It has been a rough few months at Hoop, Anthony tells us. Patrick, one of Hoop’s three co-founders, has been dealing with significant health concerns which will directly impact the company’s operations. While he will remain involved in the long-term, high level strategy and major decisions, he will scale back his daily exposure to work to 20% of what would normally have been the case. Hoop will hire an additional administrator to support day-to-day operations and Anthony and Gina will take over many of Patrick’s responsibilities.

The typical seasonal slowdown of Cape town’s market has been started early this year, but business seems to start picking up again, says Anthony. The good news is that there has been a 2 to 3-fold increase in leads after the website launch and brand education strategies. The brand book and marketing materials have also been finalised for distribution to architects, developers and interior designers. The conversation rates of these leads is still a bit disappointing and needs to be improved through more calibrated marketing, as the Imperial College team has suggested.

Anthony also cites improvements in the sales processes, including the streamlining of quotation documents and improved communication of proposals and pricing. There has also been good progress in terms of client experience and feedback collection systems, even though it is sometimes a challenge to get customers to complete forms.

Cash flow constraints have pushed back some projects, such as the onboarding of CRM software. There has also not been much movement yet on insurance and workspace solutions.

Anthony remains positive in the medium to long-run, considering the ongoing positive client feedback and sustained market demand.

The Imperial College programme has been of great value to Hoop, Anthony says. “For us, it has served as a great motivational reminder and external validation. The report will be a valuable reference tool for our business decisions and function as a strategic compass and a lighthouse”.