55. FanFinders

Founders: Alec Dobbie, Raphael Marsh, and Nick Hadfield
Founded: January 2013 (launched December 2013)
Website: www.fanfinders.com

Brands often spend millions trying to create effective marketing strategies that will resonate with customers but sometimes these marketing efforts can simply come across as “annoying spam”.

Determined to build a solution to benefit both businesses and consumers, Alec Dobbie, Raphael Marsh, and Nick Hadfield came up with the idea for FanFinders – a network of clubs that consumers join to benefit from offers which are relevant to them. Brands can then engage with the consumers in these clubs to keep them informed in what Dobbie, Marsh and Hadfield refer to as the “perfect value exchange”.

The duo’s first club, YourBabyClub, has already taken off and is now the fastest growing community for new mums in the UK with one million mums and mums-to-be as members, and approximately 40,000 new mums signing up each month.

Having worked with over 200 big brands to date including Heinz, Ella’s Kitchen, Mothercare, and Pampers, the entrepreneurial trio say their early success is down to the fact that their strategy allows brands to generate a lead right from the beginning of pregnancy and brands can then find out as much insight as they want about that individual. On the customer side, consumers can be confident that their details will only be passed on to companies they have chosen to engage with.

Entirely bootstrapped, the start-up expects to generate turnover of £2m for 2016 and an app for YourBabyClub is also in the pipeline.