What was the catalyst for launching Slip?
I was standing in Zara trying to return a pair of broken trousers. Having bought them the week before, I was shocked when I went to put them on that the buckle was missing, so I went to return them to the store, even though I’d lost my paper receipt. They refused to return or exchange them and in that moment, I asked myself, surely this happens to customers every single day.
Can you share your elevator pitch?
Slip is an award winning retail-technology company, on a mission to remove the faff of receipts to enable a quick and efficient checkout experience. Leveraging digital wallets, Slip is turning the high-street paperless.
Tell us about your experience with Focal
So far the experience has been great, we were delighted to be selected as a finalist for this years demo day and really look forward to the event on Thursday!
Tell me about the business - what it is, what it aims to achieve, who you work with, how you reach customers and so on?
Slip is a digital receipt and data solution. For customers, our mission is simple. All your receipts, from everywhere you shop, all in one place. We want to give customers one central place to store digital warranties and receive offers and rewards from their favourite brands. For retailers, they really struggle with in-store data capture. Unsurprisingly, the ‘can I get your email for an e-receipt’ tends to have poor adoption rates, but without that in-store data, they struggle to maintain a single customer view. So for them, we bridge the gap between online and offline data, with customer insights and targeting ideas. We have a B2B2C business model, targeting omnichannel retailers, mainly in Fashion, Homeware and Electronics and their customers.
How has the business evolved since its launch? When was this?
When Slip first launched, it was an idea to help customers like me stop losing their receipts. I didn’t even think about the ‘paying customer’ and what the real problem for retailers was. Slip has evolved from a B2C digital receipt app to a B2B SaaS product for omnichannel retailers. We officially launched the business earlier this year.
Tell us about the working culture at Slip
We’re a small team, just 5 of us at the moment and a mixture of commercial and engineering backgrounds. We tend to make all decisions as a team, the whiteboard is our best friend and we all have an unapologetic obsession with Pizza Express.
How are you funded?
We raised a VC-backed pre-seed round last year, led by Haatch Ventures and a number of angels across the technology and retail industry. We have also received a government grant as part of their Young Innovators programme.
What has been your biggest challenge so far and how have you overcome this?
The biggest challenge is essentially our business is a marketplace. Without retailers, there will be no customers on the app and without customers, the product is unattractive for retailers. So we needed to start somewhere and worked with two SMB businesses who agreed to be our ‘beta customers’ to gain initial feedback and get Slip off the ground.
How does Slip answer an unmet need?
We are a modern solution to ‘e-receipts’ with technology that is both consumer and staff friendly and actually captures omnichannel data insights at scale.
What’s in store for the future?
We’re currently raising our seed round, and have a huge ambition around payment integrations and digital wallets so watch this space!
What one piece of advice would you give other founders or future founders?
Don’t keep your idea a secret. The best way to actually build and develop your business is to talk about it, often to people who know the space better than you.
And finally, a more personal question! What’s your daily routine and the rules you’re living by at the moment?
I always workout in the morning to start the day on the right foot. Then I tend to spend the majority of the day in the office, or out and about at meetings around London. My evenings are either seeing friends, industry colleagues or working from the sofa!
3 rules I’m living by at the moment:
- Don’t allow the things that are totally out of my control, to control my emotions
- Surround myself with the people that make me happy and push me to be the best version of myself
- Positive things happen to positive people
Tash Grossman is the CEO and Founder of Slip.
Slip is one of the finalists at the Focal W23 Demo. Register here to follow on the 12th October.
