A gut feeling. A fortune teller. A magic 8 ball. If only there was a way to know if your business will succeed? Having worked with startups and rapid growth companies in different countries, I know there’s no sure-fire way to know. 

But there are ways to put your concept to the test, learning and iterating to give your fledgling idea the best chance of success. 

The soft-launch city 

Nothing removes those rose-tinted founder glasses like the general public. 

Focus groups have a role to play, but nothing gives you the same honest, unfiltered insight as a soft launch. Will real people spend their real hard-earned dollars on your idea? 

Choosing one city and creating a test location or pop-up service is a great way to do this. But it has to be the right place. 

All roads lead to Charleston and Greenville

Here in South Carolina, it’s a tale of two cities. Charleston is very much the test bed of choice for food concepts, fast-casual dining and fast-moving products. Greenville is quickly becoming a test bed for new tech. But why?

Charleston’s big pull factor

Not just on Conde Nast’s Best Small City in the US list for 11 of the past 12 years and full of character and charm. It has a strong mix of people and preferences – the young, the more refined, wealth, people starting out and lots of visitors. 

Attracting more than 7 million tourists each year, the fact that Charleston is a tourist destination makes it the perfect test bed. One city, global reach. Mass appeal insight with single-city investment – win win. 

Greenville a new hotspot

Often running slightly under the radar, Greenville, SC is fastly becoming a tech and app hub, with investment from South Carolina, Next Innovation Greenville, Startup GVL, as well as other privately funded initiatives. The city offers a growing hotspot of people, an influx of young talent and a network of great funding, investors and mentors. 

With perhaps a little less bureaucracy and red tape than its other city counterparts, Greenville has a roll-up-your-sleeves-and-get-stuck-in mentality, which is why more and more startups are setting up shop here. 

Usually though, when you try out a business concept in one city, there’s no guarantee that its success or failure would hold true in others – you’ve only tested it with one audience. For Charleston and Greenville, even though you’re only in one place, you’re testing the reaction of people from across the US and the world. 

Survival of the fittest 

Charleston’s popularity and surging footfall make it fiercely competitive. And that’s a good thing. Greenville’s entrepreneurial scene and do or die mentality, means it’s survival of the fittest. 

If you want to be sure you’ve got a strong concept, test it against the best. Test it in the most crowded marketplace and figure out how to make it not just survive, but stand out. 

The kudos

Succeeding in Charleston and Greenville carries with it more than just proof you can tough it out, it’s a seal of approval. If the Charleston crowd loves you, you can use that halo effect in your strategy. 

Greenville offers a great launch pad. Use it to regionally test your technology and springboard to Charlotte, Charleston, Atlanta, Savannah. That halo can then drive demand as you enter new cities and markets. Brands that can capitalize on their success with messaging around “coming straight from” can convert a win from one city into multi-city success.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to Indaco for dinner, or it could be O-ku. Did you know they’ve come to Greenville straight from Charleston? 

If we can help your brand get off the ground then get in touch dani@wearebodhiandco.com 

Dani Wilkinson

Dani has a passion for making brands sparkle. From Dyson vacuum cleaners to Pies, she built brands from the ground up and has a strong perspective from both high-level, to actual practicalities and how to get something done.

We often think of “technology” and “new” as the same thing. And much of the time they are. Tech pushes progress, redefines what we can do — it even creates new worlds. 

It’s an expectation we’re so used to that we often don’t stop to really look under the bonnet and see if the newest, shiniest thing is the step forward it promises to be. 

This is especially true when it comes to social media. A little quiet since Snapchat capitalized on a bored and frightened world in need of a distraction during the pandemic, the launch of a new platform Threads has made waves the world over. 

Taking just five days to reach a huge 100 million users, Mark Zuckerberg’s latest Insta-Frankenstein seems set to deliver the final knockout blow to a Twitter stumbling beneath the Musk ego. 

The speed of adoption alone marks it out as the new must-have. But a closer look at the platform means these might not be the new threads that Mark Zuckerberg, Emperor of Social Media, would have us believe. 

In fact, Threads isn’t really new at all. Anyone logging into the text-focused platform for the first time expecting “new” stands to be disappointed. 

Threads feels so familiar in fact, that Twitter’s lawyers immediately hit out at Meta in a letter accusing Meta of poaching Twitter employees and threatening legal action

In terms of user experience, the two apps share a lot of features. There’s no new concept, no different way of adding value and connecting in an increasingly screen-sensitive, social-media-sceptical world. Put simply, it’s Facebook’s take on Twitter. 

More than a missed opportunity for progress in the virtual-social space, Threads’ all-too familiar owners mean it could even be seen as a step back. 

From your physical health to your financial health data, your GPS location to your device’s camera, Threads continues the access-all-areas approach to personal data that’s already seen Meta handed a $1.3 billion fine less than two months ago.

