September 16, 2025 • 31 mins
In this inspiring episode of 'Raise Your Visibility Online,' LinkedIn expert and CEO Louise Brogan sits down with Lou Doyle, co-founder and CEO of Needi, a revolutionary corporate gifting concierge service that's transforming how businesses connect.
Lou shares her remarkable entrepreneurial journey - from her early days in recruitment and traveling the world, to launching a cutting-edge tech company that blends psychology and AI to create meaningful corporate connections. Discover how she's tackling corporate waste while supporting local businesses through innovative gifting solutions.
This episode is packed with actionable insights for business owners, industry experts, and aspiring entrepreneurs looking to leverage technology, build meaningful connections, and create sustainable business models that make a real impact.
What You'll Learn
- How to transition from traditional industries to tech entrepreneurship
- The psychology behind effective corporate gifting strategies
- Building algorithms that create genuine human connections
- Strategies for reducing waste while growing your business
- How to leverage local partnerships for global impact
- The importance of making recipients feel truly valued
- Practical steps for building a tech-driven business from scratch
- Corporate gifting tactics that actually work for large organisations
Key Takeaways
- The Power of Connection: Learn why meaningful gifts foster stronger business relationships than generic corporate swag
- Tech Meets Psychology: Discover how AI algorithms can be designed to understand human preferences and create personalized experiences
- Sustainable Business Models: See how reducing waste and supporting local businesses can be profitable growth strategies
- Entrepreneurial Mindset: Understand the journey from employee to CEO and the mindset shifts required for success
About Our Guest
Lou Doyle is the co-founder and CEO of Needi, a corporate gifting concierge service that's revolutionising how companies show appreciation and build connections. With a background in recruitment and a passion for technology and data, Lou has created an innovative platform that combines psychology with AI to deliver meaningful gifting experiences while supporting sustainability and local businesses.
Episode Timestamps
- 00:00 Introduction to Raise Your Visibility Online
- 00:52 Meet Lou Doyle: Entrepreneur and Mom
- 04:16 The Journey to Entrepreneurship
- 06:39 The Birth of Needi: A Gifting Company
- 13:27 Building a Tech-Driven Business
- 16:32 Passion for Tech and Data
- 17:10 The Power of Connection
- 19:48 Building Needi from Scratch
- 22:55 Corporate Gifting Strategies
- 28:53 Future Growth and Global Expansion
- 30:43 How to Connect with Needi
Connect with Lou Doyle & Needi
louise@needi.co.uk
www.needi.co.uk
https://www.linkedin.com/in/louiseneedi/
About the Host
Louise Brogan is a LinkedIn expert, CEO, and host of 'Raise Your Visibility Online.' She helps business owners, industry experts, and entrepreneurs elevate their online presence and grow their ventures through strategic visibility and networking.
Perfect For
- Business owners looking to improve corporate relationships
- Entrepreneurs interested in tech startups
- Industry experts seeking innovative connection strategies
- Anyone wanting to build a more sustainable business...
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome to Raise Your Visibility online.
Join Louise Brogan, a LinkedIn expert,CEO, and Dynamic Mom turned YouTuber
as she dives into the world of B2Bcompanies and entrepreneurial success.
Each episode brings conversations withbusiness owners and industry experts
who leverage LinkedIn and video toattract leads and scale their ventures.
(00:25):
Get ready for actionable insights,real world strategies and inspiring
stories that will elevate your onlinepresence and help you grow your business.
hello and welcome to today'sepisode of Raise Your Visibility
Online with me, Louise Brogan.
(00:45):
And we have another Louise today whoI'm going to try really hard to call
her by her correct name because hername is actually Lou and not Louise.
So Lou Doyle, welcome to the podcast.
Oh, thank you so much, Louise.
Lovely to be here.
Thank you.
So what we're going to talk about todayis I'm just a very naturally nosy person,
and I like to find out all about peopleand businesses and how they got to where
(01:08):
they are and bumps along the way and allthat stuff because for people listening.
For our listener, hi listener.
They are, they couldbe in a similar space.
They may be thinking of leavingcorporate and starting a business.
They may be retired from business,but what they have in common is
they like to hear real life stories.
(01:29):
And that's really whatour podcast is about.
So all that in mind, Lou, can youdo a little bit of an introduction
and tell us who you are and whatyour business is, and then I'm
going to get into the nitty gritty.
Lovely.
Looking forward to it.
So yes, thank you very much.
Who am I?
Big question, Louise.
Um, so yeah, I'm Lou, I'm co-founder andCEO of needy, but I am also mom of three.
(01:57):
I have 2-year-old twins.
I have a 7-year-old, soon to be eight, andI live in the middle of the countryside.
Um, in between Monaghan and Amar.
Um, that's a little bit about who I am.
Um, and needy is our, gosh, it's ourcorporate gifting concierge baby.
(02:19):
So we basically match the perfectgifts and brand of merchandise
to your recipients from the bestlocal and independent businesses.
And we do that using psychology,but it's also powered by AI as well.
Oh, nice.
And one of our.
Things that we, I suppose one of the,the things that we really, really focus
(02:41):
on is making sure that every gift that'sgiven in any capacity actually makes a
difference, is what that person wantsand needs, does not go to landfill
and supports independent businesses.
Oh, I love that.
So, just to, so we have listenersfrom all around the world, so for.
Those who don't know where MonHunt and arm at are, they're
(03:03):
kind of in the center of Ireland.
Everybody, the bordershere and I'm right there.
Okay, so I love this.
Now I forgot that you had twins actually.
'Cause I'm a mom of three,but mine are 15, 17, and 19.
So we are at the other end.
So, 2-year-old twins running a business.
That must be interesting.
It's like since they turned two, they kindof got the memo to be absolutely nuts.
(03:29):
Until two, I would, I would've been like,yeah, I've taken it all in my stride.
It is fine.
They literally turned to at theend of June and just started
running in different directionsand dumping things simultaneously.
We got this, I remember, so my three,'cause they're all two years apart.
I remember the whole thingabout having three children is
that you've only got two hands.
(03:50):
So I worked out how to holdtwo children with one hand.
Which, you know, other momsof three are going yeah.
I totally know how to do that.
And everyone else in theworld is going, what?
How, what?
How does that work?
Sick.
I'm still, even though they'requite big, I can do one twin under
each arm, but I'm very lucky 'causeI've got the 7-year-old as well,
who's a great extra pair of pants.
(04:10):
Excellent.
That's lovely.
Okay, so let's talk about business, Lou.
How in the world did you endup start starting a business?
Where did this.
You know, what did you do before?
Did you work before?
Did, before you started yourbusiness, what was your, did you
have a career path before that?
Tell us a little bit about that, please.
(04:30):
Yes, absolutely.
And I think I need to start by sayingI absolutely have no intention of
being an entrepreneur or startinga business or anything like that.
Um.
I've always really enjoyedworking and working for companies.
I started out, um, in recruitment andwas started doing temporary recruitment.
By the time I was about 19, I thinkI might have had about 130 temps that
(04:55):
I was looking after on my temp desk.
Wow.
And I, yeah, absolutely loved that.
Yeah.
Um, I used some of the money that I earnedfrom that to then go and travel the world.
Um, and did some solo travel allover the world, which I loved.
And then managed to come back and land mydream job, which was working for a travel
company that was also a social enterprise.
(05:17):
Ooh.
And my job was basically takingstudents out to Africa, Asia, south
America, checking through jungles,counting like the rivers and.
Yeah, it was, it was apretty cool and intense job.
Yeah.
