series C round. With more than 50 million flowers delivered across the UK, France and Germany already, it plans to grow further and blossom in international markets.

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It’s not easy to secure funding for your startup but if you have a strong team, you’ve won half the game

£

There’s no doubt about how entrepreneurs must be aware of all the prerequisites when launching their startup.

Inevitably getting money and convincing angel investors is a herculean task.

Fortunately, a report released by The Knowledge Academy surveyed 159 business angels and revealed the factors influencing their decision. While 93% said the team

having relevant skills and experience was most essential, 89% said it was the business’ ability to achieve growth.

On the other end of the scale, angels were least concerned about social impact with only 25% rating it as a vital aspect. Slightly above, 28% weighed exit strategy as an imperative part of their investment thought process.

It’s indeed essential for big bosses to ensure they have a strong team and a revenue generative business model before approaching investors.

What’s the word ‘Canada Plus’, or ‘Super Canada’, or ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Canada’

I think it’s a terrible message.

Nike is a tenant of mine. They pay a lot of rent

Following prime minister May’s lacklustre EU-UK Salzburg summit, chair of the European Research Group, Jacob Rees-Mogg, flexed his vocabulary to describe a CanadaEU-style trade deal many Brexiteers desire

President Trump got personal with Nike following its decision to make Colin Kaepernick, the NFL player who knelt in protest during the US anthem, the face of its Just Do It ad campaign

It’s dangerous, to be clear.

This is dangerous Elon Musk didn’t sugarcoat it when revealing the first citizen to commercially travel to the moon with SpaceX, Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa

ELITEBUSINESSMAGAZINE.CO.UK october 2018

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08/10/2018 23:42

A t w ee t c o s t El on Mu sk a nd T e sl a $ 40m After being in the headlines for his social media posts about taking Tesla private, CEO Elon Musk gives up the position of chairman and lands in legal hot water Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been involved in various scandals and controversies over his tweets. And now he’s been sued for an alleged securities fraud case.

Tesla’s stock prices might have risen after Musk tweeted about taking the company private at $420 on Tuesday, August 7 but this move was seen as “false and misleading” by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and has allegedly “caused significant confusion and disruption” to the market.

Following the case as a part of a deal between the CEO and SEC, Musk must step down as chair within 45 days. Going forward, it’s on the board to choose the new chairman. Additionally, he and the company are to pay $20m each to settle the lawsuit. Musk however neither denied nor admitted the allegations.

But we all know the obvious reaction Musk would have. Inevitably, his tweets mocked the US market regulator where he called the SEC “Shortseller Enrichment Commission” and that “the name change is so on point.”

After an eventful summer of smoking marijuana live on a podcast and calling a British diver “pedo guy,” Musk surely needs to think twice before taking to Twitter in the future.

Words by Varsha Saraogi

October 16 SME Live NEC Birmingham North Ave, Marston Green, Birmingham B40 1NT

October 17 Champagne breakfast in the city Slug & Lettuce 25 St Mary Axe, London, EC3A 8AA

Oct 18 Taxation of Cryptocurrencies Smith & Williamson 25 Moorgate, London, EC2R 6AY

November 1 The Telegraph Trade Awards Marriott Grosvenor Square London, W1K 6JP

November 21 The Scottish Business Exhibition SEC Centre, Exhibition Way, Glasgow, G3 8YW

November 29 Christmas networking Sama Bankside 3 Robinson Road, Southwark, London, SE1 8BU

A full event listing is available on our website.

Words by Yoana Cholteeva

The Post-truth business: How to rebuild brand authenticity in a distrusting world Kogan Page(inspire), £14.99, Out october 3

ith fake news flowing freely around and people rationalising post-truth in politics and media, it’s never been a better time for business owners to consider the image of their brand. As the author of the The Post-Truth Business suggests, there’s a special interconnection between the current political situation both in the UK and US, media coverage and the leadership of international businesses. While good marketing can spread the word of your business, it’s authenticity that makes it last.

With over 20 years of experience in brand consultancy and a touch of ethnographic research in EU, Asia, North Africa, the Middle East, Russia and America, Chenecey brings to the foreground the immense power of trust in every aspect of your business. He explains the meaning of alternative culture and posttruth for your company and how to turn this uncertainty into your own asset.

Combining the author’s broad range of experience with a handful of insights by some experts, this reading invites you to open your eyes to a well-researched, deeper and different perspective of business leadership and management. The book is accentuating the most simplistic yet positive ways to strengthen your brand – transparency, respect of privacy, empathy and trustworthiness.

Think less is more? This book is a must-read for any entrepreneur willing to win by seizing the opportunity.

W

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Successful crowdfunding campaigns that have closed in the last quarter

Urban Massage

£3.49m 20% Equity

On-demand massaging definitely didn’t rub the startup’s backers up the wrong way as it sealed a multi-million investment to fuel growth.

VITL

£916.560 12.54% Equity This startup’s unique idea of using AI to deliver personalised vitamins grabbed the attention of Zoopla, LoveFilm and Bulldog Skincare to bring it near the £1m mark.

Gunna Drinks

£891.150 27.76% Equity Armed with a palette of wild graphics, Gunna Drinks’ mission to spice up soft drinks and promote natural ingredients piqued the interest of 245 backers in this crowdfund.

dabbl

£841,533 3.38% Equity

Dabbl’s industrydisrupting vision of everyday people snapping pictures of brands and then prompting them to buy shares from such brands attracted 796 investors.

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Nearly half of Britain’s workers are trapped in jobs they don’t like Blighty boasts a significant number of gigs that don’t require qualifications, which makes many workers overskilled and unsatisfied ‘Reach for the stars’ is a philosophy often echoed through university lecture halls. Although, considering more than a third of Brits are overqualified for their jobs, qualifications may not take employees as far as you think.

Surveying 3,700 British workers, CIPD, the body for HR and people development, discovered 37% occupy positions they’re overskilled for while only 12% can’t cope with their job demands, meaning 49% are out of place when it comes to their employment.

The confidence in skills may seem unsurprising given 42% of British workers are educated to degree level – making it one of the most skilled workforces globally – combined with the fact Britain sees more gigs requiring no qualifications than any other nation in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). However, holding a degree doesn’t guarantee the edge often advertised, considering 14% of undergraduates believe they’re underskilled in their jobs compared to 10% without a degree.

Moreover, considering merely 22% of overqualified workers have received promotions compared to 31% in suitable roles, it’s no wonder 47% punching below their weight aren’t satisfied with their lot.

Especially given 30% of respondents said high-level degrees are prerequisites to their job when fewer accomplishments are actually needed.

Commenting on the findings, Lizzie Crowley, skills adviser at CIPD, said: “Individuals who report using their skills fully in the workplace have higher levels of job satisfaction, earn more and are more resilient to change, while businesses benefit from a more productive workforce and increased profitability. However, we have ended up in a situation where our economy isn’t creating nearly enough high-skilled jobs, while the proportion of low-skilled roles remains stubbornly high.”

Record high employment levels are putting greater choice out there, so companies may start to see overqualified workers jumping ship to reach their full potential.

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08/10/2018 23:43

Just do it or don’t?

Nike lit a fuse in September after making Colin Kaepernick, the NFL player who knelt during the US anthem in protest of racial injustice, the face of its new Just Do It ad campaign to both outrage and praise worldwide. While the move stays true to Nike’s slogan, whether the resulting media explosion helped or harmed the company is another matter.

By just the figures, the boldness may well have been the best thing for Nike since the invention of its Air Jordans, with company shares rocketing by 36%, adding $6bn to Nike’s market value.

However, the campaign also created boycotts, including bonfires filled with Nike goods in the US and even president Trump tweeting in his two cents suggesting the brand had committed suicide.

Nike has had article after article written about it. So is it bad for companies to be linked to controversy?

Words by Angus Shaw

Heather Andrew CEO of Neuro-Insight

Yelena Gaufman Strategy partner at Fold7

Thom Newton CEO and managing partner of Conran Design Group

Simon Wright managing director of Greenwich Design

Whilst there might be objections to the campaign at a conscious level, neuroscience research suggests that its highly emotional nature might actually make it strongly memorable and effective in subconscious terms. The ad delivers a heady mix of intrigue and emotional intensity – two of the key drivers of memory.

Emotional intensity is important because we remember things to which we’ve had a powerful emotional reaction.

Having a point of view which absolutely mirrors that of your key target is neither risky nor controversial. Nike knows its core customers well enough to realise their support of Kaepernick is actually an expression of shared beliefs and values. Nike’s uptick in sales results prove that including controversial figures in marketing strategies can pay dividends.

Nike understood that showcasing the beliefs with its core customers would help maintain its growth.

Done wrong, this is not only risky but potentially bad business.

How did Pepsi get it so wrong with its ‘protest’ ad last year? Featuring Kendall Jenner, one of the Kardashian-Jenner clan, Pepsi was trying to project a global message of unity, peace and understanding.

But by its own admission it missed the mark and was accused of misappropriating the Black Lives Matter campaign. The ad was pulled. The controversy on social media raged.

Of course there’s a risk attached to using any celebrity, whether it’s controversy or scandal – Nike’s been there with Tiger Woods. And it’s not just the controversial element that brands need to worry about. Take James Corden – he was dropped from Confused. com because his own personality was bigger than the brand. It’s no use paying for a celebrity spokesperson if no one remembers who or what they are representing.

OCTOBER2018 ELITEBUSINESSMAGAZINE.CO.UK

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Make your web

address work

for you Having the right web address can make all the difference between people linking up with your business or going to one of your competitors.

Your web address is a portal to your business and will feature on all of your marketing materials so it’s crucial that you get the right one. Working out what web address to use shouldn’t be an afterthought but be a part of your marketing strategy, up there with deciding the name for your business and your brand identity.

What makes a good web address?

The ideal web address should be short, memorable and easy to understand. It should explain what your business is about, whether it’s your company name or a description of what you do. The more succinct it is, the more people will trust it. A long, wordy web address, or a vague one, can confuse some people and drive them to your nearest competitor.

The introduction of the new top-level domain names has given businesses more opportunities to get the name that they want. Rather than having ‘.com’ or ‘.co.uk’, there are hundreds of alternative names for you to choose from. These include generic domains such as .shop, .agency and .law, or city names, such as .london, .nyc or .paris.

Why be a ‘.com’ when you can be a ‘.london’?

You can now strengthen your association with the capital by using a Dot London web address. Join a thriving community of like-minded entrepreneurs and growing London-based businesses who are using Dot London web addresses, such as craft snacking brand Serious Pig, independent ethical fashion label Henri, and Michelin starred chef Eneko Atxa’s first London-based restaurant Eneko Basque Kitchen & Bar. You don’t have to be a new business to use a Dot London web address. Many of London’s most established businesses have moved their websites to the capital’s domain name, including international convention and exhibition centre ExCeL London, Prescott & Conran’s Group’s hotel and restaurant The Boundary Project, and award-winning independent multiplex cinema Peckhamplex.

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When searching for a domain name for your business it’s good to look at options beyond the obvious because there are a lot of names to choose from. Think about how you can ensure that your customers and investors understand your business and ultimately trust you and want to build a strong and meaningful relationship with you.

Use a web address that best suits your brand, that can be used across your marketing plan and can be easily remembered. Get a web address that’s an identity, a mission statement and a reference all in one.