Using the same privacy policy and business model as Meta, Threads’ approach to personal data means its EU launch has been put on hold as the app is likely to breach soon-to-be-launched privacy regulations. 

Threads isn’t really “new”. It’s an all-too familiar app and experience, that reminds us not to forget some of the key challenges and debates in tech. 

Meta moved too slowly with Threads. With the advent of AI, the innovation cycle is no longer years or months — it’s days. 

The Meta team made one of the most common product development errors. They decided on their idea, then put their heads down. While they created what they thought the market wanted, the market changed. Expectations changed. The result? Threads falls short. 

Threads is new-ish — it’s an iteration, built on familiar and increasingly cracked foundations. 

What we’re seeing with the record number of sign-ups is real appetite for something new in the virtual social space — that and the power of FOMO. 

After the initial excitement, the Threads experience isn’t likely to meet that demand for something really new. Something that offers real progress, that creates difference and value for users. Now that platform will be worth joining. 

Dani Wilkinson

Dani has a passion for making brands sparkle. From Dyson vacuum cleaners to Pies, she built brands from the ground up and has a strong perspective from both high-level, to actual practicalities and how to get something done.

Summer in Carolinas: the season of beach trips, lake days, All-Star baseball games, and… limited time offers. Seasonality has and always will play a key role in marketing. 

From summer specials to Christmas and holiday exclusives, seasonal campaigns and products show you’re paying attention to what’s going on in the world around you. They can be a powerful tool. But they have to be done right. 

Why brands like them 

From the iconic McRib right through to luxury Hermes x Apple watch collabs, brands in all sectors and at all price points play around with limited time offers (LTOs). Both as Marketing Director for British restaurant chain Pieminster and now as the Founder of Bodhi & Co, I’ve used LTOs as a tool to boost demand. Why? They work. The combination of relevance and scarcity can deliver a surge in interest and demand. FOMO can be a powerful revenue generator. For smaller brands, they’re an opportunity to buddy up with big names, reaching and delighting a new audience. 

Why consumers like them 

From a consumer perspective, variety really is the spice of life. Whether it’s re-engaging with a brand you already know or finding a new company through a seasonal campaign, LTOs give us that shiny new feeling that us human magpies can’t ignore. 

Repeated LTOs also become a calendar feature. Just think of the Starbucks red cup. There’s a whole group of customers who countdown to its return. They feel like the holiday season only starts once there’s a hot peppermint mocha in a red cup in their hands (and they’ve posted it to Instagram, of course #StarbucksRedCup).

Thinking lean for LTOs

Done right, the scarcity factor of LTOs makes you instantly relevant, reigniting interest from existing customers and attracting new ones. But overcomplicating and overproducing for a temporary product line can result in huge waste, both in materials, operational complexity and time. Instead, see LTOs as a lean way to test a new menu item. Plan well, and keep things simple, producing small quantities to test the water and minimize waste. 

The customer is always right 

The golden rule for LTOs? Listen. Reacting and responding to your customers is even more important with an LTO. If it gets a negative reception or – even worse – stony silence, be prepared to pivot or pull the plug, ready to carry learnings into next season. 

On the flip side, if it’s a runaway success, who’s to say that limited time offer can’t earn its place as a permanent product and become the next old favorite. 

Dani@wearebodhiandco.com www.wearebodhiandco.com

Dani Wilkinson

Dani has a passion for making brands sparkle. From Dyson vacuum cleaners to Pies, she built brands from the ground up and has a strong perspective from both high-level, to actual practicalities and how to get something done.

We get to see and work across a range of websites. From big to small, ultra complicated to paired back and simple. Often we see brands changing and updating their website based on user feedback and consumer insight, as well as being able to update things quickly to maximize results, whether that’s basket conversion, making online ordering simple or getting in touch quickly.

If you are considering refreshing or relaunching your website, we’ve put together our 5 top tips (SMART tips) for you to really consider as you map your new site.

Simplicity

Fewer words, calming colors, vivid imagery, and very clear calls to action are key. We recommend light-weight experiences that encourage the user to explore deeper, rather than putting everything up front on one page, keeping load times to a minimum whilst satisfying SEO needs, and having enough content to appear in a search. Simplified messaging that implores the visitor to want to learn more, rather than complex conversations that leave visitors with unnecessary information overload. Inspiring people with your message means drawing them in with visuals and interactions that surprise and help visitors engage with the words and messages.

Mindset

Generate positive thinking and goodwill. The themes of trust and growth are fostered with clear messaging and inspiring imagery. These trends are all about helping your visitors rather than directing them, which will help them think positively about your site and their relationship with you.

