Hey Outliers ☀️
Have you had a good weekend?
Today’s story is an important one — there’s a lot to learn!
It drives me mad when you visit a brand’s website and all they talk about is how they’re ‘changing X’ or ‘reinventing Y’ without any actual proof that they really care.
This means brands like Lottie (the star of today’s email), which put their values at the forefront of everything they do, stand out beyond compare in today’s crowded startup landscape.
Lottie has made care homes cool and they’ve done it with real heart.
So let’s get into it…
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Here’s what to expect today:
📰 Story: How Lottie reached 500k monthly users by turning its values into actions
🧠 Insight: Actions > words
💪🏼 DIY: How to identify your values + put them into action
🔗 Good links: The best ‘brand values’ page ever, a new perspective on brand & some brilliant inspiration
📰 Story: How Lottie reached 500k monthly users by putting its values into action
Founded by brothers Will Donnelly and Chris Donnelly in 2021, Lottie is a digital marketplace that connects care seekers to the UK's best care homes and at a fair price.
Will’s background in social care, paired with the brothers’ personal frustrations when searching for a care home on behalf of a loved one, led to Lottie’s creation and has driven a lot of their decision making.
Since its launch, Lottie has hit 500,000 monthly users (300% growth in the past 12 months), received backing from giants like Zoopla’s David Wascha, Facebook’s Caroline Hudack and Monzo’s Tom Blomfield, and recently raised $21m Series A funding.
But Will and Chris didn’t want to just stick every care home out there onto a platform. Their mission is far bigger than just ‘better searchability’.
Lottie is on a mission to empower care seekers and to lead the global transformation to modern and sustainable care.
They want to elevate later life for our loved ones.
With that in mind, they’ve stayed true to their mission and values right from the beginning, building a brand that’s both trustworthy and investment worthy.
As an example, one of the most alluring features of the platform is the handpicked selection of care homes to choose from. Many care homes are turned down due to the high standards Chris and Will uphold and that’s a decision that’s driven by their powerful mission and values.
Another example — last November, Lottie pledged to giveaway 1,000 free overnight stays to carers across the UK in light of the cost of living crisis. Family carers can receive as little as £69.70 a week from the UK government and Lottie’s generosity shows us exactly where its values lie.
It would have been easy to build a search engine for care homes and stick up a ‘mission’ page about fulfilment in later life, it might have even seen some success, but I highly doubt it would be anywhere close to where Lottie is now and will be in the future.
🧠 Insight: Actions over words
In a world full of greenwashing, brands that put their values into action are the ones that will achieve faster, sustainable growth.
People are naturally suspicious of brands who are all talk and no walk. We want proof (and rightly so). So the more you can show instead of tell, the more trust you’ll build and the greater the connection with your customer will be.
💪🏼 DIY: How to identify your values + put them into action
Actions speak louder than words, as they say. So you need to have values, yes, but putting them into action is the critical bit. Here’s how…
First: you need to identify your values
This doesn’t need to be a complicated exercise but it does need to be done. Your brand values help you with important decision making, everything from how your product is developed to who you hire — they’re important. Start by asking yourself these questions to come up with 4-5 brand values:
👉 What does your brand really stand for? (What’s not negotiable?)
👉 Think of your brand as a person. What values do they have? (Make sure these values are relevant to what your company does)
👉 Check in with yourself: are these values really unique to you, or just business jargon?
👉 Would your customers agree with your choices?
Second: once you have your values, put them into action. One of the biggest mistakes so many brands make is leaving their values sat at the back of a brand book or on a Word document somewhere never to be seen or understood by anyone.
Clarity around what your brand values are and how they should impact decision making makes it far easier for you and your team to put words into action.
There are two obvious actions to take here:
👉 Review your values each time you make a decision. Ask yourself if you’re reflecting what’s important to you and your customers as much as you possibly can. Cutting corners can be very hard to come back from, it should be avoided at all costs.
👉 Review your values regularly and think about initiatives that would actively help to communicate your commitment. Lottie’s free overnight stays for carers initiative does this job very well.
🔗 Good links
🔗 The best example of brand values I’ve ever come across
🔗 Vitsoe: a purpose driven company
💌 Tell us what you’d like us to write about…
We started this newsletter to help bootstrapped entrepreneurs just like you, and we want it to be as useful as possible. So let us know what you’re struggling with and we’ll dig into it.
OR if there’s a brand whose story you’d like to know more about, let us know and we’ll reach out to them to find out how they got to where they are.
Until next week…
Keep being an Outlier,
J + K