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It was clear to me that once I started attending university, I wanted to become an entrepreneur. The challenges of starting a business seemed daunting, yet exciting and full of freedom. The idea of working 24/7 on a project that is your own and being your own boss seemed like a dream to me. Therefore, in the third year of my bachelor studies, I decided to take the Minor in Entrepreneurship, which was my first step into the entrepreneurial world. It was during this program that we started WOGO Amsterdam as part of a school project.
WOGO Amsterdam is a SaaS platform offering curated self-guided Cocktail Walks that you can book to explore the city and its best cocktail bars. Our self-guided Cocktail Walks will take you to three of the best bars in the city for a really good price. Tickets include three reservations, three cocktails, and a digital guided map that will show you the way. This is the perfect activity for a fun night out. At the moment, we have five routes available in Amsterdam and one in Rotterdam, offering plenty of options to choose from.
In addition to offering this to customers, we also provide a service to bars, helping them attract more guests via our platform and increase their visibility and revenue.
When starting a new venture, it’s important to create a Minimum Viable Product, essentially a simplified version of the business idea put into practice. This allowed us to test the Cocktail Walk concept and once we saw that it gained traction, we knew we were on the right track. Embracing simplicity allowed us to kickstart our business quickly, which is crucial in the fast-paced world of entrepreneurship. Waiting for years to act on an idea may cause you to miss out on valuable opportunities.
Online advertising is one of our best-performing strategies for expanding our customer base. It enables us to reach new audiences, with Facebook and Instagram Ads being crucial for any new business.
Having a Unique Selling Point is essential. For us, it’s the self-guided Cocktail Tour, offering a hassle-free curated night out at a great price. It’s crucial to address a problem in a unique way to spark curiosity.
We have established valuable partnerships with Cocktail Bars in the city, and their satisfaction is a top priority for us. Finding business partners who share your vision is important to leverage each other’s strengths.
I learned a valuable lesson from not having a contract with my previous co-founder. When we started as a university startup, we didn’t consider the importance of having a contract. However, when one of the co-founders wanted to end the cooperation at a later stage, we had to go through a lengthy negotiation process to decide how to proceed. Since we didn’t have any pre-agreements in place, it was challenging to determine how to divide the business. The 3-month negotiation process also had a negative impact on the business operations, as the unclear founder situation affected its functioning.
This experience highlighted the importance of having a contract in place from the beginning. Fortunately, we were able to resolve the situation, and it taught me valuable skills such as negotiation and contract drafting.
First, I secured funding at the beginning of the year and established a collaboration with the Hilton Hotel. These achievements were made possible not only because of my hard work but also because of the power of networking.
The answer lies in taking action. Every business starts with a dream, vision, or idea. However, what sets apart the people who don’t start a business from those who do, is the courage to take the first step and overcome the fear of failure.
We are expanding to Rotterdam, and London is planned for the end of the year!
FEM-START is ready to support you on your entrepreneurial journey. We provide educational courses on funding, pitching, and finding investors, nurture a growing community of female entrepreneurs, and organize events all year long.
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