SaaS Stories
SaaS Stories is my not-so-secret quest to learn what it truly takes to succeed in the world of SaaS—and I’m inviting you along for the ride! I have the pleasure of sitting down with brilliant minds and industry trailblazers to explore their journeys, uncovering the secrets behind their growth, the gaps they spotted in the market, and what really drives them.
It’s not all smooth sailing—there are challenges, unexpected turns, and moments of reflection where they share what they’d love to change about their journey. Think of it as a candid, insider’s look into the world of SaaS, with just the right amount of curiosity, empathy, and wit.
Join me as I dive deep, selfishly soak up all the insights, and hopefully share a little inspiration with you along the way—one SaaS story at a time.
SaaS Stories
From Mechanical Engineering to Growth Marketing: Chai Bade's Journey to Building Bunchups and Combatting Modern Loneliness
Chai Bade inspires listeners with his entrepreneurial journey from mechanical engineer to founder of BunchUps, focusing on the power of storytelling in marketing and the importance of building relationships with customers. He outlines practical strategies for successful business growth, emphasising research, mentorship, and patience in the startup journey.
Podcast Overview:
• Chai's background in mechanical engineering and transition to growth marketing
• The importance of storytelling and relationship building in marketing
• The concept of BunchUps as a platform for creating personal connections
• Challenges faced by introverts in social situations addressed by BunchUps
• Insights on marketing psychology and understanding customer personas
• Starting small and gradual growth through testing and feedback
• The significance of partnerships and networking in business success
• Growth hacking strategies illustrated with examples from companies like Airbnb
• Practical advice for aspiring entrepreneurs on market research and mentorship
• The ongoing journey of learning and adapting in entrepreneurship
Welcome everybody to another episode of the SaaS Stories podcast. Today I'm joined by Chai Bade, our founder of Bunchups. Welcome, chai, local Australian. Good to have you on the show.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Jenna. Thanks for having me. Yeah, it's a pleasure to be part of the show.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so. First question, of course, is what inspired your journey into growth, marketing and storytelling? Tell us about bunch ups. Where did the idea come from, when did this happen and what made you think? You know what? I'm gonna quit my job and start my own business I'd love to, I'd love to share.
Speaker 2:Um, oh, it all started in nearly 2015 when I was working as a mechanical engineer. And I was working for about like one year as a full-time contract with an organization here in Geelong, and I was working as a mechanical engineer and then I realized that there is more to me, like there's a purpose behind. You know, like I've always been that guy, like normally, I'm a type of guy where when someone goes to a restaurant, they look at the menu, like they normally look at the menu, whereas I don't look at the menu, I look at, like, surroundings how are they marketing? What are they doing? How are they different from the others? You know, that sort of thing is what sort of excites me. And in that process is when I realized like I really want to do something like not just like being a mechanical engineer, and that's when I took the leap.
Speaker 2:One day I went to my boss. I was like, hey, I'm quit. You know I'm quitting today. And he was like, why are you quitting? And I was like, well, because I'm taking the leap. I wanted to like, start something on my own and don't ask me what, but I wanted to do something which I am yet to figure out. And then I started doing like quite a lot of things. I was doing quite a lot of things just to figure out what I really wanted improve my communication skills and all that my dad used to always tell me if you want to know what you really love, you have to explore different things until you really, really enjoy it.
Speaker 1:Wise man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and that process is when I figured out like marketing is my thing. I really enjoyed marketing, but even before that I actually started another business. It's a. It's a. It's an online marketplace for sort of auto repairs and sort of services and that kind of thing. Again, that's a marketplace, a two-sided marketplace, because I'm into, like you know, businesses, trying something new with, with, with everything I know.
Speaker 2:I thought I had enough knowledge to start a business. I started it quite didn't work out, but I've learned so much in that and what sort of excited me in that whole process although the business didn't go well is like the whole idea of growth, marketing, um, the, the. There is a. There's a beauty to storytelling that a lot of people don't understand. And a lot of times, even when I started my business, I was like, okay, I need to create some ads to to sort of um, advertise my business. I need to create some ads, put them there and hopefully I'll get some customers and all that. But the reality is nope. A lot of startup businesses often do this. They start a business. They'll be like, okay, well, I'm going to run some ads on Facebook, on Google, and I'll get some customers, but no, it doesn't work like that so yeah there's like way more to it.
