Scott Evans is young for a serial entrepreneur, but having suffered a few failures early in his career he now has a string of successes too. Below he outlines the thinking behind his latest venture Bring-It, which promises to deliver just about anything to your door within an hour.

Tell us about your business – what does it do and why does it exist?

Bring-it is a new on-demand delivery company. Based in Wales, we deliver anything from within the city of Cardiff in less than 60 minutes. From a cheeky Nando’s to the latest iPhone, you name it and we’ll deliver it!

I decided to set up the business primarily because of my own impatience. Even one-day delivery from eBay and Amazon seems too long sometimes – and I’ve always asked myself why Nando’s doesn’t deliver!

What were you doing before you founded the business and what was the inspiration?

I have been running businesses from the age of 16.  In 2006 I founded a digital print company that I went on to win The South Wales Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award with. Over the past six years I have built www.wallpaperink.com into a leader in bespoke wall murals with a global client base.

In 2015, I went to Los Angeles for an eye operation and to get to the doctor’s office, I used Uber for the first time, and thought it was amazing. I couldn’t stop thinking about it and on my flight back to the UK I started to develop the concept for a delivery service that would work in the same way. So, you could say that Bring-it was born 20,000 feet in the air!

I sketched out the complete user flow of the app, designed the 3 main screens in Photoshop, and completed a simple spreadsheet listing all of the technologies that would be required to make the app a success, including Google Maps, Twillio and PayPal.

The success of Uber was the inspiration for Bring-It

You started very young, were you always entrepreneurial and what happened to your studies?

After leaving school I jumped straight into running a business with no experience whatsoever. I’m not ashamed to admit that I failed on a number of occasions before going on to be successful with digital print company CustomisedSigns.

I have always loved new technologies, and have always had an interest in how users interact with things, and Bring-it is the perfect opportunity for me to explore this.

As for my studies, I may have left the classroom but I still work hard to develop my skills. There is a very lively start-up community in Cardiff and groups like Cardiff Start have been a great support. I’ve been able to attend talks and seminars that have really helped my business.

What market is your business tapping into and why can’t people get this stuff themselves?

Bring-it aims to bridge the gap between the food, retail and delivery sectors. Our USP is that users can get anything within a city delivered with 3 taps of our app.

There is no service like this currently available. So if someone is unable to leave the house or office to pick up an item they need, they are stuck.  Say you’re on a work deadline and need someone to pick up your tickets for a trip the following day. Or you’re at home with a sick child and need some groceries – that’s where Bring-it comes in.

How does the business make money?

Bring-it charges a flat 10% service fee on the final bill, which is made up of the cost of the goods, as well as a £3 delivery fee within a 2 mile radius, and an additional 50p for every mile beyond that. So, for instance, if something costs £17, and delivery within 2 miles is £3, a 10% service fee on that would be £2, making up a total cost of £22

The great thing about being in Wales is that it is very cost-effective place to run a business.  Staff and office space are cheaper than in cities like London and Manchester which has enabled me to get the business up-and-running and start making money pretty quickly.

Ever wonder why they don't deliver? Well now you don't have to

What are the weirdest requests you’ve had?

The best request so far has to be a delivery from a pet store, which came with a note that asked us to post two dog biscuits directly through a letterbox. After further investigation we discovered that it was the dog’s birthday, and the owner had wanted to send him a treat while he was at work!

What are the company’s vital stats?

Bring-it is nearly a year old, and we have a core 5-strong team, with an additional 6 delivery drivers. Currently we operate in one city, Cardiff, but have plans to expand to other parts of the UK in the near future.

To date, we have made over 200 deliveries, with the app only having been live for 5 weeks.

How did you develop the app – who did you use and how much have you spent on it?

I have personally headed up app development for Bring-It so far, relying on resources from previous projects. Spend on development has been £27,000 to date.

What was the biggest obstacle or obstacles you came up against in establishing your business and how did you get over them?

The most difficult part of building the business so far has been establishing the payments process.

In essence, every driver is sent a prepaid credit card to pay for goods, and the only way we could set this up was by using a service called Pex Card. Unfortunately, this only works with US companies, and so we had to go through the step of setting up a virtual postbox, along with a US bank account.

All payments work in real time, and so to get everything set up and functioning properly meant more than a few sleepless nights!

What are your plans for the near future?

We are currently hard at work developing an Android app, to complement our iOS offering.

In addition, we are looking at bringing on board a Business Angel in order to work towards out ultimate objective of launching in cities across the UK.

What is your best piece of advice to other start-ups out there?

That old cliché of ‘listen to your customers’ holds true in this case.  Their views are important and listening to them will ultimately help you grow your business.

We have built user testing into our strategy, to ensure that the customer is at the heart of the business. All in all, our aim is to make it as simple as possible for people to use our service, and that is something that I would encourage all start-ups to do as well.