Henrietta Adams, founder of ethical clothing brand Henri – www.henri.london George Rice, founder of craft snacking brand Serious Pig – www.seriouspig.london

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pplprs.co.uk/themusiclicence Untitled-2 1

08/10/2018 21:58

MUZMATCH

Nothing casual While other apps may cater to more disposable dating, muzmatch is helping Muslims find a serious relationship

BY Eric Johansson

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hatever you do, don’t call muzmatch a dating app. And definitely not in front of Shahzad Younas, the co-founder and CEO of the startup. “Put simply, Muslims don’t date, they get married,” he says. Because of that, Younas hates it when the platform gets jumbled together with more mainstream hook-up apps like Tinder, Grindr or Bumble. “Many western apps are very casual but we’re a very serious app,” Younas says. “We’re connecting people for the purpose of serious relationships.”

The idea to create an app for Muslims uninterested in casual flings came to him because other platforms failed to provide the kind of serious relationships his users look for. “Existing online websites generally had a terrible reputation,” he says. Recognising the potential of this untapped market, he quit his job as a banker, took £50,000 of his savings and built the first version of the platform.

Moreover, the founder recognised many in the Muslim community would be apprehensive about using the app, let alone telling their friends they’ve used it. “They feel there’s an element of taboo,” Younas explains. “It’s definitely changing but it’s still present.” That’s why he’s taking his users’ privacy and safety extremely seriously.

After extensive leafletting around London mosques, muzmatch began to gain a lot of traction. In fact, it became so successful it raised a $1.8m seed round in 2017 and was accepted into Y Combinator, the legendary seed accelerator behind brands like Airbnb and Reddit, in the same year.

Today the startup has over half a million users in 190 countries and can boast, having brought 15,000 couples together, many of whom have gotten married as a result of finding each other on muzmatch.

“We literally get photos from Africa, Asia and South America,” Younas says. “To see the global success of muzmatch is actually pretty mindboggling.” We’re willing to bet this is only the beginning.

OCTOBER 2018 ELITEBUSINESSMAGAZINE.CO.UK

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08/10/2018 18:24

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08/10/2018 22:27

Nakul sharma CEO and Founder, HOSTMAKER

Expansion challenges

Understanding the local market and competition is vital to succeed on the international stage

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nternational expansion can be incredibly challenging for any business, whether it’s a startup or SME. Overcoming the obstacles surrounding company growth can not only create a dedicated and motivated workforce but will also strengthen your business presence in the local area.

One of the key challenges that continues to crop up when it comes to international expansion is purely to do with knowledge of the local area. Having a substantial understanding of the local market and competition is crucial, especially when it comes to foreign laws and regulations which, if ignored, can be extremely costly.

Some key laws and regulations to consider include labour, customs and employment laws, importing and exporting restrictions and regulatory requirements.

Complying with these is one of the most important aspects of global expansion, especially when it comes to employees.

It’s recommended that you seek experienced legal advice so nothing catches you off guard. Businesses face fines, work stoppages or lawsuits if they’re not compliant with local labour laws. Fortunately, legal support can flag potential barriers and prevent such situations occurring, so it’s crucial to have in place.

When considering the local competition, it’s also vital to realise you cannot simply replicate your current company strategy in a new market as this is unlikely to work as successfully.

Often, businesses will rely heavily on tried and tested models, which ultimately lead to unrealistic expectations for the growth of your company and employees. Modify your strategy or consider creating a bespoke approach as this will ultimately enable you to gain a competitive edge in a new environment, all while utilising the local expertise of your new staff members.

A lot of startups have huge ambitions and grow rapidly once they gain traction in their

home market but very often they struggle to do so beyond that because they’re exporting the same business model internationally. This demonstrates the importance of local talent and market knowledge because this is what will help build better products and services for customers.

As an example, at Hostmaker we’ve recently experienced our first non-European expansion into Bangkok. Before this, we opened in eight of Europe’s key travel hotspots, so a launch into the Asian market was a completely new experience for us. Due to my hospitality background, where I had previously worked in Dubai, I knew we had to be flexible in our approach to our business strategy and that which worked in Europe wasn’t guaranteed to work in Asia.

Some business practises that were accepted and widespread across Europe did not conform to Asian standards, particularly in Bangkok, so it was key to adjust our mindset and consistently consider what was expected of us as a growing business.

Overarchingly, companies must develop, expand and grow in order to survive in today’s highly competitive business environment.

Being aware of the local landscape you’re expanding into may sound elementary but it’s absolutely crucial.

Expansion can appear glamorous from the outside and of course presents huge opportunities for the growth of an organisation but building deep market knowledge really is king. Showing that you have a core understanding of the key laws, regulations and local competition is just one part of a successful expansion but won’t go unnoticed and ultimately may be what enables your business to thrive.

October 2018 ELITEBUSINESSMAGAZINE.CO.UK

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09/10/2018 11:58

in m ot i o n

Changing lanes

By Zen Terrelonge

From consulting in the US and media project management in Germany to london for investment banking and entrepreneurship, Sebastian Peck hasn’t been afraid to go off-roading with his career, which is perhaps why he seems to have found comfort as the managing director of InMotion, the mobility division of Jaguar Land Rover

S

tarting his career in New York a few years earlier would have made for a different experience entirely.

However, Sebastian Peck began working in the Big Apple at the Boston Consulting Group in 2001 following the horrific September 11 attacks. “I came into the firm just after September 11 when there was a lot of turmoil,” he recalls. “So I was there at a very interesting but also quite frightening time when you’re suddenly in a city that’s just gone through a traumatic experience. In that sense, I probably didn’t have the usual experience of someone starting their career in calm waters.”

Today, Peck is the managing director of InMotion, the Jaguar Land Rover-owned investment and innovation subsidiary. But back in 2001 he was fresh out of education and finding his feet as an associate at the NYC-based consultancy firm. “I think the role was a fantastic finishing school post after university,” he says of his time there. “As a consultant you obviously work on a variety of topics across industries and one of the exciting things is that you see a lot of different business aspects and solve problems. The analytical methods were a very good toolset for fostering a career to pursue.”

The aforementioned turmoil in New York had put a passion he held for media on hold which prompted

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him to shift his focus, hence the run with the Boston Consulting Group.

But with his consulting toolset firmly in his grasp after two years, Peck made his way to Munich where he chased his original dream by working with ProSiebenSat.1 Media, the German multimedia firm. “I’ve always had a soft spot for the media business,” he explains. “Before university I worked in advertising on MTV, the music channel. My original aspiration was to become a journalist funnily enough.”

But after scratching that media-based itch, the globetrotting continued from Munich as Peck made his way to the UK for additional study, having previously completed a history MA at Cambridge University and an MSc in philosophy and public policy at the London School of Economics. Back in the capital to complete an MBA at the London Business School, which he claims was quite a natural course of action for him, he entered investment banking while still keeping the media dream alive. “While I was doing my MBA I worked in the media team of UBS Investment Bank, building on the earlier theme of working in the media industry, on a lot of large transactions,” he says. “That was a lot of fun until the next crisis hit,” he adds, laughing.

Although he’s tapped into different roles and sectors, it was never a specific ambition of Peck’s to cover such a variation.

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“I think it happened along the way,” he says. “But I’ve always felt it’s interesting to work at the intersection of the commerce and the creative industry.”

He soon had the chance to get more creative than ever before as a doorway to entrepreneurship was swung wide open, which led him to cofound Digital Science. It was achieved through a strong relationship he’d forged with Holtzbrinck, the German publishing group. “One of the senior board members there approached me and said ‘Would you be interested in starting a new business for us?’” Peck recalls. “I met my co-founder and the two of us started a company called Digital Science, which was a really interesting business focusing on how you can improve the life of researchers, institutions, scientific publishers and grant-giving agencies.

We built digital tools for them that improved the effectiveness of their research endeavours.”

Of course, not everyone would be cut out for the transition from employee to employer but Peck believes it’s achievable for someone in possession of the right characteristics. “There’s a certain type of personality that does these things and I would describe that as someone who isn’t very good at accepting the status quo and that things are what they are,” he opines. “I think I always had that trait in me, to see how we can do things differently, to see if there is an opportunity.”

Peck admits he was in a situation perhaps more fortunate than most because of the way his entrepreneurial switcheroo came about. For others in a comfortable role, it’s perhaps tougher to take the leap. “Once you go into investment banking, you’re incredibly well paid and it’s certainly not boring,” he says. “And the opportunity cost for me to start something new grew higher and higher because I was having success in the career I was pursuing. It was a unique situation where someone I had great trust in approached me with an idea. That certainly helped us to take the plunge.”

With Holtzbrinck as a cornerstone investor, Peck grew the business over six years to great success before feeling it was time to bow out in 2015.

“It was a really interesting journey, very much innovating and I’d created something entirely new,” he says. “We saw something grow from literally two guys in very small dingy basement room with bars on the windows that looked like a dungeon into a thriving global software company that’s now the envy of the industry.” Having reached that point, he felt like his original mission had been truly accomplished and as though there were other opportunities out there to explore. “I felt like I needed a break, frankly speaking, because it’s quite exhausting to build a company from scratch,” he adds.

After some time off weighing up his options and getting that well-earned respite he so desired, Peck’s next move took him into yet another different sector with InMotion, which he joined at the end of 2016 – eight months after it launched. “While Jaguar Land Rover is a car manufacturer, I really think first and foremost it’s a design company that has some wonderful creative talent,” he says. “I’ve always been drawn to the industries that create desirable things – that sell dreams if you like. If I can help with my financial brain and entrepreneurial spirit to make good things happen in those industries, then that’s something that attracts me.”

InMotion by its very inception is an interesting creation. The product of Jaguar Land Rover, a world-famous luxury brand, it’d probably feel like a prized pedigree if it was sentient. According to Peck, InMotion was envisioned amidst the changing transportation sector, which has seen the 32 24

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in m ot i o n

I felt like I needed a break, frankly speaking, because it’s quite exhausting to build a company from scratch rise of ride-hailing, ride-sharing and such, so it was a case of what should Jaguar Land Rover do about it?

Sit on its hands or get its hands dirty? Like an engineer in its mechanical department, it ran with the latter.

“The appropriate strategy team within Jaguar Land Rover set out this new unit to effectively experiment with unique concepts and new business models,” Peck says. “It started off as a type of project to inform the strategic thinking of Jaguar Land Rover. When they started to recruit me, they really wanted to step it up into a more serious undertaking rather than just a group of people trying to inform the corporate strategy.”

His arrival saw him reshape the business. It was split from just InMotion into early-stage investment arm InMotion Ventures and mobile solutions incubator Studio 107, which helps to develop ideas into standalone businesses. “So far it has worked really well for us,” Peck shares. “As an investor we’ve been incredibly active and done about 15 transactions in the last 15 months. It’s been a really interesting journey so far.”

The car giant has long had a fan in Peck, as he admits it conjures up fond feelings of nostalgia. “I love the brand,” he says. “I think it takes me back to my childhood – I grew up in an equestrian household and I’ve always had a huge passion for anything that has a strong heritage.” But he admits that no legacy, no matter how beloved, can stay standing still without accepting change is coming one way or another, which drew him to InMotion. “I would love to ensure this brand remains relevant for future generations and I think I have a fantastic opportunity here to help reinvent those two brands and ensure that in 20, 30 or 40 years’ time they’re as much household names as they are now.”