Speaker 2:It's all about storytelling, it's about building a relationship. It's more like this right, let's say you're walking down the road and I'm walking sort of past you and then randomly I come up to you and say hey, I'm selling this pen. Would you buy it? The chance of you buying is very, very, very low right and they run away, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2:You'll be like, oh, who is this? You know, you know me out of nowhere. But if I just instead say hey, how are you? And then I just walk past you, I won't say anything else, and then the next day when I see you, next time when I see you, I'll say hey, how are you?
Speaker 1:it's a nice day, isn't it?
Speaker 2:and I tried it. And then again the third time. I do that four times, so you get familiar with me first. So at that point the brand is myself, me as a brand.
Speaker 2:Now, eventually, as I say, hello, how's it, you know, like, nice day, maybe someday you're looking for something, I'll come up to you. Hey, can I help you? And then you might say, hey, I'm looking for this place. I was like, oh, you just go down the road, that's how I build a relationship and that's how I build a relation. And then in that process, what happens is some point you might just say, oh, chai, so what? Like what do you do for work? And then I will say, oh, I sell this, um, this creative pens. Like they're pretty unique, they write well, excellent, blah, blah, blah. And that builds a bit of curiosity. And you're like, oh, okay, that's interesting because I didn't actually try and sell you, but I actually sold a brand. Because of of that brand, you naturally, you know, got attracted to the brand, and then you might want to try it at some point. That's how I do that.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, long story short, it's just like the whole concepts of marketing that a lot of people just don't understand. It's about psychology. So I've learned all these things over time by making so many mistakes. And people told me like Chai, you're making so many mistakes. And people told me, like Chai, you're doing so many mistakes. I'm like I don't care, I'm learning. I'm learning so many things. I've learned so beautiful things in marketing.
Speaker 2:I understood psychology in marketing through different A-B tests and all that. I've ran so many Facebook ads just to figure out what people really need, what people attract. But at the same time time it's not the same. For, let's say, if you're trying to sell one product in Melbourne the same, we're using some marketing strategy, and if you use that, if you copy and paste the exact same strategy in Sydney, it may or may not work. There's no guarantee because at the end of the day, it's different because the people are different. My mindset is is different. The way they look at things is different. So you need to sort of work at showing the right message to the right person at the right time for anything to work, and you need to figure out how to do that. That's the whole process of marketing.
Speaker 1:I'd say Absolutely. I think you have to know your personas, number one, and then work out what messages are going to resonate with them. But take me into. You know, I've been doing marketing for a while. But for the listeners that are kind of really struggling with this part of the business, take them through um storytelling like what, how did, where did they get started? Is there a process that they need to follow? What can they do to improve their storytelling and then therefore improve their marketing messaging as well?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it comes down to the same concept where I was talking about building a bit of trust, right? And if you go and sell directly to customers let's say, if you're selling I don't know board games and you go up, uh, you, you, you sort of start running some facebook ads or social media posts saying, hey, we sell this, we sell this, we sell this. It's it won't work, like there's no way it will work. You might get, after spending like thousands of dollars, if you might get like a couple of customers, but that's not how it works and that's you know. There needs to be a written on investment, on everything you invest or you spend time on. So it's just basically a process of putting yourself out there. There are multiple ways. There is no sort of one way on how you can do this, but then, in general, storytelling is basically a process from the beginning and you basically it's a process of building a relationship with your audience. Right, building a bit of relation with your audience.
