Jake Wigmore and Alexander Sewell are the founders of East London’s latest takeaway breakfast and lunch spot, Scramble. Influenced by their love of sport but frustrated by the lack of convenient, high protein food options, the friends decided to quit their jobs and take on this gap in the market. And so, Scramble was born. Recognising that convenience was worth a significant amount to the average Londoner, Alex and Jake decided to mark the launch of their company by taking on a market stall in Old Street Station during the summer. Following a great reception, the guys are back in the station and this time with bigger shop! We caught up with them to find out more.
Let’s start at the beginning, what sparked the idea for Scramble?
Jake and I have been friends for years and have both always been keen on working out and competing across a range of sports. We both then moved to London and got jobs in very different industries (Jake in Creative and Web Design, Alex in Consulting and Finance). Whilst working the long hours everyone in London does, we became frustrated with the lack of convenient, healthy food options and agreed that although many brands have attempted to provide this, it was still too difficult to find. As a result, we decided to expand on meals and recipes we already regularly made at home and build a brand around this to provide 'Fast, Nutritious Food' to Londoners.
Once you came up with the concept, how did you test the idea?
We found pop ups extremely useful for testing different markets without being committed to any extensive leases. They give our brand exposure whilst also minimising risk. It's perfect for marketing and testing your strategy.
What was the aim of your first Old Street Station pop-up?
In addition to testing the market’s reaction to our products and brand, we knew that we would be looking for funding to achieve our expansion plans and having some figures behind the concept and revenue forecasts was always going to be a key player in attracting the attention of investors.
Tell us about the highlights?
The feedback we got was overwhelming, not only from a product view, but also the concept. We had a number of large companies approach us to complement our concept and even show interest in getting involved.
We have had interest from Gymbox, Fitness First, Men’s Health and many more brands heavily related to one of our key markets, the fitness market. We were also approached by Twitter to hold a morning event at the UK HQ which was great fun. All of the above companies gave us social media mentions as well as a couple of lifestyle blogs who have written articles about us.
From a slightly different angle, we have just finished some filming with Tempera who are the media agency used by Zipcar. Zipcar approached us to appear on their business blog and social media for 1 month which is due to be released next month. We can't wait to see it!
Running a pop-up shop, whilst launching your company is hard work. What keeps you motivated?
Every single time somebody complements the concept and/or product gives us an enormous amount of motivation. Our best moments are always when we receive enthusiasm about the brand, concept and product.
Scramble will be in Unit 2a Old Street Station until 21st December. You can also check them out in November's Top of the Pops.