Bippit: the financial planning app for students and young professionals
Meet Bippit, the financial planning app for students and young professionals
We caught up with Mark
Pratt, founder of ParcelPet, the subscription box service aiming to keep UK pets healthy, one parcel at a time. ParcelPet’s founders Mark and Nicky, recently closed their first round, ingeniously raising funding by leveraging their Linkedin contact base.
Q: What does your company do?
A: Parcelpet is all about making pet owners lives easier through a bespoke food delivery subscription. Not only that, but we put pet nutrition at the forefront of our mission, meaning that our food is full of goodness and free from nasties. It’s a win win for both pet and parent!
Q: What made you start your company – was it a personal passion, or a problem you identified, or a market opportunity?
A: All 3. It’s all well and good having a passion, but there needs to be a market for it. The subscription trend was our market opportunity, the problem we identified was dog and cat owners running out of pet food. All of this meant that our passion could be a reality.
Q: How did you find your investors, and were they angels or VCs?
A: We’ve found investors through both mine and my co-founder Nicky’s personal connections on LinkedIn.
Q: Do you think your investors invested in the idea, the product, the founders, or the team?
A: I think that it was a combination of both myself & Nicky as well as the product. Subscription services are an upward trend and catering to pet owners needs makes it a fool proof product.
Q: Any advice for the perfect pitch deck?
A: It’s all about professional presentation. Without this, you won’t seal the deal. You need people to believe in you and the rest will follow.
Q: If there were three things you could tell a founder looking to do their round, what would they be?
A: Tip no 1: SEIS/EIS makes it virtually no risk for investors
Tip no 2: Dedicate time daily to manage your round as a project
Tip no 3: Be transparent about risks and weaknesses. It is far better for you to highlight them that someone else. Being able to identify risks and weaknesses indicates a thorough knowledge and people will therefore take you more seriously.
Q: What’s next on the horizon?
A: Growth. We’ve been laying down the groundwork and we’re ready to ramp up our customer numbers before our next round of funding.