So all of this to say as I wasworking at that business, I basically
helped to grow their revenue fromabout 5 million to 15 million.
(05:43):
And I did that on a shoestring budget.
'cause they're a social enterprise.
Yes.
And I did that as well, havingmet my now co-founder Steph.
So I was the global sales directorfor the group of travel companies.
Okay.
Step was my UK sales managerthere, and together I just felt
we were really unstoppable and Ibelieve we're unstoppable because
(06:03):
we really cared about people.
Every single, you know, person that workedon our team, every single client that
went out to country, we would try and makesure they felt really seen and valued.
And the way that we did that wasquite often by sending them a
little gift, usually out of ourown money and in our own time.
Mm-hmm.
We go on, not on the High Street, Etsy.
(06:24):
Amazon, we'd find something that wasmeaningful, try and get it sent with a
gift note and wrapped, and it was actuallyreally hard to get stuff that arrived
on time and meaningful and they didn'thave products and all that kind of stuff.
Yeah.
So the idea for needy was formed?
Yes.
So I'm a person who likes to send gifts.
(06:46):
So you're, you're speaking to me here.
So I have worked, I have workedwith clients and team members
really I suppose across the uk,Ireland, and, and North America.
And we used to do a thing wherewhen somebody came on board for
partic, not, not the retainer packagethat we have now, but an old, a
different format of work that wedid, I would always send them a gift.
(07:08):
And you're right.
It was so tricky.
And when you went online to buy a giftfor somebody in America, particularly
you, the cost of what you werebuying and then what they received
just did not seem to correlate.
I'd be like, I spent like, like 50pounds, which is about $75, I guess, or
(07:29):
$70 on that, and it looks like nothing.
And it was really tricky.
So, and a friend of mine inAmerica, what she would do.
Is every now and again, she wouldjust send everybody a Starbucks gift
card and she would send them to meand I'd be like, that's really lovely
and kind, but I can't use that here.
Yes, you literally, you've summarizedso many of the problems that, that
(07:52):
we're solving and actually one ofthe biggest things as well about what
you're saying there is that I thinkagain, it's, it is where the passion
came from, from setting up needy.
A good gift well received is incredible.
In fact, it's transformative.
It connects that relationship.
It's meaningful, it's memorable.
It's brilliant.
A bad gift either shows that youhaven't thought about it enough,
(08:14):
you haven't thought of them highlyenough, or that you don't know
them well enough to actually do it.
So it can actually be a bad gift.
It can actually be more detrimentalthan giving no gift at all sometimes.
So, yeah.
And what and what you, when yousaid about landfill earlier, I'm
immediately thinking about, do youknow when you go to conferences.
Oh yeah.
And, and networking events.
And they give everybody a plastic waterbottle with their brand logo on it.
(08:39):
And I'm like, oh.
Sometimes I, I have to say Ihave received an American Express
water bottle, which is very nice.
It looks nice.
Yeah.
And it doesn't leak.
And it has stayed in our house
a lot of the time.
You know?
And even like my son is away to an openuniver, to a university open day today.
(09:00):
And I just know there's gonna be taps.
It's gonna come home, it's gonna sit.
'cause I have a child already atuniversity sweeping through this.
It's gonna come home.
It's gonna sit in their room for threemonths and then I'm gonna get frustrated
and go, right, everything, let's tearthis room, let's tidy this room out.
All this junk here.
It, it's gonna go into,hopefully into recycling.
(09:23):
Yeah.
Um, but yeah, what a waste.
So I love that you said we tryand, you know, we don't want
anything to end up in landfill.
I love that.
Love that concept.
That's the idea and is I think, you know,one of the things that you just addressed
there, again, a really important topic.
You know, people know that brandawareness is so important, right?
The good thing about those waterbottles and, and the stuff is
(09:43):
that it's got the brand on it.
I think it's 66% of peoplecan recall a brand one year
after receiving a branded gift.
So we know that that's really good.
Yes, but that jumps up massivelyif it's a gift that they use every
day, if it's a gift that's practicalthat they actually want and need.
Whereas you're right, if it's onethat's just gonna get stuck at the
back of the bedroom and not, not pulledout again until you clear it out.
(10:05):
Then that's completely pointless.
Like I'm looking around my desk hereand I actually have, I'm going to show
you, that's gonna take a little bit offoot ring about, which, we'll probably
we'll edit this by the podcast becauseI'm literally removing all my crystals.
But I got sent and people, you need to goto YouTube guys and have a look at this.
(10:26):
I was sent this beautifulceramic plate Oh lovely.
That says CEO on it.
And that was sent to meby my American coach.
How meaningful, possiblyduring the pandemic or before.
And I love it because and some other,some of the other women in that program
have it up on the wall behind them.
(10:47):
But mine sits here and I have itcovered in all my little crystals.
'cause I like crystals.
And it's just something thatI, it's, it's beautiful.
It tells me that I'm aCEO in my own business.
So it's very you know,it's a bit boring really.
And I just love it.
And when I look at it, when I lookat it, I think of her, even though
we don't work together anymore.
So exactly what you were saying, Louise.
(11:10):
She did it.
She did Well.
That was a good gift match.
She did well.
Well, I, I know for afact it was her amazing.
It was her amazing assistant that did it.
That assistant are one of thetop people that we work with.
I was about to say that actually.
Yeah.
Assistants.
Yeah, assistants.
Heads of people, marketing managers.
(11:31):
Yeah.
But you're right, executiveassistants tend to be the ones that
are Yeah, we work very closely.
So let's talk about your business then,because I will, I have so many questions.
I want to know how old business is.
How did you actually get started?
Mm-hmm.
And what has the growthof the business been like?
So let's start with when, the two ofyou worked together you and Steph,
(11:51):
and you can see that, you know,you, you really, you connected.
How did you decide to thenactually start a business?
Um, when was that?
Yeah.
Don't tell me it was whenyou just gave birth to twins.
We might have to put youon a wall with a plaque.
No, that was a lovely surprise.
(12:12):
A little bit later on.
Yes.
Okay.
Just a little bit.
The birth of your business then.
Okay.
So how did we decide is what Idistinctly remember the chat that we had.
'cause it was on Bournemouth Beach.
On a lovely summer's daywith a glass of wine.
I distinctly remember that.
Um, and we, I think we'vegot to the stage, I think
(12:33):
where we'd grown the company.
We could see finallywhat we were capable of.
And we wanted to do more.
We wanted to connect more people.
We knew that there was something about usworking together and our ability to really
make people feel seen and valued that we.
Couldn't go any further inthe company that we were in.
And we thought, you know what?
(12:55):
Together, this is something, theworld is literally our oyster.
But we were also really awarethat once we've come up with the
idea about a gifting company anddoing all of these connections.
We also knew there was gonnabe a huge technical focus.
We knew that we would be able todistill that psychology kind of
information that we had gottenresearch about what makes the perfect
gift, what makes people feel seen.
(13:16):
And we wanted to create a gift matchingalgorithm and use technology to do this.
Mm-hmm.
And this was all before chapter g, bt,and all the big AI rush and everything.
So, oh go.
So four years ago we launchedour website and literally.
We knew that because we werebasically building a tech company
without any prior tech experience.
(13:38):
We thought, gosh, well we needto get some support, don't we?
So the first thing we did was weregistered onto, we researched all
the different accelerators thatyou could do, and we found the
founder institute tech accelerator.
Okay.
It's a Silicon Valley backedAmerican kind of enterprise.
Um, and we actually started doing that.
(14:00):
And oh my gosh, Louise.
