AW plays home to businesses of many different shapes and sizes. Often, start-ups and small, younger businesses choose to start their journey out of a co-working space like ours, to innovate, collaborate and eventually grow into key players in major industries.
A fantastic example is the team at Wollit, who’s app helps to improve the financial health of flexible workers through income smoothing and credit building. During a period of uncertainty, these ethical and accessible financial services are sorely needed by many workers across the UK to relieve them of at least some financial stress. We sat down over lunch with Barbora, who talked us through the company’s exciting journey, return from lockdown and what’s up next for Wollit.
What defines Wollit in what can seem quite a crowded market?
FinTech (financial technology) is absolutely massive at the moment and at Wollit, we pride ourselves on placing ethics and our customers at the heart of everything that we do. Our first product, the Wollit IncomePromise which helps those on flexible incomes, such as gig workers and those on zero-hours contracts, to have a steady income and provide them with interest-free cash top-ups when they need it most. We try to be as flexible, accommodating and affordable as possible to make sure that we work around our customers’ lifestyles and wellbeing.
With the current pandemic and uncertainty, this all sounds very pertinent
Furlough, income irregularity and economic downturn… All of these unfortunate economic impacts of the pandemic have made services like ours particularly important to workers, increasing the demand for our app. The pandemic has also changed the course of our plans at Wollit. We have brought work on a variety of exciting products forward to fill gaps in the market and are moving closer to our vision of a full suite of financial products made to match the modern workforce.
Exciting times forthe company! How is your home at AW helping you along in this journey?
As a company, we are young, early in our journey and have ambitious goals. Therefore, as a smaller team who work intimately and closely across every angle of our business, we have loved working out of our small and friendly space in Argyle House. With the nature of our work often involving confidential, financial matters, we really value privacy as a company. AW is open-plan without being intrusive, which suits the nature of our work perfectly.
How was your experience of remote working?
We coped with remote working, however, have truly enjoyed being back in the office. It is becoming increasingly fashionable for small businesses like ours to try and run entirely remotely, however, having a physical office space allows us to work through challenges and innovate faster face-to-face.
So, what’s next for Wollit?
We’re a young company with so much more in the pipeline. For starters, we are working on an Android app to accompany our successful iPhone app and reach out to a whole new market of customers. We plan, over time, to launch a full suite of tools and services, each of which will tackle a key barrier to financial health. Our goal is to make financial wellbeing available to everyone.
Thanks, Barbora!
It’s always a pleasure to chat with the small businesses that work at AW, finding out about the exciting plans and developments that they have in store as they grow. Whether you’re hustling as a freelancer, innovating as an entrepreneur or managing a department of a larger corporation, it is inspiring to work alongside growing businesses.
