My Dream : A Postmortem

TLDR; Running a business is hard, but success shouldn't be measured solely by the value of the bottom line.

I've been thinking about writing this article for quite a while now. The delay is partly because it's still uncomfortable for me to think about it. And that's because it's hard not to think about it as a failure. I'm therefore writing this for my own benefit, to force me to think about the positives and hopefully it will be of interest to others too.

To find the beginning of this story, we need to go back more than a couple of decades, to around the year 2000. Little did I know, but this is where my inspiration would start life. I was running a small web development company, mostly creating websites for customers, but also (somewhat ironically) searching around for our own good ideas. Based on a small industrial estate, lunch was usually provided by a van. We were the last on the delivery route, which meant the van would often turn up late and with very few options remaining. And if the van had a really good day, they'd sell out completely before they even got to us and wouldn't even turn up.

The alternative was dashing from our industrial estate to grab a sandwich from a local sandwich shop, but with only a 30 minute break, it didn't leave much time for eating what we'd gathered. It was a very unsatisfying arrangement, but it didn't bubble up to my conscious to do anything about it.

Fast-forward to 2007, and I had a few months spare over the summer before I started a new job. I'd remembered the 'lunch' problem I'd had years before and I thought it might be interesting to write something to tackle it. In my mind, if the customer could order in advance, the delivery van would have their order prepped and ready, removing the issues of poor choice or missing lunch.

I approached a local sandwich shop and offered to write a website for them to handle online ordering. They had a 'man-on-a-bike' to handle nearby deliveries rather than a van, but otherwise it was a good setup. Customers would have to request online to be added to the delivery route and then they were free to place their daily order. The orders were printed automatically onto sticky labels via a small printer which could then be stuck on a paper bag, doubling as the delivery info.

It started well despite the basic nature of what I'd written but it went downhill very quickly. Seemingly, the kitchen didn't quite get their heads around it. The printer was 'too quiet' and frequently the bike would leave before anyone had even noticed that there were any online orders to process. Inevitably, people would give up after a couple of missing orders. Despite having a possible solution on their hands, the sandwich shop went bust a couple of months later and I gave up on the whole idea.

Even after numerous requests, the (former) sandwich shop owner didn't take his website down. By now I had started my new job and I was annoyed to continue to receive notifications when someone requested to be added to the non-existent delivery route, something I had setup to help monitor the site. This continued, despite the clear lack of the sandwich shop and any form of marketing. After being poked by these notifications for months, it dawned on me that even if the partnership hadn't worked out, ordering lunch online was clearly something that customers were interested in.

I'd also had time to mull it over and it dawned on me that my solution wasn't just beneficial to the end customer, but the business also benefited hugely as well. The reason that the sandwich van ran out was that they were always trying to balance the need to maximise their daily sales with the need to minimise wastage and therefore cost. Having pre-orders reduced (or removed) the number of just-in-case orders that needed to be carried, therefore saving the business money. It was a win-win!

That sent me back to the drawing board. I would try again!

My idea was to rewrite everything but to be much more ambitious in scope. Rather than write it for a single business, it would be redone from scratch as a platform that could potentially support a large number of businesses. I was ambitious but also wary that I was setting myself quite a large challenge. I enlisted a couple of friends to join me and together we began creating the architecture and then coding it up. We also came up with a name for our new venture - Butterware!

This all took rather longer than I'd anticipated, particularly as we were all working around day jobs and everyday life. In 2011 we had a beta ready to launch. We headed off to an exhibition called the 'Lunch Show' with the mission to find ourselves our first customers. Crammed onto the smallest and cheapest stand, we spoke to anyone that we could, leaving with a handful of potential customers that were willing to be our guinea pigs.

We launched shortly afterwards, first with just a single client. Despite some initial but inevitable teething problems, it went well and the hungry people of Exeter took to ordering their lunch online very easily. We learned a lot, and quickly. We took on more businesses but generally the totally number of orders through the system grew more slowly than we'd hoped.

This carried on for a couple of years, as we slogged on, determined that we had the right idea. We thought that if we could just get the right client on board, we could see some real growth. As it turns out, we already had one. Joe, one of our oldest customers had done very little business online to date, but decided he wanted to change that. He wanted to revamp his business and felt that moving fully online was the answer. He was right.

Joe threw caution to the wind and insisted that his customers could only order online. No more 'just-in-case' orders on the vans. This had remarkably little negative effect on sales initially, and with a bit of marketing, turned around very quickly. Not only that, but the vans no longer needed to sit around at each location while people made their purchases. The vans could just drop and go, and were able to cover four to five times as many locations compared to previously.

