Glenn Reid is the Chief Executive Officer of Deals in Places, (DIP) a free voucher app established in Summer 2018. He works alongside the DIP Team; Francesca Morelli, Chloe Henning, Jonathan Graham and Patrick Dallat (Pictured above). DIP recently showcased their startup in a pod at Digital DNA, where we caught up with them.
What did you do before launching your startup?
I’m a marketer and most of my experience is in the legal sector.
Tell us a bit about your business?
We’re a free voucher service but think of ourselves more along the lines of a shopping companion app. On the surface dip displays deals, discounts and vouchers to app users based on their location and their self-selected interests. We’re also the only self-service advertising platform especially for sales promotions that follows the PPC business model.
How did you come up with the idea for your business?
Whilst at university I had the goofy idea of an app that serves as a window into a fictitious world inhabited by brand characters. It would be a voucher app and involve hunting down brand characters and earning discounts for the trouble. I didn’t immediately do anything with it and a few years later when I began to learn more about pay-per-click marketing I revisited the concept.
Who/What inspired you to start your business?
We only have so much daily cognitive output to give and the idea of producing my best work for a business that I don’t have shares in is unacceptable to me. That’s plenty of motivation. However, I would be doing him a disservice if I did not credit an old professor for arming me with the tools I needed to start a business. Prof. Pauric McGowan, Professor of Entrepreneurship at Ulster Uni taught me how to balance the wild dreams and creativity with a pragmatic methodical approach. I’m very grateful to have been taught by Pauric.
Who is your target market?
We’re targeting the UK and Ireland’s largest consumer of vouchers. They’re females aged 21-31. However, dip is no fuss free vouchers so we can expect some level of mass market appeal.
What gap in the market does your business fill?
Contemporary marketers want highly-targeted, measurable and easily controlled ads and the sales promotion space lacks that right now. By introducing a self-service PPC platform we hope to give retailers another weapon in the arsenal to use along-side or instead of the existing service providers.
Have you received any funding for your startup?
We’ve availed of some grants from both Queen’s University Belfast and Ulster University. The amount was modest but a great way to kick start our own promotional activities.
Who are your main competitors and what do you think sets your company apart from them?
Companies such as Groupon, VoucherCodes and Wowcher are our competitors. However there are many more. A noteworthy similarity between the established discount providers is the lack of innovation and disruption. Let me give you an example of the kind of benefits businesses can get with PPC. Pretend that your business has a product that is selling for £100 but you’re willing to offer 50% off: With Groupon: You earn £50 for every voucher purchased, but Groupon take 50% of your sale leaving the business with only £25 per sale. However you won’t pay anything if there’s 0 sales.
Vs
With dip: If a budget of £5 is set, a deal will be clicked on by up to 25 targeted dip users. If only 1 of them redeems the voucher you’ll make £45, that’s a 4% conversion rate. The average conversion rate is 21% which equates to an average of £225 on a £5 promotion, however the maximum you could earn is £1,250.
What is your vision for the company over the next few years?
We have high hopes for dip and lots of faith in the product but we’re cautious and critical at the same time. As a business we’re in the process of achieving proof of concept and once complete we’ll subsequently begin raising seed investment. We want to prove to the world that we’re sitting on some dynamite tech that consumers want before exploding into new markets beyond Belfast.
What are the main achievements of the company so far?
Aside from our beta launch there are a few things to date that I’m particularly proud of. Despite being an early stage start-up dip is everywhere right now and we always have a rep at events and competitions. Most recently we had a pod at Digital DNA. The same hype can be found online too. We’re hitting around 70,000 organic monthly impressions on social media at the moment and our followers are actively sharing their excitement for dip’s formal launch.
What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learnt so far?
To an entrepreneur a start-up is like their baby so when things don’t go as planned it’s easy to have an emotional response. I’ve learnt to stay pragmatic and reasonable in the face to adversity and find that it’s much easier to navigate out of troubled waters with a cool head.
What advice would you give to someone thinking of starting a business?
The momentum train that dip is riding at the moment is undoubtedly a result of a strong, passionate and cohesive team. I would recommend that someone thinking of starting a business thinks about their skillset and what it lacks. If you know your limitations you can find other people to fill that knowledge gap. Team creation will also help affirm your idea. After all, if you can’t sell your dream to a potential business
partner, how will you sell it to a potential customer?
If you’d like to keep up to date with dip and be amongst the first to trial it, connect with us online. We’re always on Instagram and Twitter and you can find us here: @dip_app.
You can also learn more about us at:Â www.dip-app.com
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