Daniel Coen, a management consultant by background, founded Dublin-based Skippio last year to increase efficiency at venues.
Many who have been to music festivals and other large-scale events will be familiar with the frustrating experience of queueing in a line for hours waiting to grab food and drinks. Daniel Coen, founder of this week’s Start-up of the Week, is one such person.
After having had enough of standing in line waiting for food and drinks at major music concerts and sports stadiums, Coen decided there had to be a way to make the process more efficient, so people don’t miss as much of the actual event just queueing.
This is why he founded Skippio, a fan experience management app that he claims can reduce queueing times by 92pc than what he estimates to be the global industry average.
“Skippio is a progressive web application that means users don’t need to download or use storage on their phones to avail of our services,” Coen tells SiliconRepublic.com.
According to him, the service has been trialled and tested over the last few years with customer feedback helping it gain success and adoption at various venues.
“The backend system significantly increases efficiency and speed of service for venues, while also reducing their costs and wastage,” Coen went on.
Eyes on UK expansion
Examples of events where Skippio can be used include festivals, stadiums, racecourses and concert arenas. The fact that it is a web application and not an app means people are likely to be able to access and use it faster, helping them spend more time with other people.
“We targeting the large-scale event space, where event goers don’t need to download multiple apps or login to multiple applications that they will rarely use or frequently delete,” said Coen, who is a management consultant and project manager by background.
“Skippio is putting all the best venues and events on one platform and rewarding users with loyalty points, discounts and free gifts. It is first to market with this solution and aims to be the market leader.”
The idea is to become the go-to service for venues across Ireland, before scaling to other major venues across the globe get the most out of their money at events.
“We are gaining great traction: we have obtained a 51pc repeat user rate already from first time users at events, with little to no marketing, with customers who might have never heard of Skippio prior to the event,” Coen said.
The Dublin-based company was one of the first Irish start-ups to secure the Enterprise Ireland Pre-Seed Fund valued at €100,000, allowing it to expand its headcount and scale its operations across the island of Ireland. Now, Coen has his eyes set on the UK.
Currently on of 13 start-ups that are part of the Furthr programme (previously Dublin BIC), Skippio will open a seed round of investments, and Coen says some “great potential investors” are already on board.
“Building credibility is always the hardest challenge for any start-up and getting people to take a chance on your idea, especially when they are major venues or global companies,” he says.
“Thankfully, we are now able to give back to those companies or partners that took the risk on Skippio and show them all the analytics on how we are enhancing revenues, reducing costs.
“But most importantly, [we are also] improving their customers experience, with more venues and events coming onboard and taking the risk in 2024.”
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