grows upStreet food

F E B / M A R 2 0 1 7 I S S U E 1 5

PLUS: Rapha - Crowdfunding - Rebranding - Berlin winter - Robin Klein - Hanoi - Road trips

1

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24 H A L A L A N D K O S H E RBrands chasing the religious stamp of approval.

22 N E W N E W S A G E N TSpecialising in indie titles to stay afloat.

Growing painsOne of the cliches people tell new parents is ‘it only gets harder’. Similar advice is given to anyone in the throes of starting a business.

It’s certainly the case that no amount of planning and belief in a new venture can lessen the utter trauma of cutting the safety cord of a steady job and a regular pay packet. The early days of no money, no product, no customers, no anything aren’t much fun.

But everything’s to play for and it’s actually quite hard to screw up when there’s not much that can be ruined.

If a business survives its infant years, the time comes when shit gets real. The product, model, strategy, finances, and inner workings, as well as the skills and character of the founders, are given their first true examination.

It’s a bit like the pain of entering adulthood. Maybe companies should hold their equivalent of a bar mitzvah, marking their own metamorphosis from startup to fully-fledged commercial grown-up.

A similar rite of passage would be relevant for several of the businesses featured in this issue.

Street food appears to have lost its charmingly chaotic personality as it grows out of childhood. Crowdfunding platforms meanwhile appear unwilling to

grows upStreet food

F E B / M A R 2 0 1 7 I S S U E 1 5

PLUS: Rapha - Crowdfunding - Rebranding - Berlin winter - Robin Klein - Hanoi - Road trips

take on the responsibilities of adulthood. Another interesting example of ageing is going on in Hanoi, where an architect is trying to correct the follies of the past decade’s urban developers, and go back to the city’s traditional identity.

We’re doing a bit of growing up ourselves here at Courier. Aside from a few knocks and bumps, our infant years have been kind to us. The stuff we are trying to do in the next phase of our mission to be at the heart of startup culture is exciting, and far more demanding. The hurdles are undoubtedly higher, but we couldn’t be more eager to take them on. We’re just not quite ready to give up the childlike joys of being silly and having fun along the way.

LETTER

05 C O U R I E R I N D E XGymbox and Unruly’s investor hits £1bn.

A N A L Y S I SWorries over We Work’s expansion.

06 R E P O R TThe evolution of crowdfunding.

09 C O V E R S T O R YStreet food: has it all got a bit corporate?

16 C O N V E R S A T I O NThe founders of Giffgaff and Bulb talk better bills.

18 L E A D E RA plea for Rapha to stay independent.

19 G U E S T C O M M E N TThe tricks and timings of rebrands.

21 B U G ’ S L I F EThe challenge of making insects edible.

28 P O R T R A I TSimon Mottram, creator of cycling brand Rapha.

30 D I S PA T C H E SNY’s startup scene makes sense of the Donald.

32 I N T E R N A T I O N A L A Vietnamese architect reviving tradition.

37 C O U R I E R L I F EFrom Australia to India; the world’s best road trips.

42 W O R K S PA C EWeaving cloth at a modern-day mill.

I N S I D E T H E I S S U E

Courier Feb/Mar 2017

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@courierpaper

Publisher Jeff Taylor

Editor In Chief Soheb Panja

Associate Editor Tomas Jivanda

Senior Reporter Amy Lewin

Reporter Sarah Drumm

Designer Simon Kuhn

Advertising and Commercial Tommy Seres

Creative Partnerships Luis Mendoza

Contact [first name]@wearecourier.com

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Illustration Alessandro Apai Petra Eriksson Studio Murugiah

Photography Scott Grummett Tomas Jivanda

Contributor James Hurley

Thanks to Smokestak

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Come and work with us jobs@wearecourier.com

Cover Shot by Andrew Penketh at Acme Studios, south east London.

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All rights reserved. © 2017 Courier Holdings Ltd ISSN 2396-9334

34 N E I G H B O U R H O O D G U I D EExploring Hanoi’s Old Quarter.

42

37C O U R I E R L I F E

C O V E R S T O R Y 09

31 L O W D O W NVC Robin Klein’s hero is ‘unflashy’ Bill Gates.

W O R K S PA C E

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ONIONSOur insurance experts take the time to understand the layers of your business. That’s why more than 200,000 UK businesses of all shapes and sizes rely on our insurance.

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2

Keeping good company

Read the full story on our blog: www.allpressespresso.com/news-blog

“We have always loved systems and this non-sexy aspect of running a coffee business is often overlooked but if you want to grow then it is

fundamental to your success. Even now five years in, we look at ways we can improve consistency, systems, quality and service on a regular basis.

Change in business is tough so getting it right from the start is critical”

- Edwin and Magda from Artisan Coffee, West London

Courier index

While many notable biotech and pharmaceutical firms are based in Cambridge, such as gene-editing company Horizon and Kymab (see below), this period saw £33m invested in two London-based life science companies. The first, Evaluate, supplies industry news, insights and forecasts to pharma, biotech and medtech companies and consultants, while Achilles Therapeutics is developing cancer treatments (see seed spotlight below).

Beauhurst provides data and insight on UK startups and high-growth companies.

Having created a library of human antibodies using unique technology, this Cambridge-based biopharmaceutical company will work on vaccine development in 2017, for diseases such as HIV and malaria.

Stand-out raise Kymab

£80m

Investment firm BGF hit a £1bn funding milestone in November. Its portfolio of UK companies ranges from kid’s luggage startup Trunki to restaurant chain Barburrito, as well fitness firm Gymbox. Among its exits is adtech startup Unruly, acquired by News Corp in 2015.

The biggest UK fintech deal since the EU referendum was clinched by online investment manager Nutmeg. The five-year-old company had a mixed year, posting pre-tax losses of £9m and edging its founder out of the CEO role. It currently manages more than £500m for 20,000 customers.

Nutmeg

Business Growth Fund (BGF)

DEALS85

NUMBER OF

INVESTMENT£324m

TOTAL BIGGEST DEAL

£46mIWOCA

All that ‘uncertainty’ in the second half of 2016 made it a twitchy time for startups and investors alike. Despite all that, seed-stage deals spiked towards the end of the year, almost doubling the total annual amount of early-stage funding, with deals averaging £1m. The question is whether that momentum can continue ahead of the imminent slowdown many are predicting.

Biggest deal: Achilles Therapeutics, £13m.A new UCL spinoff with funding from Cancer Research Technology that is working on therapies that could target and destroy cancerous tumours without harming healthy tissue.

Biggest deal: Street Team, £8m.With clients including Bestival, this online platform turns festival goers into promoters, encouraging them to sell their friends tickets to events in exchange for rewards.

Biggest deal: We Swap, £2.5m.The peer-to-peer travel money exchange site targeting holidaymakers will use its Seedrs investment to add more currencies to its platform.

Biggest deal: Iwoca, £46m.This small business loans provider runs risk assessments using online data about a company, such as profit margins and customer reviews, so it can offer faster, more flexible finance than traditional lenders.

SEED

VENTURE CROWD

Deals 44Total £44.2m

Deals 26Total £59.9m

Deals 22Total £4.6m

GROWTHDeals 15 Total £220m

OCT/NOV

Snapshot on UK investment deals with data compiled in partnership with Beauhurst.

Number of dealsInvestment (£)

Investment deals (London)

40m 20

80m 40

120m 60

160m 80

200m 100

240m 120

140

352m 160

45

Jun 16 Jul 16 Aug 16

52 41

Sep16

62

Landlords fret over a co-working bubble

ANALYSIS

TR ACKER

HIGHLIGHTS

SECTOR: LIFE SCIENCES

SP OTLIGHT

£30m

£21m

Online investments

Investment fund

The New York-based co-working giant We Work is poised to reach 1.5 million square feet of office space in London in the coming weeks – more than the entire floorspace of the Shard – as the company continues rapidly expanding across the city. It currently has 11 sites in the capital, with several more opening imminently.

Key figures in London’s commercial property industry have privately voiced anxiety about the co-working sector ‘overheating’, as well as the growing amount of space We Work is leasing in the capital.

Blowback riskThe worry centres around the precarious nature of the co-working business model. A sudden collapse or exit from firms would leave several landlords without tenants, all at the same time.

A partner at one of London’s major property firms said: ‘Like any aggressive startup, there’s a risk it blows up. As an American company, there’s also the risk We Work retrenches from London if things get dicey. It has such a large portfolio now, the blowback on the sector would be massive.’

DoublingValued at £13bn and reported in January to be closing another £800m in investment, We Work has 80,000 global members and opened in 58 new locations around the world in 2016; doubling the

number of buildings, cities and countries it operates in.

OversupplyLandlords with co-working tenants are now carefully watching the sector’s growth, as the ease of setting up a co-working space has also encouraged a glut of smaller players to enter the market. An oversupply of shared workspaces in London could cause desk prices to drop, and potentially rupture what is a delicately calibrated business model. We Work, for example, is understood to operate on a model requiring 90% of its desks to be occupied before a site typically breaks even.

Neuehouse exitThe high-end co-working company, Neuehouse (also from the US), recently ditched plans to open a 65,000 square foot luxury space in Covent Garden’s Adelphi building. It backed out despite making an investment of around £1m in the site. It is reckoned to have assessed London’s co-working sector as too risky.

Some landlords have said they’re stepping back from leasing space to co-working companies, concerned the sector is in the midst of a bubble.

BuyingWe Work is looking into alternatives to leasing. Several other co-working companies said they too were looking into buying buildings, but banks appear reluctant to lend to co-working companies. There’s also the challenge of finding suitable real estate for sale in London.

Oct 16

49

Nov 16

36

How London’s co-working sites compare.

Number of sites Price per desk (monthly)

We Work 110 (11 in London)

£400 (on average)

The Office Group 29 £300

Work Space 17 £275

Work Life 3 £250

Second Home 3 £350

Huckletree 2 £200

The Trampery 4 £400

Central Working 6 (5 in London) £499

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REPORT

Allowing startups to raise money over the internet in exchange for shares in their company was always likely to bring thrills and spills.

Hailed as a way of breaking open investment in companies from the narrow and cliquey world of wealthy backers and well-connected founders, equity crowdfunding has allowed any company to hoist up an ‘open for investment’ sign and let absolutely anyone take a stake. The two leaders in the space, Crowdcube and Seedrs (launched in 2011 and 2012 respectively), have made gaining and providing funding much more accessible.

The platforms have talked up the sector’s impact: hundreds of thousands of pounds have been raised through equity crowdfunding to date. And this has been the platforms’ focus so far: getting as many companies as they can to raise as much money as possible.

But with the six year anniversary of the first crowd raises this year, Crowdcube and Seedrs are facing mounting calls to prove their credibility as serious and enduring vehicles for investors as well as companies.

Inherent asymmetrySix years is the typical timeframe for a seed, angel, VC or private equity investor to bank a return on a company they have backed. The

scorecard for both Seedrs and Crowdcube on this front has been modest. Of the £210m raised on Crowdcube, investors have seen a total of just £5m in returns through the exits of E-Car Club (bought by Europcar), Camden Town Brewery (bought by AB InBev) and Wool and the Gang (bought by BlueGem Capital Partners). Meanwhile, Seedrs has helped companies raise an approximate £190m across more than 450 fundings and has had one exit to date, accounting software firm Free Agent, which floated at the end of 2016.

Both platforms justifiably say it’s still too early for a proper appraisal. There were only a small number of companies crowdfunding in those early days, so the majority that have raised are still only two or three years on from their campaigns.

Many observers, however, say the platforms haven’t done enough, arguing there is an inherent asymmetry in their model which favours companies rather than investors. At the crux of the issue is the transparency of company information and the vetting process on Seedrs and Crowdcube.

‘Due diligence is left entirely up to the public and it’s in the interest of the platforms to provide optimistic financials to help completions,’ says analyst Robert Murray Brown.

Regulator concernsWhile there have been relatively few stories of notable investor returns, the crowdfunding narrative has suffered a number of blunders: notably around companies raising with ‘impossible valuations’ and individuals with a history of insolvencies seeking capital without their earlier business failures being declared on the platforms.

The financial regulator has been playing catch up with this relatively novel form of investment. As recently as December last year, the FCA went public about concerns it had about poor quality disclosures, weak background checks and a lack of clarity over where invested money was coming from.

Perception issueBoth Crowdcube and Seedrs are, of course, startups themselves, and their own race to become the leading platform in the sector has led to questions over whether aggressive commercial growth on their part has come at the cost of building sober, buttoned-down financial platforms.

Crowdcube, reckoned to be the more ‘commercial’ of the two, has recently produced a due diligence charter in a bid to change that image. Its founder, Luke Lang, told Courier: ‘We’ve become a lot more transparent on what we check and what we don’t check. That’s free for people to see.’

He argues it’s a perception and communication issue for the platform rather than something more structural. ‘We spend a lot of time and money asking questions to make sure businesses are in a fit state. If investors are surprised, we should do a better job communicating.’

Calling for crowd controlThe two dominant equity crowdfunding platforms, Seedrs and Crowdcube, are under pressure to iron out their wrinkles and generate more wins for investors.

6

Conflict of interest

The platforms are set up in such a way that they are paid a slice of whatever investment is raised. This invites criticism that the platforms are motivated to ensure as many raises

are completed as possible, regardless of the calibre of the company. Seedrs, however, does take a 7.5% cut of any returns gained by investors in the event of a successful exit down the line. Neither platform suffers a direct financial penalty in the event that a company ceases trading.

Enforcement of regulation

One of the UK’s main strengths as the home of new concepts like crowdfunding is that it has a strong legal system with an experienced and trusted regulator overseeing financial

activity. But the FCA has been criticised for not stepping in on occasions when investors have been misled. If applied stringently, the FCA’s rule that financial firms must be ‘fair, clear and not misleading’ could provide a framework to solve many of the industry’s gravest problems, without adding complexity and further rules.

Clarity between investors and backers

Money raised by founders privately can be bundled into a crowd raise and presented as part of the same round (as long as all investors sign up on the same terms). Investors can feel misled about the

momentum of interest in a company in such scenarios. On Crowdcube, the amount raised is ‘pledged’. The company is then responsible for chasing up the cash from investors itself.

Checks on companies

Better vetting of companies is a recurring demand. The issue comes down to the extent that platforms should do background checks on founders, extract existing financial information and check the viability of a company that lists

for a raise. What exactly those checks should be is debatable, and arguably could give the platforms too much power in deciding which companies are ‘good enough’ to campaign.

Plausible valuations

Valuations are both subjective and controversial in any asset class. But there’s a belief that without proper corporate governance, startups raising on the

platforms are more likely to set unrealistic valuations. As a result, they carry a greater risk of exiting at a value lower than their raise, or of the funders’ stakes being diluted to minuscule levels. Increasingly, professional investors and VCs are investing in crowdfunding rounds, which is hoped to moderate valuations.

Seedrs, meanwhile, has created a dashboard feature, which allows investors to track their portfolio’s performance. This, it claims, is a way to build transparency into the process and give investors something to look at during the long gestation period. Shameel Khan, an investment associate at Seedrs, said: ‘We want to encourage people to diversify their portfolio; to invest more, and invest more safely, across a variety of companies.’

Investors’ responsibilityNeither platform has plans to demand more searching questions of companies pre-launch, arguing that, like any financial risk, analysis is the responsibility of investors.

Companies such as fintech firm Rebus went bust not long after raising, but Lang argues: ‘Those pitches were fair, clear and not misleading. Every pitch has a link to Companies House and you can see the history.’ He adds: ‘I don’t think there was a breach of trust.’

Both platforms have started encouraging professional investors to back companies on their platforms to lend them credibility and confidence. It’s meant VCs, larger companies and even institutional investors have begun participating in crowdfunded raises.

Defenders of crowdfunding say anything this complex, ambitious and pioneering inevitably has hiccups in its early days. Despite that, 2017 is a critical year for crowdfunding; raises are likely to be more frequent, larger in size, and will see big firms participating in rounds. But just as important will be the platforms’ ability to produce more successful exits and fewer controversies.

Cracks, gaps and loopholes that need fixing

Lack of secondary market for shares

Many crowd investors have been hankering for a development in the crowdfunding structure which would allow them to sell their stakes on

secondary markets. Seedrs says this is not something it is actively pursuing, while Crowdcube is understood to be exploring trialling secondary trading on a select number of companies later this year. Although this would give crowdfunding dynamism and offer liquidity for investors, it appears fraught with challenges.

HIGHS2012 Industry body the UK Crowdfunding Association is set up.