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As is the case with any new company though, especially one spinning out of a corporate firm, there are learning curves to negotiate along the way. “It’s taken a bit of time to draw a clear line around InMotion to understand what we’re doing and what we’re not doing,” Peck says. What he means by that is recognising the next generation of consumers are being catered to as the importance of car ownership isn’t top of their agenda. “If you’re a young professional living in London, the likelihood that you don’t have a car is quite high and the likelihood is buying a car also isn’t a very high priority either,” he reasons. “As a company you need to then ask yourself ‘how can I ensure that my brand remains relevant with consumers who may not necessarily prioritise the purchase of the kind of product that you’re known for?’”

Despite being a Jaguar Land Rover admirer, the first step was for Peck to familiarise himself with being an active part of not only the automotive industry but also the still relatively new and constantly-evolving sector of mobility. “I came to the role as an outsider which was a huge benefit because I didn’t automatically fall into the usual trap that people might fall into after working in this industry for 20 years,” he says, believing he could offer a fresh perspective rather than doing things just like the old days. “At the same time, I needed to ensure I learnt about the industry and how it works, which I’ve certainly done. Of course my ideas have evolved to the direction we should pursue.” Peck’s evolution of planning was a combination of his growing market understanding and by the very fact “mobility is one of the most dynamic sectors there is.”

Tapping into said dynamism meant that Jaguar Land Rover needed to give InMotion the room to manoeuvre without slamming on the brakes. “To think about mobility in a different sense to the approach it had adopted for decades, Jaguar Land Rover first had to accept InMotion had to run on its own steam to a certain extent,” says Peck. While he acknowledges that large corporate drawbacks tend to be the longstanding processes that are in place, which can hamper creativity, InMotion was given the keys to put its foot down. “In our case the format was there to set up as a separate business based in London rather than the Midlands to allow us to develop our own culture that would be more conducive the way in which a startup would work,” he explains.

With that in mind, Peck notes that Jaguar Land Rover’s profile is enviable, both from a financial point of view as well as its PR power. Yet the way the two

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entities work are entirely different, with the car firm running on a product cycle basis while InMotion must be at the forefront of software updates weekly or fortnightly. “You need to facilitate different working factors and make it clear where to draw the line between a corporate desire to make sure all the processes are in place and what we need to do, which is to move as fast as we can and not get bogged down in committee meetings,” he says.

Having garnered industry awareness and distinguished the differences between InMotion and Jaguar Land Rover, it was a matter of the team diving right into the mobility marketplace headfirst. Of course, the concept of mobility is open to interpretation depending on who you ask but Peck defines it as “the unbundling of the car,” so moving around without owning a car yourself. Elaborating, he continues: “There are so many more options and convenient ways to travel around that don’t involve an asset rotting in front of your house. That’s what we mean by mobility. It’s the chance to move away from asset ownership and to tap into a much richer service ecosystem for whenever you need it.” The challenge it presents Jaguar Land Rover is how to adhere to such expectations, which is 34 28

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There are so many more options and convenient ways ways to travel around that don’t involve an asset rotting in front of your house why InMotion’s split into two arms has worked out particularly well.

With InMotion Ventures investing in mobility concepts, all innovative eventualities are covered. “As an early-stage investor we want to ensure companies have the space to grow and to mature,” says Peck, which is reminiscent of the approach Jaguar Land Rover has with InMotion. To that end, it’s much more forward-looking and leans towards what can be accomplished in five to ten years. And to get access to funding from the company, expertise is key. “I think ideas are cheap,” he continues. “There are a lot of people with the same idea, so it’s really coming down to the operational execution but most importantly technical execution.”

Comparatively, Studio 107 is about bringing visions to life. “We have developed a mobility strategy within Jaguar Land Rover and Studio 107 is

really the place where we build new proprietary mobility services with that strategy in mind,” Peck details. “The businesses are effectively developed, refined and then carved out into separate entities that can stand on their own feet.” With a portfolio being created, the potential is then there to either integrate the developments into the car firm or look for strategic partners and external investments. “It all depends on what the business is,” he adds.

With almost two years steering the direction of InMotion, Peck expects the next couple of years will generate “really exciting businesses” ready to scale across London and other leading cities. “I hope that in two years’ time the things we’re putting out will become a part of everyone’s lives as people are trying to move around and a have good time.”

ELITEBUSINESSMAGAZINE.CO.UK ELITEBUSINESSMAGAZINE.CO.UK OCTOBER APRIL 2017 2018

09/10/2018 12:37

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08/10/2018 22:44

Anil Stocker co-founder and CEO, MarketInvoice

Bit on the side

UK employees are showcasing their entrepreneurial efforts outside of work but there are key things to bear in mind if they want to make their side hustle a business I was interested to read a recent Henley Business School white paper that claims 25% of UK adults have a side hustle – a business they run in their free time. These part-time ventures are giving people the flexibility to pursue what they’re really passionate about, while retaining the stability of their day job. As an entrepreneur, I think this is extremely valuable.

Most successful businesses are years of hard work in the making and many of them started as a side hustle before the time was right for the founders to take the plunge. It takes an incredible amount of time and commitment, so it’s essential you build your business around something you’re genuinely passionate about.

In my experience, that passion is often focused on solving a particular problem.

When we started MarketInvoice it was about solving the challenges SMEs faced in accessing funding for growth.

Traditional finance was broken and we had this idea of using technology to fix it. In the beginning we were just three founders in a top-floor office following a passion. Fast-forward seven years and we’re a team of almost 100.

I was chatting to some of our new joiners the other day about the early days of MarketInvoice and they asked what advice I would give future entrepreneurs based on my experience.

The first thing that sprang to mind was to build a business around what you love but two other important factors for me are partnering with the right people and really just getting out there and making it happen.

Starting a business is a long journey and it’s not always easy, so you have

to be sure you embark on it with the right person. And that’s not necessarily a good friend or family member.

You need to choose someone who complements you – both in attitude and expertise. They can challenge your thinking, see things you may not have considered and bring new ideas to the table. This is far more valuable than working with someone just like you.

Having innovative ideas is a start but it takes action to turn them into reality.

Over the years I’ve learned it can often be better not to overthink and rather just go and do things. I try to spend 5% of my time thinking and 95% of my time doing. You need luck to grow your ideas into a successful business but must to actively put yourself in situations where that can happen.

OCTOBER 2018 ELITEBUSINESSMAGAZINE.CO.UK

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08/10/2018 18:29

GARY Stewart director, Wayra UK

Survival of the fittest

Survival of the fittest and evolution apply to both species and corporates – something I’ve learnt over almost a decade with Wayra

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can’t believe it’s already been seven years since I joined Wayra, Telefónica’s startup accelerator. Back then, few understood why Telefónica, one of the world’s largest telecommunications companies with presence in 21 countries and annual revenue of €52bn would be crazy enough to acknowledge that its ability to survive the digital revolution would partly depend on its ability to work and grow with startups.

There are now almost 400 incubators and accelerators in the UK alone, with more than half being backed by corporates. The top five companies in the world – Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Facebook – are or soon will be trillion-dollar former startups. And their billionaire founders are still seen as the motors of their creations, while corporates without access to such sterling entrepreneurial DNA struggle to avoid being disrupted.

Today, Wayra operates in ten countries and in the UK alone has invested in 178 startups that have raised $224m and done $15m worth of deals with Telefónica. Along the way, we’ve learned a few things.

Leadership must come from the top Many middle managers will kill innovation because it isn’t among their KPIs. Telefónica’s CEO is also Wayra’s founder. It’s easier to get employees to internalise an innovation agenda when a company’s CEO lives and

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breathes innovation. Corporates who limit innovation to an innovation department and can’t figure out how to change their culture from both the top down and the bottom up, will not survive.

Corporates don’t work well with early-stage startups Most managers will only engage with startups if they see a clear fit between their KPIs and the company in question.

This means startups must be able to articulate tailored pitches that help middle managers clearly see the winwin. They also must have commercial products that can be quickly deployed to potentially millions of customers.

We recently relaunched Wayra to acknowledge that our strategy has evolved to focus on startups of this sort.

Open innovation means you can’t fly solo Open innovation shouldn’t be lonely. Our partners include the Cabinet Office, GCHQ, the Oldham Council, University of Edinburgh, Big Society Capital, Merck, Cisco and Hyundai. They even include Deutsche Telekom, Singtel and Orange. Change happens whether we like it or not and doesn’t limit itself to a particular sector or type of organisation. Just ask Blockbuster, Kodak, Myspace and the entire taxi industry. To survive, organisations must open up, be humble enough to acknowledge vulnerability, have a sense of urgency and be willing to work with others.

ELITEBUSINESSMAGAZINE.CO.UK OCTOBER 2018

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A dv ert i s i ng f eat u r e

The FUTURE OF THE WORKPLACE: MAXIMISING PRODUCTIVITY AND TACKLING DIVERSITY IN THE TECHONOLOGY SECTOR

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recent report conducted by Milkround asked more than 5,700 students and graduates for their opinions on career confidence, including what influences productivity and how employers can promote women in technology to help combat the prevalence of the gender gap in STEM industries.

Training and mentorship aids productivity Many businesses are now offering a variety of working arrangements in a bid to become more flexible for a wider range of employees. From office perks to remote working spaces, these elements are being introduced as a way of maximising productivity.

However, our research shows that students and graduates simply want their employer to be fair and agile when it comes to understanding how an individual works best, with 28% of students opting for training and mentorship as the top factor for maximising productivity.

Flexible hours appealed to 24% of students and 13% favoured fun work perks such as office pet days but overall, employers should be investing in the millennial workforce’s skills, setting clear goals and marketing any training

programmes available so that younger employees have something concrete to map themselves against.

Students and graduates also noted that mentorship and having open communication with an individual they can relate to is the most valuable factor in creating a productive environment. A previous graduate is an obvious choice but equally if another employee from outside the team possesses expertise your new starter is interested in, a few catch ups will inspire more out-of-the-box thinking.

Technology will shape the future but the gender gap persists Whilst diversity continues to be the number one challenge for employees across all industries, the gender gap is more prevalent in some sectors than others. Specifically, the technological skills gap continues to widen, with the prediction that by 2020, more than 60% of new jobs will require skills that less than 20% of the workforce possesses.

The landscape of careers is changing vastly and 92% of our respondents predict that technology will impact the jobs of the future. However, not all graduates are interested in choosing this career route.

Our research shows that only 49% of females would be interested in a technology-based career, compared to 73% of males. It’s therefore fundamental for businesses in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics industries to be celebrating, supporting and promoting women in younger generations. Sharing insights such as day in the life profiles as part of your recruitment process – either on your website or through social media – can highlight successful women and prevent a cycle of continued imbalance.

To find out more about how Milkround can help to shape your recruitment strategies, head to

www.recruiting.milkround.com

JULY 2018 ELITEBUSINESSMAGAZINE.CO.UK

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08/10/2018 23:14

Wa ld o

Eye spy

BY ZEN TERRELONGE

In what seems like the blink of an eye, Ashleigh Hinde’s contact lens concept became Waldo, a fast-growth startup complete with international reach and £5.7m of investment in total. And that’s all achieved in just year one

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ichard Branson, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are just some of the individuals who dropped out of education to become successful entrepreneurs. Despite that demonstrable route to glory though, Ashleigh Hinde, the founder of Waldo, the contact lens delivery startup, took no chances. Possessing a seemingly insatiable appetite for learning, Hinde has ticked off study on everything from social science and psychology to media and finance. “I’ve always been really interested in organisational and people behaviour, which was the reason for studying law and psychology,” she says. “And I’ve always been interested in how media affects people and society as a whole.” This thirst for knowledge about why people do what they do eventually led to her completing both a post-graduate in marketing as well as a masters in finance, the latter of which was at Harvard University. On her various degrees, Hinde casually adds: “I guess my study has evolved with my interests.”