It was like a cross between likedragons den SAS boot camp with like
an MBA, like it was so intense.
Oh Lord.
Um, and at the time I had a, yeah, two,two, 3-year-old Ella, like she was, you
know, demanding a lot of time anyway.
And we completed it andwe didn't compete it.
We actually came out as the topranked, um, startup from the, which
(14:24):
was incredible 'cause we were oneof the few non-technical founders.
And then that just really supercharged us.
Mm-hmm.
We, you know, we kind of knew thesteps that we wanted to do to, to run a
business, but having not done it ourselvesin that way, this accelerator basically
made sure that we cut no corners.
You know, we did all our marketresearch, we made sure we registered
(14:46):
everything properly, like we tickedevery single box we needed to do.
And with it being, like I say, theSilicon Valley backed accelerator,
the network that it opened usup to, to start for investing.
Yeah, it was fantastic.
But more than anything, it was actually,we felt like we're both very driven,
ambitious, passionate people, and we feltthat it really matched that energy for us.
(15:09):
So it pushed us further.
You know, we, we always find Steph and Iin the room are usually the ones that will
jump in head first and go for it anyway.
And to be backed by an acceleratorthat truly like wanted to accelerate
us at the pace that we wanted to.
That was fantastic.
So talk to me about the tech back.
Do either of you have a tech background?
What, what, how did you have theintelligence, Louise or Lou, how did
(15:31):
you have the wherewithal or foresightto think we're gonna start a company,
it's gonna be a gift company, but we'regoing to use, we're gonna use tech here.
Yeah.
Because we always, we're always awarethat when you really look into the
psychology behind gifting and connection,which we have deeply and we've involved
some incredible professors of psychologyinto it that I could speak to for hours
(15:53):
about altruism and, and how it all works.
It comes down to specific factorslike it's a maths equation ultimately.
Yeah, as soon as you really get behind itand you understand what connection means
and what the factors are, then to me itjust really easily lents itself to, well,
if you can distill all that information,you collect the data, then of course an
(16:14):
algorithm can be built to make that work.
So I think we just knew it was possible.
Um, we of course then did a lotof research and spoke to some
fantastic experience, you know,CTOs, CIOs to kind of double check.
Yeah.
And it became really apparentthat actually it was.
Yeah, a really achievable task.
Yeah.
It's, I mean, it's a tech company really.
(16:34):
I ask all the, I askthis because I love it.
I love tech.
I did a master's in computing.
I love data science, like I did a blogpost yesterday and when I write something
that is backed up with data and numbersand facts, then people are like, oh, okay.
Let's pay more attention toyou, Louise, than the other
person talking about LinkedIn.
Because you're actually usingdata and not everybody likes
(16:56):
that, but I really like it.
And my children are all scientists.
You know, they're doing physicsand chemistry and they're all so
obviously, you know, it's obviouslyin the blood in our family, so
that's why I'm asking about this.
I love that.
But did you have, like, was that your,because the traveling, the recruitment
and the traveling company, like did youalways have a passion for tech or people.
(17:21):
Always people.
That's a connection.
I actually, I did an interviewrecently where we really sort of
delved into kind of the crux of it,I suppose, of where needy comes from.
And I, if I'm really, really honest aboutit, I think that, you know, as a, as.
As a young child, I actually,I lost my mum very early.
Um, and which is why I endedup working 'cause I was
(17:41):
actually trying to work early.
I had to leave university so that Icould help look after her and earn money.
Right.
And I think when you lose somebody,it wasn't, wasn't just over a course
of a few years, I lost a few peoplein, in quite quick succession.
Yeah.
And I think when that happensto you so young, the power of
connection and the importance oftelling somebody how you feel.
(18:05):
And what they mean to youis amplified, isn't it?
In a really big way.
Yes.
And actually, like I say, I think they'relooking back and then working out, you
know, so where did it really come from?
You know?
Yeah.
Everything that I did, I lovetravel, but it wasn't necessarily
to see the places it was to meetthe different people in the places.
Yeah.
You know, I love taking groups ofstudents out on these expeditions
(18:27):
'cause it was transformative for them.
Mm-hmm.
Same with recruitment.
I was, I loved it, you know, I was findingpeople their perfect careers and whatever.
Now we look at media.
It does.
It makes complete sense.
But we're running a companythat we really believe is making
people feel truly appreciated.
Connecting together and allowing peoplethat maybe aren't great with words
(18:47):
or don't always say, I value you.
I appreciate you maybeas much as they should.
We're almost like a conduit that allowsthem to do that as well to people on that.
That's lovely.
That's so lovely.
It's really interesting themore people you talk to.
And I my podcast iscoming up on 300 episodes.
Wow.
So I've talked to a lot of people and thecommon threads, the flow between us all.
(19:12):
So I, I start my business aftermy dad passed away and I, I'm not
sure that I would've started abusiness if that hadn't happened.
So there's always this,there's always something.
In the background that behind it all,as you say, it's more to do with you and
the person, that person that you are.
Whereas I wonder, you know, it'sinteresting because I wonder are
men built slightly differently?
(19:33):
Like, I, I mean a lot of women whohave done things in their lives
because things have happened.
Yeah.
And that's how they've reacted to them.
And I think it's maybe it makesus a little bit different.
Yeah.
Really interesting thought.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So talk to me about becauseit's huge, not needy, isn't it?
(19:55):
How did you grow it?
How did you grow it?
How did we grow?
Oh my God.
My pure sheer grip determination.
Oh, me instead, absolutely.
Laugh about it like crossing thatawkward line time and time again like.
At the beginning it was genuinely,oh God, it was so awkward, Louise.
Like at the beginning, I feel like wewere literally going out to everybody
(20:16):
we'd ever met or known in our livesand saying, please buy a gift from me.
Because we started off actually asa D two C brand, we actually thought
with the whole gift matching, youknow, being, we thought, well,
actually let's go straight to D two C.
Anyone that wants to buy a giftanswers these questions, and then.
I think that's how, 'cause I haveknown of your company for a long time.
(20:38):
I think that maybe that'swhere I had seen it originally.
And I know it's, I know it's acorporate gifting company now, but
originally I might have been in thatwhole, that whole little initial space.
So that's where you started?
Yeah.
Everybody listen to both of us whenyou are building your business.
Absolutely go cap in hand to allof your friends and family and
(21:01):
say please support me on this.
I mean, I have 110,000 subscribers onYouTube, but you can bet your backside
that I started by asking, beggingeverybody I knew that I was related
to please subscribe to this channel.
I don't care if you don't want to knowabout LinkedIn, just subscribe anyway.
But then do you not remember becauseI, me and Steph remember it distinctly
(21:22):
the first time that somebody boughtsomething of us that we didn't know, we
were like, check the email address, checkit with our friends, check our WhatsApp.
Is this your cousin Mary?
Are they Yeah, they're literally tryingto like stalk the person to work out who
they were, who possibly bought from us.
Anyway, long story short.
Really expensive to get customers, right.
(21:44):
Customer acquisition across inthat they've increased by over
60% in the last few years alone.
So D two Ction like crazy.
We quickly realized that actuallybusinesses had a need to buy
in bulk because they wanted tomake their staff feel valued.
And it was really in line with how wefelt as well when we'd been growing
teams that we really resonated.
Yes.
Um, we then very quickly thought itwas SMEs and then we actually realized
(22:08):
SMEs, you still can, as a small tomedium sized business, you can still
connect fairly well with your staff.
So we would, we're a good helperfor small to medium sized companies.
Mm.