2013 The FCA approves Crowdcube.

2014 Crowdcube launches a ‘mini-bond’ for raises over £1m. Chilango’s ‘Burrito Bond’ is the first.

2015 A total of £332m is raised in the UK through equity-based crowdfunding, a huge jump from the £84m raised the previous year. The first crowdfunding exits take place with E-Car Club and Camden Town Brewery’s acquisitions.

2016 There are now over 2,000 crowdfunding platforms (up from 450 in 2012). The government launches the Innovative Finance ISA, allowing tax-free investment in crowdfunding and peer-to-peer platforms.

LOWS 2014 The FCA proposes strict regulations on how much non-professional investors can put into crowdfunding.

2015 Several high-profile company failures across both Crowdcube and Seedrs.

2016 A report by Growthdeck finds only nine of the 115 businesses seeking crowdfunding at the time of research were in the black. The FCA announces it will launch another, stricter set of regulations in 2017.

LEADERS OF THE CROWDSeedrs and Crowdcube account for the lion’s share of equity-based crowdfunding raises. They’ve been fiercely slugging it out to become the natural home for both investors and companies. So far, the broad perception is that Seedrs is more sensible, while Crowdcubehas greater marketing firepower.

SEEDRSHow it’s different: A ‘nominee structure’ means the platform represents all investors.Formed: 2009 (launched 2012)Founders: Jeff Lynn and Carlos SilvaNumber of raises since launch: 450+Average investment: £1,700Biggest raise: Perkbox, £4.6mControversy: Companies Pronto, Hokkei and Upper Street all filed for liquidation soon after campaigns on the platform. Questions were asked about how much Seedrs knew of these companies’ precarious financial situations.The deal for companies: Fees vary depending on amount raised, with a 6% charge on the first £150,000, plus a £2,000 completion fee.

CROWDCUBEHow it’s different: Investors on Crowdcube become direct company shareholders.Formed: 2011Founders: Darren Westlake and Luke LangNumber of raises since launch: 483Average investment: £1,789Biggest raise: Brewdog, £10mControversy: Following Rebus’ collapse in 2016, Crowdcube was accused of slack due diligence and misleading investors, as Rebus promised profits of £12m by 2018, despite a £1.4m loss the year before.The deal for companies: Crowdcube charges a 7% fee on funds raised, plus payment processing fees of 0.5%.

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COVER STORY

Five years ago, friends Nud Dudhia and Chris Whitney quit their jobs to sell tacos from a shack in an east London carpark. The city guys-turned-street food makers encapsulated everything

about the budding industry that seemed most exciting; bold, brave, a little brash, they were part of the wave of people ditching more conventional jobs to do the thing they loved – make great food – regardless of whether they’d trained at a Michelin-starred restaurant or in their grandmother’s kitchen.

Soon everyone was a winner. Lunchtimers swapped limp meal deal sandwiches for sourdough cheese toasties and gourmet burgers, city workers exchanged suits for aprons, and rumours flew around that some traders were making £3,000 a day.

Six years on, street food has grown up. Those ramshackle, chaotic assemblies have been replaced by curated and co-ordinated line ups (whether they look it on the surface or not). Consortia of operators have ballooned with the sector’s success. Festivals have doubled their pitch fees. Private landlords are wising up to street food’s cultural appeal, as are the investors that are increasingly helping traders transition from pitch to restaurant. Stalls are even shipped out from London to Dubai. Newbies are put through rigorous trials to secure a spot at a market, discouraging those without a full piggy bank to even give it a go. Brexit-induced currency changes have pushed up produce prices, customer excitement has waned, margins have shrunk, quality has dropped, taxes and pitch rents have increased, and the winters are as cold as ever.

But for many of the most successful traders, all that is becoming irrelevant. They’re into

street food 2.0: the restaurant dream. The rockstars of yesteryear’s food markets – Meat Liquor, Pizza Pilgrims, Bao, Smokestak, Breddos Tacos, Bleecker St – have moved into bricks and mortar, and there are plenty more clamouring to join them.

On the one hand, this has all the signs of a new economy in the making; a slew of businesses serving top-notch, taste-changing food at seriously competitive prices, ready to roll out across London and beyond, and a troupe of investors keen to fund them. But how long can these brands, popular in part for their rough-and-ready personality, survive on the high street? And what state does this exodus leave the markets – and their increasingly corporate operators – in?

Smooth operators Springing up to help hapless culinary whizzes find a pitch, whip up a social media frenzy, and manage cash flow and staff in the early days were market operators Kerb and Street Feast, joining long-standing non-profits such as Borough and Broadway markets. Kerb, founded by food trader Petra Barran, focused on pop-up lunchtime markets, while Street Feast, started by club promoter Dominic Cools-Lartigue, took on nighttime entertainment. Selectively sourcing traders like a tech incubator, they enabled people to try out their ideas, hone their concepts, make connections and raise funding. Doing deals with private landlords who wanted to increase footfall on their sites or make a bit of money on an unused space, the markets they launched (Dalston Yard Street Feast in July 2012; Kerb King’s Cross in October 2012) offered something more polished than even the best council markets – Leather Lane, Whitecross

Street – and a stall in their markets soon came with kudos.

‘Street Feast and Kerb really promote you,’ says Nisha Patel, co-founder of Leather Lane regular Grill My Cheese. ‘You become a name, get featured in the Time Out Top 50.’

‘It’s like street food Disneyland,’ says Thom Elliot, co-founder of Pizza Pilgrims, part of Kerb’s original line-up.

The deal was simple. Come here, pay us a pitch fee of 15% or so of your turnover, work damn hard, get a massive following, and make loads of money.

‘The exposure you get is phenomenal,’ agrees Dudhia, co-founder of Street Feast veteran Breddos. ‘It’s a brilliant platform to show your product to the world.’

Other, equally bustling, markets have become big fixtures in the capital: Borough market breakaway Maltby Street set up in Bermondsey in 2010; Netil market began piggybacking on Broadway market’s popularity in the same year; the Southbank Centre market launched in 2010; Boxpark Shoreditch opened in 2011.

Bossing itNone of the one-off wonders, however, have quite the clout or commercial drive of Kerb and Street Feast. Both are themselves remarkable success stories; Kerb claims its five markets have grown 30% year-on-year, while the three sites Street Feast had in summer 2015 generated a revenue of £3.5m.

In 2015, Cools-Lartigue sold Street Feast to a newly-formed company, London Union, headed up by bar owner Jonathan Downey and food writer and Leon founder Henry Dimbleby. The new owner had ambitious plans; it promptly raised £2.5m on Seedrs to create 12 local markets with 200 trader pitches across the city by 2020. It also announced it would soon build a new, permanent market that would give Borough a run for its money, and then take the Dinerama model to Europe, the US and beyond.

A glut of new traders, smart sites and big money: street food's moving up and out.

Street food's reinvention

8

It’s not proved so simple. For a year London Union went silent, and opened no new markets. Finally, in November 2016, the company announced it had secured a spot for its flagship venue. Not the Victorian Smithfield market, as once touted, but a brand new space in Canary Wharf. (See boxout, p13.)

As for Kerb, markets are now only half of what it does: 50% of its business now comes from organising corporate events, securing extra gigs for its cohort of traders to feed the suited masses; it also runs a permanent seven-day-a-week market in Camden; and has recently announced plans to run a workspace near Brixton, where it will hold workshops, events and a cookery school, and food startups can also rent kitchens and desks.

If that sounds a little like an incubator for food businesses, that’s exactly Kerb’s aim. ‘The idea is to give the next generation of food startups all the necessary support to shine,’ says Kerb’s head of markets, Ian Dodds.

At the markets too, both operators are fairly involved in an advisory capacity; they keep tabs on how much traders sell, how fast they serve, and how long their queues are.

Rather than breathing down cooks’ necks, Dodds says this operating system is ‘very systematised and grown-up’. It allows Kerb to monitor performance across its sites, rotate traders around (based on past performance) and give useful feedback.

For a few traders though, the growing up has gone too far. ‘If you don’t get a meal out in three minutes, you get a slap on the wrist,’ one ex-Street Feast trader told Courier.

Peak street foodFor all their PR machines’ clamour, trade isn’t what it used to be. ‘Dalston Yard died a death this year,’ said one trader, who didn’t want to be named. It closed its doors for the last time in September 2016. Custom is slow at Kerb’s new Camden market too; Londoners are still hesitant to make the trip, and the location doesn’t attract anywhere near as many office workers as the sites in Shoreditch and Canary Wharf, leaving it mainly a tourist haunt.

‘Many of the best traders aren’t in Kerb or Street Feast,’ says Mathew Carver, The Cheese Truck founder. He points out that when the operator is itself a brand that needs to be pandered to, ‘it can become a bit cliquey, and less about the quality of the food’. Some traders, especially those who are more passionate about being their own boss and escaping life behind a desk than the potential for nationwide expansion, instead make a healthy income rotating between less high-profile markets, festivals and corporate events, buoyed by a loyal fanbase.

Other operators jumping on the street food bandwagon take far less interest in their traders. One of Shoreditch’s many markets reportedly fines traders who run out of food £150 per day (meaning they must overproduce, and waste money that way, or take the fine). ‘There are so many traders now, they can kind of take the piss,’ says Patel. ‘Because if someone says no, someone else will say yes.’

This proliferation of street food splits opinion. On the one hand, Kerb and Street Feast’s expansion across the city means there are more gigs available for traders. On the other, it means that instead of boasting 20 or so star traders, the operators now have 70 on their books which, some say, has led to a drop in quality.

Mega marketsKerb and Street Feast are by no means the only operators interested in setting up permanent markets.

Boxpark soon discovered that food –

originally an ‘incidental’ offering – was more popular than retail at its Shoreditch site, and has focused its entire Croydon market (opened October 2016) on street food fare, with a hefty dose of entertainment to keep customers coming back. ‘We’re selling an experience,’ says CEO Roger Wade, who had a hit list of key food businesses he wanted in the new market, including Meat Liquor and The Breakfast Club. He says he has plans to open 30 more Boxparks.

Modelled along the same lines, Pop Brixton’s shipping containers offer traders a happy medium between an outdoor stall and a full-on restaurant. Time Out is also muscling in, having announced it will convert a space opposite Spitalfields market into a permanent market that will ‘democratise fine dining’, while Italian company Mercato Metropolitano has set up a sustainable food, produce and events market

‘People aren’t willing to queue for an hour for a burger. Now

people are queueing for an hour to eat at Bao or Hoppers, which

is, ultimately, street food.’NUD DUDHIA

in a disused warehouse in developer hotspot Elephant and Castle.

For traders, permanent markets mean less hassle lugging heavy cooking equipment around, guaranteed electricity and wifi, more space and an easy-to-find location. They’re viewed as a stepping stone on the journey from pop-up lunchtime market to high street joint. Operators, meanwhile, can make a healthy profit selling booze (although, Dodds warns, ‘it’s hard to deliver on experience’), and landlords and property developers can introduce a wedge of culture in an otherwise unexciting area.

It’s looking unlikely that one operator will come out on top. ‘There won’t be one winner – the Google of street food,’ reckons Brittney Bean, founder of Mother Clucker.

Scott Erwin, founder of staffing app Hire

Smokestak, Shoreditch

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COVER STORY

weekday out of tourist season, you can take a pretty big loss,’ says Digby Vollrath, founder of street food trader booking platform Feast It. ‘A rainy day can really haemorrhage you.’

Lunchtime markets, though, are relatively low risk; festivals, where many traders hit the big bucks, are much riskier. Charging anything from £250 to £10,000 (Lovebox’s fees doubled to £4,000 last year), and often taking 20-30% of the till on top, if a festival’s a wash-out, traders can make a big loss.

Cheesed off While top line figures can be astounding (one truck is rumoured to have an annual turnover heading towards £1m, and vans can take several thousand pounds in a lunch hour), most successful traders will have a yearly turnover of closer to £300,000.

The so-called ‘pasty tax’ (requiring food traders to pay VAT on hot food once past the annual £89,500 threshold) is another cost to consider. ‘You can’t pass that price on to your customer on the street like you maybe could do

Hand, thinks there are only 20-40 more street market opportunities across the city – not enough to satisfy all the operators interested in running them. East London might have hit saturation point, but he says demand at Boxpark Croydon (which clocked 5,000 visitors in its opening weekend) suggests that those operators ‘willing to take the risk with a more diverse geographical footprint’ and engage with local communities will do well.

But while the operators grow their empires, street food is getting less attractive for traders, and many already in the game are struggling.

Fool’s gold?Startup costs are still low – around £30,000 will get a van and equipment – but competition is intense for spots at even substandard markets, margins are getting squeezed, and the lifestyle of early mornings and long, physically demanding days is brutal. On top of that, no matter how much help an operator gives, the risks still sit squarely on the traders’ shoulders.

‘Kerb can be amazing on weekends, but on a

in a restaurant,’ says Patel. ‘It eats into margins; it’s a real problem.’

Since the Brexit vote, some produce costs have also gone up. Grill My Cheese says its costs for cheese and bacon have gone up by 50%, while Mother Clucker estimates it’s paying 20% more for chicken. As for pitch fees, they can be as much as £165 per day.

Putting up prices is tricky, as everything is so directly comparable in the market, so traders are forced to cut corners or absorb the loss. Many are proud to use quality produce, because they’re trying to establish a brand. Patel continually compares suppliers to check she’s getting the best deal, while Bean is ordering Mother Clucker’s packaging in larger quantities to save costs. ‘It comes down to finding space to store 10,000 takeaway boxes from alibaba.com,’ she jokes. Other traders just cut portion sizes.

Patel says she’d seriously question starting a street food business at all in today’s climate: ‘It’s much more difficult to make any money.’

The restaurant dreamIt’s no surprise then that nearly every trader wants to open a stand-alone restaurant. For some, it’s a pipe dream; for others, it’s always been the game plan.

‘I didn’t leave my job in the city to run a 20-seater that barely breaks even,’ says Rik Campbell, who started small plate Indian

Smokestak, Shoreditch

Kricket, Soho

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restaurant Kricket in Pop Brixton in 2015. In January, it opened a much bigger site in Soho.

‘There’s an exciting new restaurant scene exploding out of street food,’ says Vollrath. ‘People are ready to go to specialist restaurants now,’ adds Pizza Pilgrims’ Elliot.

Bean is another trader soon to open a restaurant, and says concern about where to pick up a last-minute gas canister has been replaced by advice on which solicitor and agent to use when securing a site. For street food traders serious about expanding their brand, pop-up markets have their limitations. ‘It’s hard to grow an actual business with no security,’ says Bean. ‘You only have a pitch because somebody else wants you there.’

Making the jumpShifting from stall to shopfront has plenty of benefits: it means getting proper kitchen equipment, being able to cook to order and offer staff development, expand the menu and make a lot of money on alcohol sales.

But it’s not an easy transition. Premiums on restaurant properties can be up to £500,000, and a mid-market fit out can cost £80,000. Finding a suitable site is also tricky, and contracts with landlords often fall through, meaning many traders announce they’ll open something, but never succeed.

‘It’s really hard to find the site you want and lock it down,’ says Bean. ‘You have to spend time creating relationships with people so you get the first phone call about something coming onto the market that meets your requirements.’

‘I think lots of people go in quite naively,’ says Patel. ‘Some just don’t crunch the numbers.’

Street Feast’s Yum Bun is one trader that tried, and decided that bricks and mortar wasn’t right for the business. London Union’s Downey is hoping he can offer an alternative means for brands to grow. ‘I would like Yum Bun in all sites,’ he says, pointing out that the company is open to investing in its traders.

Keeping hold of great traders will be a problem for Street Feast. Last year, London Union looked to invest in Breddos and Smokestak (described by Downey as ‘irreplaceable’) to help both move into permanent sites. However, when negotiations broke down, both traders left for good, leaving some big boots to fill.

Smokestak’s first restaurant opened in Shoreditch last November. Its founder, David Carter, is one of the rare traders turned restaurateurs so successful he could bootstrap the venture, and rely on his experience in the hospitality industry to do it well. For others though, funding opportunities are growing.

Wooing the wonderkidsIncreasingly, the most successful traders are being courted by investors and landlords, who do anonymous tastings at markets, check out a business’ social presence and the competition.

Less than six months after Pizza Pilgrims opened its first restaurant, West End property investor Shaftesbury offered it a second spot in its Kingly Court development. Breddos was also approached by Shaftesbury and property developer Derwent. ‘They basically want to make their properties cool,’ says Dudhia. ‘They don’t want to have Pizza Express and Pret.’

