Wriggle hungry for success in city as new app launches
WE’RE a bit like the opposite of Deliveroo – they bring food to people, we bring people to food.
So says Rob Hall, the founder and chief executive of Wriggle, an app started five years ago in Bristol which is now making a beeline for Birmingham’s thriving dining out scene.
Launching in the city this week, Wriggle offers its users a constantly rotating conveyor belt of offers and discounts from Birmingham’s independent cafés, bars and restaurants which, in some cases, can last for as little as just a few hours.
Already present in four other locations where it has more than 150,000 users, Birmingham was chosen by the firm for its fifth location because of its “buzzing local food scene” while plans for a rollout in two further, as yet undisclosed, locations are well under way.
The company, which has 18 staff, has been working with local chef Alex Mclaren over the past few months to bring venues in Birmingham on board.
“We’re a mobile app and website that helps people discover great local restaurants, we hand pick places that our customers will love,” Mr Hall told the Birmingham Post.
“It’s taken three months from recruiting Alex through to launching during which time we’ve been meeting restaurants and getting them signed up.
“Since we opened in Cardiff two years ago, Birmingham has always been the next one.
“It’s the obvious city, it has a really buzzing local food scene and loads of cool places have opened up over the last few years. It’s exactly the kind of city we like to support.
“It’s the right sort of ecosystem for what we do.
“It’s important we had the model working well before we launched in more cities so this is now the next stage in our development. We don’t want to go to London because we’re about discovering regional cities. Provisionally, there are 13 key cities in the UK we want to target.
“Six and seven are in the pipeline but then we’ll probably have a breather and see where we’re at.”
Mr Hall, 33, first came up with the idea for Wriggle in 2014 to help restaurants in Bristol reduce the amount of surplus food they threw away.
If, say, a fish restaurant had extra salmon which was in danger of heading for the bin, Wriggle would advertise specials on its behalf to subscribers who could then swiftly head to the venue for a discounted meal.
While this ethos of striving to reduce food waste still permeates the app and website, Mr Hall said it now drives around ten per cent of its revenue, with the majority coming from venues trying to tailor offers which will plug quiet gaps in the week.
Wriggle derives its revenue through a commission paid on transactions made in its restaurants.
It raised investment earlier this year to support the launch in Birmingham and the next two cities via a mix of private and angel investors and crowdfunding.
He added: “The app is very tech and location driven and the offers constantly come and go, depending on the time of day and when businesses are trying to create something so it’s a bit more dynamic in that sense.
“Every day there’s a different list of offers and you can see the timer ticking down to when they expire.
“A lot of these independent places don’t have the budget or even the skillset to be able to manage the marketing side of business in a digital world.
“They have complete control over their accounts so they can use it to reduce food waste on specific days or times or as a promotional tool for new items on the menu.
“We are aware of the challenges among independents and that closures happen a lot but we want to help great independent places in as many cities as we can.”
They have complete control over their accounts so they can use it to reduce food waste on specific days or times or as a promotional tool for new items on the menu.
Rob Hall