Scouting for Growth Steven Mendel: Tips on how to build a sustainable growth business
On this episode, Sabine VdL interviews Steven Mendel, CEO and Co-Founder of Bought By Many, an InsurTech startup that is really well known across the UK market with a new brand launched in the US under the brand name "ManyPets." Bought By Many is making the world a better place for pet parents through its tech-enabled insurance products and services.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- The first startup I was involved with was in the investment consulting space in the mid-90s, from there I became a management consultant and went on to set up three more startups, all in the finance space but none of them directly to do with insurance. Bought By Many started off in the broader insurance space but over several years we narrowed it down so we only operate in the pet space now.
- For many years I’d been troubled by the poor way large corporates treat individuals – in particular in financial services – in contrast, they treat other corporates very very well. I felt I had to do something to redress the balance between corporates and individuals in financial services.
- We asked our pet community members to fill out a questionnaire to understand what they thought of the insurance industry, how they would have made it better themselves and asked what their perfect pet insurance policy would look like. We got 40,000 responses and created seven brand-new go-to-market products in September 2016. Instead of going live, we took the opportunity to reimagine every step of the customers’ insurance journey so that when we launched in February 2017 there was nothing about the experience that bore any relation to anything else that they would have seen in the pet space anywhere before.
- We became a double unicorn in eight and three-quarter years. But, in truth, I can’t get excited about the valuation at all. It doesn’t change in any way the business, the people we want to recruit, our existing staff, our focus on our customer base, our focus on the pets and our focus on the pet parents. It’s an important milestone, of course, but it has not changed us as a business one single piece of the way.
BEST MOMENTS
‘Our first TV advert was at the very beginning on direct to household advertising, and we were able to work with Ridley Scott’s production studio to create something genuinely different and quirky.’
‘The idea behind Bought By Many was creating communities of individuals who had similar but niche insurance needs and to help them get access to better insurance – price, product and customer experience.’
‘Our Net Promoter Score has never been below 70.’
‘Pet owners do talk, they want to know what pet food you use, what vet you go to and who insures your pet. Having members of ours who advocate in the marketplace is really important for us and has massive knock-on economic benefits, of course.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Steven has over 25 years of experience as an actuary in financial services which has included leading Close Brothers Wealth Management during the launch of their non-advised offering; creating the world’s first art-focused wealth advice offering for Christie’s; working as part of the team that formed Barclays Wealth and heading the McKinsey UK Savings and Investment Group.
Steven founded Bought By Many, which is disrupting the world of pet insurance through the innovative use of tech, and is building a business to become an irresistible employer that is obsessive about customer service.
In April 2019 Steven was included in the London Business School Review of 30 People Who Are Changing The World.
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew, a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers & accelerating over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner.
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