Interesting propositions I discovered in 2017

Glyn Britton
3 min readDec 13, 2017

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I’ve been keeping a list of the interesting propositions I discovered or referenced a lot in 2017 (although they weren’t necessarily launched this year). I thought I’d share as an end of year gift.

It’s in no way exhaustive or complete (or in any kind of sensible order); it’s just those that I’ve subjectively found most interesting, or have found most useful as inspiration or analogy in my work at KBS Albion.

There’s no AR, and barely a sprinkling of AI and blockchain (and no tokens). But there’s lots of re-engineering categories around customers and products disappearing inside services.

Money

  • Yolt — the best of the app money managers, according to our product team — and it’s from ING!
  • Moneybox — put what’s left at the end of the month into an ISA
  • Betterment — modern retirement saving
  • Salary Finance — payroll loans
  • Clear — the UK’s first new clearing bank in more than 250 years

Blockchain

  • Provenance — blockchain powered provenance throughout the supply chain
  • CanYa — TaskRabbit but on a blockchain

Insurance

  • WeSavvy — exercise to reduce your insurance premiums
  • Jetty — makes renting in city easier (inc. insurance)
  • Freebird — rebook disrupted flights (invisibly powered by travel insurance)
  • Sure — episodic, everyday insurance
  • Flock — PAYG insurance for drones
  • Homelyfe — anti-gazumping insurance
  • Tomorrow — the inheritance app (inc. life insurance)

Adjacent to insurance

Alternative investment

Health

  • Echo — manage NHS repeat prescriptions
  • Iora — holistic primary care powered by health coaches
  • Prelude Fertility — helps people have healthy babies when they’re ready
  • Ambrosia — transfusions of young blood to delay aging
  • Zipongo — keep employees healthier through recipes, groceries and workplace canteens

Food / food retail

  • Plenty — makes farming 130 times more productive
  • Impossible — a plant-based burger that tastes and feels as good as meat
  • New Crop Capital — a fund for plant-based food disrupters
  • Cook Daily — delicious, trendy food (that happens to be vegan)
  • Deliveroo Editions — Deliveroo providing ‘dark’ kitchens
  • Ando — David Chang’s food delivery service
  • Ritual — preorder to skip the takeaway queue at restaurants

Property

  • Compass — modern home buying experience (inc. editorial)
  • Homie — modern home buying and selling experience
  • Nested — guarantees a fair sale price for your home
  • Shed — pop-up flats in warehouses
  • Loftium — pays the deposit on flat if you agree to continuously AirBnB a room

Retail

  • StockX — a stock market of collectible sneakers
  • Grailed — fashion marketplace, find high end designer items
  • Brandless — unbranded ethical products all for $3
  • Enjoy — experts come to deliver and set-up your tech

Cars / mobility

  • Shift — enjoy.com for cars
  • Virtuo — modern car rental experience
  • TestDrives2U — brings any car to you for a test drive
  • Cabin — luxury bus from LA to San Francisco

Fashion

  • Asket — premium basics, developed iteratively
  • Linjer — luxury goods supply chain, without the luxury good premium
  • Thread — hybrid human + algorythm fashion advice and retail

Logistics

  • Flexport — global shipping as a service
  • Weengs — collects goods from you for shipping

Recruitment

  • Apres — find jobs after a career break
  • Smashify — next gen recruitment platform

Energy

  • ohmconnect — get paid for saving energy
  • Squeaky — SMEs can buy clean energy direct from generators just like Google does (I’m an advisor)

Tools

Voice

  • Lyrebird — create a digital voice that sounds like you with only one minute of audio
  • Amazon Polly — text to speech a sa service

Third age

White Hot Hair — hair products for grey and white hair

Any zingers I’ve missed? Let me know in the comments. And please give me some applause if you find this interesting or useful.

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Glyn Britton
Glyn Britton

Written by Glyn Britton

Leading a customer-led transformation at a PE-backed #SMEtech. Previously CSO at Albion, a business innovation consultancy.