BaBash - vol 2

The nightlife industry in Estonia is more than €15+ million and in the Baltics and Finland, our first expansion markets, more than €100 million business a year. BaBash offers a complete solution for nightlife venues and event organizers, from guest-list management to on-site contactless ordering, we're planning to get to more than €10 000 MRR (Monthly recurring revenue) by the end of 2022.

Expansion during covid restrictions

As our primary foreign markets are currently almost completely closed due to restrictions, we are doing sales in three new markets where the event and entertainment sectors are open. We have chosen the Finnish, Polish and Indian markets to expand during the covid pandemic, and we have two commission-based sales people in each country that allows us to optimize the costs while staying efficient. Here’s why we chose these markets in particular:

• Finland - we received good contacts from our existing investors in Finland and have already communicated with them. Our Finnish sales rep was excited about the cooperation and already started the introduction process of our platform - we even had our first event take place in Finland in December, and more events are planned for the year 2022.
• India - our marketing specialist Shub is from India and therefore has a better overview of this market and knows the specifics of the local culture, which is very helpful for expansion. Since India is also one of the biggest markets in the world and doesn’t have any covid restrictions, it was more than logical to expand there.
• Poland - Both co-founders have sold door-to-door books in the US with Southwestern Advantage (SWA), and since SWA is active in Poland, we have access to local booksellers who are great prospects to lead the expansion and sales. Two sales people already started doing calls in Poland and the results will follow soon.

We believe that focusing on other markets is the most optimal solution in our current situation because if a new wave of covid comes, it will allow us to shift our focus to other markets, eliminating a situation where our business and growth are completely shut down.

Our first expansion markets

BaBash's expansion markets once the restrictions are lifted are Latvia, Lithuania, and Finland. This is due to the fact that we have already established the necessary legal and marketing contacts through our partners in these countries. We work with Mareks Dainis (Ex da Bass), one of the most popular music producers in Latvia, who has performed in most Baltic nightclubs and hosted many events. Through him, the owners of many nightlife venues and event organizers are warm contacts, which makes it much easier to approach them and start working together. Also, thanks to Southwestern Advantage's summers in the US, the co-founders have many contacts in the Baltics, Poland, Slovakia, and other countries where the Southwestern Advantage summer internship program is active. Thanks to these connections we have the access to the necessary contacts to expand to other countries. As of today, more than 200 nightlife venues have been contacted and added to the free-trial package on BaBashs’ platform in the Baltics, and we’ve already started contacting them to join our paid version since restrictions are slowly being lifted and people are starting to go out again.

We also chose these countries as our first expansion markets because of geographical and regulatory reasons. Latvia, Lithuania, and Finland are Estonia's neighbors, which allows us to receive feedback in real-time and to monitor the growth process on the spot if needed, without having to spend a lot of time and resources on travel and logistics. Also, in terms of regulations, Latvia, Lithuania, and Finland are very similar to Estonia, which is going to be really useful when it comes to the speed of expansion.