The onus is on bringing new concepts into its restaurant sites to keep people visiting an area, says Julia Wilkinson, who heads restaurant strategy at Shaftesbury. ‘Indy operators have such a level of creativity, and you don’t see that anywhere more so than in markets.’

Other investors are looking to grow brands. The Sethi restaurant group, investor in Kerb and Netil market alumni Bao, clearly knows what it takes to start a culinary frenzy; one of

‘Traders will have to hustle like street food traders always have.’

IAN DODDS

the Sethi family’s own restaurants, Hoppers, is renowned for its queues, as are the two outlets of Bao now open in Soho and Fitzrovia.

Kricket’s investor, White Rabbit Fund, is a new restaurant development pot scouting for small food businesses with ‘high growth potential’. Founder Chris Miller compares London’s food concepts to Silicon Valley’s tech firms, and says it’s a world of untapped investment opportunity.

Traditionally, private equity has only been an option for restaurant groups with around eight to 10 sites. However, Miller reckons he’s spotted a lucrative opportunity to turn street food businesses into valuable restaurant groups to be sold for seven or eight times their profit once they hit that 10 site mark.

Investors will be hoping to replicate sales like that of Franco Manca which, when sold for £27.5m in 2015, had 10 outlets. Pizza East and Dirty Burger sold the year before for £33m.

Proof in the puddingCrucially, street food offers investors something they’ve never had before: proof of concept. Businesses already have big followings and tried and tested recipes. The founders, too, have showed their mettle.

According to Wilkinson, years of hard graft in markets tends to pay off. ‘By the time these

operators are taking a site, they really know what they’re doing,’ she says. ‘They tend to have a far lower failure rate than premium concepts.’

Many of the notable restaurant successes of recent years have been investor-backed street food transitions – Pizza Pilgrims, Bao, Meat Liquor – something that would not have happened even five years ago. ‘Investors want to get behind the next Bao,’ says Feast It's Vollrath. ‘That’s exciting; the industry’s in a better state than it’s ever been.’

The money guysFor a trader who self-financed a food van,

Breddos Tacos, Clerkenwell

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COVER STORY

‘I feel like street food is in danger of being killed off.’

NISHA PATEL

taking on investment can be a strange but extremely useful experience. ‘It’s like growing up,’ says Dudhia. Breddos’ investor Ennismore (which owns the Hoxton Hotel) has helped with all the ‘back end stuff ’; restaurant advisers, wholesaler relationships, PR, finance.

Elliot says he couldn’t have made Pizza Pilgrims a success without its investors (which own around a 30% stake): ‘You have to be very arrogant to think you, on your own, with no experience, will make a success of something.’

For traders who don’t have investors queueing at their trucks, finding cash to start up is a problem. The Cheese Truck’s Carver is one who couldn’t find an investor. Instead, he raised £130,000 on Crowdcube to open his Cheese Bar in Camden. ‘Crowdfunding goes hand in hand with street food,’ he says. ‘It’s so driven by social media that the transition’s quite easy.’

His new landlord, Market Tech (see boxout, p15), is working with several food startups, including Dalston pizza favourite Voodoo Rays. In a bid to incentivise young businesses, Market Tech offered The Cheese Truck a site with no premium, and a reasonable rent-free period, with a standard 10-year lease. ‘It’s the only way a street food business without a lot of money behind them can find their feet,’ says Carver.

Without the expert advice and contacts of an investor or hospitality insider, Carver could still find it tough going, but he’s positive. ‘The

risk we’ve taken is calculated,’ he says. ‘This landlord needs businesses like ours to survive in Camden; they need success stories so others will join.’

Growing painsFacing all street food businesses that make the transition to restaurant chain is the same question: how do you keep the ethos and personality that set you apart to begin with?

Meat Liquor, founded five years ago and now a chain of 10 restaurants across the country, is still run by its founders (although former Pizza Express CEO David Page has a large stake). So too is Honest Burger, which took on £7m investment in 2015 in exchange for 50% of the company, and is about to open its 19th restaurant.

Pizza Pilgrims plans to open several more sites (one confirmed location is West India Quay), and Elliot insists that he has no immediate plans to sell. ‘It’s not the aim. But at the point where we’re not capable of running it anymore, say we grow it to over 10, or stop enjoying it, then we’d have to think long and hard [about selling].’

Bao is taking a different tack. Having opened two central London restaurants, and been awarded a Michelin Bib Gourmand, the team have announced their next restaurant, set to open this spring, will be high-end. Julia Wilkinson at Shaftesbury, the new site’s

landlord, says diversifying is a smart move: ‘The successful operators are those who do something different in each site, or bring in new ideas.’

Kricket investor Miller reckons there are two ways for a street food business to grow successfully. Some, with a core brand offering – like the pizza and burger chains – are very scalable concepts that could fit into high streets or office blocks across the country. Others, like Kricket and Bao, which are much more dependent on the creativity of the chef at their helm, need to make each new site unique and focus on training great chefs in-house.

Maintaining the buzzFounders and investors’ interests aside, it’s hard to gauge how excited customers will still be about these businesses in five years’ time. If the state of street food is anything to go by, novel concepts have a limited life span. ‘The public has accepted street food as a quotidian outfit,’ says Dudhia. ‘Gone are the days of the cult.’

‘Everyone’s eaten a burger that’s going to change their life,’ agrees Carver. ‘I think there’s going to be a return to people wanting a dining experience, instead of eating out of takeaway packaging on a bench.’

The best street food traders and market operators already have brilliant food and flair. The very best will continue to keep it fresh and exciting as they move indoors.

Charing Cross

London’s key street food markets

Brixton

London Bridge

Hackney Central

Isle of Dogs

Paddington

King's Cross

Croydon

Peckham

Borough Boxpark Croydon Boxpark Shoreditch Brick Lane Broadway Kerb Camden Kerb Gherkin Kerb King’s Cross Kerb Paddington Kerb West India Quay Leather Lane Little Feast Maltby Street Netil Market Pop Brixton Portobello Pump Shoreditch Spitalfields Market Street Feast Dinerama Street Feast Hawker House Street Feast Model Market Whitecross Street Circle size reflects relative number of traders

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Rough and readyStreet Feast takes advantage of unloved or awkward – and therefore cheap – plots of land for its pop-up markets. ‘We get great deals on rent,’ says Jonathan Downey, London Union CEO. ‘Because we can set up quickly and cheaply in ‘meanwhile’ space, that would otherwise be left empty.’

Signing rolling one-month contracts with landlords, and using temporary event notices to license its bars, the set-up used to be fairly casual. Traders had no formal contracts, while the build itself was speedy and low-cost; Dinerama cost around £500,000 to set up in summer 2015.

Now, as some of those unattractive plots of land become increasingly attractive (the first Dalston site has been sold to turn into flats) and harder to find, Street Feast is switching strategy. ‘We’ve gone from wanting to open 12 neighbourhood markets, to fewer, bigger markets,’ says Downey. ‘We could’ve opened in places like Tooting and Ealing, but those sites were too small. We’ve outgrown that model.’

The ‘cultural capital’ markets bring to an area (which, in turn, results in them being edged out) is also being seized upon by property developers and big landlords.

PlacemakersKerb has always had a close relationship with property developers. Its most popular site is Canary Wharf. Not because it has the most exciting atmosphere, but because the 1,000 customers who come every Friday lunchtime spend around £8,000 in two hours. Commercial property developer Land Securities, which owns the land, invited Kerb to run the market

to encourage bigger companies to take the surrounding retail space, increase footfall to the area and inject some vibrancy into the notoriously sterile wharf.

In King’s Cross, too, Kerb brings a certain raw spirit to Argent’s development, and has helped make it a place people want to visit and work in. ‘There’s next-to-no money changing hands,’ says head of markets Ian Dodds. ‘It’s primarily a place-making project rather than a revenue stream for landowners.’

In Camden, Kerb has been invited by Market Tech to run part of Camden Lock market and help refashion the neighbourhood’s image. (The property developer, which has bought up 16 acres of real estate in the area, is on a mission to 'create the Camden of the future'.)

Selling out?Up-ended from grittier beginnings, scrubbed up and put on display in increasingly corporate surroundings, some say street food is losing its soul. ‘What’s rock and roll about selling burgers to a bunch of suits?’ says Digby Vollrath, Feast It founder.

Several companies even export British food trucks to the UAE (and, beginning this year, Singapore) where they park up in marine clubs to sell their grub. ‘It’s street food the brand,’ says Mathew Carver, who is taking part in a Dubai food festival for the third time this year with his company, The Cheese Truck. ‘People pay £10 to enter to see street food traders. It’s weird.’

Others acknowledge that shedding some grime and becoming more commercial is the price paid to become a sustainable industry with longevity. David Carter, Smokestak founder, says: ‘Yes, street food has become more structured, disciplined and arguably corporate

at times, but the original street food culture was always going to be short-lived.’

Both Downey and Dodds insist that change is driven by the traders. With a permanent seven-day-a-week spot, they can stop worrying about gas canisters and water supplies, while still benefitting from lower rents and the operator’s promotional machine. ‘It allows them to begin to think more strategically,’ says Dodds. ‘Employ a manager, grow a team, up their turnover, and look for further opportunities.’

For the operators too, a permanent home with a long lease offers security, and an opportunity to invest money into a site.

The biggest shift comes from Street Feast, which is swapping a derelict space in Dalston for a purpose-built 10,000 sq ft indoor market in Crossrail Place, above the new Canary Wharf station. ‘It’s an amazing building,’ insists Downey. ‘It’s like the inside of a cargo ship in space.’ With the working title ‘Streetopia’, the market will have four permanent traders and two or three bars.

It makes commercial sense, but it still seems to jar culturally – even Downey admits as much: ‘I’m not as excited about doing something in Canary Wharf as a carpark in Dalston, but that was too much hassle.’ Creating the right vibe

is also a concern. ‘I’m definitely worried. But equally, when it was freezing cold in Dalston Yard, the vibes weren’t very good either.’

Street Feast’s Smithfield plan is still on the table, too. The vision is a hybrid street food and regular market; a more design-minded and branded version of Borough, open late. But planning and licensing remain a massive hurdle, nearly two years on. ‘Planning laws aren’t cut out for the kind of business we are,’ says Downey. Competition for such large-scale sites is also growing.

Adopting the blueprintMeanwhile, some landlords are taking on the street food operators at their own game. In April 2015 the Southbank Centre took over running the market on its site (founded by Real Food Market in 2010). From its origins as a monthly fresh produce fair, the market has, like many others, evolved to focus on niche takeaway food and now runs every weekend.

Council-run Berwick Street market is switching hands too. In April, a commercial operator will take over running the long-standing market in Soho (where Pizza Pilgrims got its first gig). While pitch fees shooting up are a worry for traders, more concerning is the likelihood that the new manager will boot out more old-school businesses for shiny new street food brands.

In bed with the property developers‘What’s rock and roll about selling burgers to a bunch of suits?’

Mother Clucker, Spitalfields

Kerb at Canary Wharf

Kerb at King's Cross

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PARTNER CONTENT: COURIER FOR BAVARIA

Bavaria has long been a centre for high-tech innovation, engineering and manufacturing in Germany. BMW, Adidas, Allianz and Audi are all businesses that started out in Bavaria, either in quaint old towns such as Herzogenaurach, or the thriving capital, Munich. These companies have all grown to become giants, but they’ve still kept ties with their home state.

And why wouldn’t they? According to Mercer, Munich is the fourth best city in the world to live in. Bavaria’s GDP is estimated to be £475bn, meaning the state alone has the eighth largest economy in the EU. It ranks high in Germany for its tourism, automotive and insurance industries and, in 2015, 475,000 people moved to the state. It can’t just be the fresh air and pilsner keeping them there.

From pilsner to prospects: Bavaria’s startup ecosystem After the UK’s vote to leave the EU, small B2B companies pondering a way to avoid the Brexit stalemate should look to Bavaria.

BREXIT BLUES

In the aftermath of the Brexit vote, many UK businesses are looking for alternative ways to retain their access to the single market, with some considering opening a second office within the EU. The problem is, opening a new office can be expensive – and is a huge gamble for a growing business. This is nowhere more true than for startups working in sectors that are heavily industrialised – such as technology, medical devices, automotive or aerospace – where equipment is costly and access to customers is essential.

B2B startups looking for a cluster of clients open to new and innovative approaches, a support network of entrepreneurs and experts, and a laid-back way of life should keep this German hub in mind. Invest in Bavaria provides free-of-charge support to companies that are thinking of making the leap – so they can be successful right from the moment they settle there.

ROOM TO GROW

Bavaria is known for its giants, but there are plenty of smaller

businesses too. More than 687,000 companies do business in Bavaria and, of those, only around 2,000 employ 250 people or more.

Put the big players and the little players together, and that’s a pretty cracking ecosystem for startups offering services for businesses. Alongside established companies, which can provide cash, equipment and expertise, nimble startups can operate at full throttle in Bavaria, finding solutions to problems in technology, manufacturing and engineering at a phenomenal speed.

Magazino is one example of a company that’s made it big through its contacts in Bavaria. The technology firm develops robots that can navigate their way around warehouses, find the right products, and pick them out. After the robots were brought to life in 2015, Siemens decided it wanted a 49.9% stake in the business.

Together, Siemens and Magazino plan to create an army of fully-automated robot workers, that can manage a warehouse without human interaction and without needing coffee breaks. Im

age:

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GERMAN POWERHOUSE

Bavaria is home to some of the world’s largest companies. Automobile giants BMW and Audi, sportswear brands Adidas and Puma, and insurance firm Allianz all call Bavaria home. Together, they have a combined market cap of more than £122bn.

Why Bavaria? What makes Bavaria a great place for startups? The people:

A ready-made customer base and business network.

Over its years as a hub for innovation, Bavaria has built up a solid infrastructure that can support high-tech startups.

Bright sparks have been coming to Bavaria for decades. It’s home to the Technical University Munich, nicknamed Munich’s ‘entrepreneurial university’, attended by more than 40,000 students each year. Nine state universities, 25 applied sciences schools and a glut of private educational institutions make up the rest of the area’s academic landscape, all churning out ambitious graduates.

For fresh faces in Bavaria, co-working spaces and incubators, such as Werk1 and Impact Hub, provide valuable ‘ins’ to the startup ecosystem, as well as the opportunity to socialise with like-minded people. Munich is also host to four major startup conferences, which attract entrepreneurs from around the globe: Bitz & Pretzels, Digital Life Design, Must Summit and Cashwalk.

There’s also a ready-made customer base in Bavaria: large companies based in the state such as BMW, Audi, Allianz and Siemens, are actively looking for products and services to help them stay up-to-date.

Bavaria’s large firms know their business models need to adapt, and they’re looking for innovation outside their own companies. BMW, for example, has i Ventures, its venture capital arm, as well as its ‘startup garage’ in Munich, offering small businesses a gateway into the lucrative automobile industry.

Siemens has said it will spend more than £4.3bn on innovation in the next five years, through its organisation Next47. These innovation centres build bridges between small, young firms and big corporates, where complex bureaucracy can sometimes be at odds with the fast-moving world of startup.

Startups working on highly technical or industrial projects can flourish in Bavaria; Google’s Chrome browser, developed in Munich, is testament to this. Bavaria’s innovation centre, the Unternehmertum, founded by the entrepreneur Susanne Klatten in 2002, works with the Technical University of Munich and partners with corporates, both local and global. With its contacts, it can provide joint venture opportunities for small businesses, while its ‘maker space’, equipped with state-of-the-art machinery, is on hand for startups to build prototypes. With input from the University on one side, and the corporates on the other, hardcore R&D can be carried out without having to raise tons of cash for equipment.

The government is keen to keep up the momentum in Bavaria, and invests a huge proportion of its GDP in R&D. Invest in Bavaria can help locate the best funding and support options for businesses looking to expand in Bavaria.

UK expats will feel at home in Bavaria: for native Münchners, the pub is also pretty much their second home. The atmosphere in the beerhalls buzzes with after work drinks throughout the week as well as the weekend, with ‘Maß’ beers (that’s beer served in a massive one litre glass) being handed out in droves.

There are also plenty of ways to get away from it all at the weekend: adventurous souls can go mountain biking to Spitzingsee, go wild swimming in one of nearby Osterseen’s 19 lakes, or take the short drive from Munich to the Austrian Alps. Other big cities can be easily reached from the international airport. Shopping or party weekends in London, Paris or Milan are just two hours away.

The tools: Great infrastructure, facilities and funding in Bavaria.

