February 2025
Our February meeting was held at Peabody
As a not-for-profit housing association, we work with residents to help them live their lives to the full. From inclusive communities to opportunities to grow, and support when it's needed. We work closely with partners and stakeholders to bring together different views, skills and ideas. So we can deliver what really matters to our residents.
We have 108,000 homes and 220,000 residents across London and the Home Counties. We also provide care and support services for around 26,275 customers.
Guest Speaker
The Price of Everything, The Value of Nothing:
If you're a business owner over 55, the chances are you've started receiving a barrage of letters and emails from potential buyers interested in acquiring your company. While it might be flattering, it's crucial to approach these offers with a healthy dose of scepticism. After all, would you trust a stranger who knocked on your door offering to buy your house out of the blue? Over the last 12 years and more than 100 successfully completed transactions, Tony's noticed a growing trend. Many business acquirers are driven solely by price rather than the value and opportunity your business presents. To counter this you need to Identify what makes your business valuable. Is it your customer base, your brand reputation, or perhaps your unique product offerings?
No deal is generally better than a bad deal. If you prepare properly and do your research, there will always be a better option moving forward. Selling your business is one of the most significant decisions you'll make, especially as you plan for retirement. Your best defence is to plan and start your exit journey early. This gives you the space to walk away from bad deals and wait for the right opportunity. Remember, the true value of your business is not just in its price tag but in the opportunities and synergies for the buyer.
Business Pitches
'Sonny's' - The UK's first gluten free fast food chain.
In the UK, 13% of people are now on a gluten free diet. Those eating gluten free now amount to 2.5x more than those who are on a vegan or vegetarian diet. Going gluten free is often not a choice and the only cure for coeliac disease is to be on a strict gluten free diet as there is no cure. The Problem - there's no fast food chain that provides fully safe gluten free food for the UK. There are very limited options when on the go, whether it's out for lunch, on the road for work or travelling. Sonny's vision is to provide safe gluten free food for those who need it whilst also appealing to those who don't. When someone sees Sonny's branding they'll know they can eat safely. Sonny Wells Founder said 'Being coeliac or gluten free isn't easy and over the years I have built a burning desire to help people that will go through, or have been through, similar struggles to me. Sonny's is raising £400k to launch the first shop, SEIS and EIS pre-assured.
When Sonny's recently announced to the gluten free community what they were building they had some amazing traction across social media platforms: 71,500 views - 3,428 likes - 513 comments - 291 saves/shares, ALL IN ONE WEEK! Also created a landing page for people to register for updates and now has a waiting list of over 500 people.
Sonny was voted joint best business pitch by the attendees at the meeting
A SaaS solution to deliver a quality management solution, QMS in the automotive supply chain
Gianmarco and Matteo, >25 yrs combined experience in the auto industry (ex-GM, ex-JLR) are launching 8D+ to focus on SMEs with revenue < €1BN in EU, which have limited access to automation programs from the likes of Oracle, SAP, Salesforce, etc. They have conducted a Proof of Concept, PoC, project for ARaymond, the 3rd biggest worldwide supplier of automotive clips, which confirmed the need. Have also conducted an extensive benchmarking the main competitor (QuartaEvo) in Italy (serving companies like Bosch, Marelli, PrimaIndustrie, etc.) and completed 20+ interviews with plant directors and MDs across EU, who have confirmed a gap in the market for SMEs for the 8D+ solution.
The ideal target customer is mid-sized manufacturing business with revenue of ~ €1BN and 3 or4 plants. They estimate a market size across 4 EU countries in EU just for supplier claims is €50M in the automotive industry alone. Including other industries (white goods, manufacturing, etc.) and growing product range, TAM grows to ~ €400M. The main competition is from the large tech companies (Oracle, SAP, Intellex, Salesforce, Hexagon) which require large transformation projects or on-premise solutions (QuartaEvo). 8D+ outperform on-premise solution by greater SLA, speed and number of concurrent users. Many companies still use Excel.
We are the first QMS built by people with experience in supplier quality, instead of IT professionals.
At large-scale events, attendees are often given siloed single-use event apps, expected to remember a plethora of content and are meeting and networking with typically 15+ people a day and yet the agility of current software leaves a space in the market for an agile collation tool, which aids the human condition and builds on an event-to-event basis. More tactile, built around the context of the individual accruing data and contacts simultaneously, the app uses light touch smart technologies to ensure you always remember the best parts and people from these events.
In a first of its kind, mi-Recall brings together agile media components, AI-fuelled features and a neuroscience approach to what people want more than anything: a sense of belonging and deeper human connections and let's face it, we've seen dozens of apps that accumulate profile information via QR codes, touch-sensitive data exchange apps but none of them last, and we know why!
As we confront the loneliness epidemic, now is the time to build contacts and networks like never before. Up to 80% of all jobs and roles are filled through people's networks. With the threat of automation and robotics, the future of work will be very different, and we'll need to build portfolio careers, side hustles, and ad hoc earnings. For that to be effective, networks and the ability to review information must be stronger than ever. We need smart tools to connect and maintain relationships and the value we place on humanity. mi-Recall is here to fulfil this requirement.
Adam was voted joint best business pitch by the attendees at the meeting
