How This Pivot took Burbn from 100 Users in Year 1, to 100,000 Users in 1 Week Instantly

Morning Innovators 👋 This week (in less than 5 minutes!) we’ll explore…

📸 How a pivot took Burbn from 100 Users in Year 1, to 100,000 users in 1 week instantly
📀 How this DVD selling entrepreneur built car and housing marketplace empires
📱 How to get millions of eyes on your product using nothing but your phone number and a sign

Each week we’ll be writing about crazy pivots, secret stories of how huge companies almost failed in the beginning, the untold journeys that the most successful founders took to get to where they are today, breakdown mind-blowingly successful acquisitions and investments whilst spotlighting some of the most exciting start ups that you haven’t heard of yet, plus throwing in a few tips and tricks along the way.

If you have any feedback or suggestions for next week’s edition let us know.

Happy hustling,
Rich & Gary

🔁 Even big companies pivot…

As founders ourselves, we’ve both had first hand experience of pivoting our start-ups and changing direction. Looking at giant successful companies, it can be easy to forget the challenges they faced in the early days. Instagram is a great example of how a company pivoted from a confusing jumble to a polished jewel, changing the course of social media forever.

In early 2010, a young entrepreneur, Kevin Systrom, launched Burbn, a location-based game buzzing with potential. But wait, there's a twist in the plot - let's dig in!

Back in 2010, Burbn was an ambitious venture. It had all the makings of a sensation with an intriguing mix of features allowing users to check-in, make travel plans, and upload photos. However, within this concoction of features, lay a dilemma - it was becoming a maze for users to navigate. After the first year of operation, Burbn peaked at 100 users.

Enter Kevin Systrom and his co-founder, Mike Krieger, armed with courage and a zest for innovation. They embarked on a journey to truly understand their user base, diving into the intricate world of user data.

A revelation emerged from the data: image sharing was the shining star, the most popular feature that captivated users. This discovery sparked a daring decision - to strip down the platform to its essence and re-emerge as a focused image-sharing platform.

With a clear vision, they embarked on a transformational journey, shedding unnecessary features and complexities. The result was Instagram, a sleek and intuitive platform that put image sharing at the forefront, simplifying the user experience.

Post-pivot, Instagram rapidly gained traction, becoming a powerhouse in the realm of social media. Its streamlined design and singular focus on image sharing set it apart, captivating the world with visually engaging content. After 1 week of becoming Instagram, they’d reached over 100,000 users!

This pivot marked a turning point, showcasing the significance of listening to user data and being unafraid to shed the superfluous. Instagram's journey from a jumble of features to a polished jewel is a testament to the power of adaptation and vision.

If you were to strip back your product offering, could that lead to you drastically increasing your audience?

💡 Start-up spotlight

Each week we’ll be reviewing the start-ups currently crowdfunding and highlighting our favourite. This by no means can be considered investment advice, just the businesses we admire.

This week, we stumbled across Homethings, a start-up changing the way people clean. They make waterless concentrate products that their customers can refill again and again using tap water at home.

Their mission was born out of a realisation that a typical cleaning spray is over 90% water, meaning that the industry is shipping millions of gallons of heavy water around the world unnecessarily in single-use plastic bottles.

They first launched effervescent tablets for surface care sprays. They are made in the UK, certified Vegan + Cruelty Free and by refilling with them, they calculate that their customers save as much as 94% of the carbon emissions compared to conventional sprays.

Since then, they've gone on to launch multiple innovations including through the letterbox, plastic free dishwasher tabs and laundry pods as well as securing a £135k grant from innovate UK to launch the UK’s first tap water refillable washing up liquid.

⏪ Where were they before?

Ever wondered what Alex Chesterman, the mastermind behind Cazoo and Zoopla, was up to before these game-changers? Let's dive into the story!

Before founding Cazoo and Zoopla, he co-founded LoveFilm, a revolutionary online DVD rental and streaming service.