The lifestyle: Easily escape to the country or the city.

" www.invest-in-bavaria.com/start-ups

Germany

BAVARIA

CzechRepublic

Munich

Nuremburg

Belgium

France

PolandThe Netherlands

AustriaSwitzerland

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AG: The bait-and-switching that goes on, luring customers with a headline price, is rife. People are wise to it and generally want peace of mind that when they switch, they’re getting a good deal.

As you both piggyback off larger providers for the source ‘product’, I assume neither of your companies get anywhere near the power stations, generators or mobile phone masts.

AG: Our job is to make sure we correctly bill our customers for their electricity and gas use. We have contracts with the National Grid and a number of hydroplant renewable generators and people who turn waste into electricity.

We have to buy enough renewable electricity to meet demand every half hour of the day, so there’s a lot of forecasting and trading.

Sometimes there’s an imbalance between the amount of electricity generated by our providers and the amount we supply to customers.

When this imbalance occurs, we go to the wholesale market to buy electricity to make up the deficit,always from a renewable source.

GT: Wow, that’s so much more complicated than mobile! My brain aches just thinking of what you have to do. We were plugged into the network O2 spent years perfecting. There wasn’t a single network person in the Giffgaff team in my time, and there still isn’t one today.

It’s funny that as a disrupter we have to buy the commodity from the incumbent we're challenging.

Also, I really do think consumers have a binary attitude to gas or electricity. It either works or doesn’t. It’s not much different with mobile, except all of us can see how many bars we’re getting on the corner of our phones and we know what a crap call sounds like.

If there’s nothing you can do on product, are there any other levers you have at your disposal to differentiate from the big guys?

AG: We’re all about renewables and making a positive impact. Instead of investing in a solar panel or a wind turbine which is frankly unrealistic for a normal person, we guarantee all the energy our customers use comes from renewable sources. We found that the industry was selling this but treated it like an ‘upsell’, a sort of Whole Foods premium tariff for your gas and electricity. It’s unnecessary and unfair.

GT: That’s also your brand isn’t it? I maintain Giffgaff was a brand idea. Not some clever marketing or advertising on top, but an all-encompassing thing around the idea of mutuality.

Courier: Setting up an energy provider or a mobile network has to be just about as ambitious a business idea as it gets…

Gav Thompson: It is when you think of the resources and expertise of the incumbents, and how hard they make it to switch providers.

Amit Gudka: There is clearly an incentive for those who run the big providers to disengage consumers and make it as complicated as possible to switch so people continue to pay their overpriced direct debit without ever looking into it. The big risk for them is that customers wake up and look at other options.

GT: That said, I’ve always thought utilities and mobile phones were ripe for disruption.

How so?

GT: I have this principle that the lower the interest in a category, the more inertia there is. People can’t be arsed with this stuff, but they care a lot about the car they buy or their suit. That inertia drives a lot of bad behaviour from the incumbent companies because they’re able to get away with it.

AG: But news of bad behaviour in a sector somehow drives even more inertia. It almost has the opposite effect of encouraging people to switch.

GT: It’s true. I recently had a terrible experience with an energy

company. After complaining, they called me three times to admit they’ve not been great and were giving me £8 because Ofgem told them to – £8! I’ve paid them £2,500 over the year. All I thought at the end of it was the whole industry is even more dodgy than I presumed. Like you say, I’ve now disengaged and just accepted they’re all a bunch of twats.

Given how much they’re all so disliked, and the competition among them, why doesn’t one gas company or mobile network offer something better?

GT: Well, of course, Giffgaff is an O2 company. When I pitched the idea to my boss at O2 (the CEO) I told him it was likely we would cannibalise O2’s customers. And to be fair to him, the reaction I expected was to point me to the door. But he backed it.

But why did O2 need to create a whole new company to do it?

GT: It’s perhaps hard to get your head around it when you are such a large organisation. Car companies and airlines have also done it by creating completely separate entities.

AG: Energy has been dominated by the Big Six. These patched-together companies used to be the regional energy suppliers, pre-privatisation. They’ve all got their legacy systems and dare not change anything. Scottish Power tried to update things, and it cost a fortune. There was a crash, it got

Megawatts and data hotspotsWhat does it take to challenge British Gas or Vodafone? Courier spoke to the founders of Giffgaff and Bulb – two upstarts having a go at rumbling the biggest of beasts in their respective fields – about how to create a modern utility company.

tons of negative publicity and Scottish Power was fined. There’s little incentive to change things. Gav, how hard was it to build a rival to O2 as a subsidiary of O2?

GT: In the early days of Giffgaff I didn’t want to tell anyone that I worked for O2. I felt guilty as I assumed everyone hated mobile networks and we were saying we hated networks. There was this dissonance between what I said and the fact I was paid by O2.

The reality was consumers didn’t give a shit. As far as they were concerned it was powered by the O2 network, and it worked.

I suppose from a consumer point of view, it’s price which is the all-important factor in choosing an energy or mobile provider.

GT: I was a big advocate of price when we launched, so we kicked off with 1p per minute and 1p per text. What became apparent very quickly was that customers wanted a better value service through things like bundles and data allowance rather than just a cheap one. I had that preconception with price, but very quickly people said they want value.

It’s important to recognise the difference in price and perceived value. Something that’s cheap and shit compared to something that’s good value.

What about all the price trickery that really irritates people?

CONVERSATION

AMIT GUDK A

BULBIn 2015, Gudka quit his job as a gas and electricity trader at Barclays to set up Bulb, an electricity and gas provider built on renewable energy, with friend Hayden Wood. While setting up Bulb, Gudka was already running a record label and club night, Man Make Music, on the side of his day job.

GAV THOMPSON

GIFFGAFFThompson set up Giffgaff in 2008 after pitching the idea of creating a mobile network with a radically different business model to his then employer O2. It would target students and young people through low prices and a sense of community. Thompson left Giffgaff in 2015, the year after the company hit over 1.4 million subscribers.

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What do you mean by ‘mutuality’?

GT: I wrote that word down on the back of a napkin at a conference in San Francisco. The idea to treat customers like equitable partners, not people you throw things at and hope that they’ll pay. I know it sounds quite hippyish, but I really believe in it. Be straight, honest and respectful and they will pay for services happily. Don’t mug them off.

AG: You could see that in Giffgaff. It was pretty clear looking from the outside. We were quite inspired by Giffgaff and looked at how you went about things.

Is there more behind the identities of your companies that marks them out from everyone else?

AG: There’s a big advantage in coming in as a new entrant and being able to build an entire automated and modern technology platform without any of the heavy, and very expensive, legacy systems the big providers were built on.

GT: We had some tangible things too: we had no shops, no customer service, no marketing. We’d taken these three very big cost centres out of running a mobile phone network, and the three areas people most disliked about dealing with their networks. Our mutuality model was based on the customers doing the customer acquisition, service and promotion as part of the Giffgaff community.

AG: Clearly, big advertising is not an option for a startup. We looked a lot at what companies like

Inertia drives a lot of bad behaviour from the incumbent companies. – GAV THOMPSON

Giffgaff did with the ‘member-get-member’ referral model. No-one in our space really used social media.

The ‘mutuality’ thing sounds great, but having that level of transparency and contact with customers must come with problems, especially when things go wrong.

GT: Absolutely, but that’s the deal with being disruptive and audacious. People love a Robin Hood, a Richard Branson, a Freddie Laker. It did mean we had to accept what happens when you put your Twitter feed on your homepage for everyone to see comments made about us. There were times the network fell over, when we had to put prices up and when we had to take away unlimited internet. You just have to roll with the punches.

AG: The fact you can’t hide at any point also keeps you honest. GT: Absolutely! It’s so true. It really forces you to make the right decisions even when they can be painful in the short term.

Without the years of reputation and various corporate affairs resources to hand, how damaging can a bad incident be to a startup?

AG: Energy supply is very serious when you think of how critical it is and the risk of something like a gas leak. We’ve got no interest in being ‘audacious’ with that stuff!

What about the unlimited internet episode? Giffgaff got a lot of flak from that.

GT: It’s actually a very good

example. We responded very honestly. We had 1% of our customers who were ripping the arse out of the network by using 85% of our data usage. We just presented that reality and said it isn’t fair.

Couldn’t you have just booted out that 1%?

GT: That was the response of the members: give them a warning and tell them to jog on if they keep doing it.

One of the biggest things I learned actually came when we

had to put our prices up. We put it out to customers that our owners were charging us more for using the network and asked how we should put our prices up. We had an amazing response, people really valued being treated as peers. It’s the most interesting thing.

AG: We’ve found the same already by taking the dilemmas we face out to customers. Whether it’s a price increase, a policy on exit fee refunds, or the charity we want to use, it all builds deeper engagement.

GT: I would feel good about the world when I went home. There’s an enormous amount of goodwill from people as long as you’re honest and treat them with

respect. It’s surprising businesses don’t leverage that.

AG: I agree. Companies seem to have a disproportionately weird obsession with the 0.1% that are trying to game the system and be fraudulent.

Are there some big structural changes coming to both energy and mobile soon?

AG: There’s no doubt. Smart meters in every home, people being accurately billed, the idea of ‘connected homes’,

cheaper solar panels, automated vehicles… These are all likely to cause severe change in how the energy industry works.

It seems more open ended in mobile.

GT: My guess is that the consumer may not be paying for services directly. People don’t understand megabytes and gigabytes and there could well be a change of the business model. I can imagine connectivity being part of the proposition with content from companies like Facebook, Netflix or Amazon.

This is an edited and condensed extract of a conversation that took place on 22 December 2016.

Bulb founder Amit Gudka (left), with Giffgaff founder Gav Thompson (right)

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16

The case forindependence

Why we should careabout Rapha’s future

The world’s largest luxury group, LVMH, has been considering buying a certain cycling business based in a business park north of King’s Cross.

It’s not alone. In fact, enquiries about Rapha have become so frequent over the last few years there’s now a black notebook where its board members record every suitor’s details.

It’s easy to see why. Cycling has crossed into mainstream sport, and sport has crossed into fashion and lifestyle. In this context, Rapha has become the most important consumer brand to emerge from the UK in the last 10 years.

And yet prospective buyers see a business still brimming with unrealised potential, and holding a blueprint for how a modern brand can engage its customers (see Portrait, p28).

Unique operationA buy-out, the theory goes, could give Rapha the reach and muscle to make the transition to commercially sustainable mega brand. But it seems atypical of most consumer businesses. Its operational bits – the way it makes, sells, and markets its products, and even fits out its shops – are part of its identity. It’s hard to think what Rapha stands to gain from LVMH’s supply chain in the manner of, say, Innocent using Coca-Cola’s global distribution and production assets.

Rapha has its tentacles so deeply wrapped around cycling now, it’s not going to be easy to loosen its grip. Films, shops, holidays, magazines, city guides and a large paying membership club give Rapha credibility, which looks set to protect it from the squeeze medium-sized brands often experience in the face of new upstart challengers and awakening giants.

The tapestry of cycling culture it has spent years building is at the heart of the company and is its strongest asset. It would be jeopardised without its founder’s total control. It’s why a sale seems a bad idea.

Derail trajectoryWarren Buffet famously thinks startups should be entirely left alone after they are bought; even well-intentioned new owners can derail a company’s trajectory. Clashes over strategy, spend, leadership, priorities and culture are almost inevitable.

Rapha could well achieve stratospheric scale without assistance. Compare it with Canadian success story Lululemon. The yoga brand has built up annual sales of around £2bn and a market value of around £7bn since it was set up in 1998. Although currently a fraction of its size, it seems like Rapha has the potential to go much further.

Made in BritainYet the trend has been for UK companies to fall into foreign hands. Overseas ownership of UK businesses has been rising; up from £760bn in value in 2010 to £930bn in 2015.

Jobs and tax income are the ‘hard’ benefits from domestic firms, but having companies like Rapha stick around brings intangible advantages too. Mini-economies often sprout up around large innovative companies (which typically show a ‘home bias’ towards where they invest), not to mention the function they serve as a training ground for lots of people to acquire highly prized skills, experience and inspiration to take to other companies or even use to set up their own.

There’s also an underplayed cultural value in having quirky public-facing British

businesses marauding around the world, built in the image of their charismatic founders like Richard Branson, Paul Smith, James Dyson or Cath Kidston. In Vodafone’s pomp, it too was a figurehead and inspiration for lots of other British businesses.

Cashing inBut businesses rarely get a chance to play at this level. If a company doesn’t get squashed, the founders or investors typically find buy-out offers too irresistible to ignore.

In Rapha’s case, its founder has a 15% stake, with the remaining 85% held by other backers. Who could blame them for taking the offer to cash in their investment? They stand to make a fantastic return. They’ve had their money parked in Rapha for over decade. There’s no guarantee offers will always pour in, nor that Rapha’s value will stay so high.

There’s also ‘the life thing’, as it is known. Personal circumstances change over the years, and new adult responsibilities, the closer proximity of retirement, not to mention exhaustion, all lure investors and founders closer to an exit.

Rapha has the foundations to be a world-conquering, innovative, independent brand and a totem for modern British business. No one could blame the shareholders for cashing in on the money and time if presented with the opportunity. But it would be a shame to lose the visionary founder who imbues the brand and replace him with a competent but vanilla CEO, and see the business parked up as just another subsidiary in a conglomerate.

One wonders how much ambition still burns inside Simon Mottram, Rapha’s founder and driving force, and just how curious he is to find out how much bigger this business can grow.

LEADER

18

JAMES HURST, DESIGN STUDIO

‘It’s time to ask how we can improve things’

COMMENT

Rock the rebrandA young company often makes do with a quick and dirty visual look to get itself going. As it grows up, the need for a new identity is likely to arise. But how should it go about the process, when is the right time, and should it even bother?

THOMAS COOMBES, STUDIO THOMAS

‘The new, fast, flexible and collaborative rebrand’

KATIE HUNTER, GUMTREE

‘The brand was looking a little bit tired’

In 1969, graphic designer Saul Bass pitched an identity redesign for Bell System, then the biggest US telecommunications company. That 27-minute video presentation would be my desert island disc (if Kirsty would let me). Talking about the benefit of having a coherent identity system, Saul makes insightful observations that are close to perfect.

But this happened nearly 50 years ago. The world has moved on, and what ‘brand’ is has changed. Not that you’d know it.

Reductive conversationAs an industry we evaluate and celebrate ‘brand’ in much the same way as Saul. There are plenty of blogs and a few respected magazines that will pick up on brand news, yet frustratingly the conversation tends to stop at ‘how much did it cost?’ or, when we’re lucky, ‘is this really a better logo?’.

For fuck’s sake.

Biennale inspirationIf we in Brandland have done our job well, we should have fundamentally affected every facet of how a business behaves. We should have considered how a business hires people, what it can do to amplify commercial ambitions, what its products could be and so much more. Yet time and again our work is reduced to a logo.

The 2016 Architecture Biennale in Venice redefined the role of modern architecture, by looking at everything from projects that

We often work with small businesses that have a great product or idea but have pieced together a brand quickly by themselves, often with little or no budget.

They’ll be relying on this first phase of the brand – their beta brand – to test an idea, get it off the ground and in front of retailers, investors and to an early audience. At this stage there might be a name, a logo and a product, but the key questions haven’t been addressed. There isn’t yet a sense of who they really are or what their identity is.

Big questionsWe want to find out what really makes the company tick: What are their ambitions? Where do they see themselves in one, two and five years? Who will be their audience along the way? What does the market look like now and how are they going to shake it up?

When we decided to rebrand, Gumtree was 15 years old. In the digital world, that’s a long time and, although we were the number one classifieds site in the UK, the brand was looking a little bit tired. We’d had the same tree logo from the beginning, and we’d had continual great growth. It’s not broken, we thought, so why fix it?

Emotional connectionHowever, towards the end of 2015, we were ready for change. We want to become the UK’s number one digital brand and reach over 50% of the internet-using population (compared to 38% today). These days, with the lack of brand loyalty and the vast amount of choice that consumers have, it’s not enough just to be functional and do what you say on the tin. You need to do more than that; you need to create an

questioned authority in cities, to impermanent communities like the Kumbh Mela gathering of Hindu pilgrims.

This re-framing of the built environment was truly inspired.

The AI impactIf branding agencies want to blur the lines between innovation, business change, digital product design, experience design, trend forecasting, behavioural economics and the next-big-buzzword, we have to get better at helping educate and inform the rest of the world about what the word brand means – it isn’t a ‘coherent identity system’ any more.

