This is part 1 of a 3 part series looking into the Reviveaphone story (now WeFix).
The series is to run along with our crowd-funding campaign with CrowdCube. We want to explain where we have come from and what the future holds for Reviveaphone.
We start with where it all began with the founder Oliver Murphy.
Leaving School
The Reviveaphone story starts back in 2011 with a fresh faced 18-year-old leaving school, his name Oliver Murphy. We have all been there, what do I do now? His Teachers and his parents telling him he has to go to university. Part of the factory-line of our youth “go to school get good grades, go to university get a good degree, go get a good graduate job”. Sit at the desk do your work, 9-5, go home and repeat. This was the given formula fed to all of us from a young age, for not just success but for happiness.
Ollie chose a different path, he wanted to take sometime off the conveyor belt to assess what really was important to him. During this time he trained to be a chef at a cookery school and began a Ski season in The Alps.
He came back in April of 2012 and joined Knight group, a property company, as a management trainee. But after 6 months it became apparent he wanted to start his own business. He wanted to be his own boss, set his own targets and do something he was truly passionate about.
Can he Fix it? Yes he Can!
The thing with Ollie is, he was always good at fixing stuff; he could take pretty much anything apart and put it back together. He fixed the family Xbox 360 from the dreaded ring of death with just a screwdriver and hair dryer. Not to mention the old tractor, it was mess, he took it a part, replaced bits gave it a new lick of paint, put it back together and it now looks brand spanking new.
So this was the premise for the how the journey truly began, Ollie could fix anything. One faithful day he dropped his iPhone in the toilet. Now most would either take it to Apple and hope they would repair it or just buy a new one. Ollie did neither, he took the thing apart and with a bit of internet research, found he could clean the motherboard with some liquid. He bought the liquid, which came in a huge 5-litre vat. He treated the board, put the phone back together and it actually started working.
The Reviveaphone Solution
And there ladies and gents was were the Reviveaphone water damage repair kit was born. He saw that you could repair water damage with this liquid but you could only buy it in mass quantities. So why not condense the quantities and market it as a consumer product. That is exactly what he did.
Production started in his mum’s conservatory, filling small bottles with this liquid. Placing stickers on the bottles back and front (by hand, it took forever). These bottles were placed in an airlock type bag with another sticker on the front.
We got a family friend to draw phones dressed as doctors and lifeguards, for the branding, at the time we thought it worked. So Ollie started to sell the products on amazon and for the small operation it was, he was doing well, really well.
After a few weeks Ollie applied to BBC’s Dragon’s Den, to be honest on a whim. By some kind of magic in a month or so later the production team contacted him. He was on, he was going to pitch in front of the dragons, queue nervous energy.
The Dragons
Several months later Oliver was on the train to Manchester with only the butterflies in his stomach to keep him company. Now imagine you are 18 years old and tomorrow your going to pitch a product you make in your mother’s conservatory to probably one of the most daunting panels on TV.
So it was the day of reckoning, he is in the famous lift, pitch learnt, legs shaking, its show time, the next 30 minutes could be make or break. The Doors Open,
“Hi my name is Oliver Murphy and I am the founder of Reviveaphone….”
After backing from Kelly Hoppen, we moved production away from the conservatory and acquired an office. The product was sold worldwide and created the base for the company to strive forward with new products and services…..
Stay tuned for next week for part 2 of this 4 part blog, where the idea for the call-out repair service was born.
