AUFI
Spotlight on:
Toby Wilkinson, founder AUFI, www.aufi.com
It’s tough being a small business, freelancer or creative. Especially when it comes to pitching potential clients and knowing you are going up against big corporations with dedicated marketing budgets and several departments at their disposal. How can an entrepreneur compete with that?
AUFI has a solution. AUFI is a place where small businesses and creatives can make themselves competitive with “the big guys,” through collaboration with other AUFI community members.
Toby Wilkinson, founder of AUFI took some time out to do a little Q and A with us to introduce you to this powerful way to market your business or services.
Tell us about AUFI
AUFI in its very essence is an online community of highly talented freelance and small-medium sized creative agencies. The website aims to facilitate collaboration between it’s members to create “Ad-Hoc”/”Pop-Up” agencies in order to compete against the large agencies. The site aims to be the parts within a large agency that don’t exist within smaller agencies, business development, account management etc.
AUFI is a new way of thinking, and a new delivery system for sourcing advertising/marketing communication solutions in all its guises. As an internet platform our business is not to be a client or an agency but rather to provide a tool that clients and creatives find compelling. The scope of our business is being and will be driven by the creative talent that we attract and by the vision of our (potential) clients.
AUFI provides a simple online creative pitching process, similar to that of the offline world. AUFI’s creative agencies and individuals pitch for briefs submitted by the clients. AUFI encourages its client and pitching agencies to communicate freely, and to arrange meetings, whether in person or through conferencing. The AUFI process mirrors the real world but its delivery has the inherent benefits that come from an internet platform: convenience, speed, lower risk, wider choice and better value.
We have been developing and building the AUFI proposition and site for the last year and a half since we left university. We now have what we are calling version.1 of the site and have recently completed our first successful pitching transaction across the site.
Why did you decide to open this business?
AUFI was founded on the belief that there is a different way to put clients together with existing and emergent creative talent, one that removes geographic boundaries, opens creative access, offers better value, and enables collaboration. AUFI is a creative community, putting together highly skilled small-medium sized agencies and freelancers, who individually or collaboratively can pitch for briefs set by brands.
Who is your target audience?
Given the very nature of our business we have two different demographics to satisfy.
1.) The Creatives – The creatives include the best freelance and small – medium sized creative agencies. The mantra behind our community is “quality over quantity”.
2.) The Client – The client refers to a brand/company that has a requirement for marketing/advertising/design. In reality this includes every company, however to satisfy our Creative demographic there needs to be further criteria within. When taking on a creative job there are two criteria to consider for the creative, “money/ marketing spend” and “creative/artistic merit.” In a few words, a creative doesn’t necessarily mind doing a not so artistically stimulating project if the financial reward offsets this, and in reverse a creative does not mind doing a job for a lesser fee if the work allows them to have more a creative license and becomes an opportunity to showcase their skills/idea. In some instances you get both, which is the obvious ideal situation. As within the creative community there are different levels of skill and experience so in fact it caters for almost all brands. For example a start up with a £1000 budget for branding is great, but what we are excluding is the £150 logo work etc.
What was your biggest challenge starting out and how did you overcome it?
I suppose our biggest challenge was finance, to build a site of our size is expensive. We received one quote of £85,000! So we wrote a business plan and looked for some investment on a very basic level from friends and family and put in some cash ourselves.
The investment was to cover the site build and some other administration costs that we would have along the way. We knew that £85,000 was going to be too much so we had to find another solution. SO we found two guys who were young in business themselves and exchanged some of their fee for equity.
We wrote the business plan and managed to reach our initial seed investment target.
What is your favorite aspect of your business?
For me there are a few aspects that are my favourite. Firstly and most importantly I love it and believe in it. Secondly the idea of bringing great benefits to brands but also really supporting the amazing creative talent that lies outside of the large agencies. The ideas these people have are amazing and to support that and hopefully make these ideas a reality and to indirectly be a part of them excites me. Finally meeting people. Now that the site is built my job is to network and bring in clients. Meeting new people and often successful people is incredibly interesting.
Where does your inspiration or your motivation come from?
The inspiration for me is really to do something that is my own. My idea and my work. Bringing something unique and new to a market is also very motivational, to be a part of something that we hope can revolutionise such a massive industry drives my desire.
What’s your best tip for working through those lulls when business slows or when you would rather just take a lazy day?
I would have to say to take timeout, whether it be a day or a 10 minute walk round your local park. Once you’re in a lull, by sitting at a desk you will only fall deeper. That is why I prefer to be out most of the time, being active and meeting people is very inspiring, especially when you receive good feedback. The other most important thing to do, which only works if you have a team, is to be honest with your co-workers that you are having a lull. Over the last year and a half there has been more than one occasion when I have found myself in a lull. By talking to people around you and voicing your concerns, they will bring you straight out of that, as they will have answers. Just like when they’re down you will be able to answer their queries. I think having someone else to work with is very important, I think I would have found it hard if I had been on my own.
Tell us about you: Do you have any interesting hobbies or unique pursuits outside of your business?
Yeah I am a huge sport enthusiast. Football predominantly but any sport. I love playing it and watching it. As sad as it sounds without sports I feel I would be a bit lost. Quite worrying really, but I think it is good to have something outside of work that completely distracts you.
To learn more about Aufi.com visit http://www.aufi.com