NDML meets Philip Dears, founder of Hopsy
Philip Dears is the co-founder and CEO of Hopsy, the all-in-one management app for a range of business sectors.
To celebrate NDML’s partnership with Hopsy, we wanted to know more about the background and motivations of Hopsy’s founder. We ask Philip why hospitality and nightlife is important to him, how his app benefits nightlife operators and his thoughts on the challenges facing the sector.
How have your experiences in the hospitality industry shaped your career?
I grew up in pubs; my family owned a pub and my mum was a licensee. My first job was in our local, and I learned all the people skills that come with frontline hospitality. Actually, I’m a big advocate of national service in hospitality for all 16 to 21 year olds. Hospitality teaches you how to talk to people, how to serve people – which is the most important lesson you can learn.
I studied hospitality and catering management in college, and went on to try lots of different jobs – and because of my publican background I found I was good with people. The role that stuck was within Risk Minimisation for a train company. I assisted with monitoring safety during crane operations, carriage maintenance and rail repairs.
Both hospitality and rail hold similarities in their unsociable hours and hard work ethic. So when I had my young son and the 2008 financial crisis hit, I decided to make a switch. I took a job with Jaguar Land Rover, coinciding with he launch of the new Evoque.
Four and a half years later, I was 32, fed up and needed a change. Through a family friend, I made a connection with an independent pub group, and began acting as their safety supervisor. It was within this role, as safety supervisor for publicans, where I first got the idea for an all-in-one easy management platform, which would become Hopsy.
What is the origin of Hopsy?
In my safety supervisor role, where I was touring the North West meeting managers and publicans, discussing safety and processes – I found it maddening that they had no set structure in place for management operations or workflows. So I put together a folder of standardised processes and walked them each through it. This included daily, weekly and monthly tasks, as well as the reports to generate.
The biggest pub company at the time, Enterprise Inns, discovered the folder. They got in contact with me and asked me to replicate it for their pubs.
Moreover, during that period in my life, I was listening to a lot of motivational speakers and had actually saved up about £20,000 in an ISA. I was advised to get a mortgage, and I would have made a small fortune, but I still felt too young. Everyone at the time was apps, apps, apps. Well I had a brilliant idea for an app – involving the processes in my folder and automated reporting.
The first draft of the all-in one platform which would later become Hopsy, was Publicans Compliance – because I was dealing with publicans and compliance. It started in 2019 as a basic webpage which featured all the different forms and information.
I presented this website to the directors of Enterprise Inns in Manchester. They grilled me, and said if I got the startup off the ground, they’d invest. That very same day I met with a tech-expert in Manchester and said: I’ve got £20,000, when can I have an app ready to go? – He said 13 weeks. Well, thirteen months later and I was still waiting.
In 2020, I was in a co-working space in Liverpool, still trying to get my business off the ground, and I got talking to a man in the lift all about my concept. He told me he was building an app with a developer, all about fishing. His name is Jamie Norman, my now business partner and co-founder of Hopsy. Jamie offered to work with me on a mock up platform and portal – the portal targeted hotels and included operations such as housekeeping, room management and maintenance. The resulting app we created is what Hopsy is today.
Hopsy originates from the happy medium found between Jamie and I. I’m focussed on processes and the necessary inclusions, and Jamie understands solutions and the technological side. The app’s selling point is its ability to digitalise paper processes.
How can businesses benefit from the Hopsy app?
The Hopsy app is ideal for wet led pubs – one of our first clients was Admiral Taverns, who have over 750 licensed premises across the country. But the app is also tailored for different sectors as it’s flexible and constantly evolving.
Hopsy originally revolved around checklists, checklist management and document storage. We then expanded the capabilities to include staff rotas, food safety, certificate management and management of contractors.
The benefits to customers are clear; instead of paying for four apps, just use ours and have everything in one place. No multiple logins, no multiple passwords, just one easy-to-use platform.
The benefits we offer will depend up the requirement so the business and any gaps not being fulfilled. We work with hotels, who will require housekeeping operational management and recording any maintenance problems. Shift patterns and staffing problems can be managed as well. For new staff members, Hopsy will layout all the requirements including necessary identification forms, payment details and background checks.