There is a future in which artificial intelligence will dictate how you interact with a brand, and an algorithm will define the optimal moment to communicate something to you based on your behaviour.

Daily revolution The built environment takes time to change; brands don’t have to. Yet we jostle along with critical debate distracted by ‘do I like the logo?’ or ‘what is the share price doing?’

As we move towards an insular, protectionist and dangerously nationalistic world we should define what ‘brand’ means. I hope I’m not preaching to the converted, but to Courier readers who are able to help. Let’s make sure we make the most of what good branding can do.

James Hurst is creative director at Design Studio.

Are they unique in that setting or do they need to find a way to stand apart from everyone else? These questions, and lots more like these, need to be answered in order to find a strong position and build a real brand identity; the rebrand process starts soon after launch.

Constantly evolvingIn fact, we see this as more of an evolution or development of what they have, rather than a rebrand. It’s important to work closely with the people behind the business – to develop something that feels authentic to the consumer as well as natural for the people living the brand. Even then this may be an identity that needs to evolve further, to mature over time or have flexibility… In the case of many startups or fast-moving consumer brands, they might be operating in a world that is moving so

emotional connection with customers. We also needed to appeal to new users, and the outdated logo didn’t look great next to the younger, hipper brand icons on the app store.

Dropping the tree?To understand what our consumers actually wanted, we did loads of research; ran focus groups, carried out surveys and even looked in detail at the semiotics of the logo itself. We did consider dropping the tree, but the resounding feedback we got was that people liked the symbol, but thought it looked a little out of date.

The rebrand didn’t just change the logo, although that might’ve had the biggest visual impact. At the same time, we got a new homepage, a new tone of voice, new fonts and colours. We also updated our apps and introduced new customer support

quickly that the goalposts are continually shifting and so they need to be able to constantly adapt.

Fast-changing worldIn this way I think the ‘rebrand’ in a traditional sense is partly dying out. It was something an agency would produce with a big reveal, a 200-page presentation and brand bible: ‘ta-da’. Things generally now need to be more staggered, more flexible and more collaborative. Budgets are smaller, deadlines are shorter and the world moves much faster. A brand used to be created for a client and it was quite final. A large part of design today is building relationships as well as strategy, developing brands with clients and with their audiences, then allowing them to be agile.

Thomas Coombes is founder of Studio Thomas.

tools. The whole user journey changed.

Language expertChoosing a design agency was easy. Koto stood out for us not just because of its previous work, but for its style and the way the team do things. They worked closely with us, met consumers and key stakeholders in the company, and took us through dozens of rebrand iterations.

We also worked with a language expert. He spent a full week with the company, looking at every touch-point we have, from social media to press, trade to internal comms, examining what sounded different from what. It was a lengthy process, working out what we want to stand for, and writing a whole tone of voice booklet, including where to dial it up and where to dial it down.

The process went scarily fast; the designers started work in September 2015 and the new site went live in January 2016.

Katie Hunter is head of brand at Gumtree.

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18

BUSINESS INSURANCE FOR THE SMALL AND

THE BRAVE

Hiscox provides a range of cover for those bold enough to start their own business.

hiscox.co.uk/businessinsurance

PART 4

I N A S S O C I A T I O N W I T H

PARTNER CONTENT: COURIER FOR HISCOX

your calling card,’ says Haw. Following this philosophy, Atmos spends as little time as possible pitching. Haw adds: ‘Your best pitch is the work itself.’

Prepare where possible Committing to any project is risky for Atmos, in terms of time and fi nance, as there are always unknowns, and so many variables out of its control. To deal with this, Haw always plans for the worst. ‘Have a backup computer, do technical rehearsals,’ he advises.

In many ways, the studio’s best protection is preparation; testing and prototyping designs as much as possible, both physically and digitally, whether a 500kg slab of ice for a staircase or one of 1,500 light fi ttings for an installation. For the unpredictable, like on-site mishaps, Atmos is covered by public liability insurance, in case something were to happen to a member of the public or property, either during or after a project’s build.

times, when work isn’t quite fl owing through,’ says Haw. ‘We’ve got comparatively few projects – a few houses, a library, an installation – and if any of those freeze up, we lose really important cash fl ow.’

As a business that primarily responds to work coming in, Atmos is vulnerable. Unlike large architecture practices, which can always fund pitches with cash coming in from other ongoing projects, Haw’s studio has to choose work carefully.

Over time, Atmos has learnt to avoid most public commissions, which tend to be fl akier than private work and more likely to run over schedule. ‘It’s sad,’ rues Haw. ‘But we’ve spent years on projects that never came to fruition.’ Getting paid is one thing, but completing a project is even more important. ‘That’s

Sharing his story with us in this issue is Alex Haw, founder of architecture studio Atmos. From an ice hotel to immersive installations, the practice specialises in unconventional projects, frequently tackling new demands and challenges.

On the artistic sideAtmos studio does ‘architecture on the artistic side’; it was turning spaces into experiences long before concept pop-up shops and the Tate’s entrance hall came about. What began as one person sitting at a dining room table has grown into a 10-person company, which expands and contracts on a job-by-job basis. With a portfolio ranging from interactive lighting installations for art galleries, to conceptual redesigns of houses and a private yacht, Atmos’ output is many things, but never boring.

‘In architecture, a lot of people return to convention, have rules,’ says founder Alex Haw. ‘We’re always trying to fi nd the way to bend that rule. Does a dining table need to be fl at? Could the underside of a desk

be more important than the top?’

Straying from the trodden path is invariably riskier than sticking to it. In the case of the studio’s most recent project, a bedroom in an ice hotel near the Arctic Circle, the team had to learn how to wield chainsaws, chisel ice and reinforce snow on site.

‘You’re always trying to keep yourself on that edge of viability; on the thing that will stretch, but will still be deliverable,’ says Haw. ‘How you do that is through experience, analysis, talking to people, and testing.’

Uncertain timesDespite its exciting undertakings, Atmos faces the same everyday problems as any other small business. ‘We run a tight ship, and we’ve got very small margins. There are nail-biting

BreAkingTHE MOULDBreAking

THE MOULD

Learn what the risks are, enumerate them, list them, try to leave nothing to chance and

prototype like crazy.

WORKSHOP

Shami Radia wants more people to eat insects. Specifically, his insect powder energy bars and packets of freeze-dried bugs. The problem is, most people won’t go near them.

Radia is unfazed. ‘It’s similar to sushi,’ he says. The average Brit was deeply suspicious of raw fish until Yo Sushi came along with its cool conveyor belts and colourful dishes, he argues. The challenge for Radia is to use a repositioning trick for insects like Yo Sushi once did for cold strips of uncooked salmon and tuna.

Eat Grub isn’t alone in believing there’s money in selling insects as food. Crobar, Crunchy Critters, Gryö and Jimini’s are European startups working in this fledgling area. Radia (pictured, with Eat Grub co-founder Neil Whippey) welcomes the competition, hoping it will help with the job of ‘getting people trying the food, and changing perceptions’.

The novelty of hawking crisp-style packets of ready-to-eat

worms, crickets and grasshoppers for upwards of £3.50 (and as much as £12) has garnered plenty of interest, with Eat Grub counting the likes of Time Out, Evening Standard and The Independent in its press clippings.

Eat Grub started out doing pop-up restaurants in 2014, enlisting Smoking Goat’s ex-head chef Seb Holmes to design a seven-course tasting menu featuring crispy citrus insect noodles and caramel-doused buffalo worms. ‘People came as a gimmick,’ says Radia.

Partners in proteinPartnerships are a big part of Eat Grub’s strategy to open up the market, and become the most recognised edible insect brand. As part of this, Radia says his firm develops every new product with a launch partner in mind.

When the startup noticed staff at The Economist were ordering packets of Eat Grub, Radia got in touch with the magazine’s marketing agency. A few months later, Eat Grub produced 10,000 limited edition energy bars in partnership with the current affairs weekly, to be given out at its public events and street promotions.

‘Energy bars are an accessible way for people to embrace the arguments for eating insects,

without actually seeing them,’ says Radia. The nutty-tasting bars are ranged in some organic supermarkets, coffee shops and even climbing centres. Late last year, the team landed a potentially breakthrough deal with Ocado.

Getting customers to try eating insects is a challenge that attracted ad agencies Kinetic and Ogilvy, which took on Eat Grub as a pro-bono client. ‘We’re a great case study for looking at [how a new brand] can shift behaviour,’ explains Radia.

Timing it rightIf the edible insect industry takes off, Radia expects he will bump into new difficulties.

‘There’s a real risk that we’re too early,’ he says, convinced that it’s only a matter of time before consumers start to take notice of the nutritional and environmental benefits of eating insects and big companies see the commercial opportunity and try to launch their own versions.

To pump up its defences, Eat Grub has raised £250,000 seed capital from angel investors, and plans to expand its range of energy bars in 2017.

PEST CONTROL

Regulation on edible insects varies by country. In the UK, companies are free to sell bugs for human consumption, although they cannot be used in livestock feed (another big potential market). In France, selling insects is a complicated matter, with rules varying from province to province.

An industry body was set up in 2015, and its members, of which Eat Grub is one, are petitioning for an EU-wide green light on eating insects.

Chia seeds are another ‘novel food’ to have been EU-approved recently.

INSECT FARMS

Insects are farmed for human consumption in small quantities in the Netherlands, Canada, the US, Spain and the UK.

‘Crickets are reasonably expensive,’ says Radia, who currently sources most of his crickets from a farm in the Netherlands, paying 4p per gram. ‘It’s a supply and demand thing.’ He hopes scale and increased uptake will reduce prices.

Aside from the cost, flying in dried bugs from across the world is also at odds with the message of sustainability that the bug sellers are preaching.

Farms are now popping up in the UK. In 2015, Radia backed the UK’s first edible cricket farm in Cumbria.

Making a meal out of bugsCRE ATING A NEW CATEGORY

Eat Grub was the first of a small swarm of UK startups selling edible insects. It faces a daunting marketing challenge: getting people to see a pest as something tasty.

21

BUSINESS INSURANCE FOR THE SMALL AND

THE BRAVE

Hiscox provides a range of cover for those bold enough to start their own business.

hiscox.co.uk/businessinsurance

PART 4

I N A S S O C I A T I O N W I T H

PARTNER CONTENT: COURIER FOR HISCOX

your calling card,’ says Haw. Following this philosophy, Atmos spends as little time as possible pitching. Haw adds: ‘Your best pitch is the work itself.’

Prepare where possible Committing to any project is risky for Atmos, in terms of time and fi nance, as there are always unknowns, and so many variables out of its control. To deal with this, Haw always plans for the worst. ‘Have a backup computer, do technical rehearsals,’ he advises.

In many ways, the studio’s best protection is preparation; testing and prototyping designs as much as possible, both physically and digitally, whether a 500kg slab of ice for a staircase or one of 1,500 light fi ttings for an installation. For the unpredictable, like on-site mishaps, Atmos is covered by public liability insurance, in case something were to happen to a member of the public or property, either during or after a project’s build.

times, when work isn’t quite fl owing through,’ says Haw. ‘We’ve got comparatively few projects – a few houses, a library, an installation – and if any of those freeze up, we lose really important cash fl ow.’

As a business that primarily responds to work coming in, Atmos is vulnerable. Unlike large architecture practices, which can always fund pitches with cash coming in from other ongoing projects, Haw’s studio has to choose work carefully.

Over time, Atmos has learnt to avoid most public commissions, which tend to be fl akier than private work and more likely to run over schedule. ‘It’s sad,’ rues Haw. ‘But we’ve spent years on projects that never came to fruition.’ Getting paid is one thing, but completing a project is even more important. ‘That’s

Sharing his story with us in this issue is Alex Haw, founder of architecture studio Atmos. From an ice hotel to immersive installations, the practice specialises in unconventional projects, frequently tackling new demands and challenges.

On the artistic sideAtmos studio does ‘architecture on the artistic side’; it was turning spaces into experiences long before concept pop-up shops and the Tate’s entrance hall came about. What began as one person sitting at a dining room table has grown into a 10-person company, which expands and contracts on a job-by-job basis. With a portfolio ranging from interactive lighting installations for art galleries, to conceptual redesigns of houses and a private yacht, Atmos’ output is many things, but never boring.

‘In architecture, a lot of people return to convention, have rules,’ says founder Alex Haw. ‘We’re always trying to fi nd the way to bend that rule. Does a dining table need to be fl at? Could the underside of a desk

be more important than the top?’

Straying from the trodden path is invariably riskier than sticking to it. In the case of the studio’s most recent project, a bedroom in an ice hotel near the Arctic Circle, the team had to learn how to wield chainsaws, chisel ice and reinforce snow on site.

‘You’re always trying to keep yourself on that edge of viability; on the thing that will stretch, but will still be deliverable,’ says Haw. ‘How you do that is through experience, analysis, talking to people, and testing.’

Uncertain timesDespite its exciting undertakings, Atmos faces the same everyday problems as any other small business. ‘We run a tight ship, and we’ve got very small margins. There are nail-biting

BreAkingTHE MOULDBreAking

THE MOULD

Learn what the risks are, enumerate them, list them, try to leave nothing to chance and

prototype like crazy.

21

20

WORKSHOP

Specialise or shut up shopSWITCHING STR ATEGY

Independent newsagents have been squeezed by high street supermarkets and the declining circulations of mass-appeal magazines. We spoke to one which has thrived by getting closer to niche titles.

Sandeep Shreeji is a rarity among newsagents. And not just because he’s still standing. Shreeji (pictured, right) knows his magazines beyond merely cover prices and delivery dates. He gives customers advice and suggestions and has a point of view on virtually all the titles on his shelves.

He’s been trading at his Marylebone shop for the last 30 years, but when faced with the prospect of closure around seven years ago, Shreeji decided to embrace the more obscure titles he hadn’t previously stocked, expand his magazine range and cut down on things like sweets and snacks.

Hard times‘There was definitely a move away from print for a while, and everybody got really scared that it was going to collapse,’ says Shreeji, who’s seen demand for newspaper and magazine home deliveries drop off over the years, as titles have closed down, gone online or started offering their own

subscription service. Independent newsagents and corner shops have been closing in droves and even McColls, one of the UK’s biggest newsagent chains, shut 100 of its shops in 2015.

‘We could see a decline in sales with the opening of smaller Sainsbury’s and Tescos, all starting to stock titles like Vogue,’ says Shreeji. So he started exploring independent titles and their readerships, and built up one of the most comprehensive magazine offerings in London. He believes this strategy has been the secret to his survival.

Specialist retailerHis shelves are lined with everything from quirky gardening title Rakes Progress to iconic

Shreeji did three things. Move into niche magazines, observe the changing tastes of local workers and amp up service. Big chains and supermarkets can’t or won’t focus on any of these.

INSIGHT

modern stalwarts like Cereal (which, Shreeji reckons, ‘is starting to look a little stale’, although it still sells well). He has locked down deals directly with titles such as US tennis magazine Racquet, and a Spanish title, Funnytastes, which sat on the countertop the day Courier visited.

Centring his business around independent print magazines, Shreeji has benefited from their recent resurgence. He has also found a lucrative sideline in delivering a customised selection of titles to many of the advertising agencies clustered in the neighbourhood.

‘Specialising is the only way,’ Shreeji says. ‘If you’re going to be just another newsagent then you need to be on a high street with huge footfall, selling bus passes, lottery tickets… But those margins are tiny.’

Ultimately, the business is increasingly reliant on Shreeji himself; his knowledge, his selection, his relationships with customers and the service he offers.

The four blows to newsagents

1. Supermarkets expanded into small-scale formats, competing for high street trade. There are now over 1,700 Tesco Express stores in the UK, and more than 700 Sainsbury’s Local outlets.

2. Store footfall declined along with print newspaper and magazine circulations, as more media began being consumed digitally.

3. Regular custom also dropped off as more people quit smoking.

4. Ever-increasing costs continue to bite: rising commercial rents, business rates, national minimum wage, pension enrolment and banking charges.

Following the magazine money

Publishers typically operate through one of the two dominant magazine distributors (Seymour and Comag, which together account for 63% of magazine sales in the UK), or one of several smaller distributors. Publishers send magazines through the distributor to independent newsagents, supermarkets and convenience stores. Shreeji pays a hefty £3,000 a year in delivery fees to newspaper distributors alone. The newsagent typically receives 25-35% of the magazine cover price, the distributor receives around 4%, the wholesaler 13%, while the publisher recoups anything from 35-55%.

Unsold copies are pulped, with publishers and distributors constantly trying to work out the optimal number to distribute across all stockists.

