HOTSEAT NICK THISTLETON
There are now Lucky Voice venues in 7 cities across the UK
Martha Lane Fox had a massive car accident shortly after we founded Lucky Voice, which made me much more independent than I might have been. I had to learn an enormous amount about things I didn’t know
Now we’re getting an increasing body of clients, we are going to cre- ate a feedback loop, so the clients will become instrumental in improving the software. We are building a client hub where they can come along and have a bit more interaction with each other. It also has promotional modules – when no-one is interacting with the touch screen it can run little adverts. You can also have bespoke messages pop- ping up on the main screen – letting customers know they have 15 min- utes left and they need to order more drinks, for example.
What is the most profi table part of your business? There are three strands to the busi- ness: the owner-operated bars, the B2B licensing and franchising, and the online karaoke. In terms of profi tability, there’s not a huge amount of differ- ence between the three, but we are putting a bit more emphasis on the B2B and online side of things because
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they are more scaleable than the bars. However, we probably couldn’t have done the other stuff without having built and operated our own venues. We used our original venues to build a brand, and to show that we know how this works. We can and do share operational knowledge with our clients.
Who frequents your bars? We’ve had Prince Harry in and Harry Styles, and quite recently Mel Chisholm and Emma Bunton came down for Mel C’s birthday. Probably our best ever celebrity story was when we had Paul and Stella McCartney in a pod with Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow. Paul McCartney and Chris Martin duetted on YMCA.
What is your role and what is Martha Lane Fox’s role? Martha Lane Fox is very much non executive. She invested the initial money into the business, she’s still the major shareholder and she’s still
very much my business partner, but she’s never had an executive role in Lucky Voice. She left me to set up the business pretty much single hand- edly, as she very unfortunately had a massive car accident shortly after we founded Lucky Voice.
That made me necessarily much more independent than I might otherwise have been. I had to learn an enormous amount about things I didn’t know a lot about. I had Martha’s support and investment throughout, but I had to get the job done. She was in hospital for about a year after her accident. I went in to visit her every week, and showed her designs and plans for Lucky Voice. She came out of hospital and a few months after- wards we launched, so she was able to be there for that. Martha and I have an incredibly positive, productive and supportive relationship, and I feel very lucky with that. She is my business partner, friend and mentor.
Read Leisure Management online
leisuremanagement.co.uk/digital 43
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