Locpin: Guy Davenport

Name: Guy Davenport
Company name: Locpin
Location: London
Date launched: 06/07/2015
Website: www.locpin.com

Tell us what your business does:

Locpin will pinpoint any address with a six character code and record its GPS co-ordinates. Anyone anywhere can set up a locpin on our secure system for free, and it’s yours for life. If your location changes all you need to do is move your locpin on the map and update the written address details – your locpin code remains the same.

One of the unique things about Locpin is that it links other details too, so you don’t need to remember another code or password. Your locpin location can be found using your phone number or email address.

We believe that sharing this accurate delivery point data with e-commerce and logistics businesses will take the limitations out of address and postcode information, which are often inaccurate and inefficient. It’s great for finding your friends, too!

Where did the idea for your business come from?

Just like everyone else I know, I’ve experienced lost and late deliveries over the years, especially growing up in rural Herefordshire. That’s where the idea for Locpin came from.

We all rely on postcodes to specify where we are, and although they’re great for sorting mail; there is actually an average of 16 addresses assigned to each postcode in the UK so they’re not very specific. This can cause real problems for e-commerce and delivery businesses, and for consumers.

How did you know there was a market for it?

We analysed the scale of the problem and discovered that in the UK alone, this year is likely to see around 80 million deliveries fail to get to there right location.

We developed Locpin as a simple way of adding GPS co-ordinates to address information, and sharing them with others, without the hassle of having to remember the co-ordinates. We believe it addresses the need for accurate delivery point data.

What were you doing before starting up?

I graduated from Bristol University in 2012, having studied Chemistry. Since then I’ve been working in the high-tech manufacturing industry, but the idea for Locpin has been in development for some time.

Have you always wanted to run your own business?

It’s been an aspiration of mine for a long time. My father’s always worked for himself so it’s something I grew up with and I’ve always been a natural problem solver so it’s a good fit for me.

I went into it knowing that it would be challenging, but that the reward potential would be worth it.

How did you raise the money?

All the funding has come from private investment so far. We approached potential investors that we knew, with the idea and went from there.

Serial entrepreneur, Clive Beharrell, is our founding investor – he loved the idea from the start and really understood what we are trying to achieve, which was great.

Describe your business model and how you make money:

As a user, Locpin is always going to be free. You create it, update it and use it for life. As a platform for businesses, we have an API that can be easily integrated with their existing systems and software, and we have a rate card based on usage that follows a fairly typical software as a service model.

What challenges have you faced and how have you overcome them?

The biggest challenge we’ve come against is that we need to attract users to persuade businesses to adopt Locpin as a standard, and vice-versa.We’ve worked hard to crack this, developing an API that allows e-commerce businesses to integrate Locpin into their checkout page so customers can create a locpin as part of checkout process, as needed.

What was your first big breakthrough?

It was a pretty big moment for me in the second half of last year when we raised enough funding to allow us to push through with the development of Locpin.

It’s what’s brought us to a point where we’ve been able to launch.

What advice would you give to budding entrepreneurs?

Be resilient! I’ve been working on Locpin for a couple of years now and it’s definitely had its challenges – there are always going to be set backs – and things will more often than not take longer than you think. You have to keep believing in what you’re doing and keep the vision for what it can be in mind.

Where do you want to be in five years’ time?

In five years’ time I’d love for Locpin to be fully established as a reliable and trusted location data service for the e-commerce and delivery industries.

If we can emulate the kind of success that PayPal has experienced then I’ll be happy.