But here's the thing, before LoveFilm, Alex Chesterman had already honed his business acumen. He served as the Executive Vice President of Planet Hollywood until 1998, gaining invaluable experience in the corporate world. Then, he took the leap out of the corporate world and started all over again right at square 1 when he co-founded ScreenSelect, which later became LoveFilm. This venture was a blockbuster, eventually being sold to Amazon for a whopping £200 million! LoveFilm was like having a movie store in your living room, making movie nights a breeze. This experience paved the way for his amazing work with Zoopla and Cazoo. 🍿💥

Drawing from his experiences, especially from the success of LoveFilm, he knew he could revolutionize the property market. He envisioned a platform that provided comprehensive property information to empower buyers, sellers, and renters.

In 2007, Alex co-founded Zoopla, a game-changer in the property market. Zoopla amalgamated property listings, valuations, and market data into one user-friendly platform. It empowered people with valuable insights to make informed property decisions. Much like LoveFilm simplified movie choices, Zoopla simplified property choices.

The platform was a hit, attracting millions of users seeking their dream homes. Alex's journey from LoveFilm to Zoopla showcased his ability to identify gaps in the market and create solutions that resonate with people. Zoopla, now a household name, remains a testament to his entrepreneurial brilliance. 🏡✨

Is the time right for you to step out of your corporate job and start to build an awesome business?

🧑‍💻 Marketing hack of the week

Earlier this year British musician J Hus announced new music with mysterious billboards, which quickly went viral, getting millions of views from thousands of people posting it across multiple different media platforms and outlets.

The all black advertisements give nothing away apart from some white tape labelled 'Don't Say Militancy' and a big phone number which appears to have been spray painted on. On first inspection, the boards appear to be a vandalised blank canvas but ringing the number tells a different story.

One fan rang the phone number and posted the results in a video on Twitter. The voicemail playing back is instantly recognisable as J Hus, who rambles on for a few seconds before concluding "all militarians, press 1 to leave a message, press 2 to opt in to receive text updates....we're back. Don't say militancy."

Following this, all the people who called the number, received sporadic texts with updates on the details of J Hus’ new album, including the launch date, features and so much more.

Could you do this in your own style? Perhaps create some mystery around your company with a sandwich board and an email address in the middle of your city? Get creative with it!

🙌 Opportunities

As start-up founders ourselves, one of the areas we’re really passionate about is raising awareness of opportunities. If you’re not mixing in the right circles, it can be really easy to miss a pitch event, or job opportunity that could be game-changing for you. We’ve included a few upcoming events and opportunities below, but this is where we really want to leverage our community of innovators. Please reply to this email with any tips and opportunities you think we should be featuring.

💼 Job opportunities

💻 Business Development Manager, Human Made
🏠 Growth Marketing Specialist, Planna
🧓 Software Engineer, Lottie

🎤 Events

For consumer start-ups, from pre-seed to Series B, HSBC are hosting an evening dedicated to focused discussions on Customer Acquisition and Growth Strategies in today's economic landscape.

Wales Tech Week is hosting an investor-founder speed dating session. There’s a great list of investors participating. Sign up here.

🛠️ Tool of the week

Each week we’ll be highlighting our favourite tools - either something we’ve been using in our businesses, or tools that our innovator community have recommended.

This week we came across Byword. An advanced AI content generation platform with built-in SEO optimization (perfect for anyone looking to quickly produce high quality written content). Utilising keywords, Byword can produce high-quality articles on any topic and in multiple languages. It offers advanced features like image and social post generation, custom write styles, and specific article length targeting. Byword has seamless integrations with various platforms, including WordPress, webflow CMS, and Zapier. It also provides case studies and answers to frequently asked questions for users.

👉 Coming next week…

Next week we’ll be looking at how one canned water company broke the internet at one of the World’s biggest sporting events, how a struggling game making studio pivoted to become a global software mammoth by just licensing out their internal messaging tool, and highlighting more great tools and marketing hacks.

P.S. Connect with us on LinkedIn…