While many parents often try steering their children towards education, business ownership

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wa l d o

I don’t think becoming an entrepreneur because you want to have your own business is necessarily enough of a reason to take the plunge was actually the beaten path in Hinde’s home. “I come from a family of entrepreneurs,” she reveals.

“Prior to me starting Waldo I was the only person in my family that didn’t have my own company, so it was quite normal from a family perspective.”

She spent a few years working in her native South Africa for M&S-esque retailer Truworths, the FMCG arena and London’s corporate sector, which is where she got a taste of the tech scene. However, it was when Hinde worked for Yard Ventures, the Harvard alumni VC fund, alongside study that her entrepreneurial spark ignited.

The scholar was burning the midnight oil on an assignment, which centred around the rise of subscription models, hot off the heels of Unilever’s $1bn takeover of Dollar Shave Club in July 2016.

“The idea for Waldo came along when it was 3am,” Hinde says, realising with tired eyes she only had one pair of contacts left. “I went online to see how I could buy contacts in the States and saw they were super-expensive.” She suddenly found herself questioning a product she’d worn for almost 20 years. Questions such as “why is the packaging so terrible?” and “why is the pricing so different if I buy it from my optician to online?” raced through her mind. “I started to question all of the inconsistencies about the product that I was so reliant on,” she says.

With access to all the research she could possibly need, Hinde drilled into this newly unearthed issue to get to the core of it. Seemingly big pharmaceuticals had dominated the market for decades with virtually no creativity, consumer focus or change. While the idea came from a personal situation, she believed it could solve a real problem. “I didn’t start Waldo because I wanted to

start a business, I started Waldo because I thought there was a need for the product,” she says. “I don’t think becoming an entrepreneur because you want to have your own business is necessarily enough of a reason to take the plunge.”

Having worn contact lenses for two decades, Hinde always had a close relationship with her family optician. This was also linked to the fact her mother is blind in one eye. “She wears tailor-made hard contact lenses, so the optician has played a super-important role in our family for that reason,” she details.

“When I started to look into the industry, it was really about interviewing industry experts, getting to know them and learning more about the detail of the actual lenses.”

In the same way Hinde questioned why the market was so stagnant and expensive, she also began to quiz herself over if she could solve the issue alone. “As I started to dig into it, I was like ‘oh my God, this problem is huge’ and found these [large OCTOBER 2018 ELITEBUSINESSMAGAZINE.CO.UK

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the technology and manpower we’ve got behind the production of our product, that’s in the league of the big pharmaceutical players pharmaceutical] companies were ripping off consumers for ages,” she says. Determined, Hinde pushed on and explored the supply chain.

Her tenacity paid off when she found a partner that bought into her concept just ten months from the initial 3am brainwave. This would see Waldo deliver a more agile and user-friendly service for lenses, executing regular deliveries and a fair-priced pay-as-you-go approach without users jumping through hoops.

Refusing to associate her brand with sub-par goods that would swindle consumers, Hinde knew what she desired. “It was about making sure we had suppliers able to make contact lenses of a quality akin to that of Johnson & Johnson or CooperVision,” she explains.

With the big firms effectively commanding the supply chain and doubt cast over Waldo for its then-small size, she concedes: “Getting access to a high-quality supplier isn’t that easy. That was the biggest challenge in terms of setting up.”

Possessing a London network from her time in the corporate sector, Hinde returned to the Big Smoke believing it was the most logical place for her to open shop. “Your network is super-important when you’re setting up,” she stresses. “More than that, I think London is a great testing ground. It’s a very difficult market to crack as a consumer business – prices are very low and the retail industry is super-competitive.”

Waldo’s doors officially opened in August 2017. By then it had secured a seed investment round of £1.3m while another £700,000 followed in launch month, both of which came from YYX Capital, the 36

Knightsbridge-based VC firm. With the website live, complemented by some light PR and digital advertising, it didn’t take long to get noticed. “It was such a new concept and never done before in the UK, so I think we were lucky from the perspective that the brand really stood out,” says Hinde.

“Stood out” is putting it mildly. While a rough target of 10,000 customers for early 2018 was loosely put in place, that milestone was reached in December 2017. “I think, being an entrepreneur, things are moving so quickly that you seldom take a step back to reflect on how far you’ve come,” Hinde opines. Having now had time for it all to sink in, she continues: “In the moment I didn’t think much of it you know, it was day-to-day. But then you take a step back and you’re like ‘oh my God – we’ve done it, we hit 10,000 orders in the space of four months.’ That was amazing for us.”

From that point Hinde didn’t decide to let Waldo get some shut-eye, no, the momentum had to be capitalised on as 2018 kicked off. Having picked her own

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brains before the business launched, she applied the same strategy for scaling.

Revealing the questions she asked herself, Hinde recalls: “How do we make this better? How do we make it more efficient? How do we make our product more compelling for customers?”

One such innovation was the launch of vitamin contact lenses – “the first of their kind,” according to Hinde.

They come in a patented solution with vitamins B6, B12 and E, which is designed to provide more oxygen to the eyes resulting in added comfort and less dryness. “We’ve had great customer

feedback on that,” she reveals, with the Waldo website showcasing plenty of five-star reviews.

Expansion complemented innovation as Waldo entered Europe in June to get a sense of where the brand could gain the most traction before venturing into new specific markets. Then in August, the US became the startup’s first stop outside the continent. “The US is a massive market,” Hinde explains. “The customer doesn’t have as many affordable options as Europe and the UK.” While the same business model is in place, there are key differences across the regions, such as

They’re not just going to sit down and let us eat their breakfast

Americans being more accustomed to buying in bulk and various languages to adapt to across Europe. “Sometimes people lump Europe together into this bucket but that’s not the case at all – each individual market has its own nuances, which I think makes it very unique to anywhere else in the world,” Hinde notes.

Building on the seed funding, growth was financially supported in the midst of the overseas crusades as Waldo sealed a £3.7m series A investment in July. It gave the business the approval of not just VCs but startup royalty as Tinder founders Sean Rad and Justin Mateen joined the round. “It’s a bit of firepower behind what we’re already doing,” says Hinde of the injection, which is supporting marketing and service delivery.

With such growth in a short space of time, it’s perhaps unsurprising the big firms are paying close attention to Waldo.

“The likes of Vision Direct etcetera, they’re not just going to sit down and let us eat their breakfast,” Hinde laughs.

“We’ve seen the incumbents react.”

Noting that Waldo is a brand and service in itself rather than a company selling miscellaneous goods, she claims they’re cutting through online noise. “They’re not able to emulate [us], they’re much further away from the product and customer than we are,” she argues. “I think digital is getting more cluttered, so it’s super-important for brands to find their voice in that space.”

So how does the future look for Waldo? “We might be a startup in terms of how long we’ve been around but the technology and manpower we’ve got behind the production of our product, that’s in the league of the big pharmaceutical players,” she concludes.

“My big ambition for the company is to change the way people feel about eyecare globally and I would like to see our brand touching as many customers as we can.”

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FIN A N C IN G F EMA L ES

FUNDING FEMALE FOUNDERS COMPANIES ARE INCREASINGLY ADDRESSING THE GENDER PAY GAP AND SEXISM ISSUE AFTER THE #METOO AND #TIMESUP MOVEMENTS BUT NOW IT’S TIME TO CLOSE THE INVESTMENT GAP FOR FEMALE ENTREPRENEURS WHEN OLIVIA SIBONY, co-founder of Grub Club, the dining out platform for food lovers, aspired to expand her startup she realised how ubiquitous gender discrimination was in the VC world.

“When we were fundraising, a surprising comment we got was since I was ‘of child-bearing age’, they didn’t find it plausible to invest in us,” she recalls.

And having an Indian co-founder didn’t work in her favour either. “When you’re in that position of being a minority, you just spend your entire life fundraising without reaching goals.” Getting investment for a female entrepreneur is indeed an unstable path and looking at cases like Sibony, it’s also filled with blatant sexism.

But she is hardly alone in experiencing such discrimination. Indeed, a survey

by The Telegraph showed two-thirds of 40

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750 female founders felt they weren’t taken seriously and were treated differently compared to their male counterparts when pitching to investors.

This is what drove Sibony to sell her company and spearhead SeedTribe, a crowdfunding platform built to fill in the gap for women-led businesses. She’s now determined to “bring more female investors onto the platform.” “If we had more women as investors, matters of age or gender wouldn’t be raised,” she argues. Nor would it be a problem if

PEOPLE INVEST IN PEOPLE WHO DISPLAY CONFIDENCE Christina Bechhold Russ, VC at Samsung NEXT

FIN A N CIN G FE M A L ES

BY VARSHA SARAOGI

there was a female-centric business idea.

“For instance, if a panel of investors got a pitch about a woman’s sexual wellness or a period product, most say ‘let me take this home to my wife and see what she thinks.’” This attitude has prevented many startups spawned by women from taking flight.

In a progressive country like the UK, one would assume there’s equality to some degree but that can’t be further from the truth. A report from The Entrepreneurs Network, the non-profit business community, found only 9% of startup investments went to those run by women. The question arises: why does this funding black hole exist?

Interestingly, it’s not entirely unrelated to the age-old issue of the gender pay gap. “Since men earn more dollars than women they tend to have more to invest and hence the cycle continues,” Sibony adds. Indeed, investment has quite been a part of the man’s world since the beginning. “There are plenty of women who have an abundance of money but lack the inclination to become an investor as they’ve always pictured a man doing that job.”

But now, a lot of women like Sibony have taken it upon themselves to change the dynamics of the boys’ club in the

investment sector. Jenny Tooth, CEO of UK Business Angels Association, the investment firm, also believes the solution to ensure more women head businesses is to establish a balance in the demographics of investors. “By building and growing an effective women’s angel community, we can directly affect the potential of female entrepreneurs accessing investment,” she says. Given women account for just 8% of partners in the top 100 VC firms according to a Crunchbase report, it’s easy to see how the sector screams out desperately for equality. “In my experience, some of the best ideas are coming from women – it’s just about enabling those voices to be heard more in the environment in which we’re investing.” And that’s what Tooth aims to achieve by nurturing more female angels to pump money into women-led startups.

Bringing in more women as investors would solve many other obstacles that female entrepreneurs face, such as both genders being quizzed the same way regarding their enterprises as opposed to the current scenario. This was backed by a study from Harvard Business Review which said investors today focused more on growth and vision when interrogating male entrepreneurs but with women october 2018 ELITEBUSINESSMAGAZINE.CO.UK

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FIN A N CIN G F E M A L ES

the questions are more about their previous achievements. And this approach resulted in less funding for them. “Women are given investment on what they’ve accomplished and men are given investment on what they could accomplish – which is just unfair,” says Christina Bechhold Russ, a VC at Samsung NEXT, the investment firm. This insight is what made her launch Empire Angels, the network and funding platform, in New York six years ago and this year in the UK so startups under the leadership of diverse founders too can get funding easily.

Apart from bringing more women into the room of investors, VCs and angels must be more cognisant about how essential and profitable it is to encourage and fund female founders. Despite getting less investment, women-led companies generate 10% more revenue compared to their male counterparts. A report by Boston Consulting Group, the management consulting firm, found female business owners returned 78¢ for every $1 of funding as opposed to 31¢ from men. This resulted in investors being able to earn an additional $85m in a span of five years. “The numbers will increase as more women take charge in the startup world,” Tooth says.