Audience

Appeal to the masses, make your website mobile-friendly and accessible to everyone including the blind, disabled, or the elderly. The 508 website accessibility guidelines highlight simple web design techniques that can be applied to make sure your website can be accessed easily by on-screen readers, making your website available to a larger audience.

Readability

The average Internet user skims through the content on a web page instead of reading each and every word from top to down. Users tend to scan through key parts of the page quickly to determine if it is relevant to their needs. It is important to format your content with this in mind. Correct use of headings, sub-headings, paragraphs, bullets or lists helps to break up the text, making it easy for readers to scan. A little bit of animation is also a nice touch, just don’t overdo it.

Trust

Everyone is re-engaging in the new world after 2020 and 2021, design trends are evolving to help people feel both safe and ready to engage. Websites are designed to give people space, reduce anxiety, and feel comfortable and safe. A website should help to build trust in your space, whether that’s your product, service, brand or organization. If trust isn’t there, conversion won’t be either.

If you have a website project or brief in mind and would like to chat this through with us, we’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with our team at dani@wearebodhiandco.com

Dani Wilkinson

Dani has a passion for making brands sparkle. From Dyson vacuum cleaners to Pies, she built brands from the ground up and has a strong perspective from both high-level, to actual practicalities and how to get something done.

Sustainability has been something on the forefront of many company values, but it is true that some are taking it even further by developing their entire business on creating a more sustainable and planet-friendly environment. This year for World Environment Day, we wanted to highlight five companies that are taking action to help shape a better world for us and generations to come.

We are featuring some sustainable brands that we’ve played a small part in helping along the way, as well as some that we just love for what they are doing behind the scenes to truly make a difference.

1. Pantee

Pantee is a UK based company (but don’t worry- they ship internationally) and they make their underwear and bras from tees that are destined for the landfill. No underwire, no embellishments, just cleverly engineered bras and briefs made by women for women of all body types. Sustainability and comfort are at the core of what they do. We personally love their triangle bras for solving the issue of dresses where you might normally see bra straps peeping out on your back. As far as briefs go, their boxer briefs have extreme comfort in mind and make excellent loungewear.

In addition to contributing to sustainable fashion, they give back to the planet as proud members of the “1% For The Planet” community. They fulfill a 1% commitment by planting a tree for every order with “One Tree Planted”. To date, they have planted over 600 trees and supported various reforestation projects across the globe.

2. Reboxed

These purple wizards are recently B-corp certified and taking on the planet, one phone at a time. They offer options to buy, sell, or recycle all sorts of technology – encouraging people to really dig out their old technology from their bedrooms and kitchen drawers and recycle, or you can buy refurbished iPhones in excellent condition at great prices. We hope more people will follow this movement and ‘choose to reuse’. For every phone they rehome, they aim to make it carbon positive by planting 5 trees and paying to offset its lifetime CO2 emissions. One of their current goals is to rehome 100 million devices by 2030 – and we believe they can do it!

3. A New Earth Project

Based out of Atlanta GA, this packaging company goes beyond their brand to help create a more sustainable future. What started as a conversation between a few surfers in Hawaii has turned into a powerful initiative to combat the rise in plastic pollution in the oceans. Their mission is to educate the global supply chain on sustainable alternatives and set a standard that others can follow.

4. Olio

Co-founder Tessa Clarke first came up with this idea when she was trying not to waste leftover food she had during a move back to the UK. This app started life as a Whatsapp group and was all about sharing unwanted food and drink. For example, when you went on vacation and you were clearing out the fridge and you couldn’t quite bring yourself to throw it in the trash – you could connect with other people who were local and might be able to use the leftover items. It’s grown and grown over the last 4 years and now is proudly sharing food in 62 countries and counting. To date, they have shared more than 52,898,631 portions of food through the app. They are making a huge difference on food waste and as well as stopping good food going into landfill.

5. Allbirds

Allbirds is taking sustainable fashion to the next level. With so many fashion brands being a major contributor to the use of fossil fuels and carbon dioxide emissions, Allbirds is making a change by using natural materials such as wool, tree, sugar and trino and focusing largely on being a 100% carbon neutral business. With the Allbirds Flight Plan (their bold list of sustainability commitments), they plan to cut their footprint in half by 2025, and reduce it to nearly zero by 2030! The even more exciting part? They are partnering with retail stores such as Nordstrom, so you can expect to see their beautifully designed shoes in store as soon as early June!

If you are a company or brand that needs help with mapping out a go-to-market strategy on sustainability, a communications campaign or even an internal policy to show your commitment to People and the Planet, please get in touch. We would love to help you dani@wearebodhiandco.com

Dani Wilkinson

Dani has a passion for making brands sparkle. From Dyson vacuum cleaners to Pies, she built brands from the ground up and has a strong perspective from both high-level, to actual practicalities and how to get something done.

