The launch of Back Me Up, powered by Ageas
The insurance category tends to ignore anyone under a certain age — they’re considered an unattractive target that is high risk with high acquisition costs. Speak to most people under 35, and the feeling is mutual. Luckily, the industry can just wait until they evolve into ‘proper’ insurance customers… or can they?
Today’s young adults won’t just ‘grow-up’ to have traditional possessions — they would rather spend on experiences over stuff, embrace the shared economy over ownership, and 30% never plan to buy a house. Combine this with the impact of handheld devices and cloud storage, and you have an audience that expect flexibility and to be in control.
Ageas knew that if they were to do something radically different in the insurance industry, they had to be prepared to unearth category illogic and challenge accepted industry norms such as target customer segments.
We started working with them in early 2015 — fast forward one and a half years and they’ve launched Back Me Up, which the Guardian describes as ‘Tinder style’ insurance for millennials. It’s a one-stop-shop-protection-business designed for young adults that believe protecting things should enable you to live your life, not create a straitjacket around it. Insurance that won’t ‘Hold You Back’ as the launch proposition states.
?What If! developed Back Me Up with Ageas over 9 months, as we partnered side-by-side in a “Pop-Up Start-Up” approach. This involves a way of working that takes the best practice of high growth start-ups, combined with the strengths of a large established company.
Here are 6 key ingredients that went into the Pop-Up Start-Up approach:
The independence — The Tupperware principle
We worked hard to protect our team from ‘business as usual’ until the right moment — this meant separate rented office space, different metrics and creating a culture that encouraged everyone to bring their whole selves to work and shed the shackles of employer expectation.
The talent — The Avengers
When Ageas selected their team, it was done so like a start-up founding team. There was a balance of Superpowers; no political hires, nor passengers. We also recruited super-consumer millennials so our business was being built by its future customers.
The insight — Arenas not categories
To get to more audacious opportunities, we searched out insight about the consumer ‘arenas’ of the end-benefits of insurance — security, community, peace-of-mind — rather than the insurance ‘category’ per se.
The metrics — Re-mortgage or die
We got way punchier about what good looks like — if we weren’t prepared to re-mortgage our own house to go build a business idea alone, it wasn’t good enough for Ageas.
The rhythm — Win the battle, not the war
One of the biggest barriers to delivering something very different is the approval process. By constructing the nine month journey as four well-defined sprints and decision stage-gates, with the Exec (our investors) that unlocked funding, the team were freed to invent 90% of the time.
The fuel — Pret a prototype
We made our ideas real as quickly as possible. From Soho Square to the business parks of Reading, we convinced lunch-breakers to engage with our online prototype and ‘ghost-posted’ on Facebook to assess response and iterate our thinking.
We left Ageas with a business case that was rewarded investment to move to build. Paul Lynes, my partner in building Back Me Up from Day 1, took up the Managing Director role to put in the operational graft that lead to launch.
But installing these new ways of working means our real legacy will live on far beyond slam-dunking a new market-segment. Ageas is now brimming with inventing spirit in the new Ageas Incubator and beyond. As Matthew Thomas, Director Strategy & Planning, reflected: “I thought the end business was the value, but the real value is that we now know how to create the next one and the next one. This is our job as leaders, not what we were doing before”.
If you’d like to know more about what a ‘Pop-up Start-up’ approach might look like for your business please contact Emma.Allen@whatifinnovation.com and follow us on twitter: @whatifglobal
