{"id":45824,"date":"2023-10-20T15:46:36","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:46:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/how-pre-launch-sydney-startup-raincheck-got-one-of-the-biggest-players-in-its-field-to-join-its-team-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:46:36","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:46:36","slug":"how-pre-launch-sydney-startup-raincheck-got-one-of-the-biggest-players-in-its-field-to-join-its-team-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/how-pre-launch-sydney-startup-raincheck-got-one-of-the-biggest-players-in-its-field-to-join-its-team-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"How pre-launch Sydney startup RainCheck got one of the biggest players in its field to join its team – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"RainCheck<\/div>\n

A Sydney startup has managed to attract a major corporate player from the very market they’re trying to crack, adding a multinational CIO to its team.<\/p>\n

RainCheck founder and CEO Cameron Wall first spotted Woolworths Holdings’ chief information office Danny Naidoo – the man who would later become his own CIO – in the keynote speakers list at the tech conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought he\u2019d be a good person to get in contact with,\u201d Wall tells StartupSmart.<\/em><\/p>\n

Late last year, Wall reached out to him an app he’d been working on that allows users to search for apparel items online, store their favourites in one central location and receive notifications when they are nearby a physical location that sells them.<\/p>\n

This time they were in the US for another major retail tech conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a chat in New York and Danny was very keen on getting on board and getting into it in a strategic role,\u201d Wall says.<\/p>\n

A few conference calls later, Naidoo agreed joined the pre-launch startup.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am delighted to be a part of the RainCheck team particularly in this critical pre-launch stage of the development,\u201d Naidoo says in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cRainCheck has the ability to become the single biggest omni-channel platform for retailers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wall says it didn\u2019t take a lot of convincing on their part because Naidoo instantly understood the app and believed in the idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a bit of an \u2018aha\u2019 moment \u2013 he got it and worked out he knows what the problems are,\u201d Wall says.<\/p>\n

For startups breaking into established industries like retail, Wall says it\u2019s crucial to have expert professionals on-board with a high level of knowledge and experience in how the sector operates.<\/p>\n

But he recommends that startups do their homework first to identify where the knowledge gaps are so they do approach the right people.<\/p>\n

\u201cIdentify who you might need and really have a couple of causal conversations to see if you get on and if it\u2019s the right fit,\u201d Wall says.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also important that startups are able to scale fast, raise capital and appeal to a global market if they want corporate heavyweights to jump ship.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very hard for someone to come out of the corporate world into the startup world,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

How Rain Check works<\/h3>\n

While users browse through online stores, the RainCheck app lets users create an aggregated wish list of items they\u2019re interested in.<\/p>\n

Users simply click the \u201cRainCheck It\u201d icon to save them and when they approach a store they\u2019ve liked an item in, the app sends the user a reminder.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an online to offline ecommerce platform,\u201d Wall says.<\/p>\n

Users can also share their lists with family and friends.<\/p>\n

The app is connected to a growing network of more than 300 online stores.<\/p>\n

After working in tech for more than 20 years and helping to pioneer some of Australia\u2019s earlier internet and mobile data development, Wall discovered there wasn\u2019t much happening with apps connecting digital and physical environments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of other tech that are online or offline,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut there\u2019s no one actually joining the two together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though apps like Pinterest let you aggregate products on wall and Swirl digitises the in-shop experience, Wall says the bridge to make it simple to just buy things you spot online has been missing until RainCheck.<\/p>\n

\u201c93% of people still shop in stores,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cEcommerce has only grown 2.3 to 2.4% in the last five years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Realising an opportunity to make this link, Wall began developing the app in late 2014.<\/p>\n

After nearly nearly 18 months of development to ensure the infrastructure is robust with a user-friendly interface, Wall is now counting down the days before RainCheck is brought to market.<\/p>\n

When RainCheck launches this month, this version will showcase its core functionality before Wall and his team add in more features like shop assistance further down the line.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spent many years building ecommerce platforms and mobile platforms,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and SoundCloud.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Sydney startup has managed to attract a major corporate player from the very market they’re trying to crack, adding<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":63135,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45824"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}