Our project, FlexyDine, is our idea to let you book a table online quickly and cheaply. We are very excited that our idea has just won the 2016 Incubox Kickfactor enterprise competition. This is in addition to winning the University of Salford’s internal competition for the Santander Universities Entrepreneurship Awards and we will be representing the University of Salford at the nationwide competition.
What is FlexyDine? It is a restaurant table booking platform available as a website and a mobile application. The key feature of this platform is last minute, same day option to book a table online with significant discounts and ability to search for “restaurants near me”.
Diners benefit from this app by being able to book a table online at local restaurants and great prices. On the other hand, restaurant managers using FlexyDine have a chance to get greater exposure to new diners and maximise the use of their facilities and make sure that food and restaurant tables are not wasted!
How did our team of students end up winning this Kickfactor contest and what is happening to the Santander Entrepreneurship Awards?
Book a table online: the idea
FlexyDine was initially formed by three Business Information Technology members to run alongside our University studies here at Salford Business School, with the aim to enter a start-up competition – TechAngels 2015. The finals have been featured at the Creative Entrepreneur, event which took place at MediaCity on the 25th November 2015. Here is our pitch captured as part of the finals:
https://youtu.be/UK0GKrsCzwY?t=29m33s
Unfortunately FlexyDine didn’t get a place in the top 3, however the whole experience was highly beneficial for a number of reasons:
- Invaluable pitching experience
- Getting the brand name out there
- Initial but time-limited research conducted for this competition
- Well informed feedback from the judges
Pivot: what does not kill you makes you stronger
We understand that pivot is necessary for entrepreneurs to keep evolving and refining the business idea of a start-up. The key ingredient is constructive feedback which allows to improve the initial idea further.
The constructive feedback from the Tech Angel judges helped significantly in the growth of FlexyDine to come back better and stronger. A fundamental flaw was pointed out during the pitch regarding the payment process: The initial plan was to let the restaurant pay FlexyDine after each successful meal has been eaten. At the time, the team didn’t consider the fact that maybe some restaurant managers may not be honest about the number of customers who actually visited the restaurant after booking the table online.
So, coming away from Tech Angels 2015, FlexyDine knew that a number of changes were important for the future success of the business idea. Further research was needed and further development of our business plan was pivotal. However, it was difficult for the team to commit the time required to continue to push FlexyDine forward.
eCommmerce consulting and practice module
Thank you @IncuboxUK for sharing #passion4digital developing entrepreneurial ideas with #salfordbschool students pic.twitter.com/nLLWmiEL5q
— Salford Business School (@salfordbizsch) February 8, 2016
Following on from Tech Angels, the perfect opportunity arose to develop the FlexyDine idea during the final year eCommerce consulting and practice module. Digital Business Innovation and entrepreneurship are at the heart of what Salford Business School is all about, and this module has been designed to align academic deliverables to another start-up competition – Kickfactor and the Santander Entrepreneurship Awards.
The benefit here was that during the module, the full start up process was explored in more depth allowing the team the time and feedback needed to take the business idea to the next level and give us a real life experience of the processes that a start-up creation entails. Additionally, business start up support was offered by the University of Salford Enterprise team as well as industry talks by the competition judges such as Kid Harwood from Kickfactor:
Kid Harwood from Incubox during a Kickfactor briefing eCommerce Consulting and Practice module
As you might know, a significant amount of work has to take place within any start-up, from white paper research to the planning and implementation of a digital marketing strategy, to the development of the platform itself – this list goes on.
Wilding Solicitors kindly offered the prize money as well as their time and support for our team and other winners of Kickfactor contest, which is great to see a commercial organisation working in the community.
FlexyDine dream team expands
With this in mind FlexyDine were on the hunt for further talent to join the ranks, this is when the team expanded from 3 members, to 7! This was when the dream came back to life, we were now a 7 strong team with a huge range of knowledge and experience between us. Tasks suited to each members skill set were assigned, and weekly meetings took place for feedback and revisions of all work that were completed.
Only a month into the module and our hopes were high for not only success within the module, but real passion and drive could be seen in the teams desire to make FlexyDine a reality. However, it was clear that FlexyDine required funding that will go towards the development of a website, a cross-platform mobile application, digital marketing and other start-up costs.
Santander Universities Entrepreneurship Award
While we were well into our journey, an amazing opportunity for the FlexyDine team arose, hosted here through the University of Salford Enterprise and Santander. We had the chance to pitch our new business plan with the possibility of representing the University to go through to the Santander ‘pitch it’ grand finals in London – a chance to get up to £15k for us as Undergraduate students. So, having practiced our pitch we used this opportunity and won first stage of £250:
So! FlexyDine won!! Off to London we go in a month or so Thank you @santanderuk for this opportunity @salfordbizsch pic.twitter.com/k7sTJnRHp5
— FlexyDine (@flexydine) 23 March 2016
Following on from this success the our team had further success at the Kickfactor contest on the 22nd April placing us first and coming away with £1000 at the Kickfactor finals:
Hard work certainly pays off! Onwards and upwards for the FlexyDine Team!! @IncuboxUK @salfordbizsch #DineForLess pic.twitter.com/S2hsD7rabj
— FlexyDine (@flexydine) April 23, 2016
Solicitor Partner, Mr Kid Harwood from Wildings Solicitors said:
Wildings is proud to be supporting an event like Kickfactor at Media City which brought together Entrepreneurs and business people alike.
At Incubox innovation and entrepreneurship is a huge part of our culture. We are actively seeking to invest and support local talent. Thank you for this fantastic opportunity of working with Salford University Students culminating in the Kickfactor 2016 finals at Media City.
Looking forward to working with the winners.
Left to right – myself – Adam Karow, Georgy Bickerdyke, Suleiman Duale, Joseph Laisby, Cristinel Mateias, Kid Harwood from Incubox, Mohammad Jaberansari and Hamza Shah
We are not there yet, but it has been an amazing journey so far. A special thank you to the enterprise team at the University of Salford – Justyna Turner, the e-Commerce Consulting and Practice team (Aleksej Heinze, Marie Griffiths and Alex Fenton), help with finance by Stacey Gurrie, Kid Harwood from Incubox and Jade Littlewood from Santander University Relationship Branch Manager at Salford University!
The business is not working yet but we are pitching for more funding and now developing our online presence. Next stage is Santander finals in London – can we get there?
Do you want to book a table online using our app?
We are taking FlexyDine to the next stage – so get in touch if you have comments – we love to pivot our idea! To keep up to date with our progress in supplying you with the best value, last minute tables around the county visit our website at www.FlexyDine.co.uk to sign up to our mailing list, follow us on Twitter