But where we are really starting tomake a difference and where we have
seen that huge growth, it's the bigcorporate that actually struggling
the most with the connection withtheir staff and with their clients.
(22:28):
So we have basically grown bygoing D to C, small to medium, so
companies bigger, ones corporates.
And we have managed to do anamazing combination basically, of
using our real human and personaltouch with these large corporates.
But also using these amazingindependent businesses that send
(22:51):
gifts and messages that are incrediblythoughtful on maths as well.
So let's talk about whatthis looks like in real life.
So who is, give me, um, an exampleof an ideal customer who signs up
in the corporate space, and thenlet's talk about the businesses
that are supplying the goods.
So let's start with the,who's the ideal customer?
Who, okay.
(23:11):
Right.
Well, let's start with, we'll talkabout what one of our, one of our
customers we have at the moment.
So they are, um, one of the world'sleading logistics companies.
They have over 15,000 drivers justin the UK and more everywhere else.
Wow.
The way they signed up to us wasthey wanted to help with their
Christmas gifting, first of all.
Um, they had tried everything fromVirgin experience days to other things
(23:35):
all over, over the years, and nothinghad quite hit the mark basically.
And they came to us.
We basically designed what we call a FIexperience for them, where we used a what?
Fi bear with me.
And digital.
So we've got one local independentbusiness who created these sustainable
(23:55):
bubble balls that were beautifullybranded with the company's logo
that was delivered to the driver.
They opened it and inside there wasa handmade truffles and a QR code.
The QR code into a platform wherethey could select one of 20 curated
gifts for them that they could choosethemselves so that whatever it was,
they're gonna be happy with it basically.
(24:15):
Oh, I love it.
And I know this doesn't soundlike a huge kind of metric, but
we are really proud first year.
They've never received a complaintabout some of the Christmas presents.
So I just think, you know, is the platformthen the, so the driver gets the bobble
and opens it up and they get the QRcode and they go off to the platform.
(24:36):
Is the platform your platform then?
Yeah, our platform.
But from their point of view,it looks like it's the company.
So when they go on the platform, they havea video of the CEO of the company saying
Merry Christmas, making it really personaland everything's all branded like that.
Oh, I love it.
Yes.
Fabulous.
One size doesn't fit allin making it personal.
(24:56):
Yeah.
And then yes, but they're not going to,they're not going to a random Etsy site.
They're going to the company branded site.
Yeah.
That you've set up.
That's it.
And then we make sure everything'sdelivered seamlessly to all
of them once they select it.
That's brilliant.
So I think that's one really good example.
Another would be one of, again,like a world leading finance company
(25:18):
that we work with that deals withs and thousands of complaints.
And of course, like you'd imagine forthe size they are, and we basically
make sure that instead of them beinggeneric kind of gifts that get sent
out, we actually really tap into kindof what the issues are they're facing.
Do some really lovely personal touchesand make sure that those people are
(25:40):
receiving really beautiful giftsthat allow the NPS score to increase
and connect those people back.
In fact, one of the things we talkabout is turning complaints into
compliments, and that's somethingthat we try and do with them.
I love it.
And then the person who'smaking the gift Yeah.
Are they, talk to me about them.
(26:01):
Did you say they're, they'resmall business owner,
independent business owners?
It's, we've got a real,we've got a real array.
We've got about 300 odd independentbusinesses that we work with, and some
of these range from one woman bandsor one man bands to, small companies.
We've got some, because we do a lot ofbranded merchandise as well, that are
growing a bit bigger and help us moresort the wholesale side of things as well.
(26:24):
Yeah.
But our dream for needy has alwaysbeen in the future, when we have enough
onboarded, we'd love to get to the stagewhere everybody's able to support locals.
So if you are buying a gift for somebodywho lives in Manchester, we would try
and produce that carbon footprint andsupport a local Manchester business.
And saying for everywhere you go.
So at the moment we manage to dothat for a lot of our clients.
(26:46):
And there are some clients that arereally specific, like we've got some
fabulous, fabulous merchants around theBelfast area that use some of our Belfast
clients and that works brilliantly.
Mm-hmm.
And over time, as you grow andhopefully kind of keep that Yeah.
Real local feel.
I love that.
So I need to, I dunno if you'realready connected with Michelle
Ovens of Small Business Britain.
If you're not Lou, we needto connect you with her.
(27:07):
Yes, please.
Um, because she literally isconnected to thousands of small
businesses across Britain.
That would be lovely.
Yes.
So we'll have to hook you up with her.
Oh, that's so fabulous.
I love it.
And if they're ever looking for, um,you know, you never know, they might
be looking for one of those 20 options.
Could be to get theirLinkedIn profiles written.
You know, you can add me to the list.
(27:29):
Business coaching.
On a genuine note, we have,again, a big financial company.
They wanted, um, we.
Money, basically thanking all ofthe, their merchants that use them as
their, as the financial card provider.
And because all of that, most of themwere small business owners themselves.
The gift that they gave each ofthem was a choice of three different
(27:51):
types of business coaching.
So hat in their ring for that Then, soI'm just saying like, yeah, absolutely.
We, we love that.
That's exactly the sort of gift, youknow, we, we love, again, we're trying
to stop gifts from going to landfillgifts that people want and need.
So things like, yeah, LinkedIncoaching, business coaching,
that kind of stuff is perfect.
Yeah.
But I'm thinking, so during thepandemic, so I've had my own business
for 10 years, but my husband worksin corporate space and I remember in
(28:15):
the pandemic that he got sent a boxof 12 bottles of wine or something.
And you know, that was wonderfulfor us because we like wine.
But I did think they sentthat to the entire company.
There might be householdswhere they don't.
A lot alcohol or there could be highschools where, there's one person
that drinks and they drink gin.
(28:35):
It's just it could be really wasted.
Uh, so I, I much prepare.
Your model sounds wonderful.
It just goes back to what we saidat the beginning, Louise, isn't it?
So sometimes that a bad gift cando more damage sometimes yes.
It, and that's really sad when you spentthat money on it as well, and you just
think it, it shouldn't be that way.
Yeah, no, it shouldn't.
So what's the futurelooking like for you guys?
(28:55):
Like are you, are you global already?
I'm sure you are.
Do some Some of our, yeah, someof our business, I mean, we've
just celebrated at the moment.
I think we've just generated just over3 million pounds in revenue for these
independent businesses that we work with.
So we're growing pretty fast.
I think we've gone through about,was it, the previous year was 500 k.
(29:16):
The financial year we've justfinished was 2 million and I
think we're on track there.
Five.
Five or something this year.
Wow.
So, um, when you say what'sthe future look like?
Yeah, it's busy.
Um, yeah.
And some of our businesses that we workwith do already have global offices, so
it's already something that we are alreadydoing some global gifts as well already.
(29:36):
And I think looking, even if we justlook at like our top 20 companies that we
work with at the moment, some of them arespending up to sort of, you know, one to
2 million with us a year moving forward.
And it's about trying to really like.
Our, our dream is with all of thesecompanies try and real harness that
connection between all of their stuff.
How can we embed ourselves within thereso that yes, every single gift or branded
(29:59):
hoodie or whatever it is that they orderis something that is really making an
impact and that's all we want to regrow.
So, and what about, I mean, itcan't just be you and Steph still.
No, God, we we're tired,but not that tired.
Yeah, no.
In a couple of weeks time, Ithink we'll have 11 employees.
Um, oh wow.
So we've got, um, over here, I'vejust got myself, it's our ma.
(30:21):
We've got two Belfast, one Dun, and thenover in the UK we've got the rest of,
yeah, I think the rest of everybody'ssplit over from north to south.