Indeed, the challenge lies in shattering the glass ceiling of the male-dominated investment sector. Confidence and conviction while pitching, which many women fail to show, is a major factor.

“Unfortunately women are more likely to be criticised if they are unapologetically competitive,” Bechhold Russ says. “I would say it’s probably not disagreed by anyone that men are generally threatened by assertive women. I think it’s a balance. Behaving like a man is the best way to get ahead in this circumstance.”

However, that doesn’t mean women should fear taking a leaf out of Sheryl Sandberg’s book and lean in. “People invest in people who display confidence and if you don’t fit that archetype, it can be difficult to raise money,” Bechhold Russ adds.

The best way to inculcate a greater sense of assertiveness is to get back to the basics. Educating women to harbour a higher sense of fearlessness by broadening their options is the foundation to be built from school. Given that many investors look for a datadriven or tech-based startup, women must tread beyond their comfort zone. “Getting more women in STEM fields will give them the confidence that they can pursue

A POTENTIAL BUSINESSWOMAN MIGHT HEAR A SUCCESS STORY AND GO ‘THAT COULD BE ME, I COULD DO THAT

Jenny Tooth, CEO of UK Business Angels Association

and start companies in more tech-based areas [rather than just] traditional ones,” Bechhold Russ adds. Indeed, the financial industry remains heavily male-congested and women make up less than a third of the overall STEM workforce according to the Catalyst, the nonprofit firm for female founders. Having a better knowledge in those areas will inspire them to create largely futuristic companies.

However, the financial momentum, albeit possible, can’t occur unless women see inspirational role models to look up to. “It’s a catch 22 situation – we need more women from diverse backgrounds to talk about their business journey,” Tooth says. “A potential businesswoman might hear a success story and go ‘that could be me, I could do that.’”

Indeed, the urgency of closing this gap is more now than ever. While women are taking over in the superhero world and reigning over the Iron Throne, it’s time to encourage them in the money-making sectors as well. “The need of the hour is to encourage more women entrepreneurs to be more confident about coming forward for investment and ensure they get what’s deserved,” Tooth concludes. “And this will help to redress the balance.” october 2018 ELITEBUSINESSMAGAZINE.CO.UK

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beyond Bionics

BY ERIC JOHANSSON PHOTOGRAPHY BY EMILIE SANDY

Open Bionics has been dubbed Europe’s hottest startup, is endorsed by the Dalai Lama and is creating affordable 3D-printed arms that turns amputees into superheroes. And the founders are just getting started

S

eriously, knowing that the Dalai Lama loves the hightech prostheses she helped create isn’t even the biggest thing that’s happened to Samantha Payne this year. The Tibetan world leader met one of the Open Bionics’ ambassadors and double-amputee Tilly Lockey at an event in The Netherlands in September 2018. During the conversation, he suddenly reached over, put his hands on one of her two multi-grip artificial hands and said how much he appreciated the work that had gone into creating the devices. “It’s pretty intense,” says Payne.

Still, as the co-founder and COO of Open Bionics, the startup using 3D-printers and some ingenious engineering to create pioneering prostheses, Payne is keeping more than busy these days. “It’s been a bit of a whirlwind,” she says. Since the company’s first medically-approved bionic arm went on sale in April, the Hero Arm and the people using it have popped up everywhere from TV morning shows and O2 ads to being praised by religious leaders. “We’re just grateful our users are now using their devices, that they are out in the wild and that all these sort of opportunities came about because more people now wear the device so more people are interested, want to talk about it and OCTOBER 2018 ELITEBUSINESSMAGAZINE.CO.UK

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find out about their limb difference, which is pretty cool,” she says.

These achievements are even more encouraging considering the story Payne kept hearing at the beginning of her journey. “Adult amputees told us that as young kids getting a prosthetic arm, whether it was a hook or a prosthesis, they would be bullied and it would create such a bad social stigma that it was often something they carried with them later in life,” she remembers. “They had this huge body confidence issue where they felt they had to hide their limb because of the horrible experience they had as a child.” So when she and her cofounder and CEO Joel Gibbard set out to develop the next generation of bionic limbs, they were determined no one should be made to feel that way again.

And thanks to collaborations with Disney and game developers like Eidos Montréal, Open Bionics has been able to develop high-tech arms that look and feel like they’re taken right out of the page of a comic. “We want them to have the superhero narrative so when they go into school they have the official Iron Man hand and only they can have it because it’s still a medical device,” Payne says. “It’s a prosthetic bionic arm and it does things enabling them to do more of the stuff that their peers can do but it also looks really cool. It’s stylish and desirable. Those kids will get a completely different response when they go to school.”

And it’s not just the stigma that affects hand amputees but also the

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cost. A high-tech bionic arm can cost up to £100,000. In comparison, Open Bionics’ new Hero Arm costs between £8,500 and £9,999 from private prosthetic clinics thanks to it being 3D-printed and therefore more costeffective to produce.

However, upon first meeting her co-founder Payne had no idea she’d end up teaming up with him. Instead, when she established herself as a freelance reporter in Bristol in 2013, she initially set out to report about the city’s emerging startup ecosystem and not to become an entrepreneur.

“When I moved here it was kind of all just starting,” she says. And it was in this capacity that she came across something called The Open Hand Project led by her future co-founder.

She came away from the interview having been truly impressed with Gibbard. “Joel is a bit of a genius,” she laughs. “He is an incredible maker and engineer. He built his first robot when he was seven years old. His parents had asked him to do the chores and clean the kitchen. So he built a robot out of Lego and Meccano on wheels that sprayed cleaning detergent from the front of the robot with a motor controlled cloth behind it, wiping the kitchen floor.” Over the years, Gibbard nurtured this love for engineering, tinkering and innovation. He eventually found his calling at 17 when he realised how dependent he was of his own hands to build things. “So he went about trying to make a hand,” Payne explains.

Gibbard nurtured his interest for making high-tech hands throughout his university studies, spurred on by the realisation that less than 1% of the population had access to multi-grip bionic arms. But he had to fight to keep developing the project. “The university told him the project he was undertaking was too ambitious technologically and that he wouldn’t be able to do it,” Payne explains. Eventually his lecturers relented and allowed him to keep developing the idea. The result? Their minds were thoroughly blown by his work. “They actually awarded him a prize at the end of his degree because the research was so great,” Payne says.

It was this research that led Gibbard to launch The Open Hand Project to help develop affordable and open sourced hands.

And that’s how the two future cofounders met. “I went to interview him as a journalist because the project and the crowdfunding campaign were a huge success,” she says. “It seemed like a brilliant idea. It was really radical, really novel. A very philanthropic idea to take a technology that’s currently very elite and completely democratise it. It was a really great story at the time.” Fortunately, the story didn’t end there. “Joel called me back after the interview and told me about a startup competition that he’d found and he needed help writing a pitch and that’s how I got involved,” she remembers.

The competition in question was Intel’s Make it Wearable and the prize pot stood at $50,000. “We weren’t expecting to win,” she admits. “We were up against engineers and people from Google and Stanford. Really, we were just out of our depth. So it was a shock when we won.” With the prize money in hand Gibbard and Payne suddenly had the funds to hire a team and develop a real prototype of the business. “That capital gave us a huge lift-off,” she says. So in 2014 the cofounders had everything in place to launch Open Bionics for real.

Most tech startups are struggling to fill vacancies due to the UK’s huge STEM skills shortage. Fortunately, Open Bionics has never struggled to source talent. “We’re quite lucky

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They had this huge body confidence issue where they felt they had to hide their limb because of the horrible experience they had as a child

because we’re based in Bristol, which is a hub for engineering,” Payne explains.

Not only is the city home to companies like Airbus UK and Dyson but it’s also within the vicinity of several strong engineering universities. Open Bionics’ recruitment ability is quite enhanced thanks to the company’s potent online following. “Whenever

we have something going, we’re really lucky to receive a lot of applications,” Payne says.

The founders have always been very particular about the culture they nurture and the candidates they hire.

“The kind of person that works at Open Bionics seems to be a maker,” Payne explains. “Everyone seems to make

XXXX XXXX

stuff on their own time. They like to share their makes and their hobbies and [we have] geeky activities with the team and everyone is highly creative. I think we’ve managed to collect a group of people who are very complimentary in terms of their personalities.” The founders also organise things like Mario Kart games, Fridays when OCTOBER 2018 ELITEBUSINESSMAGAZINE.CO.UK

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everyone can work on their own personal projects, camping trips and stimulate a fun and open environment.

“We encourage the social aspect of the startup culture,” Payne says.

But it wasn’t just having the team and the cash injection that set them upon the path of entrepreneurial success – the prize also included a spot at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business’ accelerator. That’s where the founders learned about the lean startup method.

“There’s two main models that I’ve come across,” Payne explains. “It’s the ‘raise as much as you can as fast as you can and develop as fast as you can to beat all of the competition’ kind. Or [you can be] a lean [startup] where you keep as much equity as you can and you go slow and steady.”

These insights set the tone for Open Bionics’ future funding strategy.

Instead of opting for the traditional VC route, the founders decided to focus on winning as many grants and competitions they could. And the strategy has certainly proven successful. Over the years the startup has won such coveted trophies like the

James Dyson Award for Engineering, a Wired Social Innovation Award, a Limbless Association Prosthetic Innovation of the Year Award and a $1m UAE AI & Robotics International Award for Good. Most recently, Open Bionics picked up the title of being among the 2018 Hottest Startup Founders in Europe at The Europa Awards. Winning all these competitions also set it up for when it would feel ready to include investors in the future.

“I think it’s a really good sign when your business is being recognised as a game-changer, as someone doing something different in an industry,” Payne says.

A second huge takeaway from the accelerator was the importance of intimately working with the amputee community. “When you’re building a product you should work very closely to the end user,” Payne argues.

Recognising this, Open Bionics spent months talking with amputees to find out more about their experience of using artificial limbs. Not only did the founders find out about the stigma associated with the loss of a limb but

also realised how many developers get the product wrong by turning it into something clinical and boring that doesn’t showcase the user’s personality. Other times it heard about how heavy and uncomfortable arms were. It’s hardly surprising then that NHS England reports that up to 20% of adults with upper limb amputations choose not to use prosthetics. Of those who do, 26% of adults and 45% of children and teens are unhappy with their device. “Amputees were telling us what they wanted was something that was personalised, something where they could change the look, something where they could choose to adapt and accessorise,” Payne remembers.

Following these insights, the cofounders began playing around with the idea of creating a hand that could turn amputees into superheroes. The only snag was that they lacked the appropriate licences to use designs resembling those from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That’s when they were encouraged to sign up for Disney’s Techstars accelerator. “It seemed like the perfect opportunity because we’d

It’s really cool because we’re working with world class artists and what we set out to do with our bionic limbs is to make them hyper-stylish

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Joel is a bit of a genius. He built his first robot when he was seven years old approached Disney in the past through their lawyers and it clearly didn’t go anywhere,” Payne says. Open Bionics joined the programme in 2015 but the real magic happened when a Hollywood director heard them pitch and asked if Kathleen Kennedy, the president of Lucasfilm, knew about their project. “He said, ‘she’d love this, let me just email her,’” Payne remembers. “And he just got out his phone and wrote an email to Kathleen Kennedy and explained the project and she emailed us back and said, ‘Okay, this sounds great, let’s do this.’”

