How and why did you create this app?
The idea for Buymie was actually born in the Ginger Man pub. My co-founder and I, had just decided to close up shop on an early stage idea we had been working on for about 8 months. After a few beers, we decided not to give up and to get straight into our next idea.
We decided that we wanted to look at a market that had not yet experienced a significant technical disruption and one where there was a lot of potential customers. After a few suggestions we started talking about what an absolute pain grocery shopping is, my co-founder has a young child and no car and he found it really difficult to do the shopping, to the point where he would actually rent a car, just to do his weekly shop. I had it different, in that I walked to and from work and with no shop on the way home, I would end up ordering take away far more often then I would like to admit.
That's when it clicked. We both had the same problem but for different reasons, and chances were we wern't the only ones
We then spent the guts of a year researching the market, surveying potential customers and learning what the competitive landscape was like. Once we had that data, we were able to build out a business model and started to develop the early versions of our app.
At @UpStarterHQ ? Make sure to stop by @Buymie_IRE 👋👋 pic.twitter.com/lnXXETtkAH
— Jobbio (@Jobbio) October 4, 2016
We interviewed Devan Hughes for RTÉ Radio 1 Extra's The LifeStyle Show - Listen back here:
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
What is the most exciting thing about your job?
Seeing complete strangers talking about your business online or leaving awesome reviews. That still gives me a spark of excitement, because I know that I’ve had a direct impact on the way those people are living their lives, that’s a really great feeling.
What is the most challenging thing about your job?
By far the biggest challenge about my job is building a business that’s truly disruptive in nature. We’re making waves in a 100 year old industry and there are some people out there that aren’t too happy about it. That being said, we knew going into this that the big guys would most likely try and shut us down, and they have tried. But you can’t fight consumer demand, and you can’t fight the natural evolution of the market. So our position is that they can either get on board, or be left behind.
What is the process of creating and maintaining the app?
We started out by taking all of the survey data we captured in our first 6 months, then we looked at businesses all around he world to see who was doing similar stuff, even businesses that were in completely different sectors. We made a big list of the good stuff they were doing as well as the things they were crap at and we just got to work on building. As for maintaining, it’s pretty simple, Iteration, Iteration, Iteration. We look at the app as never ending piece of work. It will never be finished.
Who is your audience?
Our audience is really broad, because it truly is anybody who buys groceries but, we of course have a couple of really core target audiences.
Mum’s are an important one, they get a huge amount of value from our service because it just saves them so much time.
Young car-less couples are another. So many people just cant afford, or don’t want a car, but can find it a bit of a struggle when they need to buy more than a couple of items.
Then you have young professionals, they’re putting in extra hours at work to get a project done or get that sale across the line, and rather than go home and order pizza for the 3rd time that week, we give them another option, where they can still get their work done but can also get access to proper guilt free food.
What inspires you?
I think I’m inspired mostly by the world we live in. I grew up in a generation where 20 something’s where transforming the world with a laptop and an idea. I think that’s pretty inspiring, that anyone with the right idea and, even more importantly, with the right execution, can go out there and change people’s realities.
When you get the equivalent of writers block, do you default to any template or design?
I speak to my advisors. Every single time I’ve come up against a mental block or barrier, I’ve gone and hashed it out with our advisors. I took a lot of time finding the right people to join our advisory team and it has paid off in spades. I can tell you for a fact that Buymie would not be anywhere near where it is today without those people nudging us in the right direction.
What does your working day look like?
My work day is really dependent on what is on top of the agenda for the business at any given time. So for example at the moment we’re in the middle of raising a fairly large round of funding, so my day mostly consists of building pitch decks, sifting through our data, presenting to investors, communicating with the tech team and even hopping onto the network when it's super busy and delivering peoples groceries.
Who are three people you admire?
- Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX
- Eric Ladizinsky of D-Wave Quantum Computing
- Simon Senik author of Why Leaders Eat Last.
What advice can you give to app start ups?
Don’t re-invent the wheel, find what works, do it better, choose your advisors wisely, network your ass off!
Your proudest achievement?
The safe answer is building an app that 4,500+ people wanted to download and use. The real answer is building a business that was disruptive enough that big players tried to shut us down 5 weeks after we launched.
Chosen platform to promote/sell your wares?
Definitely Facebook, it has the greatest audience reach and the return on investment can be incredible if you get your messaging right.
Buymie team is so excited to be #pitching tonight @Startupnextirl demo night with @BOIstartups! pic.twitter.com/nm71OGvMwE
— Buymie (@Buymie_IRE) December 10, 2015
Where can we find you online?
You can find me on all the lines, Twitter, Linkedin, SnapChat @devanhughes1 and Instagram.
