October 22, 2018, by The Ingenuity Lab

Responding to Customer Demand with Tech

Ingenuity19 is looking for the next generation of entrepreneurs and innovators to create scalable social and commercial enterprises that can transform Nottingham, the UK and beyond.

We are looking for students, staff, graduates and early career researchers from across the University of Nottingham to come together and discover problems worth solving, and offer you the tools to create scalable sustainable solutions.

Today though, we sat down with Ingenuity 18 Vice Chancellor’s Award Winners WalkIn for a quick coffee…

Ingenuity: Hello guys, why did you decide to set up WalkIn?

WalkIn: WalkIn started with us standing in line to eat at one of the best restaurant groups in London; The Breakfast Club. We were super hungry and had waited for twenty minutes before we decided to go somewhere else. As we walked around we kept going to places that were full and ended up eating somewhere we didn’t want to be. We decided there had to be a better way and we came up with WalkIn! Fast forward 11 months and The Breakfast Club is one of our awesome restaurant partners as well as a growing list of some of the best and busiest restaurants in London. We’re going to be Uber for restaurants, click a button and just walk in. Not a booking in sight, everything done in real time!

Ingenuity: Do you have any advice when it comes to financial sustainability?

WalkIn: We’re still learning but when it comes to financial sustainability we recommend focusing on the microeconomics of it. I.e. work out how much you’re making per usage of your product to build a scalable business model.

Ingenuity: So what’s the economic impact of WalkIn?

WalkIn: In terms of our economic impact we feel like we help everyone involved. We increase restaurants revenue as much as 15% on the days they use us as more people join and stay in the queue. At the same time local bars shops and coffee places make more money because those diners that would be queuing are now buying things. Finally we’ve saved millions of minutes of peoples time already and everybody knows time is money! As a result we’ve managed to raise over £840,000 through Investment and winning Business competitions.

Ingenuity: One piece of advice you’d give to someone wanting to set up a tech business?

WalkIn: Build it in house, don’t outsource! You’re not a tech business if someone else is building it for you. Either learn to code yourself or get a team of awesome co-founders who can help you build the product.

Ingenuity: Would you say you’re on the lookout for tech people?

WalkIn: We’re growing really fast and are looking to expand the team. If you’re an awesome developer, particularly on the back end side of things with experience in Micro Services, or a great sales person looking for your first role out of Uni then we’d love to chat to you. E-mail us at hello@walkinapp. Thanks!

Official Ingenuity 19 applications will be open in November.

To find out more about Ingenuity19 and to stay in the loop for our big launch, why not follow us on one of our magical, event dedicated social media accounts:

Twitter: @IngenuityEvent

Facebook: IngenuityEvent

Instagram: @IngenuityEvent

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