Ex-bar worker’s hospitality app becomes hit with drinks giants
A former bar worker who created a drinks gamification app to improve the pub experience post-Covid has grown her business to work with world leading drinks brands.
Eilidh Mutch, 25, of Newington, Edinburgh, spent years working behind bars, and decided to set up a business to help bring fun back to pubs after the sector was severely impacted by Covid.
She launched Tavora, a digital marketing tool, and created ‘Your Spin’ — a Spin the Wheel-style game that offered bar goers a chance to win a prize with every order. The game quickly became a major hit in pubs throughout Edinburgh.
She has since worked with some of the world’s biggest drinks brands, with the tech providing key market data on how well the games are driving sales at certain events each brand hosts.
She credits the support from the Scottish EDGE competition as helping to accelerate its trajectory after being crowned a winner last year, and also thanked the support she’s received from competition partner, leading UK accountancy and business advisory firm, Johnston Carmichael.
Eilidh said: “I loved working in hospitality, but it was just a sad place to work post-Covid because nobody was going out.
“I wanted to do something to inject fun back into going to the pub and entice people to get back to their favourite locals.
“I managed to secure funding to create the initial Spin the Wheel type game and trialled it across a few pubs in Edinburgh. It became an instant hit and it’s just spiralled from there. People became competitive with their friends on who’d win the most prizes, so it added another dimension to the night out.”
Eilidh graduated with a business degree at Dundee University in 2021 and set up the business later that year.
She has no tech background but managed to attract initial funding for her games idea and used that to grow the business. She also achieved further funding by winning Scottish EDGE’s Young Edge in 2022 and then the main Scottish EDGE competition last year. She’s now grown the firm to a team of four, with one team member specifically focused on game development.
The business has supported one top drinks brand on a St Patrick’s Day event and, another on a Rugby World Cup activation, as well as working with other large companies from across the UK and beyond. Pub goers can take part in her games by scanning QR codes on menus or provided elsewhere in the venue. The tech has moved from purely fun to providing data insight for brands.
Eilidh, speaking ahead of the Scottish EDGE finals this Friday 9 May, said: “We had big brands getting in touch to say they had no market data to track behaviour at their events.
“We create a specific game for each company we work with, telling their brand story for the customer through the game.
“We can now provide them with data insights on the age demographic of customers. It works great in the UK and the dream in the future would be to make it a success across the world.”
She added: “Scottish EDGE and Johnston Carmichael have been amazing. Winning Young EDGE in 2022 accelerated visibility of Tavora and the grant helped us refine the product more. In 2022 the judges loved the idea but were concerned we might not be able to secure enough revenue to make it a success. It was fantastic to return last year and show the progress we had made, having secured partnerships with global drink brands.
“Johnston Carmichael has also been a great help. They offered a free pitching workshop ahead of the event, which was vital, and their finance advice has been really helpful as that’s not my background and helps make sure we’re consistently on the right path. “
Johnston Carmichael has been a sponsor of Scottish EDGE for a decade. In that time, the firm has supported more than 400 businesses with pitch practise sessions and continues to work with 40 of the successful businesses.
Calum Purdie, technology and life sciences ecosystem manager at Johnston Carmichael, helps to judge EDGE competitors’ pitches, and supports winners with business advice.
Calum said: “Eilidh has an amazing back story, and it’s been great to see how Tavora has gone from strength to strength in recent years, working with an incredible array of established brands.
“Johnston Carmichael and Scottish EDGE are both pleased to have played a small part in supporting the business reach this stage, and we’d like to wish the very best of luck to everyone taking part in this year’s finals.”