Speaker 2:Now, there are multiple ways. For example, the way I would do, I prefer to do, is like I would probably go out there and say, hey, this is what I do, this is who I am, this is why I started the business. This is the value proposition. Make your brand like, make your value proposition, make what you sell clear. Put the message out there in a nice and clear way. But again, don't just try and sell. Just don't say you know I sell this, come, you know, buy it's $50 and all that, but instead just put yourself, be honest. You know, in today's world, right, we, we are into, particularly we're going into a phase where it's like all ai and you don't know what is ai made and what is actually human made, right and everything looks, even if on youtube there are thousands of videos today and most of these are like ai ai based videos, right now it's hard to tell. So at this point, particularly if you go out there, put yourself out there, tell your story, tell in a beautiful way. There are many ways on how you can tell your story in a beautiful way. Just you know covering where did you come up with this idea and why you think it serves the purpose today, what sort of problems it solves, what sort of what sort of solution you are you're providing and why you're doing this and what's everyone who's starting business? There is some reason behind this. That's what I believe in, at least for everything. They might have seen a pain point, they might have seen like people struggling, or they might see like a problem that they've noticed and they're trying to provide a solution. And put yourself out there, tell your story the right way and then again, as I said, just don't go and sell, but instead just sort of build it. Select that email address and just say, hey, I have so much value to provide. For example, if you're trying to solve a problem, you can educate them around the problem before you try and sell it. So there are like so many questions they might have and try and answer those questions by, let's say, it's because running so many questions they might have, and try and answer those questions by, let's say, it's because running so many ads to the same person can be a little bit expensive uh, if you're, if you're running facebook or google ads and all that. So instead, what I would say is find some good ways to collect that email addresses by being honest, by being, by telling the truth, by telling the story and all that once you get the email, and then educate them further around like the problem you're solving, why it is important or is it serving environment, blah, blah, blah. Cover different point, educate them, and then, naturally, you don't even have to sell.
Speaker 2:People will get to a point where they become patrons of your brand. They believe in you. You sell whatever they buy, whatever that's how people get. You need to do that. Sell whatever they buy, whatever that's how people get. You need to do that. You need to get to that point. Until then, you've got to be patient. It's not. No, it's not going to happen overnight. If someone tells you that, hey, start a business, you'll start making money from tomorrow, nope, it's not going to happen. You've got to be patient. You're going to try. You're going to be patient in it. You know, sort of let people, uh, sort of accept your brand and slowly you will, you'll see sales coming through.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I totally agree. You've got to out-educate your competitors, and I think in the world of SaaS as well. Usually they don't know that they're having a problem. They're probably just using their manual old ways usually it's spreadsheets or something like that. Actually, you can do this. You know 10 times faster and 10 times more accurate if you just use this SaaS platform instead of your spreadsheets. But you're right, it's really just about educating them on that journey rather than just you know straight for the sell. So definitely that's been my experience in the world of marketing as well. So how does Funchops work exactly? What does it do? How does it help you know if an organization was to adopt it? How can?
Speaker 2:they use it to gain that trust with their customers. Okay, so let me put it as a story, because that's my real story, please. So I went to a few meetups right around me I'm an introvert myself and then I went to these meetups and there were like 10 people, 20 people, 30 people, different meetups like that, a lot of people. I went there, I tried to introduce myself. You know, for particularly for introverts and all that, it's not just easy just to go out there and choose ourselves, uh. But I'm okay, I think I went there and choose myself. I had a nice chat with a couple of people and then we said the, the the sort of whole meetup started and we were all busy and all that and they were like okay it was.
Speaker 2:It was nice talking to you and then see you later and I never saw him after that. So this happened to me quite a lot and what I felt was okay when there are too many people, you miss that sort of personal connection with just one person. Imagine like playing or maybe just going out to a meetup with like 20 different people versus going out to meet up with just one person. That guy, that person gets your full attention, he gets your full attention and you get his full attention. So, which means the connections are a little bit more deeper. And that made me wonder. I was like what if we build a platform that connects people based on shared interests right, but in a small group, more like a one-on-one or a very small group?
Speaker 2:right as opposed to a large group, and what that means is, for example again, this is this is also my case where I've been wanting to work out, but I'm struggling to be.
Speaker 2:I'm internally motivated. I'm a type of person I was like, oh, I'm going to start working out, I need to start working out kind of internally motivated, but externally I sort of lack that motivation. I need that nudge and I was like, if only there was a guy I'm pretty sure there's a guy in my neighborhood who is also exactly going through what I'm going through. He's internally motivated, he's struggling to work out. And that's where I thought, hey, if only there was a platform that connects both of us, where I can go on there, list an activity and say, hey, I'm wanting to work out, let's work out together this evening to start with, and we'll see how we go at 6 pm and I list an activity and people around my neighborhood will get to see you, and then let's say there's someone who is like me, who saw that and be like, okay, I'm very interested in this, um, in this workout as well.
