The Beagle Button

Idea

Introduction

73% of consumers want to shop more sustainably, but they struggle to do so. 48% struggle to find eco-friendly options and 38% fail to make lasting changes to their shopping habits.

So they continue buying in the way they always have, contributing to the global crisis of waste, emissions and cruel working conditions.

The Beagle Button solves this problem. It’s a tool that connects people to sustainable products and services when it matters - whilst they shop online.

Users download our (free) browser extension and continue to shop as normal. If there is a better product to the one they are looking at, Beagle sniffs it out and pops up a recommendation in real-time. The user clicks through and purchases from our brand partners.

We use an evidence-based approach to sourcing products and leverage existing certifications to ensure brands are as good as they claim.

A brand can never pay to be on our platform, we only recommend products with bonafide sustainable credentials.

Substantial accomplishments to date

2019:

- Raised £124k pre-seed round from an angel and Sustainable Ventures.
- Accepted onto the Better Futures programme and Sustainable Accelerator cohort.

2020:

- Onboarded 200+ sustainable brands into our database and 1,000+ products.
- Built and launched a beta version of the product.
- Beat our user acquisition targets of 1,000+ users within 6 months.

2021:

- Launched Machine Learning partnership project with Imperial College Consultants.
- Improved our product matching algorithm from 65% at launch to 85%+.
- Outperformed best-in-class Google and Facebook ads for click-through rate on recommendations shown to users 10% vs 2-5%.
- Outperformed UK average conversion rate on the traffic we send through to our brand partners. 3% vs 1-2%.
- Accepted onto the Google for Startups SDG Advisor program.

Monetisation strategy

We generate revenue by connecting our users to our brand partners. When a user clicks on a Beagle Button recommendation and goes on to make a purchase, we earn an affiliate commission from that brand. This allows us to offer a free service for the end-user.

Today our average commission is 10%. Once at scale, affiliate commissions can reach 50% across product & service categories.

Use of proceeds

Our beta users tell us they like what we’re doing and want to see more recommendations. To deliver this, we’ll scale our sustainable catalogue and further refine our bespoke tech.

From there we aim to grow our user base and prepare for expansion into new markets globally. Our focus will be on:

Developing our tech (40%)

From a beta to a full product. Scaling up tech infrastructure to support a large number of users, hardware & servers for training & use of new and more complex machine learning models.

User growth (30%)

Growing users from 1,000 to 25,000+. A full product launch with associated PR, further development of our paid marketing channels and continued organic & content marketing.

Scaling our catalogue (20%)

From 1,000+ sustainable products and services to 10,000+. We’ll have new service lines and product categories to ensure we offer sustainable alternatives to anything users search for.

Operating costs (10%)

Desk space and other costs to support a hybrid working model for our growing team!