Based on this, Joe was confident enough to open up new delivery routes in areas that he hadn't considered before. In one of these, a leaflet drop offering '￡5 off your first order' was enough to gather more than 500 new customers in a week, the majority of whom ordered again. Joe could expand to new geographical areas virtually overnight, and much further afield than he had previously dared.

On top of this, it was becoming a bit of a revelation for some shops, as they were exposed to something they'd never really had before - data. They could now do marketing to their own customer base directly with things like weekly specials. Recommend-a-friend deals proved popular, and any type of marketing campaign could be tracked.

Joe's business growth was spectacular, in no small part due to his willingness to change and tweak things to make further improvements. All the data and tracking we provided made it easy to see the effects of his experimentation. We happily wrote features that he suggested, which all our clients benefitted from, as well as the expertise which Joe was also generous with sharing. By now, Joe's business had an online turnover of over ￡500k annually through Butterware, which equates to a lot of slices of bread.

What we were failing to do though was replicate Joe's success elsewhere. New customers continued to be hard to find or once they had agreed to go ahead, it would take months (or years!) to get them up and running. And perhaps more significantly, no one else seemed to keen to switch to online ordering only, despite the evidence of the numbers from Joe.

'But I don't want to miss out on all those customers that can't make up their minds a few hours in advance' was the typical response.

By now, the platform had been up and running for over a decade. It was rock solid and well tested, handling a lot of orders each day. But we still hadn't 'made it'. Interestingly, no one else had either. Despite the length of time we'd been running, no serious competitor had come along to challenge us. The likes of JustEat for the evening takeaway market had grown enormously and we continued to expect a big player to waltz in and dominate. It wouldn't necessarily have been a bad thing - greater awareness of the benefits of online ordering for lunch might actually drive more business our way.

In early 2020, we began planning for a big push to boost our business, working on marketing as well as better processes to get customers online faster (and in the right way). We changed our charging model and renegotiated our deal with the card payment gateway we used, the combination of which improved our turnover by nearly 50%, which was an enormous boost.

And then disaster struck. Covid 19 arrived and everyone was obliged to stay at home. I appreciate that when I say disaster, I humbly acknowledge that others suffered far greater than we did, affecting lives as well as businesses. But for the scope of our business, Covid 19 was a disaster.

Our business model was entirely based around people ordering lunch from their offices. And now offices were virtually empty. Inevitably, our turnover crashed. A significant proportion of our clients went bust, including poor Joe's. Of those that were left, most were eking out an existence. Initially we carried on regardless, eating through our financial reserves and hoping that things would return to the status quo quickly. As we all know, this didn't happen and as the new normal emerged, we realised that we were left without a viable business model.

We considered pivoting, to find a new direction for the business, but by then no-one's heart was in it. Butterware was finally closed down after what felt like a slow and protracted death. Initially I was stuck with the practical aspects of wrapping up the business and dealing with the accountants to make sure it was closed down properly. But when the dust had settled and there was nothing left to do, I realised how gutted I was that my dream had ended.

Now, let's put that in perspective a little. Was Butterware my one and only dream, cherished since childhood? No, clearly not. But it had been a steady part of my life for over a decade and something I had put an enormous amount of effort into. While it had never replaced my day job (although I had hoped that it would) it did develop into a very serious hobby. Other people might do jigsaws, build ships in bottles or simply enjoy some gardening - I was a committed hobby entrepreneur.

So, while Butterware was ultimately not successful as a business, it had its share of successes.

• Broke new ground and created a new market
• Improved and helped to grow a number of small businesses
• Was genuinely fun and interesting for all those involved, and allowed the team to stretch themselves

For me personally, I have gained an enormous amount from my involvement in Butterware.

• Helped me to learn a bunch of new skills including sales, marketing, how to run an exhibition stand, team management, how to create things on a shoestring budget, writing articles for industry publication
• Learnt a new programming language (Ruby on Rails) which helped me get one job and which I used as a backbone tool in another
• Gave me a sense of achievement and allowed me to be more ambitious in what I can possibly achieve when I try
• Insight into the ways of a startup, which are often applicable to businesses of any size
• Gave me an unusual perspective into real world businesses compared to a lot of my peers
• An undefinable yet very present boost to my career due to the extra experience and skills

I am also extremely grateful to everyone that has been involved in Butterware over the years and for believing in my dream. Team members came and went occasionally, with some core members sticking to it pretty much throughout. Others helped and contributed where they could. A lot of effort was committed to trying to make Butterware successful. While no one made it rich, I hope that everyone involved took away something valuable and positive.

So what now?

Well, firstly I've got to get over it and move on. My annoyance at the circumstances of the demise of Butterware will continue to diminish. But the benefits and sheer enjoyment I got from running Butterware will last far longer. With my free time back in the evenings, I've found time to write a book and spend more time with my family.

And who knows what's round the next corner?