Speaker 2:I've been going through the same path and let me message this guy. And then we, we, we chat, uh we sort of communicate by using private messages, and then we, we hit the gym together. So essentially, bunchup is all about connecting people with shared interests in a one-on-one, not a small group setting, as opposed to like large groups and all that.
Speaker 2:So yeah, we started early 2024, well, I'd say almost mid 2024. And yeah, since we have launched, we've got like quite a lot of interest. We've got like a lot of businesses wanting to partner with us. So it is a very good thing and yeah, it's been, it's been doing pretty well. But there's there's there's more to it. We are we are launching new, new things very soon, so exciting days.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's just so incredible to hear you're building a platform that connects people, especially in a world where I think we have a loneliness epidemic. Everyone's just kind of behind their devices and we're more connected than ever, but then we're more lonely than ever at the same time, and it's just so nice to be able to connect on a professional level with a friend or someone who shares your interest, like you said. Take me through the development side of bunchups. Are you the developer? Did you have to hire the people to build it for you? What was that experience like? That's? I think that's what scares me the most about creating sass is that building of it? Because personally I'm not a developer. I have many ideas. I'm just really curious about that journey yeah, 100%.
Speaker 2:So yeah, one of the things being when you start a business you're gonna have to put on so many hands.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, you have to invest more time, and I would. That that's that's exactly what I did, and luckily, um, because I've built my my previous business as well all by myself. I kind of know how everything works like in terms of how marketing works, how web development works and how hosting works. Like you tell me about it, I should be able to pretty much figure out anything about technology because I'm a tech savvy. So what I did was because I understand the core concept of MVP. When you're starting a business, you don't go and build the best product out there because that's going to cost you a lot while not knowing if the business is even going to be successful. Now, considering that, what I did was I built an MVP, which is a very basic version of the web and, obviously, considering I have a bit of design skills and all that and my team also has a graphic designer, we all sat together and we were like we need a good looking website, but with the basic features. We've used themes out there. There are so many themes that people just don't understand. People again, people whenever they want to start a business, they want the best product, and best product is going to be expensive. If you go to a developer and say, hey, I want this build, he would say $150,000, $200,000. So just don't aim for that. Just aim for a very basic. And there are people who sell templates. What they basically do, they build a website and then they sell it as a template, which means they already did all the sort of back and research and they know what features a typical woocommerce business need, a typical marketplace need, and they put everything into one system and then they they sell it for a lot more cheaper price and if you understand, for example, wordpress or shopify basics of it, you should be able to build a complete business. That's, that's what I did. I got a theme and I what I did was, with my knowledge and all that, I know how to update content all pretty straightforward stuff anyone can literally figure out and I installed some plugins. I know what I need. I installed some seo sort of uh, I did some seo optimizations, etc. Etc. And within like nearly um, nearly almost like two days, I was able to build a very good looking website and within two days I had a very good website that was up and running. And now the point is. I was like, okay, now that we have a basic MVP ready, now the goal is to just launch and see how that works. And then we picked a small area in Geelong that's where I live in. So what I did was, okay, we started investing money again, launch and see how that works. And then we picked a small area geelong that's where I live in. So what I did was, okay, we start, we started investing money again.
Speaker 2:One of the common mistakes people do is they're trading because they their business, uh can sell across australia. They try and sell across australia just because you can do it. You shouldn't do it. Uh, you should, you should like, carefully pick a small suburb, grow, grow and then expand from there. So if you understand one strategy, you can copy and paste it. It may not exactly work, your conversion rates may not work exactly like the way it worked in Geelong, because every suburb is different, people's persona changes and all that, but at least you know that at least 50%, let's say you've got 20% conversion, at least you're there. You get like 10 conversion, but you know that it's working at least. So that's how I that that's exactly what I did, like I started small and didn't spend a lot, like a lot of people don't even believe.
Speaker 2:When I started bunch ups, the total amount I spent was nearly 600 to to, to, to to start yep, yep, literally everything and you can do it too, and uh, yeah, that that's why I'd be happy to like even tell people or show people how to do that, like at some point. But it's a pretty straightforward stuff. You just need to know basics of the technology.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, that's a very inspirational story, I think, for a lot of people out there wanting to, you know, start a sass business um, obviously not having the budget, you know kind of an inspiration that you can learn yourself. And I think, with AI now, you know, I think basic coders can be pretty good coders, I think. So, yeah, no, I think you can learn a lot. So you mentioned SEO as being important to this growth of FunShops. Are there any other marketing campaigns or you?
