Interview: Ross Nichols from Weezat.com

This is the first in a series of interviews with people working in the UK and Ireland startup space. First up to the podium is Ross Nichols from www.weezat.com which launched last week. If you have any other questions you would like me to ask in these interviews then just let me know by emailing me at shane@deepdigital.co.uk or by leaving a comment on this post.

Thanks

Interviewee: Ross Nichols

Company: www.weezat.com
Position: Marketing Director

Question 1: So what’s Weezat all about? Give us the elevator pitch:

Weezat is a socialising service for going out with your friends, based around a SMS text service and an accurate database of pubs and bars across London. Users can tell all of their friends where it’s at by sending just 1 SMS to Weezat. The service also lets you find specific types of venues based on facility or genre when you’re out and about. Whether you want to find the best beer garden in Angel or the best place to go on a first date in Soho, you can do it all for free with Weezat no matter what mobile device you’re using. Users can also choose to receive updates from their favourite venues which helps plan out their social calendar.

Question 2: What’s the Business model?

We have 2 main forms of revenue. SMS sponsorship on the back of every message we send and a subscription income from venues. For drinks brands, it’s a very attractive proposition as they can target people that are out in pubs and bars or planning to go to one.

Question 3: What’s been your biggest challenge in getting it launched?

The database that Weezat sits on. We’ve spent a ridiculous amount of time making sure that every venue on our database actually exists and is as accurate as possible. Lots of listings sites have inaccurate data which just isn’t useful. We want users to trust what we tell them is good and for the places we send them to, to actually be there and be as close to our descriptions as possible.

Question 4: Most Entrepreneurs spend a lot of time broke and over worked…What motivates you to be an Entrepreneur?

I’ve wanted to run my own business since I was about 8 years old when I used to sell copies of computer games at school. It’s also a huge challenge because so many businesses fail, so that’s a big incentive to keep going.

Question 5: What do you think is the one thing that will make or break Weezat?

Well, we’re predicting that we’re going to be sending a large volume of SMS texts and if those aren’t sponsored, we’ll soon run out of money, so that.

Question 6: How have you managed to get this developed? Did you pay for it? Do you have a developer on board?

We have a team of 4 directors and we’ve all worked lots of hours as we all still have day jobs. 1 of the team owns a development business and his investment has been on the technical side of things. In addition to that we’ve paid for a developer overseas to build a lot of the functionality.

Question 7: How have you financed this to date?

It’s been totally self-funded up to now.

Question 8: Are you planning to seek VC funding? If so how have you gone about this?

Yes. We’ve been on a number of programmes which have been really useful and you just need to meet as many people as possible as you never know who might want to invest. There are a few potentials on the horizon so fingers crossed.

Question 9: What mistakes have you made along the way that you would advise fellow entrepreneurs to avoid?

I think the biggest lesson we’ve learned is to let each person within your team lead a particular area of the build. In the early stages, we all wanted to have a say about everything which just doesn’t work. Every member needs a role and to run with it. Getting opinions along the way from co-founders is essential but if it’s your area of the build, you need to take control of it.

Question 10: How can the community help you out?

We’ve just gone live in beta so any feedback is always welcome. We’re always interested in hearing about potential partnerships too and if nothing else, it can’t hurt to build your network up within the industry as you never know what might come of it…