With the blessing of the of Star Wars owner, Open Bionics suddenly had access to Disney’s design teams. The result was three arms inspired by Iron Man, Star Wars and Frozen. “Those were the first three that we announced through the accelerator programme but we still have more to come,” Payne says. While she won’t reveal what other characters have inspired the upcoming arms, Payne promises that it’s going to be worth the wait. “Watch this space,” she laughs.

But Disney isn’t the only company the startup has worked with. Open Bionics also collaborated with video game manufacturer Eidos Montréal in 2016 to create a bionic arm based on the video game Deus Ex. “It’s really cool because we’re working with world-class artists and what we set out to do with our bionic limbs is to make them hyper-stylish,” Payne says. The collaboration resulted in the company picking up the Guinness World Record for creating the world’s first bionic arm based on a video game. The idea also spoke to the founders for another reason. “That video game is set in a universe where people who have bionic limbs, who’ve had amputations, are the elite and the heroes,” she says. “Human augmentation is a positive thing and not a negative. So that was really interesting to pay homage to.”

Despite these partnerships, it was still a long journey before the product hit the market. Contrary to many other tech startups, operating in the medical space meant lots of regulatory hoops to jump through. Fortunately, in 2017 the company completed the first out of two trials with the NHS. “The feasibility study was basically a test with young children aged eight plus to measure the device against existing NHS solutions,” explains Payne. The first trial

proved a success and set Open Bionics up for a second round which could result in the company’s device being made available through the NHS. “So hopefully big things will come from this trial,” Payne says.

Since the first trial, the company was just about ready to unleash the world’s first clinically-tested and medicallyapproved 3D-printed arm into the wild. To finance the launch, the company raised a £435,000 seed round in January 2018. And then four years of hard work came to fruition in April 2018 when the Hero Arm was released to the public. “I don’t think we could’ve asked for anything better,” says Payne. Recognising the feedback from the amputee community, the arm weighs less than 1kg, can be personalised with customisable covers and comes complete with a battery life promising to last the user throughout the day. No wonder that over 1,000 people have registered for a Hero arm since it launched. But it’s not just the hard numbers that bring a smile to Payne’s face. “I absolutely love receiving photos and videos from parents of our young users doing actions for the first time, of them cleaning their teeth with ease for the first time or brushing their hair or holding a fork or eating dinner or taking their dog for a walk,” she says.

“I get all of these photos and videos and it just totally makes my day.”

But just because the Hero Arm has been released, it doesn’t mean Payne is taking her foot off the accelerator. “We’re going to launch a second arm, the Hero Arm version 2,” she reveals. While the release date is still a huge secret, she promises that the team is working “on something exceptionally innovative for the second Hero Arm and it’s something that no one has done before” and that the device is already being tested with “really positive” feedback. “I can say that it’s really cool,” she teases.

To fund the research as well as the company’s potential expansions into Ireland, Germany, France, Italy and the US, the startup is looking to raise money in the next few months.

“We started working on our series A a few months ago and we’re right in the middle of discussing the terms with investors at the moment,” she says. However, Payne adds it’s a bit too early to reveal any details about the round. “But we will probably have news for you this year,” she continues. “I can’t really say anything else except that we’re building our series A and that we’re very, very happy with the investors we’re speaking to.”

It’s been four years since Open Bionics launched and it’s clear the founders have grown along the way. “When we first started developing this, Joel and I had never started a business before,” Payne says. “We’d never pitched before or made a business deck or a business plan. We’d never launched a product to market. We had never fully developed a product so we were very naive in the beginning. We felt that maybe a product like this would take maybe one year to develop and launch in the market.” But while the process took longer than expected, she’s happy with the results. “It’s been pretty incredible,” she concludes.

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h o lo grams

Holo, is it me Using traditional methods like print media or even AR and VR to boost your company’s marketing strategy is passé.

Because if holograms can bring Michael Jackson and Tupac Shakur back from the dead, there’s no limit to what it can do for your brand

t

he apparition of Princess leia only lasted long enough for her to say, “Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.” Still, R2-D2’s 3D hologram not only inspired millions of sci-fi fans back in 1977 but today the technology has become a reality and is quickly opening up a whole new world for marketeers. “It’s not just sci-fi anymore — holograms augment marketeers’ abilities to tell stories and foster more engagement with consumers,” says Jack Barmby, CEO and founder of Gnatta, the customer communication firm. “And great stories make for great campaigns.”

Looking back, not too long ago augmented and virtual reality (AR and VR) were touted as breakthrough technologies. In fact, according to a survey by Innovate UK, 60% of companies who used immersive technologies including VR, AR or mixed reality saw an increased turnover in 12 months. However, with every brand vying for people’s attention, messages or visuals through a screen or glasses no longer stand out. And that’s where the new hologram technology comes in.

“Now, you can create a Hollywood-esque effect, make your product look

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hologra m s

you’re looking for?

BY Varsha Saraogi

like magic and create something people haven’t seen before without the need to wear anything as in the case of VR,” says James Rock, founder of The Rock Group, the hologram creation company. And in that respect, he believes leveraging the new tech will enable businesses to move beyond VR and AR. “When people walk into a room and go ‘wow’ that’s when you know you’re onto something huge,” Rock adds.

But what exactly is a hologram? Simply speaking, it’s a way of using projectors to display seemingly real objects. Unlike a conventional film on a standard screen, a 3D hologram is visible from all sides.

“While the holographic technology widely used today – also known as Pepper’s Ghost – emerged many decades ago, the ease with which it’s being used has vastly escalated over the past few years,” Rock adds.

The advancement of digital cameras and the ability to implement algorithms which can render holograms in real time have indeed opened new business vistas to techdriven marketing. Unsurprisingly then that the holographic industry is predicted to be worth $5.5bn by 2020,

according to MarketsandMarkets, a B2B research firm.

And some brands can’t wait to jump on the opportunity to leverage this futuristic technology. From Louis Vuitton and Tiffany to Ralph Lauren and Burberry, it’s fair to say the fashion industry has proven especially eager to experiment with the new innovation.

And it’s no secret why they’re doing so.

“It completely changes the dynamics of anything being sold to the public,” Rock declares. “Without this tech there simply isn’t a way of doing that.” It seems as if holographic images arouse more interest from people by engaging them unlike the traditional television ads or billboards.

And there’s no industry where these realistic illusionary images can’t be used. Looking at the doom and gloom surrounding the high street, it’s worth considering whether holograms will be the saving grace for brick and mortar stores. “In a world of bricks vs clicks there’s a big move for consumers from experience over to convenience,” Barmby says. But to gain increased physical interaction, businesses should take notes from the $1tn company Apple which is the perfect example of how to

nail marketing. Not only did the tech titan use holograms in its stores but the overall experience it offers is what tech enthusiasts seek when walking through the doors. “Holograms are the perfect fit and I think it’s the red pill for offline stores,” Barmby adds. It would also save the resources involved in transporting the products to every location when displaying them – particularly for car companies.

For bigger brands, the go-to strategy is celebrity figures. But their inaccessibility and packed schedules are known to all. Again, this is where holograms can help. “Imagine meeting Lewis Hamilton when you stroll into a mall or The Beatles playing at a pub near you – that’s what businesses can do with celebs,” Rock says. It isn’t limited to malls but also music concerts. Remember when Tupac Shakur came back from the dead for the Coachella festival in 2012 and when Michael Jackson did his signature moonwalk at the Billboard Awards in 2014. “A person, dead or alive, can be in six or seven places at once,” Rock continues.

“Imagine how much traction a company can get from that.”

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expert skills are in short supply but can support people on the coalface or on the ground as holograms,” says Russell Hall, technical director at Imagination, the digital marketing agency.

Indeed, NASA has been training astronauts in space through holographic scientists with the help of Microsoft’s HoloLens through which you even interact with the hologram.

Clearly, holograms come with loads of advantages. However, no disruption comes sans challenges. In this case financial constraints might be one. “As an entrepreneur if you’re looking for something revenue generative, it might be a challenge at first,” says Barmby.

Consequently, what could be the future of holograms? Hall believes a combination of artificial intelligence (AI) and holograms will be the gamechanger. “Fiction blended with reality driven by a large dose of AI to bring to life through machine intelligence is the future,” he adds. The saucy hologram seen in Blade Runner 2049 might be a reality soon enough given how holographic concierges are operating already. “However, this approach needs some more years of technological development to be used successfully as a customer engagement tool at scale,” Hall says.

There is no doubt the technology is increasingly becoming ubiquitous and companies are racing to win market domination. “What makes holography alluring is the ability to mix drama with usability which pushes the boundaries of experience,” Rock concludes. “I guarantee even in a hundred years time people will still be using holograms.”

When people walk into a room and go ‘wow’ that’s when you know you’re onto something huge James Rock, The Rock Group

But the hologram buzz expands beyond just entertainment and consumer-centric industries and is becoming a breakthrough solution in many other spaces too. It can save B2B companies a lot when it comes to trading internationally – especially now that Vodafone has made holographic calls a reality, albeit only in a limited way to demonstrate what the tech can do. “You can create the illusion of being in a place where you aren’t but you can still communicate with them,” Rock says. “Like attend meetings or give presentations and save your company the travel cost.” Think about Emperor Palpatine’s projection tellling Darth Vader there is a great disturbance in the Force and you get the idea. In fact, real and hopefully less malevolent world leaders like New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern and Prince Charles have already used this tech to appear in front of mass audiences at big events, as has the late Stephen Hawking.

Moreover, keeping up with the technology as it matures will reap major benefits. Given how skills shortages are plaguing various countries, holograms seem to be a solution there too. “The best use I’ve seen is remote assistance – where the people with the

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To find out more: huw.graham@wembleystadium.com 0208 795 9527 clubwembley.com

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SEXTECH’S ON FIRE Female founders are breaking the sex taboo. But before British entrepreneurs can spearhead the worldwide sextech revolution, they must beef up their cybersecurity and overcome VCs’ reluctancy to invest

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BY Er c Johansson

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tephanie Alys didn’t always believe tech could improve people’s sex lives. For the longest time after the launch of the first iPhone, she feared it was the other way around with smartphones increasingly becoming the first and last thing people touched in the day. “Technology was starting to distract people from intimacy with their partners rather than enhancing it,” Alys says. She only reconsidered when she and some friends contemplated how modern wearables adjusted themselves to users. “We just felt there was this really big space especially within the luxury category to create a product and a brand that was very forward-thinking around technology but also about sexuality and pleasure,” Alys adds. In 2014 this insight led to her becoming the co-founder and chief pleasure officer at MysteryVibe, the sextech startup creating smartphone-controlled vibrators adjusting themselves to users’ bodies.

She’s hardly alone. From online pornography and pelvic floor trainers to sexbots and cryptocurrencies simplifying sex industry payments, entrepreneurs worldwide are developing new gadgets and gizmos galore to boost people’s sex lives. “Over the last two, three years there’s been an explosion,” says Emma Sayle, founder of female-centric sex community Killing Kittens and the SafeDate app, designed to make modern dating safer. Indeed, the industry comes in 50 shades of green with the global sexual

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Raising money as a company with a crazy idea is always tricky but within this sector specifically, it’s [even harder] Stephanie Alys, MysteryVibe

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wellness market being worth $39.42bn, according to Stratistics MRC, the research agency. Moreover, the market value is expected to jump to $122.96bn by 2026. However, that assessment could be on the cautious side as some innovators believe the industry could be worth trillions in the next decade.