That's fabulous.
Lou, we could talk all day, butI'm not going to keep you because.
You're running an empire.
Yes.
Say that out loud again.
The empire.
The gifting empire.
I love that.
(30:42):
I love it.
So for people listening, wherecan they find out more about you?
And if they're a small businessowner, how can they talk to you
about being one of your suppliers?
And if they are, 'cause wegenuinely have people across
the entire board listen to this.
So maybe there's somebody who isin charge of gifting for their.
Corporate, how do they find you?
(31:03):
What, where do they go?
Where do you want for them to go?
Lovely.
Well, first we'd be pleased to knowmy first one, I would say LinkedIn.
So you'll be able to find me, um,Louise Doyle at Needy, um, on LinkedIn.
That would definitely be the easiest wayto get me directly to message that way.
Um, the website is www.needy.co.uk.
And if you go onto that website andyou're a merchant looking to sell with
(31:25):
us, there is a sell with us section.
It's a really short form, just fill it in.
And then that'll go to ourmerchant onboarding team who will
be in contact about discussinghow we could sell your products.
Well, I'll be going there after this.
And it's N-E-E-D-I, isn't it?
That's it.
Absolutely.
Yes.
I get the right spelling.
Yeah.
Absolutely fascinating listening to just atiny bit of your business journey so far.
(31:50):
Thank you so much for sharingwith us on the podcast.
Thank you for having me.
It's been a pleasure.
Thank you.
Welcome to Raise Your Visibility online.
Join Louise Brogan, a LinkedIn expert,CEO, and Dynamic Mom turned YouTuber
as she dives into the world of B2Bcompanies and entrepreneurial success.
Each episode brings conversations withbusiness owners and industry experts
who leverage LinkedIn and video toattract leads and scale their ventures.
(00:25):
Get ready for actionable insights,real world strategies and inspiring
stories that will elevate your onlinepresence and help you grow your business.
hello and welcome to today'sepisode of Raise Your Visibility
Online with me, Louise Brogan.
(00:45):
And we have another Louise today whoI'm going to try really hard to call
her by her correct name because hername is actually Lou and not Louise.
So Lou Doyle, welcome to the podcast.
Oh, thank you so much, Louise.
Lovely to be here.
Thank you.
So what we're going to talk about todayis I'm just a very naturally nosy person,
and I like to find out all about peopleand businesses and how they got to where
(01:08):
they are and bumps along the way and allthat stuff because for people listening.
For our listener, hi listener.
They are, they couldbe in a similar space.
They may be thinking of leavingcorporate and starting a business.
They may be retired from business,but what they have in common is
they like to hear real life stories.
(01:29):
And that's really whatour podcast is about.
So all that in mind, Lou, can youdo a little bit of an introduction
and tell us who you are and whatyour business is, and then I'm
going to get into the nitty gritty.
Lovely.
Looking forward to it.
So yes, thank you very much.
Who am I?
Big question, Louise.
Um, so yeah, I'm Lou, I'm co-founder andCEO of needy, but I am also mom of three.
(01:57):
I have 2-year-old twins.
I have a 7-year-old, soon to be eight, andI live in the middle of the countryside.
Um, in between Monaghan and Amar.
Um, that's a little bit about who I am.
Um, and needy is our, gosh, it's ourcorporate gifting concierge baby.
(02:19):
So we basically match the perfectgifts and brand of merchandise
to your recipients from the bestlocal and independent businesses.
And we do that using psychology,but it's also powered by AI as well.
Oh, nice.
And one of our.
Things that we, I suppose one of the,the things that we really, really focus
(02:41):
on is making sure that every gift that'sgiven in any capacity actually makes a
difference, is what that person wantsand needs, does not go to landfill
and supports independent businesses.
Oh, I love that.
So, just to, so we have listenersfrom all around the world, so for.
Those who don't know where MonHunt and arm at are, they're
(03:03):
kind of in the center of Ireland.
Everybody, the bordershere and I'm right there.
Okay, so I love this.
Now I forgot that you had twins actually.
'Cause I'm a mom of three,but mine are 15, 17, and 19.
So we are at the other end.
So, 2-year-old twins running a business.
That must be interesting.
It's like since they turned two, they kindof got the memo to be absolutely nuts.
(03:29):
Until two, I would, I would've been like,yeah, I've taken it all in my stride.
It is fine.
They literally turned to at theend of June and just started
running in different directionsand dumping things simultaneously.
We got this, I remember, so my three,'cause they're all two years apart.
I remember the whole thingabout having three children is
that you've only got two hands.
(03:50):
So I worked out how to holdtwo children with one hand.
Which, you know, other momsof three are going yeah.
I totally know how to do that.
And everyone else in theworld is going, what?
How, what?
How does that work?
Sick.
I'm still, even though they'requite big, I can do one twin under
each arm, but I'm very lucky 'causeI've got the 7-year-old as well,
who's a great extra pair of pants.
(04:10):
Excellent.
That's lovely.
Okay, so let's talk about business, Lou.
How in the world did you endup start starting a business?
Where did this.
You know, what did you do before?
Did you work before?
Did, before you started yourbusiness, what was your, did you
have a career path before that?
Tell us a little bit about that, please.
(04:30):
Yes, absolutely.
And I think I need to start by sayingI absolutely have no intention of
being an entrepreneur or startinga business or anything like that.
Um.
I've always really enjoyedworking and working for companies.
I started out, um, in recruitment andwas started doing temporary recruitment.
By the time I was about 19, I thinkI might have had about 130 temps that
(04:55):
I was looking after on my temp desk.
Wow.
And I, yeah, absolutely loved that.
Yeah.
Um, I used some of the money that I earnedfrom that to then go and travel the world.
Um, and did some solo travel allover the world, which I loved.
And then managed to come back and land mydream job, which was working for a travel
company that was also a social enterprise.
(05:17):
Ooh.
And my job was basically takingstudents out to Africa, Asia, south
America, checking through jungles,counting like the rivers and.
Yeah, it was, it was apretty cool and intense job.
Yeah.
So all of this to say as I wasworking at that business, I basically
helped to grow their revenue fromabout 5 million to 15 million.
(05:43):
And I did that on a shoestring budget.
'cause they're a social enterprise.
Yes.
And I did that as well, havingmet my now co-founder Steph.
So I was the global sales directorfor the group of travel companies.
Okay.
Step was my UK sales managerthere, and together I just felt
we were really unstoppable and Ibelieve we're unstoppable because
(06:03):
we really cared about people.
Every single, you know, person that workedon our team, every single client that
went out to country, we would try and makesure they felt really seen and valued.
And the way that we did that wasquite often by sending them a
little gift, usually out of ourown money and in our own time.
Mm-hmm.
We go on, not on the High Street, Etsy.
(06:24):
Amazon, we'd find something that wasmeaningful, try and get it sent with a
gift note and wrapped, and it was actuallyreally hard to get stuff that arrived
on time and meaningful and they didn'thave products and all that kind of stuff.
Yeah.
So the idea for needy was formed?
Yes.
So I'm a person who likes to send gifts.
(06:46):
So you're, you're speaking to me here.
So I have worked, I have workedwith clients and team members
really I suppose across the uk,Ireland, and, and North America.
And we used to do a thing wherewhen somebody came on board for
partic, not, not the retainer packagethat we have now, but an old, a
different format of work that wedid, I would always send them a gift.
(07:08):
And you're right.
It was so tricky.
And when you went online to buy a giftfor somebody in America, particularly
you, the cost of what you werebuying and then what they received
just did not seem to correlate.