Speaker 1:know, growth campaigns that you've utilized that have been really effective for growing, yeah like partnerships, it's just networking partnerships.
Speaker 2:I can't stress this enough, but it is just so powerful and it's almost like this, right, let's say again the going back to the whole concept of selling whatever maybe a pen, a charger, whatever, even a phone if a random person like me come and sell you something, if we compare that to a friend of yours coming and sort of selling you something, the chances of you converting to your friend is more likely. Right, because you already know. And that's exactly what happens with, like, networking or partnerships and all that. Right, with these partnerships, what you're doing is you're building friendships right with other organizations, and it's pretty easy because every business would love to have more friends, right, other business friends, and that's how you build friendships. And now, as a part of this friendship, one of the things that you would ask is sort of promote each other, like cross-promoting right, they talk about you, you talk about them.
Speaker 2:And now, if their customers visit their website and then they get to see about you because they already know them, they believe in them, they've been with them for a while now when they, when they see you as a brand, it's like, okay, they might or might not convert at that point, but when they need it, when they need a similar service, at some point they might think about you. But at least, like, even if they forget you, they go to google, they search for, like whatever let's say, I'm looking for a shampoo and then if your brand pops up, the chance of they clicking on it will be highly likely. So it's all about, like, building relationships and that's exactly what we did. So what we did was obviously one side of the whole uh business we were sort of working on seo and the other one is like completely sort of building partnerships and all that uh and again that that can also serve as part of SEO, right, like you do backlinking.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And as part of backlinking. It's just like a combination. But instead of just asking vaguely for hey, would you be able to backlink to our website, we went in and said, hey, I love what you're doing and I think I'm pretty much excited to maybe have a conversation and see how things go. And then I jumped on a call with them. I had a bit of a chat like introduce ourselves and what have you been doing and all that, and understood their business, their business story and all that. And then we sort of you know, sort of exchanged more information about each other. And then I requested hey, would you be able to sort of maybe mention BunchUp somewhere on your platform? And a lot of times people said yes and we did the same too, because it's like helping each other out, and we basically listed them on our website, on our resources, and they did the same thing as well. So it's like helping each other, providing value to each other and all that. But that gave us some very good referral traffic and that's one easy way. And seo, the way I normally strategize. My whole approach is like I do like 70 30, so 70 percent of a monthly budget will go into short terms uh, short term sort of returns, and 30 will go into long term, which means seo is a long-term goal. Social media is a long-term sort of returns, and 30% will go into long-term, which means SEO is a long-term goal. Social media is a long-term goal. Organic social media growth is a long-term goal. It's not going to happen overnight. If you start from today, it might take about a year for you to see some results. So I only invest like 30% because that's important for the future. But at the same time, it's important to generate revenue today for us to continue operating the business. What we do, we invest some into things that will give us instant return on investment, sort of things like ads, social media ads, google ads and all that and that's how we operated the business. And then we started generating some revenue and we're investing that back into the business for long-term sort of goals and all that. So everything sort of worked out well and that sort of helped us grow our business um altogether. So yeah, it's just like a combination of um. One of the things that I would also mention um is growth hacking it's it's, it's a pretty um like sick way to to sort of hear. Every time I talk about it. That excites me, because growth hacking is basically identifying some tactics in your industry that will most likely I would consider that as a short-term returns, because if you identify what, actually there are some tactics right.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you one good example of Airbnb, please, yeah, yeah. So Airbnb is is basically you guys know, I believe you know airbnb. Um, so you know, when they started the business they they started like sort of you know, promoting it online and all that, but they were struggling. They went to a few network events and all that. They were struggling and all that and finally, through some network events, they got like only a few customers they were, they were okay with it, but they were like, okay, we need more. You know, like for a business, getting like two or three per month is not good enough. What they did they're uh, in in in the us there's this website called craigslist, right, uh, yeah it's everything right, uh, like properties renting and you name it.
