If You Want a Successful Startup, Focus on Building a Loyal Community
A wildly successful plant-based burger startup shares the secret ingredient behind its success.
Community over content. It’s something you may have heard recently. What is going to truly shape the future of brands is the way they can build community through connections.
When we think about community, we tend to think of concepts like common interests and common attitudes. Personally, I believe that community means so much more—and for a startup, it can make the difference between good and wildly successful.
Take entrepreneur Rachel Hugh: after a trip to California, Hugh made it her mission to bring tasty vegan food to the streets of London — and to make Veganism mainstream. This is how the legacy of Vurger Co. was born.
In just four years, the brand has exploded in popularity, growing from a market stall to a multi-site restaurant and retail product company, serving up 100% Vegan fast food using environmentally friendly plant-based packaging.
Last year, The Vurger Co. raised £1.4million (about $1.83million USD).
“We have as a business been a part of the UK’s Start Up 100 List 3 years in a row” shared Hugh, as she was named on the Forward Fooding Top 10 Women in Food Tech and top 35 Female entrepreneurs under 35 in the UK 2020.
Recently, I caught up with Rachel Hugh to try to find out the secret ingredient behind her business successes.
Take a leap
“Don’t be scared, take that leap of faith! It is so important to always stand up for what you believe is right no matter what the outcome may be.”
The company began in 2016 when the options were pretty much nonexistent and definitely not appealing to a mainstream audience.
“We immediately wanted to change that and create appeal on a wider scale.”
According to Hugh, their mission included creating delicious options, providing a convenient experience, and allowing the customer to make great choices that are beneficial not just for health but also for the environment.
“Neil, my co-founder, suffered for years with a health concern that no doctor could get to the bottom of. It blows our mind that nobody asked him what he was eating and whether that would have an impact. Instead, he was prescribed every pill possible which of course did not work.” Hugh recalls.
She continued
“Following these years of suffering and hitting the big 30 birthday, we took a trip to California, and one vegan Mexican restaurant, in particular, blew our minds.”
It was then that they realized that London had it all wrong. Nobody was creating delicious, exciting, and innovative vegan dishes —and making them convenient and accessible in an aesthetically pleasing environment.
That was the moment, they spent the rest of the holiday discussing names for the new idea — and so The Vurger Co. was born.
“We knew the only way to get any idea if people genuinely wanted this was to get cooking and get out into the world with our creations.”
Without quitting their full-time day jobs, they set up a market stall in North London and sold our burgers every single weekend. At this point, they focused on gaining feedback, insight, understanding of their customers. That, and identifying what the market place needed.
“It was the best learning curve and has made us who we are today without a doubt.”
Giving the power back to the community
Acommunity is something powerful, and it’s what you need to grow your influence. Nine times out of ten, they will come to you organically. All you need is a place for them to interact, discuss, and grow.
For The Vurger Co., their market stalls were the perfect stepping stone to prove their concept’s validity.
Because vegan eateries in central London were still unchartered territory, they spent a lot of time convincing, educating, setting tasting sessions, and speaking with institutional landlords and small investors.
“Out of those we talked to, it was rare that somebody understood the importance of a concept like ours and what it would bring to the city,” shared Hugh. “So in turn, we didn’t command the importance or relevance in 2016 that we thought we would.”
However, this turned out to be an important teachable moment. Despite the initial resistance, they realized an invaluable factor they had amassed: a growing community on social media.
“That’s when we turned to crowdfunding our first restaurant” Hugh recalls.
“We are so glad on every level we took that leap of faith as our fans became shareholders, landlords suddenly wanted the next ‘cool’ concept, and we managed to attract the attention of some trailblazing investors back then too”
Social media has been critical to their business.
They built the crowdfunding campaign for Vurger Co. in 2017 on the community they had built on Instagram, which allowed them to communicate directly to our customers, gain their insights, and best of all, receive immediate feedback regarding their recent experience.
These became future repeat customers and followers on social media—the audience who took action any time they asked.
We wouldn’t change our community for the world, we are open, honest and authentic to the core,” highlighted Hugh. “This has allowed us to build a trustworthy platform that people feel comfortable to be a part of.”
“There’s an idea that you have to be an ‘expert’ in a field to start something from scratch.”
But sometimes, the best ideas and businesses were born from those who had buckets of passion to drive some form of change through the product they were creating without any prior knowledge.
“The point here is you become an expert through every single day that you’re working within your business, surrounding yourself with its natural problems to overcome and finding a way to make your product better every single day. Nobody is born an expert in anything, just keep working hard at it.”
The toolkit of successful business owners
A large budget does not automatically mean access to great people. Instead, sharing your knowledge and your passion, and spending time with customers can be key to growing your business.
In the end, people are the driving force of any business—including the people you hire.
Says Hugh:
“I am the kind of person who loves to do everything myself, I love to get it done and do it well and move on”
However, starting a business, hiring a team and growing simply doesn’t allow for this mentality. Instead, you have to trust in people, you have to share your knowledge and you have to enable everybody to become the best at what they’re doing and contributing to the company.
Final thoughts
“Don’t go against your inner knowing. Just don’t. Trust yourself.” ― Maria Erving
Fostering communities means being a leader in your own rights.
By leading, you are essentially creating something worth talking and spreading the word about, just as you would do with your message. The community itself becomes a product of your influence, as word-of-mouth grows the relevance of the community itself as much as your mission.
This requires you to trust yourself:
“That little voice inside that speaks to you before making a key decision, or your gut instinct telling you to stay away … listen to that, it’s your guiding light!” stresses Hugh “I would say to remain positive, just keep looking for the positives in every situation without fail.”
My name is Fab Giovanetti. I am a writer, author, marketing consultant, founder of Creative Impact Group, and pun master. I help people grow their online audience and monetise their content and unleash their potentials as creatives.
