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Code Investing

Project Description

Our expertise helps to propel fast-growing business

Newly-launched, London-based crowd-funding platform Code Investing needed help with its strategic marketing and organisational development. We designed and executed a Marketing and Social Media plan that led to a ten-fold increase in registered users within 12 weeks. Code Investing proved a great success, having crowdfunded over £6 million in 2014.

Background
Established in 2011, Code Investing (formerly known as CrowdBnk) serves new and experienced investors, providing access to exciting, early-stage and established businesses with no management fees. The company offers equity, debt, a high level of professional support and rigorously vets all business opportunities. By putting businesses through its ‘Bootcamp’, Code Investing makes them investor-ready and more likely to receive funding. Investors get to invest in robust businesses that have the potential to deliver high returns.

Challenge
With a tested platform and FCA approval, Code Investing was ready to launch – and needed to grow successfully. Having made it this far, the company already had a sense of achievement. But much work was still required. Code Investing had a viable product that worked: Marketing and execution had to follow.

Eggcelerate services
We provided Strategic Marketing and Organisational Development.

The solution
Code Investing’s CEO, Ayan Mitra, met with Eggcelerate. The discussion revolved around alternative finance and Code Investing’s mission and vision. Eggcelerate asked lots of probing questions about the two sides of the business (entrepreneurs and investors) and what it was that Ayan wanted to achieve for himself, for Code Investing and within the industry.

Ayan recalls: “I started talking to Stefano almost by chance. He wanted to know about the business. It was clear that Code Investing needed to invest in marketing and run campaigns very quickly to respond to competition, while building a sustainable model.”

To help achieve this, Ayan asked Eggelerate’s Founder, Stefano Maifreni, to help Code Investing with an eight-month assignment, which Stefano structured around three main areas:

  • Increase the number of users registered and active on the platform
  • Get the first deal funded
  • Bring in the right skills for this to happen

Ayan says: “I really wanted Stefano to help Code Investing and move things forward. However, I was concerned that I couldn’t afford him. This is where Eggcelerate’s flexible business model came into place: it was tailored to my situation. I was also impressed by how quickly Stefano hit the ground running and started to deliver tangible results.”

Stefano introduced the (KYC)^3 program: know your Company, know your Clients, know your Competitors.

It included a number of interviews with Code Investing’s people: to make the knowledge of the company accessible to everyone and easy to share with new joiners. This also proved to be a precious source of information for content marketing later on.

A social media campaign was also set up, with a strong focus on cost and return on investment (ROI), which were tracked on a weekly basis, together with the progress of the campaign. A weekly report on competitors and their performance gave Code Investing a clear understanding of where they were in the industry.

Ayan comments: “As a CEO of a start-up, you are an all-rounder and want to get involved in all aspects of what you’ve created. However, at some point, the workload forces you to delegate, and you need to have the right people to delegate to. I was a project manager at some point in my career, and I am quite keen on having clear responsibilities, deadlines and milestones well defined. Stefano understood this and provided a clear report on a weekly basis; I was absolutely comfortable to delegate that important piece of work to Stefano.”

To support these actions, Stefano hired two people focussed on Public Relations, Social Media and Campaign Management. They performed beyond expectations.

The company also realised something new about its business model. For its entrepreneur customers to be successfully funded, they needed to be active in campaigning for investment, with Code Investing overseeing that campaign and pushing it if needed.

Stefano then introduced a Marketing Plan checklist for entrepreneur to sign up to. This followed the Business Plan due diligence process required before new ventures could get listed on the Code Investing platform.

Ayan says: “As a crowdfunding platform, regulated by the FCA, we were putting a lot of effort in vetting the business plan before on-boarding them on the platform. It’s very important when you take a long-term view and care of investors’ ROI. However, Stefano quickly spotted that, although the business plan was crucial, it was not enough for the success of a crowdfunding campaign, and we started asking for a Marketing plan to execute against to get the project funded.”

Business benefits and outcomes

With help from Eggcelerate, Code Investing has been able to:

  • Increase the number of its registered users by ten times
  • Crowdfund its first project
  • Build its own marketing team
  • Defined a lean process to improve the effectiveness of crowdfunding campaigns and monitoring of the competition

 

At the end of the assignment, Code Investing has seen its user base increase dramatically in 12 weeks. Already, it has funded its first project on the platform. Rather than being a slow and painful process, everything was achieved in less than 30 minutes. The new venture had a marketing team in place and a structured day-by-day schedule agreed for its business operations.

The last act of the assignment was for Stefano to hire his successor.

Ayan says: “Seeing the first revenues coming in is really exciting. I’m not sure I can put into words that amazing feeling of accomplishment. That was not the only thing I gained from Eggcelerate’s assignment: I had a new well-structured marketing team, a very effective execution, and much more time and energy to run Code Investing.”

You can visit Code Investing at the company’s website here.

 

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