Speaker 2:Um, what they did? They've set up an automation using a quote. What it does is, every time someone lists their property on Airbnb for rent now, and this code will go in there, message them and say hey, I saw you listed your property on Craigslist. Why don't you list it on Airbnb? B and B, you'll have better returns, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So that's their growth hacking technique. They identified a way on how, where their customers are, and that's exactly why creating customer personas are very important, because I will tell you what are the different segments you have and you, basically what you do is you pick one segment, you research where they are. What do they do? So they're sort of demographic, psychographics, technography. You learn everything about them and identify where they are, where can you find them and that's where you go. You use some tactics.
Speaker 2:You know, if you have an idea, you can go to your developer. You can ask them hey, can we achieve this? Doesn't matter what website there is, there's a code for literally everything people can write. You know, if you have an idea, you can go to a developer. You can ask them hey, can we achieve this? Doesn't matter what website, there is a code for literally everything. People can write code for literally anything. So, going there, what they did was it worked out for them. They started getting some results, but then what they noticed is, well, with that process they're getting more hosts but not many guests, because for guests it's still like a little bit scary, right?
Speaker 1:any guests, because for guests it's still like a little bit scary, right they're going to someone yeah, strangest house exactly.
Speaker 2:And what they did is they? They decided to make it a bit more professional looking, so it sounds a bit more you know, it creates a bit more trust, right, like when you go to your website, the website's like very nice and clean, it looks very professional, all the photos look great. Then the chances of they trusting it will be, you know, a little bit. It will go up a little bit. What they did? Everyone every time someone lists their property on airbnb, they used to offer like a free photography, uh sort of thing. So what they did was there's a hey, I saw you listed on on our website. Uh, would be okay if we come down, take some photos, um, put it on the website, just so it.
Speaker 2:It is presentable, you know, and all that they used to do that for free and that's how they started getting more customers as well, because people started seeing all the good photos and all that. Their goal was to provide the best customer experience and almost something like that is what uber did as well, and it worked out for them. So there are some strategies. You know, there's another concept called um fake it till you make it um. So that's what uber did.
Speaker 2:When uber signed up, when uber started, they were getting a few customers because it was a good idea and it solves a problem of you know, waiting for um cabs and all that. What they did when they were getting orders, they used to call nearby taxis taxi company and they used to say, hey, can you go pick, like, pick this guy up, just pretending that they were the driver, uh, of you, of who has been working for driver kind of thing, working for Uber. And they did that until they get to a point where these drivers actually turn into Uber drivers, like official Uber drivers, and they sort of faked it and people do that too. A lot of businesses do that, and that's why there is. These are all I consider them as growth hacking techniques, identifying some smart ways and understanding, like, where your customers are and how to attract them, how to catch their attention and bring them to your platform and provide the best user experience, best customer experience, and they'll be with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. I've heard the story of Airbnb before, but I didn't know Uber did that. That's really funny. So any specific growth hacks that have worked for you in your business?
Speaker 2:We did quite a few actually, but again we're still sort of trying to figure out what would be the best growth hackings. But then, in general, what we did but we have what we did, but what we kind of planning to do as well is we understood that students would be a great sort of target audience for us, because students are the particularly like sort of international students and all that. When they first come to Australia they will not have any friends and they become lonely and all that and and I'm pretty sure those people would be looking for ways on you know how they can partner sorry, they can find a buddy and all that. So what we are currently kind of planning on doing is I partner with deacon and build a bit of brand ambassador group. What these brand ambassadors do is their goal is basically to go out there, promote bunch ups in in some ways on how people would understand or like in a way that people connect with the with bunch ups. And we we did have some uh ideas around what are some smart ways on how we were all like like sort of having a bit of a chat around this for like multiple days. We're like okay, we need, we need to find like that, that, that technique which will attract people and all that.
Speaker 2:So one of the things that we found was like partnering with Deakin University and sort of collecting, um sort of you know, a group of brand ambassadors who partner with us and what we do in return. So what they do for us is they basically create that awareness, that sort of brand awareness among university, but in return these people get like training in marketing, they get training in, they get like networking. So we run networking, like events kind of thing, so they get to be a part of it. So for students who are just starting their career, or just you, you know, sort of studying and all that, for them I think it'll be a, it'll be sort of a wonderful opportunity to be a brand ambassador for business, while learning new skills, learning marketing and, um, you know sort of that that adds, you know, on their resume as well, and be be part of several networking events that they get to meet like other good business professionals and all that. They build their network. So we're offering so many benefits and we are, we're planning on offering them like sort of brand merchandise, um, and you know so many other like sort of commissions, like you know, referral commissions, etc. Etc. And that seems to actually work.