22

Neuba makes casual shirts and t-shirts using a team of eight weavers based in the Indian city of Hyderabad. The highly analogue nature of the production process has been a hit among a niche Japanese market, selling in shops with international pedigree such as United Arrows, 1LDK and Dover Street Market.

Traditional manufacturing processes, especially handcraft, have long been coveted in Japan. In recent years, a growing tranche of young Japanese consumers in particular have gone further, seeking out one-of-a-kind products, epitomised by the resurgence of the Japanese tradition of wabi-sabi, a reverence for things which are unfinished or imperfect. It’s something Neuba’s designer and founder Aldo Kahane has been keen to make the most of by highlighting the Indian weavers who make the products on his website and in the brand’s sales material. Neuba’s head weaver, Manthri Babu, even signs his name into each garment.

However, the non-mechanised nature of manufacturing clothes in India comes with some inherent problems. Flooding in Andhra Pradesh in August 2016 was the worst in 11 years, wiping out phones, internet and severely affecting the movement of people and goods.

To illustrate the kind of problems Neuba faces, Kahane says: ‘This morning I found out that one of the weavers has been resting a sprained ankle at home for the last four days and hasn’t come into the workshop. He represents 25% of our weaving for the Spring/Summer collection.’

Although Neuba’s Japanese

stockists are drawn to the back story of the Indian weavers, they’re less tolerant of the notoriously haphazard nature of Indian business. ‘The Japanese have a reputation for precision and accuracy in everything,’ says Kahane. ‘In India they have a reputation for being the opposite.’

Kahane says he is also concerned the traditional skills in Hyderabad are fading as younger generations are joining the tech boom sweeping the region.

He adds: ‘The team we’re working with are thankfully devoted to the craft and together we have been able to create new ideas using ancient techniques. It’s innovation in its purest form.’

Eager weavers MANAGING PRODUCTION

A British clothing startup, Neuba, has found itself sandwiched between a fashionable Japanese customer base on one side and traditional Indian weavers on the other.

Hiring a house from 9 to 5FINDING A MARKET

‘Airbnb for office space’ is the easiest way to describe Vrumi, a daytime-only property rental platform. Unexpectedly, the startup has found itself a hit with corporate middle managers.

Riffing on the success of Airbnb, Vrumi has added its own twist to the model: renting homes left empty while owners are at work.

By adapting a now-well-known concept – short-term lets – Vrumi has been able to rely on customers understanding its offering without much explaining. Less than a month after launching in January 2015, more than 40 hosts had joined the platform.

Plenty more people leave their home empty during working hours than overnight, so supply is plentiful, but finding customers that want to use those spaces has been trickier. Most companies already have an office, and many freelancers are happy using coffee

shops, co-working spaces or sub-letting a desk.

Despite this, Vrumi claims ‘hundreds’ of booking requests are made each month. After initially targeting freelancers and small businesses, Vrumi has found larger corporates are the ones seeking out the platform for off-site team bonding, brainstorming sessions and meetings with clients.

Vrumi has apparently found its target customer in the form of middle managers from companies such as Amazon, Sky, Whole Foods and the BBC, keen to leave their corporate head offices for a day and take a house in a swish neighbourhood. ‘[Our spaces add] that odd extra dimension that

Many companies have found their true market isn’t what they expected it to be. The trick is to keep a close eye on, and embrace, how people are using the service.

INSIGHT

breaks down barriers, and makes the meeting more democratic, more creative,’ says Roddy Campbell, Vrumi’s co-founder.

There is still the occasional unexpected request: a drama student wanting to practise her lines; a composer performing arrangements; and an adult film director (the latter was asked to look elsewhere).

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Dive into South Africa’s art scene. Experience a Tuscan family feast. Uncover London’s food markets. Meet Miami’s electro musicians.

Welcome to Airbnb Trips

Trip 1:All Artists Here

Airbnb Trips is a new way to explore a city like a local. There’s Bongani, a Cape Town local, who knows everything about his city’s art scene. His immersive tours will let you explore the area’s artist studios, and jam with the local musicians.

Trip 3:London Master Market

The best food in London is found off the beaten track. Host Aiden has worked in some of the city’s most renowned markets, and will make sure you taste the best of London’s street food.

Trip 4:Sound Synth Supreme

Experience the future of electronic music with Elizabeth (stage name VIRGO). Together, you’ll produce an original track, go see some live music, and see how virtual reality and music work hand in hand.

Trip 2:Tuscan Lunch

Massimiliano and his family have converted their family home into a private restaurant. Share Massimiliano’s passion for his home country with a trip to his favourite market, before he teaches you the art of Italian home cooking.

Cape Town, South Africa

Tuscany, Italy Miami, USA

London, England

To find out more about Trips, download the Airbnb app

Welcome to a world of trips.

Book your experience on Airbnb’s mobile app. From cooking classes to hiking expeditions, meet local guides that share your interests.

WORKSHOP

Trying to ‘keep kosher’ or buy halal (consuming items that are ‘permissible’ in Judaism and Islam, respectively) has so far existed outside modern mainstream consumerism. Choice has been scant, quality has been poor and products have been sold through niche ‘ethnic retail’.

Yet the spending power of Muslims in the UK is estimated to be £20bn. Observant Jews are reckoned to spend on average £2,000 more on food each year than the average consumer.

Companies of all sizes are waking up to the opportunity.Ad agency Ogilvy already has a division dedicated to targeting young Muslims. Meanwhile, the term ‘weekend Seder’ has emerged among marketing people to describe the pick-and-mix attitude of many young Jews towards their faith.

Ticking a boxNew ventures have come through such as organic halal and kosher meat suppliers, and fashion startups aimed specifically at Muslim women, as well as a range of products, from cosmetics to mortgages, that tick a religious box. Last year, arguably the most famous and controversial example of a religiously compliant product for the modern Muslim came to

Chasing the god squadPOSITIONING A PRODUCT

Young Muslims and Jews are emerging as a lucrative and untapped source of customers. But how exactly should a business pitch its religious creds?

the fore, as the increasingly popular ‘burkini’, designed by an Australian startup, was banned on French beaches.

There’s a growing number of young people from both religions who feel more connected to their religious heritage than their parents, but are also desperately keen to embrace many of the clothes, food, holidays, dating apps and other products enjoyed by their secular peers.

Uniqlo and TescoLast year, Uniqlo launched a range of hijabs and modest clothing (see picture, top), while Hovis obtained kosher certification for most of its loaves. Tesco, meanwhile, predicted £30m in Ramadan sales, making the Islamic month of fasting its third biggest sales period after Christmas and Easter.

Several halal gourmet burger businesses have been popping up, riffing on the success of the likes of Patty and Bun and Meat Liquor. Among them are Burgeri and Burgista Bros, described as ‘decent but not exactly exceptional’ by blogger Halal Girl About Town.

Poor downgradeThis kind of religiously compliant twist on a mainstream product frequently leaves people dissatisfied, and frustrated that

the halal or kosher version is invariably a poor downgrade.

Many Muslim women are sceptical about clothing with a specific Islamic angle, preferring the brands worn by their western peers. It’s led to sites such as Amaliah, which sorts through mainstream designers’ lines and filters the clothing deemed modest and suitable. (See facing page.)

Religious certificateIt’s left many companies deliberating how much they need to dial up the religious angle, even questioning whether to pursue a religious certification. There are several kosher and halal boards in

WORKSHOP

Businesses that prosper are likely to be ones that match the quality, choice or price offered by mainstream brands.

INSIGHT

the UK, charging at least £1,000 for certification. However, there exist a myriad interpretations of what constitutes halal or kosher in both communities.

Courier looks at a handful of businesses targeting Muslim and Jewish consumers in what is expected to be a burgeoning market in the coming years.

Uniqlo’s modest fashion range, designed by Hana Tajima (pictured)

Aduna superfood powders

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PHB Ethical BeautyCOSMETICS

Problem: The red pigment in lipstick is forbidden.

Gelatines, insect shells and alcohol, all common cosmetic ingredients, are not permitted in Islam. PHB’s founder Rose Brown puts halal and vegan side-by-side. Brown can’t sell a bright red lipstick (carmine, the red pigment, is made from crushed insect shells), but has created a naturally derived moisturising gel.

Financing Sharia EnterpriseLOANS

Problem: Charging interest is prohibited by Sharia law.

A Start Up Loan delivery partner, Financing Sharia Enterprise is a not-for-profit company that lends Sharia-compliant finance to small businesses in London. Instead of charging interest on the loans, a profit-share arrangement is agreed by the advisers.

AmaliahFASHION

Problem: Picking up suitable clothing on the high street.

Sisters Selina and Nafisa Bakkar launched Amaliah in 2015 to improve the shopping experience for Muslim women. Scouring the high street, Amaliah picks out suitable items from the websites of mainstream brands such as Uniqlo, Zara and Topshop as well as halal-compliant make-up and cosmetic products.

AdunaSUPERFO OD POWDERS

Problem: Health food supply chains need to be checked out.

Demand for health supplements is on the rise among Jewish consumers, with 2016’s The Really Jewish Food Guide dedicating a chapter to herbal medicines and vitamins. Last year, Aduna collaborated with the kosher certification body KLBD to promote its brand and raise awareness of its supply chain.

Halal GemsRESTAUR ANT FINDING APP

Problem: Locating restaurants that serve good halal food.

One of a multitude of apps created to help Muslims find restaurants that serve decent halal food, Halal Gems covers the UK and the UAE. The negative reputation of halal food is something the team has had to negotiate, with some restaurants reportedly requesting not to have their venues publicised on the app.

Willowbrook FarmORGANIC ME AT

Problem: Halal meat is invariably low quality.

Lutfi and Ruby Radwan raise animals organically on their farm, arguing that truly halal meat should not be battery farmed, slaughtered by stun guns or given antibiotics. It’s a long way from the highly industrialised supply chain behind most halal meat sold in the UK.

J SwipeDATING APP

Problem: Tracking down eligible Jews to date.

J Swipe is often described as the Jewish Tinder. Set up in 2014, the app (see picture, left) aims to replace the caricature of the matchmaking Jewish mum. It also allows users to flag how observant they are, to pre-empt any awkward moments when ordering a pork chop on the first date.

Halal BookingTR AVEL

Problem: Finding a Muslim-friendly holiday.

Founder Enver Cebi came up with the idea for Halal Booking after struggling to organise a halal honeymoon. The company locates resorts that serve halal food, have women-only beaches and pools, and don’t serve alcohol. In 2015, the firm was valued at £24m.

There was a time in the not-too-distant past when high-quality coffee was a new phenomenon. But over the last few years, so called ‘third wave’ coffee shops have been popping up in greater numbers than ever before. They’re everywhere.

There are currently around 1,400 speciality coffee shops in the UK; that’s expected to grow to 2,500 in the next three years. Roasting high-quality coffee has become big business as a result, so it’s unsurprising roasters are themselves looking for an edge.

There are now more than 180 companies roasting coffee in the UK, with a significant chunk of those founded in the last three years.

Union, which was set up in 2001 and shifts around 60 tonnes of coffee a month, is one of the bigger UK roasters. Last summer, it began a scheme offering coffee shops the chance to create their own blends using its facilities; it’s betting this will give it an advantage over other wholesalers.

From bean to brewCoffee shop owners and baristas can book a slot at Union’s ‘Campus’, located by its HQ in Canning Town. The client selects green beans and is given training on how to roast them. Packaging and labelling is also taken care of at the site.

The finished product is a blend the client has created, ready to grind, brew, and serve.

For a coffee shop to set up its own roasting operation would be an enormous undertaking; a modest 3kg roaster can cost upwards of £10,000. Roasting 3kg of coffee at Union, with

Book of profitsEight businesses with a kosher or halal offering

guidance from its in-house roasters, can cost as little as £33.

Risky rewardsYet the response so far has been modest to say the least. Less than a year into the venture, Union has worked with a handful of new clients and one cafe has signed up to a long-term contract.

David Jameson, Campus’s general manager, admits it’s been slow progress. ‘Especially with uncertainty around the economy, people are less willing to take risks,’ he says.

Some wonder whether by training coffee shops to do what it does well – roasting and branding – Union risks undermining its own business, and becoming little more than a supplier of imported green beans.

‘It’s not practical’For now, Jameson doesn’t think the Campus model would suit all its wholesale customers. Geography is a big factor. ‘From Oxford or Brighton, it’s not practical,’ he says.

The real question is whether an open coffee roasting facility can take off at all.

If the answer turns out to be no, Union may have to look for other ways to gain an advantage in the swelling wholesale market for quality coffee.

Finding a point of difference and innovating can be valuable as a market gets crowded. The key is reading what the market truly values.

INSIGHT

Retail roastersSTANDING OUT

Coffee wholesaler Union has set up a sideline that allows coffee shops to roast their own beans using its facilities. But will coffee shops go for it?

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WORKSHOP

The art and science of restaurant designCRE ATING A SPACE

Decent food isn’t enough to make a successful restaurant. Interiors firms David Collins Studio and B3 Designers explain the detail in the decor.

Courier: Why does layout matter?

B3: Getting the layout right is one of the most important tasks. Never sacrifice comfort for covers; a less-than-comfortable dining experience stays with patrons.

What factors contribute to how you design a layout?

DC: Entrance, kitchen and the flow of customers versus staff. You want

Favourite London restaurant designs

B3 Designers: 1. Sakagura, Mayfair2. The Riding House Cafe,

Fitzrovia3. Hoi Polloi, Ace Hotel,

Shoreditch

David Collins Studio: 1. Smokestak, Shoreditch2. Chiltern Firehouse,

Marylebone3. Rules, Covent Garden

special, and the huge numbers of staff could move through the room effortlessly.

What trends are you noticing in restaurants?

B3: A leaning towards transparency in food and drink provenance. Chefs and mixologists have put the process of creation, preparation and infusion of foods and beverages on display, often designing the restaurant around it. Bars and open kitchens with seating are getting bigger.

Why are acoustics and lighting frequently so bad?

DC: These are never given enough attention. Because they cannot be physically touched, operators sometimes feel they can get away with the bare minimum, or nothing at all.

Which smaller aspects of design can have a big impact?

B3: All the ‘invisible elements’; the grain of the paper, the feel of a material, a subtle change in lighting level, scent, the behaviour and friendliness of the waiting staff.

to avoid too many clashes.

How can the design encourage customers to spend more money?

B3: If a space is inviting and comfortable, people may choose to stay longer and order more food and drinks. Seating selection is another great strategy to ensure a restaurant is always filled and lively. Different seating options or zones will ensure all types of

parties can be accommodated.

What constitutes clever design in a restaurant?

DC: A clever restaurant design is one which operates seamlessly, and works in a room that feels like it shouldn’t. The Wolseley took a lot of careful planning and collaboration to ensure the food arrived efficiently from the lower ground, each seat felt

Who can apply?Any UK business, two years old or younger. Businesses in areas such as property investment, money transfer and weapons sales aren’t allowed.

How do I apply?Provide a one-page business summary, three months’ worth of bank statements, and a cashflow forecast. A credit check is followed by a face-to-face meeting to agree the size of the loan and how it will be spent.

How to get a government loanSECURING FINANCE

More than £260m in government loans has been granted to small businesses since 2012. But many founders are intimidated by the application process.

What do the founders of Pip and Nut, City Pantry and Electric Star Pubs have in common?

They’ve each borrowed money through the government’s startup loan scheme to get their ventures off the ground.

Many founders, however, are sceptical of government loans, believing the process to be convoluted, time-consuming and unlikely to yield a positive result.

The government’s business department issued 7,365 startup loans in 2016, each decided on the back of a face-to-face meeting.

Jeff Gilbert, adviser at the London Small Business Centre, says a prospective business needs to demonstrate it has a grip of its accounts to land the loan. ‘We get a lot of people who are creative but not great with finances,’ he explains. ‘Not understanding the difference between profit and loss and cash flow [for example].’

Businesses undertake the loan application cautiously, but Gilbert insists the process is worth the effort (and is also a useful crash course in the basics of managing business finances).

How much can I borrow?Up to £25,000 as an individual. Companies with four directors or more can borrow up to £100,000.

What are the fees?Interest is charged at 6% per year for a period of up to five years.

What if I can’t pay it back?It’s possible to negotiate a payment ‘holiday’, but as the loan is made against individuals, not businesses, a court summons could follow to settle the debt.

The lowdown on the government’s loans

Sakagura restaurant and bar in Mayfair, by B3 Designers

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PORTRAIT

SIMON MOT TR AM

The brand student who set Rapha’s wheels in motion.

