The CEO of mobile app business Caribu is only a few years removed from chucking a career in the record business behind for – eventually – a year at one of London’s premier business schools.
But his career switch has clearly been extreme. It was just last July that the Master’s graduate set-up his business with three other co-founders. Incidentally they all met while on the same Master’s course at Imperial College Business School. A few months later and he racked up more than 1,000 downloads in the app’s first week of launching.
But it is not revenue or exposure – they’ve been featured in top app lists by The Sun and the Daily Mail – that gets Ben amped up. “We get contacted by a lot of our users,” says Caribu’s co-founder. “It’s those small wins.”
Last week he sat down at his Whitechapel desk to open an email from an enthusiastic fan. “We get parents and grandparents randomly emailing us,” he explains. The customer had bought an iPad for his grandson – just to use the Caribu app. “When our users like us, they love us,” Ben enthuses.
It is not uncommon to get phoned-up by soldiers serving in the field. Many letters of thanks come Caribu’s way. A thousand downloads in a week doesn’t do the business justice.
Caribu allows families to read a bedtime story together – wherever they are. The app integrates picture books into a simple, child-friendly video calling platform.
Other platforms couldn’t cut it. “FaceTime, Skype – they just weren’t engaging kids enough at all,” says Ben, well-spoken and who makes for an unlikely tech expert. “Convos get dull, repetitive and frustrating for both parent and child.”
He is about to embark on a mission to hit a few milestones. Over the next six months, he hopes to roll-out their service for android users and ramp-up their web application.
Ben has signed up four independent publishers – which provide bedtime books for the app – and hopes to net another four. “We’re in last-stage talks,” he cautions.
It is the businesses main revenue stream. The app is free to download – “we’re a freemium application” – but Caribu has a bookshop built into the software. “We are looking at bringing in a subscription model as well,” Ben explains.
Yet download figures are not a measure of the company’s success. He wants to be the go-to app for connecting children and separated families – through communication. The co-founders may well have hit a gap in the market; he admits there are a couple of competitors, but “none have made in-roads into the market”. More importantly, Caribu is focused on user experience – for kids.
It may seem like a lot to truly break into such a huge market, though. New apps are launched each day in droves; there will surely be more competition. Yet Ben, a bundle of British charm, is undeterred.
He joined Imperial from Apple Retail, where he linked up with the school’s specialist MSc in Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Management. Before that, he worked for an events business after a few years spent spinning in the record industry.
He is only too appreciative of what a specialist Master’s did for his entrepreneurial career. After all, it was how he met his co-founders – Philip Linnemann, Alvaro Sabido and Si Dhanak.
The program’s director certainly shares Ben’s enthusiasm: “Caribu is an example of how our students are able to put their creativity and innovative ideas into practice. The team has leveraged the diversity of cultural and academic backgrounds and used this diversity as their most effective resource for their success,” said Marco Mongiello.
Ben’s father owned a couple of businesses. Ben has always had an eye for entrepreneurship, although it took him a while to make the leap – fully. At weekends, he leaves London for Oxfordshire to manage a small cider making company.
“It’s a great way to have a break – I change the desk for a tractor,” he laughs. Ben didn’t consider an MBA (he doesn’t rule one out), but Imperial’s focus on entrepreneurship drew him to London.
For Ben the entrepreneur-come-cider-maker, that means plenty of leg-work. The business plan was drawn up while the co-founders were still studying the Master’s program.
Was it not a difficult balancing act? “Entrepreneurship was essential to the course,” he deadpans.
Still, Imperial was “integral”. Not only did the co-founders find each other through the school, but Ben says the network and support was equally imperative. “Pretty dam important,” he says. “I don’t think we’d be in the position we are in today without being at Imperial.”
And the location wasn’t too bad either. “The start-up scene is so vibrant and there is opportunity to grow year on year,” Ben says.
If he is going for growth, the backing of Microsoft is surely a potent weapon in the team’s armory. Caribu made it onto the tech giant’s accelerator program and Ben is under no illusions as to the impact Microsoft has had on his fledgling company. “It’s an exceptional program,” he enthuses.
Based in Whitechapel, and cooped up with 11 other start-ups, the atmosphere breeds entrepreneurship. “They are going all out for us,” says Ben. “We have access to their rolodex, which is exceptionally useful.”
He draws inspiration from the accelerators’ prominent mentors, most of whom are successful entrepreneurs. “It’s great to be in such an exciting atmosphere,” he says.
There is clearly a passion for the product hidden beneath the business veneer, though. Given half the chance and Ben’s excitement comes to the fore. “I remember sitting down and having conversations with potential users,” he recalls. “What they really missed was the bedtime story. These things drove us to really go for it.”
Ben lights up when we talk about the company’s goals. He is seemingly less concerned with download figures. For Caribu, the success lies in connecting families that have been forced apart.
“About eight out of ten of the most used apps on mobile devices are communications apps. But not a single one of those is designed for kids,” says Ben.
“That’s what we’re trying to do at Caribu – build a communication app for kids, to create long-lasting, rich engagement between families. And we have a tremendous amount of scope to accomplish that.”
To find out more about the team's app, visit: http://caribuapp.com/
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Imperial College Business School
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