Speaker 2:Since we started doing that, we started getting so much of interest from students and students kind of kept saying that, oh, we're loving this whole idea of, you know, promoting like that because it serves as an experience, more like an internship, while getting paid, while learning a lot, uh, better, um, so yeah, things like that is what we are leveraging at the moment. So we're still trying to figure out like another, like many other beautiful ways. I'm sure we will. It's just a matter of time. Sometimes a few things take time. You're gonna be patient and you know, we don't know, someday while in the shower we might get an idea. When you know we will, we'll be. We are always ready to implement new ideas. So we just figuring out like different things and hopefully one day, yeah, we'd be able to yeah, now, that's really clever.
Speaker 1:You kind of um, figured out like who are the people that would need this the most and where are they? Well, yeah, I think you've got that's a really good growth hack actually. So, um, it's again. It just comes down to who are our people, who's our audience, who needs this the most? Where's the biggest gap?
Speaker 2:um, exactly, and just one other thing I would like to add as well. So one of the other things that people often struggle with the platform like this if you, if you sort of reverse engineer this whole process, is like well, okay, so there's a platform like bunchups, good, I can meet, um, people of shared interests, but then there are some fears around that, that fear. One of the fears would be how can I meet a stranger? How it doesn't sound safe, right, and we understood that bit. We were like, okay, wait, what if one of the reasons why many people are not joining could be the fear of meeting a stranger? And we were like wait so to solve this fear. And we were trying to like think and analyze this situation and how can we solve this problem, solve this fear. And what we did was how bad. We provide the space to them, which means so, if we provide the space to them, which means they'll have like a safer space to catch up, which makes it less intimidating or maybe less scarier to meet a stranger.
Speaker 2:And that's where we partnered with libraries. We started partnering with libraries. We wanted to like set up our own space, but then, even before, that's a bit of an investment, but before that you need to test and make sure it's working right. That's exactly why we started reaching out to libraries and we now partnered with Kingston libraries. There are five libraries in total actually six and we partnered with all of them and which means we are running sort of bunch of sessions every month, which means so if you want to catch up with someone, instead of just kind of catching up randomly a random place, you can actually come meet at the library where the dedicated?
Speaker 2:yeah, representative will be there as well, just to assist you, just to make sure you're safe. We are here for you, we help you, uh, and all that, and we provide board games and all that as well, just so that they have something to uh, yeah, or so that's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's one of the tactics. Yeah, that's really clever. You're kind of removing away the friction, uh, a little bit, because you know, say you connect the people, but then they get stuck trying to figure out where and when to meet. You kind of solve that problem for them. It becomes really easy, like, oh okay, we're gonna meet here, we're gonna do this, we're gonna yeah, it's very clever um my other question for you.
Speaker 1:If I know, you're at the very beginning of your, of your journey at the moment, but if you could go back in time, um, you know, give advice to your younger self, what would it be? What would you do differently? Um?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the sort of mistake that I did in my first business, where I went so aggressive just because I wanted to start a business and I wanted to start a business. It's just as simple as. I was like I was in a mindset that, hey, I want to start a business. All I need a bunch of people, a website, and that's what I looked at. I need a business name, a domain and all that. I haven't done any other research around that, like market research, target audience research validation so you gotta, you gotta understand who are your competitors.
Speaker 2:You know we do all the analysis and all that. Who are your competitors, what they are doing, how are we different from others? Is it? Does it even work? You know you create a focus group, you speak to them, you share them your idea and you know you get their feedback and all that. There is just so much of work that needs to go into before you invest even a single dollar into the business. I didn't do all that. I lost a lot of money, but that's OK. But that's how you learn. You know, sometimes learning the hard way is OK too, you know.
Speaker 2:And for me, if I were to go back in time and uh, sort of tell my younger self, I was like, okay, first of all, starting a business, start from scratch. Just because you have an idea today doesn't mean you have to start it from tomorrow. Take your time, start doing research. If you are really in rush, if you think that's a very good idea and you want to start as soon as possible, then do all the other things as soon as possible. As simple as that. Start, start looking at.