I'd be like, I spent like, like 50pounds, which is about $75, I guess, or
(07:29):
$70 on that, and it looks like nothing.
And it was really tricky.
So, and a friend of mine inAmerica, what she would do.
Is every now and again, she wouldjust send everybody a Starbucks gift
card and she would send them to meand I'd be like, that's really lovely
and kind, but I can't use that here.
Yes, you literally, you've summarizedso many of the problems that, that
(07:52):
we're solving and actually one ofthe biggest things as well about what
you're saying there is that I thinkagain, it's, it is where the passion
came from, from setting up needy.
A good gift well received is incredible.
In fact, it's transformative.
It connects that relationship.
It's meaningful, it's memorable.
It's brilliant.
A bad gift either shows that youhaven't thought about it enough,
(08:14):
you haven't thought of them highlyenough, or that you don't know
them well enough to actually do it.
So it can actually be a bad gift.
It can actually be more detrimentalthan giving no gift at all sometimes.
So, yeah.
And what and what you, when yousaid about landfill earlier, I'm
immediately thinking about, do youknow when you go to conferences.
Oh yeah.
And, and networking events.
And they give everybody a plastic waterbottle with their brand logo on it.
(08:39):
And I'm like, oh.
Sometimes I, I have to say Ihave received an American Express
water bottle, which is very nice.
It looks nice.
Yeah.
And it doesn't leak.
And it has stayed in our house
a lot of the time.
You know?
And even like my son is away to an openuniver, to a university open day today.
(09:00):
And I just know there's gonna be taps.
It's gonna come home, it's gonna sit.
'cause I have a child already atuniversity sweeping through this.
It's gonna come home.
It's gonna sit in their room for threemonths and then I'm gonna get frustrated
and go, right, everything, let's tearthis room, let's tidy this room out.
All this junk here.
It, it's gonna go into,hopefully into recycling.
(09:23):
Yeah.
Um, but yeah, what a waste.
So I love that you said we tryand, you know, we don't want
anything to end up in landfill.
I love that.
Love that concept.
That's the idea and is I think, you know,one of the things that you just addressed
there, again, a really important topic.
You know, people know that brandawareness is so important, right?
The good thing about those waterbottles and, and the stuff is
(09:43):
that it's got the brand on it.
I think it's 66% of peoplecan recall a brand one year
after receiving a branded gift.
So we know that that's really good.
Yes, but that jumps up massivelyif it's a gift that they use every
day, if it's a gift that's practicalthat they actually want and need.
Whereas you're right, if it's onethat's just gonna get stuck at the
back of the bedroom and not, not pulledout again until you clear it out.
(10:05):
Then that's completely pointless.
Like I'm looking around my desk hereand I actually have, I'm going to show
you, that's gonna take a little bit offoot ring about, which, we'll probably
we'll edit this by the podcast becauseI'm literally removing all my crystals.
But I got sent and people, you need to goto YouTube guys and have a look at this.
(10:26):
I was sent this beautifulceramic plate Oh lovely.
That says CEO on it.
And that was sent to meby my American coach.
How meaningful, possiblyduring the pandemic or before.
And I love it because and some other,some of the other women in that program
have it up on the wall behind them.
(10:47):
But mine sits here and I have itcovered in all my little crystals.
'cause I like crystals.
And it's just something thatI, it's, it's beautiful.
It tells me that I'm aCEO in my own business.
So it's very you know,it's a bit boring really.
And I just love it.
And when I look at it, when I lookat it, I think of her, even though
we don't work together anymore.
So exactly what you were saying, Louise.
(11:10):
She did it.
She did Well.
That was a good gift match.
She did well.
Well, I, I know for afact it was her amazing.
It was her amazing assistant that did it.
That assistant are one of thetop people that we work with.
I was about to say that actually.
Yeah.
Assistants.
Yeah, assistants.
Heads of people, marketing managers.
(11:31):
Yeah.
But you're right, executiveassistants tend to be the ones that
are Yeah, we work very closely.
So let's talk about your business then,because I will, I have so many questions.
I want to know how old business is.
How did you actually get started?
Mm-hmm.
And what has the growthof the business been like?
So let's start with when, the two ofyou worked together you and Steph,
(11:51):
and you can see that, you know,you, you really, you connected.
How did you decide to thenactually start a business?
Um, when was that?
Yeah.
Don't tell me it was whenyou just gave birth to twins.
We might have to put youon a wall with a plaque.
No, that was a lovely surprise.
(12:12):
A little bit later on.
Yes.
Okay.
Just a little bit.
The birth of your business then.
Okay.
So how did we decide is what Idistinctly remember the chat that we had.
'cause it was on Bournemouth Beach.
On a lovely summer's daywith a glass of wine.
I distinctly remember that.
Um, and we, I think we'vegot to the stage, I think
(12:33):
where we'd grown the company.
We could see finallywhat we were capable of.
And we wanted to do more.
We wanted to connect more people.
We knew that there was something about usworking together and our ability to really
make people feel seen and valued that we.
Couldn't go any further inthe company that we were in.
And we thought, you know what?
(12:55):
Together, this is something, theworld is literally our oyster.
But we were also really awarethat once we've come up with the
idea about a gifting company anddoing all of these connections.
We also knew there was gonnabe a huge technical focus.
We knew that we would be able todistill that psychology kind of
information that we had gottenresearch about what makes the perfect
gift, what makes people feel seen.
(13:16):
And we wanted to create a gift matchingalgorithm and use technology to do this.
Mm-hmm.
And this was all before chapter g, bt,and all the big AI rush and everything.
So, oh go.
So four years ago we launchedour website and literally.
We knew that because we werebasically building a tech company
without any prior tech experience.
(13:38):
We thought, gosh, well we needto get some support, don't we?
So the first thing we did was weregistered onto, we researched all
the different accelerators thatyou could do, and we found the
founder institute tech accelerator.
Okay.
It's a Silicon Valley backedAmerican kind of enterprise.
Um, and we actually started doing that.
(14:00):
And oh my gosh, Louise.
It was like a cross between likedragons den SAS boot camp with like
an MBA, like it was so intense.
Oh Lord.
Um, and at the time I had a, yeah, two,two, 3-year-old Ella, like she was, you
know, demanding a lot of time anyway.
And we completed it andwe didn't compete it.
We actually came out as the topranked, um, startup from the, which
(14:24):
was incredible 'cause we were oneof the few non-technical founders.
And then that just really supercharged us.
Mm-hmm.
We, you know, we kind of knew thesteps that we wanted to do to, to run a
business, but having not done it ourselvesin that way, this accelerator basically
made sure that we cut no corners.
You know, we did all our marketresearch, we made sure we registered
(14:46):
everything properly, like we tickedevery single box we needed to do.
And with it being, like I say, theSilicon Valley backed accelerator,
the network that it opened usup to, to start for investing.
Yeah, it was fantastic.
But more than anything, it was actually,we felt like we're both very driven,
ambitious, passionate people, and we feltthat it really matched that energy for us.
(15:09):
So it pushed us further.
You know, we, we always find Steph and Iin the room are usually the ones that will
jump in head first and go for it anyway.
And to be backed by an acceleratorthat truly like wanted to accelerate
us at the pace that we wanted to.
That was fantastic.
So talk to me about the tech back.
Do either of you have a tech background?
What, what, how did you have theintelligence, Louise or Lou, how did
(15:31):
you have the wherewithal or foresightto think we're gonna start a company,
it's gonna be a gift company, but we'regoing to use, we're gonna use tech here.
