Virgin
Rich Pleeth, co-founder and CEO of Sup (left) and Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple (right).
The Sup app showed other people which friends were within a 5, 15, or 25-minute walk. People could simply send them a “Sup” to let them know they were nearby and wanted to date. Backed by Virgin billionaire Richard Branson as one of the “most popular social apps in the United Kingdom” and through Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak as an app that “you simply had to download. “But there was a big problem: it never made money.
The company, co-founded by former Googler Rich Pleeth and serial entrepreneur Alex Barton, who also co-founded the AskStarting. com startup site, travel site Ecommo and school platform Student Designers, has attracted more than 80,000 users since its launch last March. but it has not managed to grow. It was necessary. As a result, the company is currently in administrative proceedings before Companies House and the eight Sup workers have been dismissed.
“We saw expansion, but we didn’t see the hockey stick expansion that we needed to make it a viable billion-dollar business and that’s what our investors wanted to see,” Pleeth told Business Insider on Thursday. getting three hundred downloads a day, but it just didn’t fit with such a big movement and people weren’t coming back to the app.
“As a founder, you have to live through the ups and downs,” Pleeth said. “And a lot of casualties if you don’t make it. “
“We had a team of 8 other people and we let everyone go, so we don’t have anyone running in Sup anymore. They all went there two weeks ago. We gave them a bonus and said thank you very much and will keep in touch with them. Some of them say “next project, let us know”.
Dinner
Branson’s Virgin Media Business chose Sup as one of the social apps in the United Kingdom as a component of its “Voom” awards, while Sup also scored well in the Talent Unleashed awards, judged through Branson and Wozniak.
Pleeth, who flew all-expenses paid to Sydney, Australia, for the world final, was invited to participate in the Talent Unleashed awards through “someone who works there” and Sup was later crowned a European finalist in the “Best Startup” award. – Technological Innovation Category.
After the event, Branson Sup with the following endorsement:
“It can also solve a challenge for many. However, I would like to make sure that it doesn’t cause a privacy factor and that you don’t send messages to other people that you may not know very well or that you don’t know at all. “
Meanwhile, Wozniak, during the award ceremony, said:
“I really had to download this app. It works with Facebook and I’m afraid users may not need to announce their presence to many “friends” they literally don’t know. I travel a lot, like a hundred cities a day of the year, and I want it on each and every city, from time to time what friends I have and where.
Investors, including the founders of drinks brand Innocent, Richard Reed and Jon Wright, and Alex Chesterman, founder and chief executive of Zoopla, a property worth £1. 35bn (£1. 11bn), have subsidized the Sup app big time. 649,000.
“They knew from the beginning that it was incredibly risky,” Pleeth said. “But I still felt bad about it. I take full responsibility for this. “
Most of the investor’s cash went into hiring, according to Pleeth. “Hiring wonderful promoters in London is expensive,” he said. Other prices included marketing, rent, and other “expenses. “
In terms of marketing, Sup spent around £14,000 from July to September to make a last-ditch effort to increase its user numbers. That money is used for parties, influencer marketing, sponsorship, student logo ambassadors, stickers and flyers, among other things, said Pleeth, who worked in marketing at Google for a little more than 3 years before joining Gett, an app billion-dollar taxi company it rivals. Uber, as lead marketing manager.
Sup is the United Kingdom startup and is featured in the launch of Virgin VOOM. Help us and vote. #voom #branson @richardbranson https://t. co/2dmMUJAUbq
The company paid YouTube star Jakeboys “several thousand pounds” for mentioning the Sup app in a Snapchat video and used a team of others to paint around 80 Sup logos on the streets of Shoreditch, a move he condemned. Hackney Town Council.
Business Insider/Sam Shead
“All of our investors have been fantastic,” Pleeth said. “I spoke to them personally. It’s a very complicated phone call, but I feel a lot worse for them because I have to tell them that unfortunately we lost their money. “
Investors who supported the government’s Seed Business Investment Plan and Enterprise Investment Plan will receive some of their support, Pleeth said.
Sup is reluctant to admit defeat and Pleeth made a last-ditch attempt to raise more money in recent months to keep the company alive and ensure expansion of the hockey stick he is pursuing.
“Until last week, when I was telling myself ‘this can’t happen,’ we were raising funds. I was spending cash on dinners with investors to make sure they invested. It’s hard. A startup is like your baby and it’s like your girlfriend You put everything into it. For a year and a half, I’ve put everything I have into Sup. It’s very sad, you have to go through a little period of mourning. In the UK, failure is not considered a very positive thing. »
Pleeth said Brexit had prevented him from getting more cash from investors but, under pressure, he would be to blame for the company’s failure.
“We were talking to a German fund and two other people in the United Kingdom [before Brexit],” he said. “We had some smart conversations and we were thinking that next week, after Brexit, everything would be fine because the pound is passing to let go. After Brexit, they were too nervous about what was happening. [They said] It’s not that we’re not moving to investing in startups, it’s just that there’s too much volatility in the market. “
Advertisement
POPULAR CATEGORIES