From influencers, to small-business owners, to big brand names – more people are standing up and entering the mental health conversation. With May being Mental Health Awareness Month, it felt like the perfect time to dig into what businesses have taken applaudable action to become advocates for mental health awareness that can serve as inspiration for your own business.

Showing you care about your people

You could have 100 job openings you are looking to fill or are in the weeds about supply chain issues – but don’t forget your current employees. The number one rule for reducing employee turnover is to make sure you are taking care of your workforce and mental and physical wellness of people currently on your team.

One company that’s taken action to show how much they care about employee wellbeing is Elvie. To be honest – we love everything about this brand. From leaking billboards to a poster campaign with TITS (This Is The Sh!t), we love what they stand for and how it embodies everything they do. They undoubtedly put their people first, so their decision earlier this month to add ‘Life Leave’ to its list of benefits was no surprise. With this new decision, it allows employees to take time off – without any questions or rules.

As a big player who is heavily reliant on people power Airbnb recently committed to a fully remote workplace. And guess what? It was reported that the Airbnb career page was visited nearly 800K times after the announcement was made.

Encouraging open conversations

Encourage an open dialogue around the topic of mental health helps to normalize this often taboo subject. JanSport’s Lighten the Load campaign does just that, offering a great hub for young people to go with videos and therapy sessions. When people share stories of their battles or experiences, someone out there can relate. Encouraging employees to open up about their mental health journeys allows the topic to become normalized.

Fundraising for those with a mission to help

One of the most effective ways to take action and show support for any cause is to fundraise for a related charity. Whether you pledge to donate a portion of sales over a month’s time period or create a limited edition product with a cause related partnership, it will encourage consumers. Consumers want and need to feel as though they have played a part in helping others for better.

DeMellier, a luxury handbag company collaborated with Chinese-American artist Fong Min Liao to launch their Soul Tote, in which 100% of profits is donated to Liao’s charity PEERS. Liao has publicly spoken about her own mental health journey, which made for the perfect partnership.

Mental health policies

The most important things to attract new talent and retain talent are flexibility, competitive pay and a clear employer’s mental health policy. If you’re a growing business this has to be high on your list to agree, articulate and Communicate. Finding good relevant ways to really support your workforce in this space.

Making sure that your organization has a strategy set in place to ensure you are living and breathing your policies is key. If you could use some help in writing your policy and communicating internally and externally, we’d love to hear from you dani@wearebodhiandco.com

Dani Wilkinson

Dani has a passion for making brands sparkle. From Dyson vacuum cleaners to Pies, she built brands from the ground up and has a strong perspective from both high-level, to actual practicalities and how to get something done.

A job in law enforcement is not for the weak of heart. Their dedication and loyalty to their community is second to none and their obligation and duty to serve has to come from within their own personal desires. Lexington County Sheriff’s Department has proven that if you go above and beyond in your recruitment efforts to find qualified and dedicated individuals to join their team, you find great success.

The Dilemma

The Lexington County Sheriff’s Department came to us hoping to expand their reach and advertise for several open positions. They currently have over 100 job vacancies and needed a “quick draw” to compete with some of the larger departments in the area that were perhaps gaining more attention. Our briefing was to help solve a talent shortage and make the application process much more transparent for potential candidates.

High Noon

We developed a new website with a modern look and feel that encompasses everything a candidate would need to know – from the application process to what living in Lexington County is like.

In a time where law enforcement and community relationships are becoming more prevalent, we knew we had to place a large focus on the respect and consistent praise that LCSD gets from the community they serve. We also understood the importance of telling the stories of those who are currently employed at the Sheriff’s Department, to show how people from all different backgrounds are succeeding and enjoying their employment at LCSD.

Another big consideration when developing the site was making sure the site was easy to navigate. We wanted to make sure that potential candidates could find the information they were looking for, apply to roles they were interested in and get in contact with the department with ease. Mobile navigation was also a big player in the development process, as we know many people are viewing the site via mobile devices.

We then started a digital marketing campaign to support the launch of the new website and drive quality candidates and applications – all whilst working alongside their recruitment partner to ensure a really positive and memorable candidate experience.

Back in Business

With a fresh new website and easy application process, Lexington County Sheriff’s Department is ready to continue to make a positive impact with each and every new member they add to their team. Working alongside LCSD has given us some wonderful insights on their sense of community and the call to serve each and every day of their lives. If you find yourself interested in a position with law enforcement, LCSD might just be the place for you to get your foot in the door.

If you have a brief or project you want us to tackle, get in touch. We love a good challenge – dani@wearebodhiandco.com

Dani Wilkinson

Dani has a passion for making brands sparkle. From Dyson vacuum cleaners to Pies, she built brands from the ground up and has a strong perspective from both high-level, to actual practicalities and how to get something done.