Yeah.
Because we always, we're always awarethat when you really look into the
psychology behind gifting and connection,which we have deeply and we've involved
some incredible professors of psychologyinto it that I could speak to for hours
(15:53):
about altruism and, and how it all works.
It comes down to specific factorslike it's a maths equation ultimately.
Yeah, as soon as you really get behind itand you understand what connection means
and what the factors are, then to me itjust really easily lents itself to, well,
if you can distill all that information,you collect the data, then of course an
(16:14):
algorithm can be built to make that work.
So I think we just knew it was possible.
Um, we of course then did a lotof research and spoke to some
fantastic experience, you know,CTOs, CIOs to kind of double check.
Yeah.
And it became really apparentthat actually it was.
Yeah, a really achievable task.
Yeah.
It's, I mean, it's a tech company really.
(16:34):
I ask all the, I askthis because I love it.
I love tech.
I did a master's in computing.
I love data science, like I did a blogpost yesterday and when I write something
that is backed up with data and numbersand facts, then people are like, oh, okay.
Let's pay more attention toyou, Louise, than the other
person talking about LinkedIn.
Because you're actually usingdata and not everybody likes
(16:56):
that, but I really like it.
And my children are all scientists.
You know, they're doing physicsand chemistry and they're all so
obviously, you know, it's obviouslyin the blood in our family, so
that's why I'm asking about this.
I love that.
But did you have, like, was that your,because the traveling, the recruitment
and the traveling company, like did youalways have a passion for tech or people.
(17:21):
Always people.
That's a connection.
I actually, I did an interviewrecently where we really sort of
delved into kind of the crux of it,I suppose, of where needy comes from.
And I, if I'm really, really honest aboutit, I think that, you know, as a, as.
As a young child, I actually,I lost my mum very early.
Um, and which is why I endedup working 'cause I was
(17:41):
actually trying to work early.
I had to leave university so that Icould help look after her and earn money.
Right.
And I think when you lose somebody,it wasn't, wasn't just over a course
of a few years, I lost a few peoplein, in quite quick succession.
Yeah.
And I think when that happensto you so young, the power of
connection and the importance oftelling somebody how you feel.
(18:05):
And what they mean to youis amplified, isn't it?
In a really big way.
Yes.
And actually, like I say, I think they'relooking back and then working out, you
know, so where did it really come from?
You know?
Yeah.
Everything that I did, I lovetravel, but it wasn't necessarily
to see the places it was to meetthe different people in the places.
Yeah.
You know, I love taking groups ofstudents out on these expeditions
(18:27):
'cause it was transformative for them.
Mm-hmm.
Same with recruitment.
I was, I loved it, you know, I was findingpeople their perfect careers and whatever.
Now we look at media.
It does.
It makes complete sense.
But we're running a companythat we really believe is making
people feel truly appreciated.
Connecting together and allowing peoplethat maybe aren't great with words
(18:47):
or don't always say, I value you.
I appreciate you maybeas much as they should.
We're almost like a conduit that allowsthem to do that as well to people on that.
That's lovely.
That's so lovely.
It's really interesting themore people you talk to.
And I my podcast iscoming up on 300 episodes.
Wow.
So I've talked to a lot of people and thecommon threads, the flow between us all.
(19:12):
So I, I start my business aftermy dad passed away and I, I'm not
sure that I would've started abusiness if that hadn't happened.
So there's always this,there's always something.
In the background that behind it all,as you say, it's more to do with you and
the person, that person that you are.
Whereas I wonder, you know, it'sinteresting because I wonder are
men built slightly differently?
(19:33):
Like, I, I mean a lot of women whohave done things in their lives
because things have happened.
Yeah.
And that's how they've reacted to them.
And I think it's maybe it makesus a little bit different.
Yeah.
Really interesting thought.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So talk to me about becauseit's huge, not needy, isn't it?
(19:55):
How did you grow it?
How did you grow it?
How did we grow?
Oh my God.
My pure sheer grip determination.
Oh, me instead, absolutely.
Laugh about it like crossing thatawkward line time and time again like.
At the beginning it was genuinely,oh God, it was so awkward, Louise.
Like at the beginning, I feel like wewere literally going out to everybody
(20:16):
we'd ever met or known in our livesand saying, please buy a gift from me.
Because we started off actually asa D two C brand, we actually thought
with the whole gift matching, youknow, being, we thought, well,
actually let's go straight to D two C.
Anyone that wants to buy a giftanswers these questions, and then.
I think that's how, 'cause I haveknown of your company for a long time.
(20:38):
I think that maybe that'swhere I had seen it originally.
And I know it's, I know it's acorporate gifting company now, but
originally I might have been in thatwhole, that whole little initial space.
So that's where you started?
Yeah.
Everybody listen to both of us whenyou are building your business.
Absolutely go cap in hand to allof your friends and family and
(21:01):
say please support me on this.
I mean, I have 110,000 subscribers onYouTube, but you can bet your backside
that I started by asking, beggingeverybody I knew that I was related
to please subscribe to this channel.
I don't care if you don't want to knowabout LinkedIn, just subscribe anyway.
But then do you not remember becauseI, me and Steph remember it distinctly
(21:22):
the first time that somebody boughtsomething of us that we didn't know, we
were like, check the email address, checkit with our friends, check our WhatsApp.
Is this your cousin Mary?
Are they Yeah, they're literally tryingto like stalk the person to work out who
they were, who possibly bought from us.
Anyway, long story short.
Really expensive to get customers, right.
(21:44):
Customer acquisition across inthat they've increased by over
60% in the last few years alone.
So D two Ction like crazy.
We quickly realized that actuallybusinesses had a need to buy
in bulk because they wanted tomake their staff feel valued.
And it was really in line with how wefelt as well when we'd been growing
teams that we really resonated.
Yes.
Um, we then very quickly thought itwas SMEs and then we actually realized
(22:08):
SMEs, you still can, as a small tomedium sized business, you can still
connect fairly well with your staff.
So we would, we're a good helperfor small to medium sized companies.
Mm.
But where we are really starting tomake a difference and where we have
seen that huge growth, it's the bigcorporate that actually struggling
the most with the connection withtheir staff and with their clients.
(22:28):
So we have basically grown bygoing D to C, small to medium, so
companies bigger, ones corporates.
And we have managed to do anamazing combination basically, of
using our real human and personaltouch with these large corporates.
But also using these amazingindependent businesses that send
(22:51):
gifts and messages that are incrediblythoughtful on maths as well.
So let's talk about whatthis looks like in real life.
So who is, give me, um, an exampleof an ideal customer who signs up
in the corporate space, and thenlet's talk about the businesses
that are supplying the goods.
So let's start with the,who's the ideal customer?
Who, okay.
(23:11):
Right.
Well, let's start with, we'll talkabout what one of our, one of our
customers we have at the moment.
So they are, um, one of the world'sleading logistics companies.
They have over 15,000 drivers justin the UK and more everywhere else.
Wow.
The way they signed up to us wasthey wanted to help with their
Christmas gifting, first of all.
Um, they had tried everything fromVirgin experience days to other things
(23:35):
all over, over the years, and nothinghad quite hit the mark basically.
And they came to us.
We basically designed what we call a FIexperience for them, where we used a what?
Fi bear with me.
And digital.
So we've got one local independentbusiness who created these sustainable
(23:55):
bubble balls that were beautifullybranded with the company's logo
that was delivered to the driver.
They opened it and inside there wasa handmade truffles and a QR code.