Hopsy helps prevent businesses from unknowingly cutting corners when it comes to safety. By laying out and monitoring all the safety duties of a business, it provides staff with confidence and structure, helping them focus on creating an excellent revenue generating business.
What partnerships have Hopsy secured?
Our most prominent partnerships are with major pub groups, such as Admiral Taverns and similar corporations. Hopsy is helping these pub groups standardise their processes in venues across the country. These venues will then have different checklists to include, depending on whether they can or can’t serve food and the varying staff roles. Everything is laid out during our onboarding setup.
We then partner with other providers in order to offer benefits to our clients. Insurance is one, utilities is another, compliance, payroll – all are integrated within the app. This way, guidance is immediately available and it reduces the leg work for the end user. Hopsy gives venues independence and agency, and will promote the standardisation of processes by their corporations.
Training partners are also available on our app, with courses and compliance there to access. These are ideal for improving learning and self-assessments. Training ties closely with insurance, in coordinating risk management and due diligence of responsible individuals; members of staff should have their accreditations recorded.
How will Hopsy’s partnership with NDML benefit hospitality and nightlife users?
NDML is an exciting partnership for Hopsy because it expands the benefits we are able to offer our customers. I truly believe that operators with the best behaviours create the most profitable businesses, and understanding insurance, compliance and safety are key to running a good business.
NDML’s standards mirror Hopsy’s standards, hence utilising the Hopsy app will be ideal for NDML customers. And vice-versa, Hopsy users in the hospitality and nightlife sector should consider NDML as their dedicated broker.
Both Hopsy and NDML want educated and proactive customers. Customers who understand their responsibilities and risks. We hope to share our network and benefit from our partnership.
Also, Hopsy does not provide advice or professional guidance. We offer a useful tool for customers and access to the best organisations in the industry. We want to connect operators to NDML, and adopt their guidance, because they are the industry leaders.
How can someone get started with Hopsy?
Everything is available online and is automated. We have a set-up wizard which takes a new user through the whole process. The premier version is £40 per month, or £400 per year. And additional packages can be bought for £25 per month or £250 per year. The app is ready to use from day one.
The first area many users start with is by inputting their staff rotas and utilising the app for labour management. The app caters to everyone and can be delivered at scale.
At Hopsy, we are currently offering a trial period of 14 days. We also have a fully functioning demo account which can be tested for free. This includes template rotas and checklists to play around with – helping users get use to the interface without paying.
We do have account managers on hand and available, but ideally no interaction will be needed. We currently have 190 operators signed up to the app, with multiple levels of operation. At Hopsy we are able to deliver training through virtual calls – but this is for businesses with a large structure who require support.
For smaller businesses, we recommend our set-up tutorial videos and guides. The app is designed to be self-serve, and however much they utilise us is down to personal preference.
What are your thoughts on the current status of the Hospitality sector?
Being that I’m from hospitality, I’ve never known a period as bad as this. I would argue there is not a sector globally that has suffered more than hospitality in the last seven years. It has had every single adversity pointed directly at it.
Whether that be Brexit, staff shortages, finances, covid – everything has negatively impacted the sector. It’s a huge credit to the industry that we are still standing.
To me, hospitality is not just a job, it’s a way of life. People in the industry are resilient and that resilience is constant. The hospitality sector needs to stick together, and work together to benefit each other.
It’s obvious the government are not supporting the industry – they’ve got a different agenda for what society should look like. Pubs and nightclubs don’t fit into their model. Yet I believe pubs are central hubs of the community.
Also, the country has changed – youth culture has changed, attitudes toward drinking are different now. Pubs need to know how to draw people in and make memorable nights. Be experiential.
The new trend of adopting competitive socialising won’t stick, the novelty wears thin. People want rooms with big characters, real personalities – people want to be around people. Venues have to find the reasons for busy people to go out.
Being opinionated gets a response, and authenticity is respected. A good word for a venue can go a long way. Branding is important, and narrative – whether it’s as a local neighbour or selling a market-leading product – finding your narrative is important for building a successful growing business.
To learn more about Hopsy, review their information at Hopsy.co.uk. Furthermore, for any nightlife or hospitality businesses wishing to adopt to Hopsy app, contact NDML and we will indicate your interest directly. Thank you to Phil Dears for his time, everyone at NDML wishes him success and we are excited by our partnership.