Business Innovation and Transformation
January 18, 2024
From giffgaff to Airbnb: building communities to founding a company
# Podcast
# Business Innovation and Transformation
From giffgaff to Airbnb: building communities to founding a company
Robbie Hearn founded Standing on Giants with Vincent Boon after the two met on the startup team at giffgaff. A disruptor in the UK telco market, giffgaff was founded in 2009 on the 'little bit radical' idea to have no call centres, no stores, just an online community. What followed was beyond Robbie and Vincent's wildest dreams. This community of customers would answer each other's support questions, refer new customers, solve technical issues and even generate marketing material.
Inspired, they founded Standing on Giants to bring this innovative community-first model to other businesses. Standing on Giants now works with household names like Airbnb, O2, Lenovo, Heineken and Tesco Bank to build thriving online communities of customers, employees, and stakeholders.
In this conversation Robbie discusses:
A radical move in his childhood that built resilience
His ambition to become more radical as he gets older (like Willie Nelson)
How President Obama's election campaign inspired giffgaff
The power of 'Customer Respect'
How the giffgaff community saved the company by manufacturing and distributing 150,000 micro-sims
What inspired him to co-found his own company
His proudest moment as a company founder
The B Corp movement and making Standing on Giants a 'different kind of business'
Growing a company without taking external investment
How he would shake up politics
'Leap and the net will appear': a mantra for turning your idea into a reality
Robbie on linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robbie-hearn-0539313/
Rob on linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-warren/
Standing on Giants on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/standing-on-giants/
Want to appear? Email [email protected]
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