Kadolog
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Kadolog
Technology
Limited Liability Company
Belgium
Freedom and discount
Ségolène le Grelle
Benoit van der Maas
Thomas Verhulst and Olivier Riesen
Summary
Kadolog is an online platform where you can create gift lists for weddings, births and for every other event. The receivers can spend the amount on what they want, they aren’t obliged to spend it in a certain store.
Background
Kadolog is based on the own experiences of the founders, they felt that was something missing on the market. One of the founders was getting married and he didn’t want to put his wedding registry in a department store or in a specialized shop dedicated to wedding gifts He had the idea to make a honeymoon funded by all the people invited at the wedding. Some of them supported buying the passport, others paid for the flight and for the hotel. They separated the whole trip in several little gifts and everybody could participate. This idea was very much appreciated by all the guests, many of them asked ‘could you do the same for me because I’m also getting married and I would like to use the same system?’. After a while they started to have children, then Kadolog really started. The founders discovered that there’s a huge need for young parents to have a birth list system the parents can manage themselves. Usually the parents open a list a baby shop, and all the parents and friends transfer the money to the bank account of the shop. The parents have the obligation to spend the entire budget in that single shop. Parents today want to buy the bed at Ikea, the buggy at amazon.com. They want to manage the budget from the friends themselves, they don’t want to pay the full price in one shop.
Both of the founders had their own job at the start of Kadolog, therefore they were able to finance the start of Kadolog themselves. After the start they decided to bootstrap, that means that every profit made is reinvested in the company, in that way external financing wasn’t necessary. They were able to do this because Kadolog in that time was still a side activity of the founders. This also gave them a lot of freedom, they could decide to do what they want, no investors had to tell them what to do. Three years ago Ségolène le Grelle joined the team of Kadolog, nowadays Kadolog is still owned by the three of them.
Mission
Allow couples to easily manage received gifts or donations themselves for important occasions such as the birth of a child or a wedding.
Vision
To offer freedom in creating birth lists and wedding lists.
Values
Freedom and transparency
Business Model
The businessmodel of Kadolog is rather simple yet effective. Kadolog is based on on a "Freemium" model which means it is possible to use the basic tools offered by Kadolog totally for free, when people want to use more features they will have to upgrade to a premium account. For creating a premium account there is a €29 fee, after paying this fee the users can use many more features, one of them is being able to receive the donations on their bank account, with the free account users can only receive gifts in person. When the user upgrades to a premium account he will have to make a list of all the gifts they want to receive. Then the list is ready and the invited people can see the list and decide how much they want to pay. The amount is directly sent to the bank account of the owners of the list, after that the owners can spend the amount with all freedom. There’s another important unique selling point of Kadolog, when someone opens a list they receive a 10% discount card useable in many different stores in Belgium during one year.
Growth
The growth is exponential, it took them 4 years to really properly grow the business. It was very difficult to make any profit the first 4 years. They needed to make thousands of lists before reaching the break-even point. All of the competitors that entered the business all stopped because for many people it’s unacceptable to have no salary for four years. Since 2008 there are over 18.000 gift lists created on Kadolog and more than 180.000 donated by the use of Kadolog.
Customers
Kadolog mainly focusses on people who are about to get married or are expecting to have a baby. On top of that they also target on people who need a gift list for any other event like a birthday or Christmas.
Competitors
Kadolog has a lot of competition in Europe, most of the companies with the same idea started around the same time and are active in different countries like Spain and France. Kadolog also has indirect competition, the most common one is the normal store that offers people to create a gift list in their store. Another form of indirect competition is the bank account also known as the “Pamperrekening”. There are a lot of companies that copied Kadolog but it’s hard for them to compete with 8 years of hard working Kadolog did. Most of the companies that copied Kadolog already failed, they think to earn quick money but after a while they realize it’s not as simple as it looks.
Conclusion
Ségolène doesn’t see big companies as amazon.com as a possible future thread, because they will only be able to sell products of their own site. They will never be able to create the same business model as Kadolog. Also there is not enough place for two or three players like Kadolog in the Belgian market. If someone wants to play the same game in Belgium in the business of Kadolog, they both will lose money.
What sometimes works in various countries is the affiliation marketing, where you get a percentage of the sales. But in Belgium this is an extremely low amount of money compared to other countries like the U.S. so Kadolog doesn’t have to worry about that. The main opportunity for Kadolog is the expansion abroad in countries where a company as Kadolog is needed.
Ségolène also gave us some useful advice for starting entrepreneurs:
First of all, there is no good moment to start a company, when you are young you don’t have a lot of experience but you’re not afraid, you don’t have a house to pay, no children no debt. You can take risks when you are young because the risks are limited. And when you are 35-40, you start to working for big companies, you have a lot of money, a company car, a house and a family. Then it’s very difficult to start a company but you have a lot of experience. If you want to start a company, just do it. After your studies, you have nothing to lose. Once you go to those big companies, they don’t really teach you how to be a good entrepreneur. You will be in a totally safe environment, you’ll receive your salary anyway.
The most difficult part of starting Kadolog was in the first years, the founders gained no profit and therefore it wasn’t really encouraging to keep going with the company. But because of the courage of the founders Kadolog has become a successful company with a lot of potential. Another problem the founders are facing is the speed of change, everything on the internet changes really fast and therefore it’s very difficult to predict the future. Kadolog is already a successful company but the founders still have the ambition to create a stronger presence abroad the coming years.
Posted on 04/05/2016