Sarah Salter, chief marketing officer at Vrumi, explains why the business should win the Startup of the Year category of the Guardian Small Business Showcase competition:
Vrumi is an innovative platform that allows hosts to rent out unused rooms as office space, unlocking the value trapped in homes and providing flexible and affordable workspace for guests ranging from freelancers and startups to major companies.
In January 2015, a couple of Vrumi’s first employees were trawling coffee shops, asking disgruntled-looking creatives why they were working in this environment. The answer? ‘I can’t find anywhere else’. Now they can. Vrumi’s potential meant we needed to be scaleable from the beginning.
In May, we raised almost £1m through crowdfunding, 250% of our target, in two weeks. After a slow summer, growth exploded. In the quarter from October we achieved 206% growth; in January bookings increased by 197% on the previous month. We now have over 500 properties to rent, a specially-tailored insurance policy and plans to expand internationally very soon.
Partly, we put this growth down to a creative marketing and PR campaign. Our innovative paid search strategy focused on tailored ad copy and creative keywords, while ‘social influencers’ used our spaces and publicised them via social media.
We’ve commissioned a research project which guarantees column inches at a fraction of the cost of paid advertising, and have made countless UX and design improvements to the website. Our Vrumi community has also driven many bookings through friend and family referrals. Vrumi is a simple idea that does good for the economy, the environment and for individuals. It speaks to people, and that’s what’s at the root of our growth.
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.
