DesignMyNight.com

DesignMyNight.com is a nightlife discovery website that was set up in 2011; it allows the customer to tailor their night out depending on their budget, where they want to go and what type of night they're after.[1] The site has coverage across 15 cities in the UK - London, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Brighton, Newcastle, Liverpool, Bristol, Bournemouth, Cambridge, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds, Leicester and Reading. The company was branded as one of the world's best start ups in 2015[2] and top UK startup in 2014 generating over 4 million hits per month.[3]

DesignMyNight
Type of businessPrivate
Type of site
Discovery site; Ticket sales; Booking software
Available inEnglish
FoundedLondon, United Kingdom
Headquarters
London
,
United Kingdom
Area servedUnited Kingdom
Created byAndrew Webster; Nicholas Telson
Key peopleLouise Agostini, Company Head
Employees70
URLwww.designmynight.com
Launched2011
Current statusActive

DesignMyNight has also become a software provider for the nightlife industry with its own ticketing solution, Tonic, that can be integrated on the site and the client's site as well as an enquiry management and booking software, Collins.

Founders

DesignMyNight.com was founded by Nick Telson and Andrew Webster whilst visiting New York City.[4] They were both amazed by the nightlife knowledge of their Hotel Concierge and were inspired to help people discover their perfect night out in the UK. Both quit their corporate jobs at L’Oréal and Accenture and worked solely on DesignMyNight, with no income for two years, before the business took off in 2013.[5]

The team at DesignMyNight, based in Hoxton, London is now 70 strong. In 2017, DesignMyNight was acquired by The Access Group.[6]

Funding

DesignMyNight started off on personal funds of £15,000 before receiving investment from 6 prominent business angels which amounted to £500,000 over two rounds.[5] The Angel investors have a history of growing online brands and believed in the company's strong consumer facing site as well as the huge opportunity of growing the B2B software arm of the business.[7]

Products

After the launch of the website itself, 2013 saw the launch of the DesignMyNight App, it gives access to thousands of venues and events, with ratings and reviews alongside the opportunity of booking tickets to events on the go.[8] February 2014 then saw the launch of Collins, an enquiry management and booking software designed specifically for bars, restaurants with bars, pubs and private hire spaces. bar bookings and inquiry-management software. It allows venues to do real-time bookings from their site while also taking enquiries and managing them effectively within the system's back-end. The venue can also take payments, card authentications, manage emails and their client's database. 2014 also saw the launch of the ticketing software that allows event organisers to take advantage of DesignMyNight's 3 million monthly userbase while also making their own site or social media channels transactional.[9]

Competition

The likes of Time Out and View London are consumer facing search sites and the two largest restaurant booking systems in the market are Opentable, recently acquired by Priceline and Livebookings/Bookatable.[10]

References
  1. "Interview with Nick Telson and Andrew Webster founders of Design My Night". The Start Up Magazine. 3 April 2014. Archived from the original on 29 May 2015. Retrieved 29 May 2015.
  2. List of the Worlds Most Promising Start-Ups. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20150529200746/http://www.launchingnext.com/. Archived from the original on May 29, 2015. Retrieved May 29, 2015. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  3. Platt, Ryan (21 May 2014). "42. DesignMyNight: The bespoke 'night out designer' helping UK city dwellers come up with their perfect evening". Start Ups.
  4. "About Us". DesignMyNight.
  5. Sherriff, Lucy (27 November 2014). "Young Entrepreneur Of The Week: Nick Telson Of DesignMyNight.com". Huffington Post.
  6. Hamilton, Katy (23 November 2017). "The Access Group Completes Acquisitions of DesignMyNight and ProNett to expand its Hospitality software suite". The Access Group.
  7. "Former Friends Reunited executives lead angel funding round for DesignMyNight". Growth Business. 15 January 2014.
  8. "DesignMyNight: Best bars, restaurants and events in London". Apple App Store.
  9. Ross, Eleanor (21 November 2014). "Now we get money upfront so there is an instant pot of cash". The Guardian.
  10. "The Priceline Group Agrees to Acquire OpenTable, Inc". The Priceline Group (Press release). 13 June 2014.
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