The Full Story
Ubuu
Ubuu was born out of a desire to boost D2C brands and businesses in local economies by revolutionizing the automated store shopping experience. When automated stores started being created by convenience moguls Amazon and 7-Eleven, everyone expected them to be a big hit, but they were pretty much a dud.
From the business side, there was a huge false perception that there would significantly lower operation costs as opposed to a traditional retailer. From the customer side, the user experience was noticeably unchanged. Ultimately, a very expensive solution to address the problem of waiting in line... Less to say, it missed the mark on both fronts.
We wanted to take everything people wanted in an unmanned shopping experience, and innovate the rest. Aiming to create an omni-channel, seamless shopping between device and IRL, personalized and curated user experience.
Our vision was microstores, centrally located in major cities across the world, meeting convenience-store needs with local, emerging brands. Visiting Athens and need a snack? Greek products. Driving through Denver? Coloradan products. Tel Aviv? Israeli - you get the gist.
Users would be able to locate Ubuu from their phone, order on the go via the mobile app, and pick up on the way. The microstores would essentially be self-sufficient fulfillment centers with AI curated inventory.
Brands would use Ubuu as a vehicle to get exposure, reach their target market, learn about their customers, and make critical business decisions. Because of the consumer data Ubuu would uniquely capture, local brands can bet on a faster, more straightforward path to scale.
Both founders shared the same joy in making a moment out of the ideology that if you have to spend money, you might as well like what you get. We wanted more access to healthy, local, and fun products for ourselves, and to make it easier for people to get better stuff and feel connected to their community.
Vision
Our idea was to create a convenience store for people like us. That valued health, quality, and community. Spending money doesn't have to always be painful and you shouldn't have to settle for the same big-name snacks everywhere you go.
At the time, were inspired to deliver our service in a way that would address the CX failure of automated stores and wanted to capture the elements people actually wanted in an unmanned shopping experience, without it feeling like a deserted 7-Eleven.
Value
We built amazing relationships with local Israeli brands that we loved and believed in. Yuval, the CEO and Founder of Growper helped us understand what the missing pieces were for local brands to scale. The traditional retail/distribution system doesn't allow for the brands to learn anything about their consumers. Brands like Growper almost never sell directly to their customers, so what they really needed was data.
Thus, Ubuu set out to be the retailer that helped local brands scale by providing real consumer data and powerful customer behavior insights that would help small brands make calculated decisions and stop operating in the dark.
MVP
In our research, we came across a South Korean digital super market that had its customers shop and scan items during their commute home from work so that they could arrive to their groceries already being at their door.
Meeting the customers where they are is what we were all about, so to test our idea and validate the market, we created our own version.
Validation
We created a vending machine, omni-channel experience that flowed seamlessly from the poster to the mobile online store. Orders were placed for pickup and the response was extremely positive.
What people loved most was the local brands and product accessibility, the modern and easy purchase, and the attention and emphasis on user experience.
The success of the MVP made us reconsider the need for the physical store at all. If we were to re-do it, we would run the experiment again, with a functioning Wolt store within radius of a permanent poster (easier to reprint than restock), accessible by QR code.
Conclusion
Ubuu was born as a passion project but developed in a startup accelerator that only had an appetite for disruptive technologies, not local snacks.
Despite the good momentum and global vision, we decided not to move forward with Ubuu, but sometimes we wish we had.
What do you think?