Peter Sidwell, managing director of Simply Good Food TV, explains why the business should win the Startup of the Year category of the Guardian Small Business Showcase competition:
Simply Good Food TV launched in May 2015 on a petite four of a budget, with the aim of becoming the food lovers Netflix. It is the must-have foodies app, packed with delicious foodie content combined with our ‘Foodie Friends’ artisan producers, which gives consumers the opportunity to buy direct.
We created this app to offer quality food and recipes videos, and content from household names such as Jamie Oliver and up-and-coming chefs such as Emma Spitzer.
Since May we have created a buzz about the app through social media, attending food festivals, and offering competition prizes. We now have over 35,000 users of the app, who on average use it at least three times a week. We are on track to have more than 100,000 users this year.
The marketing budget was very small as the technical side of creating the app has been costly. But we are now being approached by big brands wanting us to create new content for them. We have secured some big sponsors such as Symphony Kitchens, Filippo Berio and Renault, and are working with many of the Great British Bake Off and Master Chef contestants.
One of the keys to us getting such a large audience has been creating great recipes with our Foodie Friends’ produce, combined with great images. These have been used on numerous newsletter campaigns and have led to a noticeable increase in downloads.
All entries which meet the competition criteria are published and our judging panel select a shortlist of the top three for each category. Winners are announced at an awards ceremony in summer 2016.
