Will Chapman and His Trufl Hunt

In these difficult financial times, the incentive to get a good deal on anything is that bit more pressing. However, the British are notoriously resistant to making any attempt at haggling, bartering and bargaining. Ask a Brit whether they would prefer asking for a discount in a shop or dipping their hands in industrial strength bleach and it’s more than likely that they’ll start undoing their shirt buttons and rolling up their sleeves.

Thankfully there is someone who is taking the pain out of hunting for a good deal. Will Chapman’s new website, Trufl, collates all the best deals available and puts them in one handy email. Added to this is the fact that the website’s users are able to personalise the offers they receive. The London Word caught up with Will to find out how to score bargains…

Can you tell us about Trufl?

‘Trufl is an online aggregator of deep-discount offers for “daily deals” sites such as Groupon. In the UK, there are more than 50 companies like this, so we so saw a niche in the market to gather all their offers in one place so that people can get them without having to register with lots of different websites. Also, companies like Groupon don’t do a lot of targeting with their customers. You sign up with them and they send you offers every day but not necessarily things that are geared towards your individual tastes. I often get sent offers for massages, facials, waxing etc, when I might really be more interested in restaurants or theatre.

‘So we saw the need to not only aggregate deals from many different sites but also to use a collection of criteria to filter offers to match people’s interests. The process is actually pretty complicated but the basic ingredients are location and category – we send our subscribers local offers on things they like. The result is a single, tailored email from Trufl with the offers of the day most relevant to you.’

What inspired you to come up with the concept of Trufl?

‘It came about through watching market trends. I worked briefly for a venture capital firm and it was part of my job to identify industry trends, but frankly anyone could have spotted the tremendous rise of the daily deal or group buy model. There are new clones almost every week. There are even pre-pack websites available for this kind of business! Now if there were just three or four companies like Groupon, you could just sign up to them all and it wouldn’t be much hassle. But once there are 50 or a 100 there’s really no way to keep track of all the offers out there. That’s where Trufl comes in.’

How do you keep up to date with all the offers that are out there?

‘The daily deals business model is all about rapid growth. One of the ways in which Groupon has achieved that growth is to work with affiliates – blogs, independent publishers and websites who advertise offers on their behalf and get a small percentage of any resulting sales.

‘So the daily deals companies send us their offers each day, usually through affiliate networks. Our subscribers pay exactly what they would had they bought direct – we simply get a small cut if they buy anything.’

Is it a risk to start a website like Trufl, a website that encourages people to spend money on items and experiences, at a time when people’s disposable income is quite restricted?

‘In a poor economic climate many people are more cautious with their spending and start hunting around for better deals. In fact, our view is that this reflects a broader trend, at least in the UK: customers are increasingly unwilling to pay the “sticker” price. And that’s exactly where Trufl comes in – instead of hunting around on the web, you simply go to our site and tell us where you live and what your interested in. Then behind the scenes, our systems churn through hundreds of offers and send you a personalised list of relevant, local offers or experiences.’

As for yourself, where do you enjoy going out in London?

‘When I had a more “normal” job I used to go out a fair bit: mainly restaurants, independent pubs and the like. That kind of routine suits a regular job more: you need to unwind and relax in the evenings and at weekends so you go out, then you’re back in the office on Monday morning. When you’re starting a business, you do have less free time, but maybe you don’t so much need the routine of working hard during the day and unwinding in the evening. Plus I’m often sort of working when I’m out! I find if I’m at a party I spend half the time telling people about Trufl. We have some great business cards with our cute pig logo on them. I’ll probably stop getting invited to parties…’

What was your previous line of work?

‘Up until 2008, I was a management consultant. It was a great job in many ways but I wasn’t really passionate enough about it. I wasn’t too sure about what I wanted to do next so I decided to do an MBA at the London Business School, which I finished at the beginning of this year. It’s quite an expensive business doing an MBA but it does give you a solid foundation for future career moves. Frankly though the best thing for me was the two years to step back and think about my next move. I didn’t realise this at the time, but when you’re working flat out for a big company, it’s really tough to find the breathing space to make sensible decisions about your lifestyle and what you want to do.’

As someone who has started his own business, what advice would you give to someone who is looking to be an entrepreneur?

‘I’m really only just starting out so I have more questions than answers! But first of all, find an idea that you are passionate about. It doesn’t have to be the best idea in the world, and a lot of the time people are overly critical about the ideas they have. I imagine that there are thousands of businesses that never get started because people beat themselves up too much. For me a good test is this: if you can’t stop thinking about a business idea for, say, three months, and if no-one you trust can find any major problems with it, you should probably just get on and do it.

‘Secondly, don’t be afraid of fear! It can be quite valuable. Quitting your job, putting your savings in and not having a cushion really is a motivator! You need to feel positive about your own idea for a long period of incubation, so it helps to be someone who responds well to this kind of solitary pressure, or at least to have a like-minded business partner.’

What is the profile of the average Trufl user?

‘It’s something we’ve got a rough idea of but we’re still researching. It’s quite broad. Our market is really anyone who buys daily deals although our customers tend to be the “savvier” ones who are interested in saving time and letting Trufl find them the best offers. Our sales encompass a very broad range of categories, from bars and eating out, to fashion, female-focused categories like spas and facials, through to more active ‘experiences’ like hot balloon rides and fun outdoor stuff.

‘Those are a tiny selection – we actually have around 80 “categories”, and one of the big challenges is understanding our subscribers’ preferences for all those different things without bombarding them with questions. We’re developing some unique technology in this respect.’

Is Trufl London-focused or nationwide?

‘It’s nationwide, although the lion’s share of our deals are currently for places in London or other major cities. But there is massive growth in this area and you’re seeing deals now being offered all over the country. One of our suppliers for example only offers stuff in Cornwall. Also, a large chunk of offers are home delivered so are also available all over the country.’

How do you plan to develop Trufl in the future?

‘We want Trufl to be the best service of it’s kind, and to do this we have to send our customers only things they’re genuinely interested in buying. Now, what makes us unique is that we get better at this over time. It’s really difficult to do! When people sign up, they give us information about what they like and the general area in which they live. But what we’re trying to do over time is to learn more about their likes and dislikes, based on what they buy and don’t buy and various other metrics. So it’s using statistical information like that to get more and more accurate at what we send subscribers.

‘After you’ve been a member for say six months, we’ve got even better at ensuring what we send you is relevant. There are all sorts of subtle dimensions to “relevant” and our strength lies in making practical sense of these – we’re lucky to have a couple of experts in this field helping out.

‘Beyond this, we have to keep up to date with all the new suppliers springing up – on average, two to three a month! And that growth suits us well because the bigger the ecosystem, the more our customers need us to filter out all the noise and just send them what they want.’

To find out more about Trufl and the deals waiting to be snaffled up, visit the website.