Speaker 2:If you go on Google, you look up and today it's chat, gpd. How crazy it is. You literally can find every single information you want on there. Go in there, start asking questions. This is my business idea who are my competitors and what do they do? Understand what their process is. See what their customer service is like. Give them a call. Give them a call as a customer and try asking questions and see how they're communicating and see how you can pro. So you basically understand your value proposition and how you're different from others and all that and how you can make your. What are the things that they are lacking at and how can you improve on that? So you need to put all of these things identify target audience, your demographics, technographics, psychographics and their behaviors and all that. You put everything into one document, which is called business plan.
Speaker 2:You create a business plan where put as much detail as possible how many resources you need. What do you need? How much do you have to spend for a website? How much you need call around, for example, if you want to build a website again. Do you want to build it Like? Do you want to actually do it like by hiring a developer, or do you want to use like themes and make it easier for yourself? Figure out all these things. Put everything into a nice document. Now, one of the things that I do is, like every time I create like a business document.
Speaker 2:I don't just because I created. Now that I have a plan, I won't just go out there and start my business. I'll check with a few sort of mentors I normally hire a mentor as well Like there are many online websites where you can hire mentors. Get a mentor, show this, I would say multiple mentors. Show this business plan to them, give them, tell them your whole idea. Mentors are like people who have been in the industry for years now. They've had maybe experience starting up multiple businesses, et cetera. So go, speak, speak to them, explain them the whole idea, show them your business plan. It's okay, pay them, because at least at that point you're confident that you are. You have a nice business idea and that's why you put up a business plan together. Go over to him, explain everything, show him everything, if he's convinced right, and ask him one question if you had money, would you invest in a business like this, right with with the exact? So when you normally write business plan right, you also do like financial forecast as well. Show him everything, explain him and ask him would he ask all of them? And maybe ask a few of your friends as well if you got like right, friends and all that. Go talk to him. Tell them, if you had money, would you invest in a business like that? If the answer is yes from a lot of people, which means you've convinced a lot of people already, even before starting a business.
Speaker 2:Number two a lot of times when you have a business, don't try and start the business yourself. Try to get a co-founder and I can't stress this enough for an investor because you can't bootstrap like forever. To stress this enough for an investor, because you can't. You can't bootstrap like forever. Every business needs investment because you need to spend a lot of money to marketing and all that. So finding a co-founder and that you can, you know, obviously do your due diligence and all that. Find the right person. You can join different startup groups, startup boot camps and all.
Speaker 2:Then that's where you can find one on punch-ups, exactly, exactly, list an activity on punch-ups and you might find like a nice co-founder who's like as motivated as you. But try to sort of have like complementing skills, right like, let's say, if, if you're good at like technical or web development, see if he's good at like marketing and all that just so that you help each other. Uh, if you're good at like marketing, see if he's good at like development, find someone like that. So, because you form a good team and when you go to an investor at some point, investor looks at it, investor looks at like who is the you know co-founding team?
Speaker 2:And if you'll just say, oh, I'm just one person, I know, I know your marketing and all that, it's not convincing enough because when investors invest they will not only invest in the business, they also invest in you. So they need to make sure that you find the right person. Dealing with one person can be a little bit tricky, so if it's like a small group, the chances of they investing will be highly likely. So what normally I do? I suggest you find like a co-founder, maybe one, two, whatever um, and then make sure you find the right people and then slowly work together, start getting some sales, some revenue or even some customers and all that. And then, once you get to a point, then go to start going to these angel investors and all that raise funds and yeah, it should be good from there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, wow. So much advice to unpack there. I'm going to try and summarize it actually in a really basic way Find a mentor. I absolutely agree with that. I think those people are impeccable and they just really inspire you. Find a co-founder Now, there's actually research on this. I don't know where it's come from, but it shows that VCs are more likely to give you funding if there's two of you rather than one of you, and I think it's just safer that way. They've got two people to depend on. But yeah, again, chai, thank you so much for that advice. I think there's a lot to unpack there, a lot of good tips. I'm sure the listeners have learned quite a bit from this. Really appreciate you being on the show, thank you.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be um part of the show absolutely.