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King of painIn 2004, Simon Mottram unleashed an audacious plan to put his startup at the centre of road cycling. Now the world’s biggest luxury group wants to buy it.

Of the four ‘company values’ at Rapha, number three is a strange one: ‘suffer’.

The others are rather more humdrum. Not only is it hard to imagine ‘suffer’ on another company’s corporate manifesto, but ask around at Rapha and even a few of its own employees are a little perplexed by it.

The company’s founder, Simon Mottram, however, is resolute. ‘To do anything well is a struggle. You need to give it everything.’

‘You can’t get real satisfaction without application. That’s what road cycling is about. It sounds wanky, but you get real enlightenment in the moments when you’ve really pushed yourself.’

This is a man who certainly appears to have thrown his all into creating a multi-headed beast of a company, which has ridden (and, in part, driven) cycling’s boom superbly well.

Many tentaclesPicking apart what’s actually inside Rapha reveals the extraordinary breadth of a company barely into its teens, and explains why such a broad sweep of potential buyers are eyeing it up. Most notable of these is the luxury behemoth LVMH, owner of Louis Vuitton and Dior.

Aside from its clothing and accessories, last year Rapha also sold a range of travel guides, won a D&AD design award for its biannual magazine, saw its cosmetics business grow, made several documentary films and organised 35 cycling holidays for over 400 Rapha fans.

It continues to sell everything through its own website (which makes up 80% of sales) and its 11 shops around the world which, along with serving coffee and food, act as a meeting place to watch bike races and organise rides.

Then there’s the Rapha Cycling Club. It is on course to reach 10,000 members around the world, each spending £135 on an annual subscription to go on weekly spins. There are 2,000 members in London.

There are few businesses quite like Rapha. Spanning so many areas is counter to the ‘focus’ maxim of modern business orthodoxy. And everything — everything — is done by the 150 employees jammed into its head office north of King’s Cross.

Some might call this need to do everything in-house control freakery, but Mottram is adamant

there’s no other way if ‘you want to do it properly’.

Rapha is a commercial phenomenon, turning £60m in annual sales, and has become a case study on how to build a brand in the modern era.

None of this is surprising to Mottram. He quixotically envisaged the company as a holidays-films-members-clothing hybrid, even in the simpler times when the company launched and far fewer people were cycling to work, let alone donning lycra on the weekend. None of this is an accident or even an evolution. Mottram always wanted Rapha to have this many tentacles, and always saw it as something immersive and evocative.

The three CsOne investor recalls the period when Mottram worked as a brand consultant and used to rope in colleagues and clients to go on cycle rides: ‘He was saying, “I’m going to create the world’s most beautiful cycle clothing, and sell jackets for £260 over the internet.” I thought he was utterly mad.’

An avid devotee of the book, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, Mottram decided his focus, and his company’s mission, would be to make road cycling the most popular sport in the world.

He admits ‘making £5 jerseys or offering free cycling proficiency courses’ might have been the more obvious path, but that just wasn’t him. He sought out a different strategy: making cycling aspirational.

Cycling clothing in the early 2000s was no more than functional. Mottram hated it, calling it ‘crappy and niche’. He saw an opportunity to create an entire experience of high-quality design, fabric and shopping closer to the realm of fashion.

A couple of principles shaped his masterplan. Everything was built around three Cs – commerce, content and community. He also studied brands, had a strong taste sensibility, cared about quality and was a complete cycling nut.

In his search for investment, he gave away a staggering 85% of the company in exchange for £40,000 to get Rapha off the ground. ‘It has never bothered me,’ he insists. ‘This was always about creating something amazing rather than holding on to [it] for myself.’

The investors are a mix of close friends and silent backers who give Mottram a long leash to run the company as he sees fit. Ultimately, however, its long-term ownership is not in his control.

Tellingly, Mottram ploughed a lot of his early funds into nurturing Rapha’s identity, although the startup consisted of little more than a handful of employees and a few jerseys it had designed and made.

Mottram was keen to harness cycling’s then-underground culture. To mark Rapha’s launch in 2004, he put on the ‘Kings of Pain’ photography exhibition in east London’s Old Truman Brewery, which set the tone for what followed. The Tour de France was broadcast on a big screen, there were cycling film screenings, buckets of beer and some Rapha jerseys for sale in a corner. No one had seen anything like it. It was more of a hub for cyclists than an apparel company, and a precursor to what Rapha’s retail would look like.

Clerkenwell to Richmond The ascent since then has been rapid. But not everyone has liked it.

Rapha is adored by some cyclists, but vilified by others. The reasons are manifold: the clothes are criticised as expensive, while some say Rapha’s tone is pretentious and smug. Its high-minded mission also jars with some cycle purists who see Rapha as a commercial company trying to hijack the sport.

Mottram says: ‘I’m comfortable we’re not everyone’s cup of tea. We’re passionate and we stand for something.’

He does, however, concede the flak bothers him. ‘People who knock us; what do they think we’re doing here? Either they think we’re driving around in Maseratis or just playing around with this stuff. To provide what we do is immensely difficult. A lot of people just don’t like confident brands.’

He adds: ‘Phil Knight (the Nike founder) said, “Nike is a cult. But a good one”. I hope we are too.’

Rapha is definitely cult-ish, closely associated with much-maligned Mamils – ‘middle-aged men in lycra’ – who’ve embraced the brand with enthusiasm.

Critics say Rapha’s spiritual home has drifted as a result; shifting from its Clerkenwell roots to the off-duty corporate types doing laps around Richmond Park in a whir of black and pink lycra. If Rapha has liberated cycling, the argument goes, it’s as a pastime for a certain type of man looking for a way to spend his time and money.

Love the sportThose brickbats are likely to intensify in the coming years as Rapha tries to become a bigger beast, potentially multiplying sales tenfold. Shops will increase at a steady rate each year, starting with eight new openings in 2017, and another eight the year after. It also wants to double its members in the next 12 months.

Mottram faces two big challenges in this new period. The strategic one is staving off the blandness that often afflicts brands that were once cool and are trying to grow. Mottram says this is increasingly his job: protecting the company culture. He has always been militant about the company’s ‘love the sport’ mantra, encouraging staff to follow his example by cycling on a Wednesday morning rather than coming to work.

But as new cycling brands like Cafe du Cycliste and Chpt.III pop up, with a more underground, younger spirit, can Rapha seriously maintain its edge? Mottram, who

turned 51 earlier this year, believes Rapha’s various strands will protect it. But it’s still not clear whether the brand can attract a new generation of cyclists.

Mottram’s other challenge isa personal one: letting go. So far, Rapha has been Simon Mottram, and Simon Mottram has been Rapha.

He says he’s been working on being less of a detail obsessive to become the kind of leader the company now needs. ‘We’re going from where “everything is possible” to where the bets are a lot bigger. We’re not a startup any more.’

Relentlessly executing Rapha’s broad portfolio to a high standard has been draining. This is a man who for years has been working all hours, been caring for a son with severe autism, and has taken a substantially lower salary than many of his direct reports.

The pressure may have been immense, but he knows how lucky he’s been. He’s cycled all over the world and got to know, and worked with, many of his heroes: Dave Brailsford, Paul Smith, Bradley Wiggins and Norman Foster.

Many founders find the transition from startup to big company incredibly hard, but how Mottram manages it will be especially fascinating.

‘I’ll be immensely proud when cycling is the biggest sport in the world, but a tiny part of me will probably be saying, “It was better way back when it was smaller”.’

—‘To do anything well is a struggle. You need to give it everything. ’

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NEW YORK It will be dark and scary

DISPATCHES

rather than exciting, for the first time. Someone in the train carriage wept quietly the entire way.

In the lead-up to the election, New York had felt more intense than ever. In a city dominated by its ubiquitous media and defined by its density, Trump was inescapable. In Ubers, on the subway, and in coffee shops in every part of the city, it seemed there was only ever one, inexhaustible (if totally exhausting), topic on people’s lips. New Yorkers, already a fairly anxious bunch, were extra-agitated, even more impatient. The city’s energy had been off for weeks. Friends who run restaurants, bars and shops reported a slowing down in the normally busy build-up to the holiday season.

On that dark, post-election dawn, New York fell into what felt like a day of mourning. For one day, the city went silent. But by 10 November, it was business as usual. Emails started rolling into my inbox: Vigils! Protests! Discussion groups! Ballet barre classes for Planned Parenthood! Christmas markets for Planned Parenthood! Three-course brunches for Planned Parenthood! The speed of action was dazzling

and distinctly American; a total 180 from the post-Brexit malaise.

Of course, now begins the real test, as the city awakens to its first few months as part of Trump’s America. It will be dark, it will be scary, but if the limbo period was anything to go by, the mood of defiance that became noticeable among New York’s small business owners will continue. There’s no room for navel-gazing in this city. There’s no time.

Trump is, of course, a lifelong New York resident and owner of vast tracts of the city’s land, so it’s especially peculiar to have the ultimate commercial New Yorker both somehow representing ‘real America’ and covertly railing against many of the values New York is built on: diversity, liberalism, a global outlook. But that’s certainly how it is.

There’s palpable anger among many New Yorkers, but they are determined to thrive nonetheless. This is a town that lives for a challenge: it’s at its very best under duress. America is in for a pretty terrifying ride. But whatever happens next, New York will stay in business.

‘There was only ever one, inexhaustible (if totally exhausting), topic on people’s lips.’

‘Before you’ve had the chance to slither into your long johns, that Arctic wind will be on you.’

t the risk of sounding slightly dramatic, I’d describe 9 November as the worst day I’ve ever spent in New York. The night before, I’d rocked up at a reggae bar near my home in Brooklyn (I was feeling optimistic, OK?) to watch the US Presidential Election results roll in, rum punch in hand. At around 8pm, the bar was packed. People were in good spirits. A pop-up was cranking out jerk chicken in the back garden while everyone watched NBC projected onto the wall.

And then… Well, you know what happened next. Needless to say, things felt pretty different by the time I left the bar around midnight. The next day, as I looked at the brooding Manhattan skyline from the subway, it seemed ominous,

be sitting there complacent in early November, smug at how long the autumn has lasted, and how it’s allowed you to enjoy the town once the summer’s influx of tourists has finally left. And right then – yes, before you’ve had the chance to slither into your long johns, or duck into the nearest tattered but welcoming underground station – that Arctic wind will be on you. The city’s layout leaves little cover from its ravages; it has relatively few hills or high-rises and its streets are flat as a surfboard. You’ll wake to find the ice clawing its way over your windows, its silvery palmprints pressed against the glass. Exercising outdoors will feel like an act of the greatest bravery; on your morning jog, your breath will freeze as soon as it passes your lips.

Fortunately, Berlin has plenty of features to help you cope. For one, there are the famous Christmas markets, which spring up around mid-December in several of the city’s main squares. Much more than merely places of commerce, they are where people find community. Following the brutal attack on one of them late last year, they have also become

o-one can truly warn you about the Berlin winter. They will try, of course. Before you move to Germany, they will fill you with foreboding, but that still won’t prepare you for that first day the cold attacks you. This time of year can be so severe that a very good friend of mine, by no means a timid soul, packed up and left after suffering through her first January here. Perhaps still traumatised by her experience, she has spent the last few years in the withering humidity of Singapore.

Let me be clear, though. The Berlin winter, brutal as it can be, is by no means the worst you will encounter in a major city. No; that honour probably goes to Montreal, where temperatures can go as low as minus 30 degrees. The thing that makes Berlin’s chill so formidable is the speed at which it arrives. You’ll

symbols of resilience; within a couple of days they were back up and bustling, the city brought together in revelry and commemoration.

The bars are as accommodating as ever too, aided by the presence from November onwards of Glühwein, the signature German drink which others commonly know as mulled wine. (Make sure you take it with rum, or ‘mit Schuss’, for an extra kick amid all that heat and sugar.)

Last and best, there is the snow: soft, often knee-deep troughs of it. One February morning, having caught a taxi home from a night out, I spent 10 minutes walking down Karl-Marx-Allee, one of Berlin’s widest avenues. As I walked, I took photographs and listened to the silence; there, in the very middle of one of Europe’s most chaotic cities, was a surface as pristine and a scene as magical as you’d find in Lapland.

So here’s my advice about the Berlin winter: don’t endure it, embrace it. In its own way, it’s just as glorious as the summer and, as your chattering teeth will tell you, even more memorable.

BERLINEmbracing Berlin’s winter

Despite feeling battered, bruised and sad, New York’s businesses are bouncing back.

Timid souls pack up and leave; the brave drink Glühwein.

Phoebe

Lovatt

Musa

Okwonga

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LOWDOWN

WORK /LIFE

Sum up what you do in a sentence.I help great founders build great companies.

Why did you decide to get into this?It was a natural evolution for me, from being an entrepreneur and building a few of my own companies.

What has been the wisest thing anyone has ever told you?Figure out what is really important to you and focus on that.

When were you last surprised by something?I’m surprised almost every day. Amazing entrepreneurs are being produced younger and younger. There appears to be no lower age limit, but I am still surprised by people like Herman Narula who, at the age of 24, launched Improbable, an audacious company.

What's the best ever invention?The internet. (Or the wheel.)

Does modern capitalism work?Imperfectly, but better than most other systems we’ve tried over the years.

What would you go big on if you became PM?Education, education, education.

What would you outlaw?Arrogance.

When/where would you like to go in our time machine?Victorian England.

Where’s your bucket list destination? North Carolina, USA. Fascinating colonial history closely tied to British history. I want to see the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, Virginia which was designed by the architect of my house, Rick Mather.

Just five days – a working week – of ingesting fatty and sugary foods is enough to negatively impact your hippocampus, the part of the brain that regulates memory. Cognitive tests after the same period have shown declines in attention, speed and mood: not exactly a recipe for productivity. In the even shorter term, the blood sugar spike and subsequent crash after a couple of hours leaves you tired, irritable and hungry again.

The missing link between nutritional input and productive output is, however, slowly being made. I recently met the guys behind Tribe, a natural sports nutrition brand that caters for runners and cyclists, for a lunch of salmon, quinoa and roasted vegetables. (Oily fish are high in brain-feeding omega 3, which can also counteract junk food by encouraging the creation of new nerve cells.) They see more people viewing food as fuel and eating for optimum performance, whether recreational athletes or desk jockeys.

Healthy eating doesn’t have to mean squandering precious seed funding on expensive grass-fed meat, acai berries and avocados. Pulses are a dirt cheap protein source, and a staple of tech investor and self-improvement guru Tim Ferriss’ slow-carb diet (extremely effective for weight-loss, if mind- numbingly dull). Save money by

One thing you watched recently that you’d recommend?The Crown. The most ambitious and brilliantly executed series production by Netflix – the modern version of the great film studios.

Who would be your three dream dinner guests? Warren Buffett, Desmond Tutu and Jeff Bezos.

If we hit 'most listened to' on your music, what would come up? Mozart’s Requiem.

What’s your death row meal? Don’t wish to contemplate.

Who’s your hero?Bill Gates. In his quiet, unflashy manner, he created and built one of the great, enduring technology companies and then gave back billions in an active and thoughtful way.

What superpower do you wish you had?Infinite memory.

Do you have any regrets?None. Don’t dwell on the past. Try to keep looking forward.

preparing food yourself, and time by cooking in bulk, freezing portioned-up leftovers and reheating to serve. Frozen vegetables cost less than fresh and are often more nutritious, as they’re put on ice immediately upon harvesting; ditto fruits such as blueberries (one of my personal favourite hacks).

Often though it’s willpower, not spending, that maxes out, particularly when you’re decision fatigued or just tired, full stop. (Lack of sleep increases cravings.) So take away the decision by bringing your own lunch and snacks, which obviates the need to make choices that will likely be bad. People often say they don’t have time to prepare food for work, but it takes longer to leave the office, consider the options, order, wait and trundle back to the desk.

Your environment is one of the biggest cues for your behaviour: if there are suboptimal foods in your vicinity, and no better options as readily available, you will give in. My neighbours from recipe app Mucho recently revamped our workspace’s offering, so as well as Oreos (as addictive to rats as cocaine and morphine), we now have Pip and Nut butters (high in satiating protein and healthy fats) in individual sachets to prevent overeating.

And if all else fails, take yourself away: a 15-minute stroll can curb cravings by half. Think of it as mind over matter – or using your noodle.

Detoxing the startup dietJAMIE MILLAR

‘Ramen profitable’ is a term for startups that make just enough money for their founders to subsist entirely on noodles (so not exactly oodles then). Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ ‘two-pizza rule’ for productivity, meanwhile, holds that you should never have a team so big and therefore unwieldy that it can’t be fed with a couple of large Pepperoni Passions (roughly five to eight people, depending on appetite).