And the interest in the market is palpable with sextech hackathons and accelerators popping up all over the world. “It’s now morphed into the mainstream world, it’s much more accepted and there are many more online offerings – even the toys are becoming a lot more tech-specific,” says Sayle.

There are a number of reasons for the rise of sextech entrepreneurs. For instance, it can be attributed to how online communities have opened up the conversation about sexual health and made it more accessible. “I remember watching Sex and the City and seeing these women talk about using jumping rabbits sex toys, dating and sleeping around,” Sayle says. “You could watch and talk about it with your friends but there wasn’t a big platform where you could go and discuss all the topics it brought up.” But just as smartphones have given birth to numerous dating apps, it’s also enabled users to spend more time online finding people to talk with. “That has enabled different voices to be heard and the movement to happen,” explains Sayle.

Intimately linked to how the conversation about sexual health has gone viral is the domination of female founders spearheading the sextech revolution, something few would’ve predicted a decade ago. “The adult space has been very much a male arena,” says Sayle. Everything from pornography to sex toys used to be developed by and for men. Not only did this lead to a misogynist market but it also meant products had bad designs with poorly placed buttons and often weren’t enjoyable for women to use. Fortunately, women are now very much on top of the industry. “The combination of women being a lot more in control and having our own voice, freedom and even the whole #MeToo campaign, everything just kind of merged [and] has opened up the sex industry as well,” explains Sayle. Case in point: organisations like Women of Sex Tech have been founded in the past few years to actively champion female founders in the space.

And it’s safe to say women need the encouragement as getting a business off the launchpad in the sextech industry is far from easy.

Not only do entrepreneurs in this space have to tackle lingering social taboos but also have a harder

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time attracting VC capital than other innovators. “Raising money as a company with a crazy idea is always tricky but within this sector specifically, it’s [even harder],” Alys says. For instance, when MysteryVibe first attempted to attract investors it soon noticed how many VC firms have active clauses against investing in anything related to sex, drugs or gambling. “My understanding is that it all has to do with risk, both financial and reputational, which is crazy because sex sells, right?” she says. Moreover, female founders in general have a harder time raising VC investments than men do. So with many women leading the industry it’s easy to see why a lot of sextech entrepreneurs seek out alternative finance like crowdfunding and angel investors to fill their coffers.

But finding money is only part of the problem – entrepreneurs in this space also struggle to set up even the simplest forms of financial infrastructure.

“Banking and payments are a big problem with sextech companies,” says Darren McKeeman, co-founder at KinkBNB, the Airbnb-inspired lodging startup where kinksters can rent dungeons from each other. The problem of finding a bank or a payment service is especially challenging in the US with many national banks refusing to open accounts for companies in the sex industry. However, startups in Europe are also affected as they often have to find alternative payment solutions to

provide their services in the States.

“A lot of these problems with money are the reasons why people don’t think that this is a business to get into,” argues McKeeman.

And it’s not just finance that can be tricky for sextech startups – just getting their products out there can be a challenge. As an example, Apple banned La Petite Mort from the App Store in June 2016 after the game where the player aims to stroke a pixelated vagina to orgasm was deemed to be inappropriate for the platform.

“Everybody has sex,” argues McKeeman.

“So it seems sort of stupid to me to be prudish about it.”

Cybersecurity is another huge challenge for sextech startups. “There is nothing in this world that’s completely unhackable anymore,” says Alys. You don’t have to look far to find examples of sextech companies erring on their digital defences – the hack of the smart We-Vibe4 Plus vibrator in 2016 and the Ashley Madison breach in 2015 both resulted in massive headlines at the time and rightly so, given the intimate and private nature of the data leaked. “My advice to all the companies within our space is to take cybersecurity as a top priority,” says Alys.

But luckily it seems as if the surge of female founders is changing people’s perception of the sex industry. “People

Everybody has sex. So it seems sort of stupid to me to be prudish about it Darren McKeeman, KinkBNB

are starting to understand how sexual health and sexual wellness is such a huge part of your overall health and wellness,” says Alys. And many female-led sextech startups are increasingly incorporating this attitude in their offerings. As a result, they’re beginning to change the perception of the sector among the public and VCs alike. For instance, Elvie, the British pelvic floor training startup, raised a £5m series A round in May 2017 and in 2016 period product startup Flex was one of the companies that joined the prestigious Y Combinator accelerator.

And European sextech startups have an opportunity to lead the industry thanks to the US becoming increasingly toxic for the sector. “We’re messed up as a country sexually,” says McKeeman. “People are really prudish about it in the United States in general.” And it’s getting worse after the government introduced the The Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act and Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA-SESTA) in April 2018. The law gives victims and organisations more power to fight trafficking online. While well-intended, FOSTA-SESTA has caught many sexrelated sites and services in the middle with them being forced to closed down as a consequence.

Even though this has made it more challenging for UK sextech startups to

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operate in the States, it could be a blessing in disguise. The reason is it has provided an opportunity to get ahead of the competitors. “I think the Europeans could be quicker than the US side just because of what’s going on in the States,” argues Sayle. She adds that European founders are free from the legal restrictions their US counterparts struggle with and can also operate in a more liberal context, making it easier to woo the public and potential investors. “The French and the Italians have a massively more relaxed attitude when it comes to sex,” Sayle continues. “It’s a massive part of people’s lives and it’s perfectly normal and accepted and you’ve got some big funds based in Italy.”

So what’s next for the UK sextech sector? It depends on who you ask. Some would point towards sexbots reminiscent of the ones in movies like Ex-Machina, Blade Runner and Austin Powers. Others would say more subtle products like vibrators or smart home solutions that boost the mood are the way forward. But Alys argues only focusing on either of those areas would be missing the point. “We can get really obsessed with feature of products, gadgets and bits and bobs,” she says. “Ultimately, what matters to people is how that technology makes them feel, how it helps them explore their sexual health and be curious about that pleasure and how they can be more intimate with themselves and their partners. So yeah, that’s the most important side of this industry to me.”

My advice to all the companies within our space is to take cybersecurity as a top priority Stephanie Alys, MysteryVibe

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Judge tech Legal tech is one of the youngest sectors around and has already become an industry disruptor. However, given its current lack of funding, don’t set expectations too high just yet

By Angus Shaw

F

rom General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance to company liabilities, running a business unearths legal jargon that makes you paranoid you’re missing something critical. But getting lawyers to decipher the fine print isn’t cheap. “Small and medium-sized businesses are indeed sensitive to bills issued for legal services, particularly those charged by the hour,” says Arthur Shay, partner at Shay & Partners, the law firm. Given last year’s legal fees collectively cost SMEs £7m an hour, according to a YouGov survey, sidestepping face-toface consultancies and letting cheaper lawbots take over seems the perfect solution for small businesses. “Mobile communication combined with digital technology is helping close the gap between lawyers and SMEs,” Shay continues. However, can artificial intelligence (AI) really offer better service than someone with years of legal experience?

It will come as no surprise that fintech, regtech and all the other abhorrent abbreviations with the word tech in them didn’t exist in entrepreneurial vocabulary until at least the birth of the internet.

However, legal tech was even slower to the race than most thanks to the archaic industry it challenges. “There are plenty of lawyers that like the old way and official way of doing things,” explains Nicholas d’Adhemar, founder

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and CEO of Apperio, the legal tech scaleup. Indeed, 66% of consumers say law firms don’t even offer basic digital communications such as video conferencing and instant messaging, according to Olive Communications, the telecommunications provider. And solicitors are feeling the heat – the same study noted that 66% of legal firms worry they aren’t keeping up with the digital revolution. “Law firms tend to have pretty antiquated technology,” d’Adhemar continues.

So it’s no wonder why consumer demand is turning the tide, especially when you consider how legal tech provides clarity to clients about what they’re paying for when law firms hold all the cards. “Fundamentally, the law firms have a lot more information than their clients who are paying the bills do,” d’Adhemar says. “All of the pre-bill information, all of the work as it’s happening – we’re able to provide a real-time view of that legal spend to clients as it builds up.”

Considering how businesses would happily rid themselves of bureaucracy, it’s hardly a secret why 87% of legal tech startups focus on serving businesses rather than individuals, according to Reuters. “When it comes to dealing with businesses, our communications preferences are based on convenience, speed and generally wanting to focus on the outcome and not the process,” says

James Woodall, CTO of Intoware, the software company. Indeed, seven in ten consumers would choose a lawbot over a lawyer to save cost, time and complexity, with 56% willing to splash out more for a faster resolution, according to research by Olive Communications. For companies, there can be plenty of inefficiencies to make that an option. “Issues around document retention, audit trails and compliance mean that paperwork is often duplicated online and offline – which is hugely inefficient, expensive and wasteful,” Woodall continues.

Demand for solutions isn’t going unnoticed. For instance, Barclays has joined forces with the Law Society to unveil several Eagle Labs – incubators for legal tech startups that can be found in Notting Hill, Manchester and Salford. And investors are increasingly noticing the potential of the sector too.

For instance, by June 2017 the sector had raised $6.8m in VC investments – nearly already outdoing 2016’s $8.3m total, according to Reuters. “I think in the coming years there will be a number of VC [firms] monitoring legal tech’s progress,” d’Adhemar says.

However, despite funding increasing, legal tech is still an emerging sector compared to other tech sectors, which has yet to attract as much investor attention as other industries. “The number of companies coming through that have the adoption and the revenue

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to justify an investor to put money in at a series A level are comparatively few compared to the fintech world,” d’Adhemar explains. Seeing as between 2016 and 2017 the sector reached £16m total in VC funding reveals Reuters, it’s clearly yet to blow minds. Especially considering the entire legal services market commands £25.7bn each year according to the Law Society.

“It’ll take a few years for startups to funnel through and have the capital,” d’Adhemar admits.

Low funding means the gear legal tech sports is yet to see its full potential. “Lawbots can capture routine biographical information, which almost all legal processes require but where a

client is at a disadvantage is when they have to describe something, such as the circumstances of a specific event,” says Michael Hanley, partner at Wilson Solicitors, the law firm. Moreover, while utilising legal tech works out cheaper for clients, it’s not the same story when it comes to creating and updating it. “There’s a relatively significant investment required,” d’Adhemar says.

“You can build a nice looking piece of tech but actually you’ve got to invest time and money into the security side of it, otherwise it’s never going to be adopted and get off the ground.”

Although at an embryonic stage legal tech has already shown signs of evolving, such as through its AI

advancements. “I think a year or two ago [legal tech] reached peak AI height,” d’Adhemar recalls. And the sector’s leaps are gradually modernising a traditionalist legal industry. “A lot of law firms in particular were falling over themselves to adopt the latest AI solution,” d’Adhemar continues.

However, even if legal tech one day spawns cyborg lawyers, this sector’s fundamentally designed to assist rather than replace. “There’s no substitute to speaking with a fellow human so to speak,” d’Adhemar concludes. “But what I think you can do is free up lawyers so they can actually provide the opinion they’ve been trained to provide.”

“Fundamentally, the law firms have a lot more information than their clients who are paying the bills do” Nicholas d’Adhemar, Apperio

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BY YOANA CHOLTEEVA

Gamification enables you to step up your recruitment. but Don’t delude yourself, it’s not all fun and games Applying for a job isn’t like it used to be.

Back in the day, people simply sent CVs and attended generic interviews but this old-fashioned method of sourcing talent is on its way out. “Everything is completely different from what people used to do 20 years ago,” says Andreas Lohff, CEO of cut-e, the assessment solution company which is part of AON. “No big tables and lots of words anymore.” And at the centre of this change you’ll find the word gamification.

