Nino Judge, CEO of Flypop shares his advice for entrepreneurs about how he used Angel Investment Network to get his airline off the ground.
Tell us about flypop: The ‘pop’osition
flypop is a new British low-cost airline providing non-stop direct flights between the UK (London Stansted) and second cities of South Asia, starting with India, targeting the South Asian market in the UK, Europe and North America and their visiting friends & relatives (VFR).
flypop is also committed to protecting the planet by being the first and only fully carbon neutral airline in the world by carbon offsetting each passenger that travels with us.
flypop: It’s just good business.
Why did you decide to raise investment?
We needed a small amount of working capital for 2019 to help raise the larger amount for our Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) Air Operator Certificate (AOC). Aviation is a highly regulated industry, and as such our first step is to apply to the CAA for our AOC. In order to do so, a minimum amount of capitalisation is required, which in our case was £6m in equity capital.
How did your first external raise come about?
We, the directors, bootstrapped initially to purchase data, finish the business plan and design the website. However, it became evident we needed to achieve even more KPIs before the main equity raise of £6m.
We decided to raise another £80,000 to get us through Financial Year 2019/2020 and put a larger management team in place, get premises for the management team to meet regularly, develop a promo video for investors to understand our unique low-cost product and lastly have a reservation site showing this product is ready to generate revenue!
What attracted investors to your company?
Our USP of focusing on low-cost non-stop travel for the Indian & South Asian VFR market resonated with the millions of future passengers who would use our service.
Our competitive advantage is offering the lowest fares flying non-stop to the second cites of India (& South Asia) avoiding the potentially infected hubs and getting our passengers “home” to where they want to go in the shortest possible time.
We focus on the resilient VFR market segment that always needs to fly home. This segment has always recovered first from any recession returning to high load factors.
For the first time since 9/11 it was an advantage to start operations as a new airline rather than be a debt laden legacy airline.
My biggest fundraising mistake was…
Not raising enough as building a company always takes longer and costs more. We ended up incurring unexpected costs including paying consultants to perfect the business plan. Good people cost money. Third party validation reports, marketing campaigns & events to raise funds, Legal & IT costs.
It always takes longer as the holiday seasons get in the way. With Easter, Summer, Ramadan, Christmas and New Year, nearly 4 months out of 12 are go slow or closed months. Let’s not forget our unexpected Covid -19 virus!
Why did you choose to use Angel Investment Network?
We wanted to work with a partner that had great global investor reach, reasonable costs with a professional and friendly support team. With AIN we received 30 enquiries within 14 days, and we closed within the month and could have raised 5 times as much.
Keen to hear more?
If you would like to see what other companies are up to on Angel Investment Network, or are interested in raising funding yourself, you can find your local network here.
Ruari Fairbairns is the CEO and Co-founder at One Year No Beer (OYNB), a platform focused on changing people’s relationship with alcohol.
What does your company do?
OYNB is a global alcohol prevention program, aimed at anyone drinking more than three glasses of wine a week. Our mission is to help people change their relationship with alcohol which leads on to most of them, fundamentally transforming their lives.
We are developing technology that will enable members to connect over the common goal of changing behaviour, such as caffeine, sugar, gambling, social media, ultimately empowering people to live life better.
Why did you set up this company?
For years I worked in the city as a successful oil broker in London. That’s where two worlds collided, partying and being successful, and the more I partied the more successful I was.
After a few years of this lifestyle, I started to experience a number of health problems, IBS, anxiety, dry skin. I got introduced to something called Headspace and I started meditating on the train to and from work, and this is when I realised that alcohol was causing me more trouble than good. I approached my boss and said that I was thinking about taking a break from booze and he said that this would be committing commercial suicide!
Six months later I finally plucked up the courage to do it and when I finally did, I was blown away with the benefits – I got fitter, faster, healthier, a better husband, a better dad. I grew my oil broking business and reduced costs by 30%. My IBS and dry skin disappeared and there was no area of my life that didn’t improve.
I wanted to make people understand how big these benefits are, so I decided to create a challenge, and in 2016, we launched One Year No Beer, a 90-day challenge, and gave it away. It rapidly went viral and in the first year we got over 20,000 signups. This is how One Year No Beer was born.
How did you get your first customer?