The QR code into a platform wherethey could select one of 20 curated
gifts for them that they could choosethemselves so that whatever it was,
they're gonna be happy with it basically.
(24:15):
Oh, I love it.
And I know this doesn't soundlike a huge kind of metric, but
we are really proud first year.
They've never received a complaintabout some of the Christmas presents.
So I just think, you know, is the platformthen the, so the driver gets the bobble
and opens it up and they get the QRcode and they go off to the platform.
(24:36):
Is the platform your platform then?
Yeah, our platform.
But from their point of view,it looks like it's the company.
So when they go on the platform, they havea video of the CEO of the company saying
Merry Christmas, making it really personaland everything's all branded like that.
Oh, I love it.
Yes.
Fabulous.
One size doesn't fit allin making it personal.
(24:56):
Yeah.
And then yes, but they're not going to,they're not going to a random Etsy site.
They're going to the company branded site.
Yeah.
That you've set up.
That's it.
And then we make sure everything'sdelivered seamlessly to all
of them once they select it.
That's brilliant.
So I think that's one really good example.
Another would be one of, again,like a world leading finance company
(25:18):
that we work with that deals withs and thousands of complaints.
And of course, like you'd imagine forthe size they are, and we basically
make sure that instead of them beinggeneric kind of gifts that get sent
out, we actually really tap into kindof what the issues are they're facing.
Do some really lovely personal touchesand make sure that those people are
(25:40):
receiving really beautiful giftsthat allow the NPS score to increase
and connect those people back.
In fact, one of the things we talkabout is turning complaints into
compliments, and that's somethingthat we try and do with them.
I love it.
And then the person who'smaking the gift Yeah.
Are they, talk to me about them.
(26:01):
Did you say they're, they'resmall business owner,
independent business owners?
It's, we've got a real,we've got a real array.
We've got about 300 odd independentbusinesses that we work with, and some
of these range from one woman bandsor one man bands to, small companies.
We've got some, because we do a lot ofbranded merchandise as well, that are
growing a bit bigger and help us moresort the wholesale side of things as well.
(26:24):
Yeah.
But our dream for needy has alwaysbeen in the future, when we have enough
onboarded, we'd love to get to the stagewhere everybody's able to support locals.
So if you are buying a gift for somebodywho lives in Manchester, we would try
and produce that carbon footprint andsupport a local Manchester business.
And saying for everywhere you go.
So at the moment we manage to dothat for a lot of our clients.
(26:46):
And there are some clients that arereally specific, like we've got some
fabulous, fabulous merchants around theBelfast area that use some of our Belfast
clients and that works brilliantly.
Mm-hmm.
And over time, as you grow andhopefully kind of keep that Yeah.
Real local feel.
I love that.
So I need to, I dunno if you'realready connected with Michelle
Ovens of Small Business Britain.
If you're not Lou, we needto connect you with her.
(27:07):
Yes, please.
Um, because she literally isconnected to thousands of small
businesses across Britain.
That would be lovely.
Yes.
So we'll have to hook you up with her.
Oh, that's so fabulous.
I love it.
And if they're ever looking for, um,you know, you never know, they might
be looking for one of those 20 options.
Could be to get theirLinkedIn profiles written.
You know, you can add me to the list.
(27:29):
Business coaching.
On a genuine note, we have,again, a big financial company.
They wanted, um, we.
Money, basically thanking all ofthe, their merchants that use them as
their, as the financial card provider.
And because all of that, most of themwere small business owners themselves.
The gift that they gave each ofthem was a choice of three different
(27:51):
types of business coaching.
So hat in their ring for that Then, soI'm just saying like, yeah, absolutely.
We, we love that.
That's exactly the sort of gift, youknow, we, we love, again, we're trying
to stop gifts from going to landfillgifts that people want and need.
So things like, yeah, LinkedIncoaching, business coaching,
that kind of stuff is perfect.
Yeah.
But I'm thinking, so during thepandemic, so I've had my own business
for 10 years, but my husband worksin corporate space and I remember in
(28:15):
the pandemic that he got sent a boxof 12 bottles of wine or something.
And you know, that was wonderfulfor us because we like wine.
But I did think they sentthat to the entire company.
There might be householdswhere they don't.
A lot alcohol or there could be highschools where, there's one person
that drinks and they drink gin.
(28:35):
It's just it could be really wasted.
Uh, so I, I much prepare.
Your model sounds wonderful.
It just goes back to what we saidat the beginning, Louise, isn't it?
So sometimes that a bad gift cando more damage sometimes yes.
It, and that's really sad when you spentthat money on it as well, and you just
think it, it shouldn't be that way.
Yeah, no, it shouldn't.
So what's the futurelooking like for you guys?
(28:55):
Like are you, are you global already?
I'm sure you are.
Do some Some of our, yeah, someof our business, I mean, we've
just celebrated at the moment.
I think we've just generated just over3 million pounds in revenue for these
independent businesses that we work with.
So we're growing pretty fast.
I think we've gone through about,was it, the previous year was 500 k.
(29:16):
The financial year we've justfinished was 2 million and I
think we're on track there.
Five.
Five or something this year.
Wow.
So, um, when you say what'sthe future look like?
Yeah, it's busy.
Um, yeah.
And some of our businesses that we workwith do already have global offices, so
it's already something that we are alreadydoing some global gifts as well already.
(29:36):
And I think looking, even if we justlook at like our top 20 companies that we
work with at the moment, some of them arespending up to sort of, you know, one to
2 million with us a year moving forward.
And it's about trying to really like.
Our, our dream is with all of thesecompanies try and real harness that
connection between all of their stuff.
How can we embed ourselves within thereso that yes, every single gift or branded
(29:59):
hoodie or whatever it is that they orderis something that is really making an
impact and that's all we want to regrow.
So, and what about, I mean, itcan't just be you and Steph still.
No, God, we we're tired,but not that tired.
Yeah, no.
In a couple of weeks time, Ithink we'll have 11 employees.
Um, oh wow.
So we've got, um, over here, I'vejust got myself, it's our ma.
(30:21):
We've got two Belfast, one Dun, and thenover in the UK we've got the rest of,
yeah, I think the rest of everybody'ssplit over from north to south.
That's fabulous.
Lou, we could talk all day, butI'm not going to keep you because.
You're running an empire.
Yes.
Say that out loud again.
The empire.
The gifting empire.
I love that.
(30:42):
I love it.
So for people listening, wherecan they find out more about you?
And if they're a small businessowner, how can they talk to you
about being one of your suppliers?
And if they are, 'cause wegenuinely have people across
the entire board listen to this.
So maybe there's somebody who isin charge of gifting for their.
Corporate, how do they find you?
(31:03):
What, where do they go?
Where do you want for them to go?
Lovely.
Well, first we'd be pleased to knowmy first one, I would say LinkedIn.
So you'll be able to find me, um,Louise Doyle at Needy, um, on LinkedIn.
That would definitely be the easiest wayto get me directly to message that way.
Um, the website is www.needy.co.uk.
And if you go onto that website andyou're a merchant looking to sell with
(31:25):
us, there is a sell with us section.
It's a really short form, just fill it in.
And then that'll go to ourmerchant onboarding team who will
be in contact about discussinghow we could sell your products.
Well, I'll be going there after this.
And it's N-E-E-D-I, isn't it?
That's it.
Absolutely.
Yes.
I get the right spelling.
Yeah.
Absolutely fascinating listening to just atiny bit of your business journey so far.
(31:50):
Thank you so much for sharingwith us on the podcast.
Thank you for having me.
It's been a pleasure.
Thank you.
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