But what does that mean exactly? “It’s basically everything that takes a task to a more abstract level and makes it more engaging,” says Jayson Darby, head of psychology at Thomas International, the psychometric assessment company.

For those new to the game, gamifying a process can happen in two ways.

Firstly, gamified assessments are ones that are entirely turned into games.

Doing one of these can sometimes feel like playing a video game. The second 66

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category is usually referred to as game-based assessments. They don’t turn the whole process into a game but only incorporate a few game-like elements. Both types have gained popularity over the past few years as recruiters look to evolve the evaluation of candidates’ job suitability.

Moreover, gamification makes the whole process more enjoyable for candidates, reducing the risk that they’ll drop out midway through your recruitment process. “You want to attract these people

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Ga mificat io n i n re c rui tm e nt

People might actually be able to see very easily and say ‘Actually I would be very good at doing this or that and I never knew it’ – Boris Altemeyer, Cognisess

and make the selection shorter, more interesting and more attractive,” says Lohff.

Given how sourcing candidates can be a time-consuming and dry process for both recruiters and applicants alike, spicing things up with gamification has some clear advantages. “While combining [better experience] with the science behind it you can make it nicer for people and at the same time get better results,” says Boris Altemeyer, chief scientific officer at Cognisess, the predictive analytics platform. In fact, he argues that highquality candidates can be persuaded to join your startup if your recruitment process sets you apart from the other businesses trying to woo them. “It actually works very well for the people who normally classify themselves as ‘I’m not one of the people that test very well’ because of the stress,” Altemeyer explains. If candidates are at ease, you can have a better chance at gauging their potential.

Gamification also makes it easier to provide jobseekers with an equal opportunity to compete for a job. In this respect, Altemeyer shares some insights from the playground, revealing that Cognisess partners with companies with about 12,000 applicants per year and for them it’s very important that people have a real opportunity. “Everyone has a chance to shine because they don’t know if any of these 12,000 could be their next superstar,” he says. Another gamification virtue he brings to the foreground is it not only provides instant feedback but also a large-scale impact on sourcing talent. “We can very easily match people based on assessments to different skill gaps,” he adds.

The concept of fairness in selection already has a central role in recruitment. “Anyone who is using any type of technology to make important people-related decisions must make sure technology doesn’t disadvantage people,” Darby comments. These specifics should be thoroughly considered when relying on OCTOBER 2018 ELITEBUSINESSMAGAZINE.CO.UK

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Anyone who is using any type of technology to make important people-related decisions must make sure technology doesn’t disadvantage people - Jayson Darby, Thomas International

gamified or game-based elements. “If you test it and find out it’s harder for women to perform better or if you have an assessment where people from certain backgrounds perform worse, then again, that’s not great,” he reasons.

When it comes to the optimal usage of gamification in recruitment, comprehensive software and appropriate guidance of applicants can really save the day. “If the simple design and communication are there, they pave the way,” explains Darby. On the other hand, if these crucial elements are missing, people might simply tune out of the application process. In other words, recruiters can boost applicants’ performance by thoroughly clarifying the procedure to them. “Even if people are less familiar with [gamification as a recruitment technique], they’ll be more confident if there’s more communication,” he claims.

While there are advantages to gamification, recruiters shouldn’t jump in without considering it carefully. For instance, turning the recruitment process into a game could become too enjoyable. “[Gamification could lead] to something that almost looks like Candy Crush”, Lohff says.

He argues that assessments should ultimately still be about assessing talent, not just entertaining candidates. “I always feel that if you go this route it’s almost like you’re not taking your candidates seriously anymore,” he reasons.

Another key consideration is gamification may not be right for all candidates. So good advice for recruiters is to take note of an applicant’s technological exposure and experience before deciding on a fully-digital recruitment method. Curiously, it’s not just the age difference but the cultural exposure that challenges technological use in multi-generational companies. “There are individuals in their 70s or older and the people in their 50s or 60s and another generation in their late 30s or 40s and then you’ve got the millennials, then the youngest generation.” Darby points out.

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So what sets apart these employees from the job isn’t just a question of age but a “different access to education, very different societal situation and what they expect from the job,” he concludes.

So how will gamification recruitment change in the future?

“It’s pretty much here to stay because it allows us to explore potentials with its assessment and game mechanics,” Altemeyer explains. One of the most striking facts about this innovation is it allows applicants to play to their strengths and objectively points at their fortes. “People might be able to see very easily and say ‘Actually I would be very good at doing this or that and I never knew it,’” he shares.

The power of games might have been underestimated before but as it teamed up with the quality of psychometrics, this method can appeal to most out-of-the-box thinkers. So, as that old Matthew Broderick movie put it: want to play a game?

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BY zen terrelonge

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First came online dating, then dating apps and now niche dating apps are rising in popularity to help singles find their match. So it begs the question, will these themed upstarts steal market share from the more generic but giant counterparts or are they merely a fad?

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nternet dating. It was once interpreted by the public as something of a serial killers’ paradise as little as ten years ago but that perception has changed drastically. “Online dating used to be an absolute mystery, even at times a socially ostracised behaviour,” says Robyn Exton, founder and CEO of HER, the app for lesbian, bisexual and queer people.

Indeed, meeting someone from the web a decade ago probably would’ve earned gasps from friends while today they’ll likely be able to name-drop a handful of services. “From social networks to email platforms, people have become more comfortable with marrying their personal lives to technology,” Exton adds of the market’s growth. “Having your identity already online through other platforms simplified and demystified the concept of making your dating life digital.”

To that end, there’s no question that online dating is now socially acceptable rather than something you need to hide in fear of what peers might say.

“According to Statistic Brain, one fifth of all current committed relationships began online,” Exton says, while calling it “normative.” It’s a belief she instills at HER in order to make the concept less of a dirty secret, particularly as technology continually transforms lifestyles. “One of our four foundational beliefs at HER is the future is fluid,” she reveals.

“Whether that refers to gender identity, sexual orientation, life choices or even the way people meet each other – we’re striving for a future with less norms around love and relationships.”

Paying homage to newspapers for paving the way to online dating with personals, Kailen Rosenberg, CEO and founder of The Love Architects, the elite matchmaking consultancy, refers to them as “true pioneers.” “AOL, Match and eharmony decided to brilliantly take the personals’ experience to the internet,” she says of the switch from print to digital. As the online dating taboo decreased, smartphones made things even easier.

No longer were singles required to boot up their laptops to get their flirt on or put on their glad rags and rehearse their best chat-up lines for a Friday or Saturday night on the town in search of romance, the power to find love was now in the palm of their hand thanks to dating apps – whenever and wherever. “When we started to carry our mobile phones day in and day out, that’s when dating apps became mainstream,” says Rosenberg, who capitalised on that trend with The Lodge Social Club, an app designed to connect users based on their passions. She adds the “everybody’s doing it” mentality encouraged app adoption.

It’s easy to see why entrepreneurs are turning to dating apps. A 2017 study from TSB, the bank, found dating pumped £14.5bn into the UK economy and dating apps accounted for a whopping £11.7bn of the sum. But who blazed the trail for the dating app explosion? “From our perspective, Grindr laid the foundation for dating apps as we know them now by creating a location-based platform for meeting dates,” Exton opines. She notes that Tinder leveraging location while introducing the swiping function built on that base. “Both of these innovations laid the groundwork for HER to create a space for fearless exploration,” she says.

As of October 2018, dating dominates the UK’s top grossing lifestyle apps on the App Store, accounting for half of the top ten, according to analytics service App Annie. Tinder, Bumble, Match, muzmatch and happn are chief among the iOS options, while Tinder, Bumble and happn also account for the top three grossing lifestyle apps on Google Play. “I don’t deign to know why all users sign up for Tinder – but I would imagine that social buzz plays a major factor in it,” says Exton. She attributes it to the app gamifying usage through swipes as something that allowed it to stand out and gain a foothold.

Of course, Tinder isn’t the be all and end all. There’s a wealth of options available and increasingly niche dating

I think more and more niche apps will be created to keep up with users’ identities and interests Robyn Exton, HER OCTOBER 2018 ELITEBUSINESSMAGAZINE.CO.UK

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th e dat i ng ga m e

apps drill down into the specifics a user desires. One such example is muzmatch, the dating app for Muslims, which has 500,000 users worldwide. Upon receiving a £1.5m investment in January 2018, Shahzad Younas, CEO and founder, said: “With muzmatch our goal is to be the biggest app for Muslims worldwide looking for a partner. That is potentially some 400 million people.” Then there are other dating apps centred around things like beard appreciation and pet hates. Given how online moved to mobile, will themed apps become the new normal for smartphones or will generic continue to play on?

According to Didier Rappaport, CEO and co-founder of happn, the location-based dating app that crossed the 50 million user milestone in June 2018, having focused apps allows the experience to be more like real life. “Rather than having to go through a large pool of daters you know might be unsuitable, the specified apps narrow the search and connect users with people that have a better chance to develop a bond,” he says. In the case of happn, it reaches users with hyper-localisation, meaning real-time mapping to increase the chances of forging connections. “Apps are imitating life and catering for all kinds of individuals with all kinds of backgrounds, beliefs, interests and desires,” he adds.

While generic dating apps have been the mainstay for some time and niche apps are gaining traction, that doesn’t mean it’s all going to come down to a winner takes all battle to the death, Rappaport believes. In his mind, there’s room for peaceful co-existence. “Both those brands of the industry serve a purpose as they highlight a significant difference between mass and ‘tailor-made’,” he declares.

“I am, however, excited to see what developments are still

Apps are imitating life and catering for all kinds of individuals with all kinds of backgrounds, beliefs, interests and desires Didier Rappaport, happn

72

to come. Just in the past five years the industry has changed incredibly and we’re eager to see how it will evolve next.”

Despite the various players entering the market, the pay-off is growing alongside it. App Annie revealed on Valentine’s Day 2018 that the global consumer spend on dating apps on the App Store and Google Play had risen by 95% year-on-year between 2016 and 2017. On why niche apps can capitalise on this, Rosenberg explains: “People in general are feeling more and more disconnected so they’re looking to technology to find their tribe – niche technology supports people in doing that.” With exclusive environments in mind, she adds users are able to cut through the noise and avoid burnout.

Apparently intrigued by such a lucrative market, the biggest social player of all had its head turned.

Yes, Facebook, the long-standing service with 2.23 billion monthly users, has entered the dating arena.

Having announced a romantic feature was in the works during its F8 conference back in May, the service is now being tested in Colombia. “No one can deny that Facebook’s efforts to connect people was unprecedented,” Exton says. “I believe they will continue to do just this, however, that does not mean they will necessarily change the market or put other [dating] apps out of business.” She points to HER as a perfect example that will remain, explaining that “conventional platforms” weren’t built with queer women in mind.

Although Exton wishes Facebook luck, she is on the same page as Rappaport in that one company’s success doesn’t mean another’s downfall. “I think more and more niche apps will be created to keep up with users’ identities and interests,” she says. “At the same time, I think more mainstream apps will continue to innovate to keep up with user behaviour.”

Building on Exton’s point, Rosenberg concludes: “Think of it this way, mass amounts of people are happy driving Toyotas. However, a select few want a Bentley. In the end, people truly committed to finding their soulmate will turn to the services that support them.”

ELITEBUSINESSMAGAZINE.CO.UK OCTOBER 2018

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