In our first year, when we set up the free challenge and promoted it via social media, we got over 20,000 members. It was only then that we realised what a huge impact we were having. One Year No Beer was having a positive effect on people’s lives but also on their wallets.
Our research with Stirling University verified that if we were to convert our business into a paid-for model – that people would actually be more likely to not only commit, but also to stick to the challenge. This was because generally, if you have skin in the game, you actually apply yourself – so we reinvested and relaunched as a paid for model in 2017.
We knew we were onto something when?
In that same year (2017), I sent a tweet to a journalist and off the back of it we got a 10 minute feature on BBC World news in over 200 countries. That single BBC broadcast generated £70,000 of revenue for the business in 10 days so we quickly learnt that the success of One Year No Beer was going to be down to exposure.
In 2018 we launched our book. It went to number one in its category on Amazon and in that same year, we sent out an email to all of our members telling them that we were thinking about crowdfunding in six months’ time. After sending that email, I expected to come into a couple of replies but instead, I opened up my email the following morning to find 74 emails with people offering to invest and we raised £1.1M in just five weeks from our members alone.
Our business model:
In a little over four years, we’ve created and grown an online business that has attracted customers from across the globe. Turning over £2.7M per year and supporting over 70,000 members in 90 countries across the world, and the business continues to witness 300% growth YoY.
We want to flip the drinking model on its head. From one of admitting you have a problem and having to go to a church or community hall and sit in a circle and talk about being stigmatised for the rest of your life, to one of positive change. We want all of our members to be able to say that they are out there, living a better life, proud of their life choices.
We are now the leader in preventative behaviour change, and our plan is now to diversify into lots of other behaviour change models, not just alcohol. We’ve realised that when people change their relationship with a negative behaviour like alcohol, they build self-worth. It’s that self-worth that creates the platform for them to further change other areas of their lives, so we are now diversifying into other vertical markets such as caffeine, sugar, porn, gambling and drugs.
Our most effective marketing channel has been:
We use Social Ads widely but our most effective channels have been the extensive publicity we have received as well as word of mouth from our customers.
What we look for when recruiting:
We have an incredible team who not only love what they do, but they also care deeply about the impact they are having on the lives of people who follow our challenges and remain part of our online community. It takes a very unique person to work as part of the One Year No Beer team because they have to be able to deal with emotions and difficult situations each and every day.
Not only do they have to be able to do this, but they also need to be able to think like marketeers and successful business people, in addition to all of the other elements of their specific job roles and I will always be truly grateful for each and every one of they as they are responsible for making our company the community that it is today.
The biggest mistake that I’ve made is:
I can’t wait to write my book – I’m going to call it the 1001 Things Not to Do in Business. These things have cost me an absolute fortune, after all this is my 6th start-up! The biggest lesson that I have learnt since being in business is: Surround yourself with good people who compliment your weaknesses – for me there are so many, so I need a big team!!! Jokes aside, we can’t all be good at everything so build a team that compliments you and you’ll go far!
We think that there’s growth in this sector because:
The research that we conducted with Stirling University in 2017, showed that 93% of people had a drink when they didn’t want to, and 84% had experienced bullying from friends to drink alcohol, so we know that peer pressure surrounds our cultural relationship with alcohol. We want to challenge these cultural norms and help people to make better life choices. That is the fundamental principle of One Year No Beer. There are 2 billion people in the world who drink alcohol, and around 1 billion drink hazardously – all of whom are our target market.
We worked with AIN because:
We’ve previously raised very successfully from our own network and members. With our current raise we wanted to bring on investment from new sources but from people who share our vision. Angel Investment Network allows us to search investors and grow our presence further.
Keen to hear more?
If you would like to see what other companies are up to on Angel Investment Network, or are interested in raising funding yourself, you can find your local network here.
Olivia Sibony contributed an article for the latest issue of CEO Today magazine on some research from the AIN platform that points to the continued interest investors have in sustainable startups. Contributing a double page spread Olivia discussed analysis carries out by AIN. Comparing the four month post-COVID period (Jan-April) with the four months before (Sep-Dec).
The research found ‘Renewables’ is now the 11th most popular keyword for searches, up from 14th pre-COVID, which was in itself a rise of 34 places year on year. Additionally ‘Greentech’ is now the 13th most popular keyword, up from 47th in 2018, a staggering increase.
