Got dreams of creating a multi-million pound business in 18 months? Well, then this edition of Meet The Founders is for you.
Meet Chris and Will Donnelly
These two entrepreneurs spotted a gap in the market when they struggled to find a suitable care home for a relative. Fast forward just 18 months and their solution, Lottie, is now valued at £45 million. Here’s their story.
1. Why did you start Lottie and what were you doing before?
Chris Donnelly: We’ve got a passion to improve standards of care after personally struggling to find a suitable care home for our own family members. Our goal for Lottie is to use our technology platform to help millions of elderly people across the world live a happier, healthier, and more fulfilled later life, whilst driving positive change in the eldercare sector.
I have a strong background in digital and tech. Before co-founding Lottie, I founded and was CEO of Verb Brands, a company I launched at university and grew organically into one of the world’s most leading digital and tech agencies.
Prior to co-founding Lottie, Will spent over five years advising the UK’s leading care and retirement operators and was part of the property team that helped the NHS throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
Combining my expertise in technology and Will’s experience in the social care sector, Lottie was launched in July 2021. Now valued at £45 million and just over one year on, Lottie has grown from strength to strength growing and dominating the later life sector, challenging the status quo of the long-standing care industry and helping thousands of families across England.
2. What were the biggest sources of inspiration and support when you were starting out?
CD: Lottie was born from our own personal struggles to find suitable care for our own family members, which drove our mission to transform the elderly care sector. This purpose has helped us to make the best business decisions for Lottie’s growth.
From the beginning, we knew exactly what we wanted to build and had a clear direction for the platform. We are proud to have been the first care directory to show care home fees and we chose to only work with partners who were transparent about their costs.
We also knew that we wanted to set a high standard across the care sector, so we personally vet all the homes listed on our platform.
Having such a clear idea of what we wanted to improve in the care industry really helped shape the platform for our launch and beyond.
Since launching in July 2021, we have stayed true to our mission to elevate later living and this has helped us to drive positive change within the elder care sector. From care home fee transparency to providing a free concierge service with our care experts, Lottie has redefined the care seeking process by providing care seekers with the freedom to find the best and affordable care options in an easily accessible process.
Recently we have completed the acquisition of Found – one of the UK’s leading CRM and occupancy care home software. The acquisition of Found will help us to continue to drive change in the elder care sector and provide care seekers with an even better care seeking experience.
Similarly, we’re committed to transforming the eldercare sector and we’re proud to say we recently launched Seniorcare by Lottie. The UK’s leading eldercare employee benefit solution.
What’s more, we’ve recently launched Care Space – an online support group for carers to connect, chat and share their experiences and advice. If you’re a carer but not quite in need of additional support or care for your loved one, Care Space is a great way you can join the Lottie community.
3. What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned since starting the business?
Over the last year, Lottie has gone from strength to strength: growing and dominating the later life sector and helping thousands of families across England.
The care sector was heavily impacted by the pandemic, which made our mission to drive positive change that bit harder. Over one year on, Lottie is already driving positive change in the elderly care sector, but it wasn’t without a struggle.
Our achievements with Lottie haven’t come without challenges. From breaking through fierce competition in a saturated market, to making Lottie a trusted and respected brand name, we’ve learnt a lot on the way. Lottie is fast becoming an industry leader and driver of change, and we’ve been fortunate to achieve this by sticking to our original purpose and mission to elevate later life.
As a startup business we’ve gradually adapted our business model to scale up and grow with the increase in demand for Lottie’s services from care seekers.
4. What has been your proudest moment/biggest achievement so far?
For us, finding the first care seeker that used Lottie’s care concierge service the right care home for their unique care needs and welcoming them into their new home has been one of our proudest moments to date.
From starting out as an idea to drive positive change within the eldercare sector to seeing our business idea come to life and have a truly positive impact on the lives of other people was an amazing feeling. It was a ‘pinch me’ moment and it felt as though all the challenges we faced along the way were no longer barriers, but drivers of success and change.
Since then, we’ve helped thousands of families across the UK find care for their loved ones at a fair price. Every time we help a care seeker find the best care home or retirement property for them it brings us joy and reminds us of why we set out on our business mission.
5. What piece of advice would you give to anyone starting out?
There’s a new lesson to learn each day when running a business – no matter how established it may be. Take the time out of your day to reflect on your achievements, ambitions and any new experiences or challenges you can learn from.
Business and markets are constantly changing, so it’s crucial to stay on top of industry trends and adapt to meet the changing needs of customers.
If you’re struggling to achieve a goal or experience a knock back – don’t see this as a failure. There’s no business that’s got everything perfect the first-time round. Learn from your experience and evaluate what you can do differently or what may need to change within your business. Being quick to adapt will help your startup to thrive.
6. What piece of investment did you make in the business that was worth every penny?
At Lottie, our team are at the heart of everything we do. Our aim is to connect families and their loved ones to the best care homes and at a fair price. Building a team of people that also share this vision has helped Lottie grow from strength to strength over the last year.
As a business we’re committed to helping the care sector and our service users. From sharing practical, emotional, and financial support to caregivers that may be struggling – as well as sharing useful resource centres, we’re actively raising awareness of the support available for those who are elderly or vulnerable and their loved one – and none of this would be possible without a team of people that believe in our mission.
7. Which element of marketing has made the biggest impact on your business?
In November 2022, we launched our first brand campaign – Nights On Lottie, pledging 1,000 free nights in 2023 for UK Carers (both paid and unpaid). To kickstart our pledge we’ve partnered with unplugged to offer 100 free 3-night stays for UK carers at a digital detox cabin.
We’re committed to challenging the status quo of the care industry and supporting carers across the UK – and our nation-wide campaign really helped drive brand awareness for Lottie.
Endorsed by Anton Du Beke, our campaign was launched live on Good Morning Britain on Carer’s Day (24th November 2022). As a result, we saw the highest number of visitors to our website than ever before, along with national and regional coverage of our campaign.
Not only were we able to raise awareness of Lottie as a brand and the support we’re able to offer care seekers, we received over 1,000 nominations for carers across the country and are now in the process of surprising our first winners with their well needed breaks.
What’s more our campaign united the care sector – we had many care operators not only nominating their own members of staff for all their effort and hard work, but also asking if they would be able to support any of our nominated winners with respite care and support.
It is campaigns like Night’s On Lottie that makes us really proud to see how far we have come in just 18 months – and we’re excited to see the positive impact our marketing activity can continue to drive within the social care sector and beyond.
8. What do the next 12 months look like for you?
We aim to become the market leader in the elder care sector and have already started on this journey by driving real positive change through the care industry in our first 12 months as a business. We’ve shed light on the transparency of care fees across the care sector, supported caregivers with their responsibilities, launched the UK’s leading eldercare benefit solution and elevated later life with luxury retirement living.
Over the next year we want to continue our journey Lottie becoming a household name that is well-known and trusted by care seekers. From diversifying our portfolio, strengthening our current product offerings, and helping even more families find the best care for their loved ones we want to make as much noise as possible to disrupt the social care sector for the better!
We’re only at the beginning of our journey as a startup and we’re very excited to see what the future holds.
Do you have an interesting story to tell about how your business got started? Tell us about it.