Not entirely unrelated, the ‘startup 15’ refers to the average number of pounds gained by a startup founder. When you’re time-poor and cash-strapped, Deliveroo-ing a takeaway can seem like a rational decision. But given the toll those carby meals take on your thought processes – never mind your waistline – it’s as false an economy for successful business as calling only being able to afford ramen ‘profitable‘.

It seems almost reckless for a founder to operate on such a diet, especially one who is otherwise attempting to optimise every facet of running their company.

Robin Klein is the founding partner of UK seed venture fund, Local Globe. He was previously a partner at the venture capital firm, Index Ventures.

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‘Amazing entrepreneurs are being produced younger and younger’ ROBIN KLEIN, VENTURE CAPITALIST

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INTERNATIONAL: VIETNAM

V-Architecture founder Ngoc Luong Le has been fascinated by Vietnam’s classical buildings of bamboo and local brick since his teens, when he spent summers in the mountain regions north of Hanoi, sleeping in temples.

This early interest was nurtured during his architecture studies, which he began at the age of 16. His enrolment may have been motivated by nothing more than wanting to be around a girl he liked, but his passion soon turned fully to pagodas. He’s since pursued a belief that the city of his birth needs to rethink how its modern buildings are designed.

Ngoc’s summers in the mountains became central to his development as an architect. Although the school

taught technical drawing and architectural theory, he was restricted to a single textbook, a Soviet publication from 1967, provoking Ngoc to look around him for other influences. Uninspired by the 20th-century buildings in Hanoi, he began studying how ancient temples were created.

University days‘Vietnam was very poor at the time. In the school they taught us design and how to draw in the Russian style. I didn't know anything about western architecture, so I looked at temples and pagodas,’ he says.

This obsession has stayed with Ngoc ever since. His first house, which he began working on in 1997, after a brief stint at Vietnam’s ministry of construction, allowed him to bring to life his ideas of fusing traditional building styles and methods with modern living.

The resulting house has a big central courtyard, allowing light and fresh air to flood the entire property. A large tree, meanwhile, provides protection from the rain. Living in the house while it was being built around him, the project provided Ngoc an opportunity to learn about construction methods he had not been taught at university.

Cost of boom yearsBy the time Ngoc set up his own practice in the late 90s, Vietnam was going through a period of intense economic transformation. The ruling communist party had set in train a process to embrace

free market economics in the mid-80s, triggering a boom in growth which opened up Vietnam’s workforce, consumers, companies and, of course, construction industry.

Prosperity came and the built environment was changing fast. Softer natural structures gave way to more muscular towers. Air conditioning systems were becoming ubiquitous.

Ngoc was especially conscious of the twin casualties of tradition and sustainability.

‘Development is good for the country, and a strong economy brings a better life for poor people, but development and urbanisation can destroy nature. In Hoi An we are losing the beach; the resorts are an ecological disaster. This is the bad face of development,’ he argues.

Old style ACInfluenced by famed Australian architect Glenn Murcutt’s ‘touch

the Earth lightly’ philosophy, Ngoc champions the architect’s role in conservation and preservation of the surrounding environment. He summarises the practice’s main aims as ‘less energy consumption, no air conditioning, fewer materials, preserve nature, preserve the local culture’.

Targeting air conditioning systems has been a primary focus. Ngoc has been studying how temples and pagodas keep cool through air flow and wide openings and has adopted many of these techniques in the buildings he creates, often covering entire walls in vents that can be opened and closed.

‘Many years ago, Vietnam had solutions for the climate, but now we use fans and air conditioning. With economic development more people can afford this tech that isn’t needed. We need to use sustainable ways to keep cool,’ he says.

One man’s manifesto for building Hanoi out of traditional designs and natural materials.

BUILDING ON THE PAST

Building maquettes at V-Architecture's office

V-Architecture's office (upstairs) and Ngoc Luong Le's family home (downstairs)

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GREEN SCENE

History and natureHe goes further, saying buildings could avoid their often large and clunky environmental footprints if they took inspiration from the traditional Vietnamese home — often small, but using the space intelligently for multiple purposes.

But while Ngoc cannot always convince clients to build smaller houses, he has devised methods of using fewer materials in order to reduce a building’s footprint on the land. Ngoc attributes his record on this front to his appreciation of nature. Instead of using a large number of supporting columns, for example, he creates roof structures that overhang from one central pillar. The extra strength needed is provided through joints inspired by the banana tree.

This ability to use fewer materials than others has become an important factor in winning contracts due to the budget slicing it enables, especially when it comes to constructing hotels. ‘Sometimes clients like that the building is sustainable, sometimes they are just attracted to the cost savings,’ explains Ngoc.

What clients sayTaking on exclusively sustainable projects inspired by tradition has, however, meant growing slower than his practice may have otherwise. Ngoc says clients are often sceptical of V-Architecture’s methods, with some taking time to convince, and others not subscribing to his philosophy.

It has, on the other hand,

P.S. 62, New York, the USThis school in Staten Island claims to have a ‘net zero’ energy output, generating its own geothermal and solar energy. It uses around 50% of the energy of a typical school building, achieved through a variety of features which let in natural light and conserve warmth. Sustainability is woven into the students’ curriculum while stats about conservation are projected from interactive displays throughout the school.

The Edge, Amsterdam, the NetherlandsA plush office space in Amsterdam’s Zuidas district which has been handed the highest sustainability score ever given by British eco ratings agency Breeam. The solar-powered building uses low-energy LED lights and sensors that track motion, light and humidity, tweaking the environment to an optimal setting. It’s also a ‘smart’ building, with an app that helps workers find parking spots and available desks, as well as locate colleagues.

Plus House, Larvik, NorwayThe roof of this house is tilted to face south-eastwards, so solar panels mounted on top can make the most of the sun’s rays. Underneath, geothermal wells provide another source of energy. Not only does the building generate enough energy to perform its basic functions (switching on lights, cooking and heating), it can also charge an electric car year-round. Any surplus power is used to repay the ‘energy debt’ from building the house.

Sustainability has been of growing importance in architecture, with

designers around the world exploring how best to make as small an

environmental impact as possible.

allowed V-Architecture to carve out a niche that is now paying off as damage to the environment and erosion of culture and customs have become growing issues in Vietnam.

As a result, Ngoc has been working with the local government and private developers in Hoi An, Vietnam’s best preserved and most impressive ancient city. Private companies and individuals are attracted to the idea of producing buildings that blend in with their surroundings; Ngoc is currently working on a hotel and three houses in the city. The local government has meanwhile asked him to look at ways to reduce the environmental impact of the city's resorts.

Next: upcycling Ngoc currently employs eight young architects in his practice, all fully signed up to promoting traditional practices and sustainability. He’s also set up a second space near his office, dedicated to investigating upcycling, where architectural students are invited each week to experiment with salvaged materials.

‘I believe all young Vietnamese architects need to have an understanding of traditional buildings and how they have a place in modern architecture,’ he says.

‘If we don't continue to have an understanding of this, modern houses here will be same as in the UK and the rest of the world — we will lose our tradition.’

Ngoc's first project

V-Architecture's upcycling test space

Inside V-Architecture's office

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NEIGHBOURHOOD GUIDE: HANOI

When I was a child, the Old Quarter was much quieter and the buildings much lower. I would sleep on the roofs, and get around by jumping from roof to roof. The area’s changed a lot but people still live there who are tied to the surrounding community. Although I moved out to the suburbs to build my home and live in tranquility, my parents still live in the Old Quarter and would never leave. They love the bustle and speaking to all their friends. It is the most exciting part of the city. - Ngoc Luong Le, founder of V-Architecture.

HANOI

OLD QUARTER

A cold-pressed juice bar that looks as if it's been cut out of Sydney or LA and superimposed on the frantic street it sits on.

So Green ExpressThe area's cool hangout, and a

great place to chill out when the Old Quarter gets a bit too hectic. On a quiet street, it has a selection of hassle-free food, and even pale ale on tap. Bands often provide entertainment in the evenings.

Hanoi Social Club

Vietnam has a large coffee growing industry and there are a number of shops across the city where a huge range of whole and ground beans produced across the country can be bought.

Coffee shops

There wasn’t much more to Hanoi than the Old Quarter 100 years ago. Today, the neighbourhood is a patchwork of ancient temples and modern extensions, traditional craft shops and boutiques. There are local pubs serving beer for 40p, street food vendors chopping toads on the pavement, and western pizza houses. Despite it becoming home to a cluster of hostels and wide-eyed backpackers over the last decade, the Old Quarter’s local identity hasn’t been lost. It's still very much run by and for the people who have lived there for generations.

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Not strictly inside the Old Quarter, located just outside the area's southern edge, +84 is an easy spot to venture to for cocktails later on in the evening once the nearby bars are shut down.

Bar +84

The best chicken pho in the Old Quarter. The flavours are heady and traditional but more conservative western palettes will be thankful the meat here is confined to chicken breast and thigh (skipping the more out-there animal parts often served up in Hanoi).

Pho Hong 1

The Old Quarter is covered in traditional pubs with plastic seating that serve the fresh local 'bia'. Brewed the night before and only good for drinking the next day, this strong beer is served up in half-litre glasses at 10,000 bat a pop (40p). Bia Hoi Ha Noi in the north-east edge of the old city was Courier's favourite.

Bia Hoi Ha Noi

This highly celebrated traditional pho joint is open for breakfast as well as dinner. It's closed through the day, but you can still duck in to view watch the spectacle of the pho broth being made.

Pho Gia Truyen

An unnamed and hidden spot that sits on the main square. The clue is a slight opening with people coming and going, which appears to lead to someone’s house. Up a few flights of stairs is a rather elegant cafe with its own balcony over looking the adjacent 'Lake of the Returned Sword'.

Main square cafe

Made up of two crossing streets, this is the only place in the Old Quarter allowed to serve food and alcohol after midnight. The large number of small traditional eateries serving up a range of Vietnamese food are also open throughout most of the day. There are also a couple of bars which are the places to head to for after hours drinking inside the Old Quarter.

Hanoi food street

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C O U R I E R L I F E

R O A DRather than plotting the most efficient way of getting from A to B, the possibility of a meandering road trip continues to stir optimistic, almost romantic feelings – even among those who don’t usually enjoy driving.

There is the sense of possibility: seeing the bits between the departure and destination points that wouldn’t otherwise be noticed or experienced, chance encounters, and new bonds forged with travel buddies.

Countless books and films have celebrated the road trip, making it a genre in itself, and its cultural significance is demonstrated by how seriously road trippers take making their playlists for the journey.

We’ve dedicated this issue of Courier Life to one of the most amazing road trips in the world: the Great Ocean Road on Australia’s south coast. We also look at some of the world’s other great journeys to take by motorbike, car or van.

T R I P

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The Great Ocean Road meanders along a 151 mile stretch of coastline in south-east Australia. Starting a short punt west of Melbourne in Torquay, the seaside home of surf brands Rip Curl and Quiksilver, the road takes in calm bays before opening up to the shipwreck coast, where dangerous rocks and sharp cliff faces claimed over 80 ships during the Age of Discovery.

The road itself is a memorial to Australian soldiers killed in the First World War, and was built by returned servicemen. Construction began in 1919, with the entire length taking 13 years to complete. Originally wide enough to fit only a single vehicle and characterised by unstable cliff faces and sheer drops, the road has since been drastically improved to create a sensational – but also safe – coastal drive featuring thrilling views around every bend.

Venturing off the highway into the Otway Ranges that sit behind the coast brings everything from stretches of jungle-like terrain, redwood forests and waterfalls to open roads, farmland and clusters of independent food producers.

A U S T R A L I A

T H E G R E A T O C E A N R O A D

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Eating and drinking underpins any great road trip, and on the country roads of the Corangamite hinterland, behind the towering 12 Apostles rocks and the coastal town of Port Campbell, lies a collection of artisan food and drinks businesses. All offer tastings and samples, and are perfect places to pick up some locally-made supplies for the road.

F O O D & B O O Z E

N e w t o n ’s R i d g e W i n e r yHusband and wife duo David and Carla Falk tend the vineyard and make the wine themselves (the winery is set within the vineyard). The pair produce a range of white

and red wines, plus a sparkling and a rosé. The Pinot Noir and Chardonnay are particularly good. It’s just $5 (£3) to sample them all, but free if any purchase is made.

G o r g e C h o c o l a t e sAlthough the cocoa beans are imported (the crop doesn’t grow well in Australia) Gorge chocolates are freshly tempered every day, often to include fruits and jellies. From the corner of a working farm shed, owners Mel and Jason also serve up fresh coffee and hot chocolate.

T i m b o o n D i s t i l l e r y Small batch whisky made in the onsite still. As well as whisky, the distillery produces apple liqueur, strawberry schnapps, limoncello and vanilla vodka. The alcoholcan be soaked up in the restaurant, with a final flourish of a couple of scoops of Timboon ice cream (also made on site), before hitting the road.

A p o s t l e W h e y C h e e s eL’Lubatol farm, owned by the Benson family, is occupied by more than 250 cows. While much of their milk is sold to large cheese producers, 5% is processed on site to create a

selection of 12 fresh, soft and semi-hard cheeses – one for each apostle. The shop is open for tastings every day of the year, apart from Christmas.

O F F T H E O C E A N R O A D

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A R O U N D T H E W O R L D

T H R E E O F T H E B E S T T R I P S

L A K E S A N D M O U N T A I N SS W I T Z E R L A N D & I T A L Y

R O A D S O F R A J A S T H A NI N D I A

W I L D A T L A N T I C W AYI R E L A N D

Battered and beaten by the ocean, Ireland’s craggy west coast is sprinkled with lonesome lighthouses and seabirds, time-trapped villages and crumbling castles. From Donegal to Cork, it’s a week-long journey wiggling around mighty cliffs and gloomy peat bogs, taking in sleepy loughs and frothy harbours. County Mayo’s windy beaches are great for surf, while Galway’s known for its seafood. Further south, the Dingle peninsula is gobsmackingly green, with colourful fishing boats and dolphins sploshing about offshore. Watching the sunset over the sea from a campervan is fairly unforgettable, while for those who prefer a proper bed, there are, unsurprisingly, plenty of pubs to spend the night in.

Just a 13-hour drive without stops, this cross- country route can easily be strung out across five days. Setting off from Zurich, the road sweeps past chocolate-box houses and quaint churches before climbing up into the Alps, via the Klausen Pass, followed by the original Alpine resort town, St Moritz. In summer, there’s often still snow firmly bedded in to the tallest peaks, while wild flowers sprout from the slopes. Once in Italy, it’s possible to circuit all 100 miles of Lake Como’s shore, eyeing up its luxury villas and terracotta- roofed towns. Lake Iseo, to the east, is smaller and less touristy. The route creeps around Lake Garda, the largest Italian lake, before reaching red-bricked Verona, the final stop.

Tucked beneath Pakistan, Rajasthan is India’s largest state, famous for its delicately carved palaces and stern clifftop forts. Starting in Jaipur, ‘the pink city', this trip dips down to the Ranthambore Tiger Reserve. It then heads east to Jodhpur, ‘the blue city’, and Jaisalmer, ‘the golden city’, dotted with medieval Jain temples and ancient libraries. Dhabas (roadside restaurants) lining the highways make for tasty lunch stops, while there are boutique hotels in everything from tents to castles en-route. The final stop, lakeside Udaipur, is surrounded by lush hills and sculpted gardens. Driving isn’t exactly a picnic – roads can be narrow, and surfaces vary – but it makes for a thrilling week or two.

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WORKSPACE

London Cloth CompanyIt’s the middle of winter and Daniel Harris, owner of London’s only micro textile mill, is shivering in his workshop, an ice cold ex-army barrack. The gas has run out. He’s surrounded by traditional looms, which his cat ‘Flo Rida’ is clambering across.

His equipment has mostly been acquired by plundering disused cloth factories across the country. It all started when Harris saved a rusty loom from salvage in Wales. He’s carried on collecting and restoring machines ever since; there are currently 41 tons of hardware at the mill.

Self taught, Harris creates fabrics for the likes of Daks and Ralph Lauren, and more off-the-wall products like tweed dog coats.

In 2014, Harris moved from his workshop in Hackney to this mill in Epping for more space and cheaper rent. The vast space might be freezing, but the environment is peaceful. ‘We look out onto a field with absolutely nothing in it,’ Harris says.

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