Overall ‘Tech’ remained the overall most popular search term and the fastest riser is ‘Medtech’ up 10 places to 25th most popular category. With the world reeling from its biggest health crisis in a century, it’s no wonder this category is strongly on the radar for investors.
In the piece Olivia writes: “Innovative companies are fusing sustainable business ideas with deep tech to come up with tailored solutions to real world challenges. These are peaking the interest and passions of increasingly impact motivated angel investors. This is a trend that is accelerating, rather than slowing down post COVID. Global markets are also reflecting this, with ESG funds consistently outperforming traditional ones since COVID emerged.
Another interesting trend on the platform relates to searches for ‘agriculture’. This jumped four places to become the 4th most searched for search term in the post COVID period. Olivia continues: “Real fears around food security have been thrust into the spotlight during this crisis and companies helping to secure our food supply will become pivotal players. Investors are seeing the opportunity for huge innovation with ag-tech and smarter food production so we can use technology to be more sustainable for the land.”
She highlighted Hummingbird Technologies, an Artificial Intelligence business who previously raised on AIN. It provides advanced crop analytics to its customers by using satellite and drone data and proprietary machine learning algorithms. They allow customers to increase their yields, optimise chemical inputs, farm more sustainably and make earlier, more informed decisions.
The following is a guest post from Stevie Nicks, Digital Editor at justanothermagazine.com.
There’s no brand so strong — no company with a competitive advantage so lopsided — that it can miss out on the top talent and stay ahead of the chasing pack. In short, the employees of a business ultimately define it and chart its course. If you want to take your business to great successes in 2020 and beyond, the safest investment you can make is in new hires.
Finding someone with the right skills and attitude isn’t enough, though. Nor is having the money to afford their going rate, or even above that. If you want to convince leading professionals and eye-catching prospects to join your company in particular, you’ll need to pull out all the stops (there are plenty of startups out there, after all) — and in this post, we’re going to set out some key tips for getting the job done. Here’s how you can attract top talent:
Keep employee oversight to a bare minimum
People don’t like being watched, or having their schedules shaped unnecessarily. They like to have and exert control over what they do, how they do it, and when they get it done — and if all the targets are ultimately met, none of those things really matters. The point is that you should relax and let your employees decide how to balance their workloads, because if you’re overly limiting, you can be sure that prospective hires will hear about it.
That said, it’s natural (and often necessary) to keep an eye on what your employees are doing during the working day, so you can’t allow complete freedom. Just be sure to confirm that everyone knows why you’re monitoring certain things (e.g. that you fit your vehicles with telematics to help plan more efficient journeys, not to criticize anyone for taking breaks, or that you have time-tracking so clients can be billed properly, not so slow workers can be chastised).
Meet salary expectations but focus on perks
You won’t get anywhere if you flat-out refuse to pay people what they’re worth (and what they can assuredly get elsewhere), because valuable professionals will most likely be insulted by such an approach. At a minimum, you need to meet their rough expectations, but your next step if they’re unsure isn’t to greatly increase the offer: it’s to offer something else.
Money only goes so far in the end, and it becomes less important the more you make. Will going from £80,000 per year to £85,000 per year radically change someone’s life? Probably not — but will allowing them to work from home all the time do that? Absolutely. Or maybe they’d like to have their own office, or work reduced hours. Instead of throwing money at the problem, figure out what someone is looking for and find a way to provide it.
Offer meaningful long-term career options
Where are the roles you’re offering likely to lead? How are they going to change over the next five years? What skills will the people who fill them get to develop? The average candidate might not be willing to talk about these things, being eager to get an offer and willing to accept a lack of direction, but the best candidates don’t want to waste their time stagnating in roles that don’t challenge them or allow them to grow.
Accordingly, you need to show the employment world that you offer meaningful career options, and that starts with doing just that for your current employees. Ask them where they want to take their roles, and find ways to help them do it. When you offer roles to candidates you find impressive, ask them what they see themselves doing in the future — but be clear that it isn’t a loaded question to test their commitment, instead being about supporting their development.
There’s no trick or secret method that will allow you to attract the best and brightest candidates to your business, but it isn’t solely about offering more money. If you can commit to allowing your employees to manage themselves (for the most part), offer enough money and an appealing array of perks, and set out an intriguing career path for years to come, you can be quite successful in winning over top talents.
