It has been stated in NAU Whitepaper from the very beginning that in-house agencies launch and development is a temporary solution of a few very important tasks:
- To create retailers presence. Users want to see versatility, they need offers around the corner or on their way home from work. Apps with only a few retailers and offers get uninstalled fast with almost zero chance to grab this user in future.
DONE. There are currently over 2000 active retailers with 3000+ active offers in Bogota, Kyiv, Manila and Moscow. Users have a nice choice of offers in different categories with some very famous local retailers joining NAU with exclusive deals for our users.
- To create a showcase. To offer anyone join NAU as agent we needed to build the showcase agencies by ourselves. This allowed us to create local handbooks and practices for third party agents and actually demonstrate this is possible in a way we’ve designed it.
DONE. Despite summer being a low season in business we are actively signing new regional agents and even a new country representative in Belorussia. Receiving a few inquiries every day we are confident about even faster growth of agents network in the upcoming months with business activity increasing significantly.
- To receive feedback and build efficient tools. Setting and building up in-house agencies required us to communicate closely with retailers to understand their marketing pains and to realize how far many of them are from the advanced technology. Using this feedback was very useful in the ongoing process of creating and improving tools both for the retailers and agents as their representatives on NAU platform.
DONE. The basic tools are deployed and keep evolving, and there are enough third party agents to provide us with everyday feedback needed to continuously improve the platform for retailers and agents.
What’s next?
Time has come to move on according to the initial plan and transfer NAU in-house agencies to independent partners who will handle the current assets and successfully develop them.
This is a conscious decision while some people might wonder about “giving away” the assets we have heavily invested into on the stage when these assets should start paying back. This is true and the transfer happens somewhat earlier than we have planned, but there are a few basic reasons behind this.
It has become obvious that agencies need to be absolutely independent from the platform with their own budgeting process, KPIs and (sic!) founders involvement. Third party agents who have recently joined us confirm this conclusion day after day. At the same time the current NAU team is much more efficient when focused strictly on the platform and its improvement for all stakeholders with no time and efforts dilution in-house agencies require.
NAU Manila agency has been the first to be successfully transferred to a local partner which has already resulted in boost of local app audience making us even more keen to hand over the remaining assets.
The expectations
We are looking for the experienced partners with substantial financial and human resources required to efficiently take over the existing retailers base and seamlessly continue operations for them while simultaneously increasing the local user base of the app. NAU team is constantly testing various marketing approaches to later hand them over to local agents as step-by-step guides of increasing the local audience with cheap but efficient methods.
In case you are interested in becoming NAU agent in Bogota, Kyiv and Moscow, please contact m.ozernov@nau.io or ceo@nau.io to set up a call and discuss details.
