Building a remarkable brand from an idea

The solution to the problem came thanks to about six months of work where we explored what the competitive strengths of Yuppiechef were. We checked those strengths against the weaknesses of more established physical retail brands and identified two key leverage points to exploit.

The insight was that ‘an online brand - like Yuppiechef - was able to consistently create and maintain an intimate relationship with a customer that a traditional brick-and-mortar store could not compete with.’

The solution to the initial challenge that Yuppiechef faced was a simple strategy; ‘build the brand one customer at a time.’ It was the plain and simple brand strategy that the business has followed ever since.

That simple lens was applied to every part of the customer journey and was also used to design interaction with team members, suppliers and other stakeholders.

The second key approach was to offer free delivery on absolutely every item sold on Yuppiechef.com. The cost of delivery was justified as a legitimate customer acquisition cost and in many ways was the driver of an initial wave of popularity, which set the brand up for later growth.

In 2014 I returned to Yuppiechef for the next 4-years as a strategy consultant and then helped the founders unlock a path towards profitability and scaling the business up to the next stage of their journey.