Reece shares his experience using SumUp’s products to help grow his new venture
Scottish The Apprentice star Reece Donnelly has admitted it was a ‘struggle’ when his new business venture, Skinny Coffee, quickly started going viral on social media when it opened up back in July.
Reece, who was on The Apprentice in 2023, opened up the doors to Skinny at Uddingston train station, Glasgow, after spotting a gap in the market after having a massive lifestyle change at the start of the year, becoming much more health-conscious himself.
He sees Skinny as the Scottish answer to Joe and the Juice, and reveals the shop sold three times the projected matchas they expected on opening day, selling 1,200.
The reality star, who now owns three businesses, has also shared how using products from fintech company SumUp has helped have ‘everything’ in one place.
Elsewhere, Reece reveals Lord Sugar reached out to him days after opening, to ask ‘what the hell’ he was doing and congratulate him on his new venture, but is still waiting for a visit from the business mogul.
Speaking in a recent chat with SumUp, Reece Donnelly says:
What’s your experience using SumUp at Skinny Coffee?
I use it so much. We do our rotas there, payroll, and use it as an EPOS system – we love it.
How did Skinny Coffee come about?
For me, I had gone through a massive lifestyle change at the start of the year. I decided I was really going to focus on health and fitness. As part of that, I’ve found myself making much healthier choices. I was looking for a protein fix, really good carbs, and needed good fuel for my body. Where I’m based in Scotland, there was nowhere else really doing that. The only equivalent in the UK would be Joe and the Juice, but they don’t have any branches in Scotland.
We created a concept which was health awareness and food conscious, somewhere people could come and feel good. The name ‘Skinny’ coffee comes from my favourite coffee order, which is a skinny latte. Everything is calorie counted to help people wanting to make those healthier choices, but not wanting to just eat chicken and rice! We’ve got really good options from juices, to matcha, to coffees, that was how it was formed.
How did you go about bringing it to life?
The concept was pretty clear – we wanted it to be a healthy place in a nice area in Glasgow. We’ve opened in a place called Uddingston, which is very similar to somewhere like Cheshire. We wanted to capture a market. We got straight to taste testing, working on our favourite items and then got a chef involved. As soon as the chef had signed it off, we started sampling. We sampled at work places, went and spoke to gyms, PTs, then it was branding and marketing it. A massive part of it was being able to streamline the process. Both myself and my business partner own other businesses, which is where SumUp has saved the day. We wanted a one touch app system, it controls our stock, sales, staff, rotas, out payments, staff timesheets, so for me, it was a complete yes. We’re a very modern business and it really fitted the brand. For me, SumUp had everything in one place which is great.
How important is it for businesses today to have a strong social media presence, and how do you go about making sure Skinny has that?
I just think people like to see what they never used to be able to see. You might think it’s the most mundane thing, but how to make a matcha has got us seven or eight million views. Without those eyes on us, we wouldn’t have turned over what we turned over. Everyone has got a phone in their hand, so I think it’s great being able to document it, shoot it and get it out. Social media, for me, is the key to success in a business. It allows the customer to have a voice, gives your business a personal brand and people to see who’s behind the brand. I’m massive on letting people in, I want people to be brought into our kitchen via socials. This has probably been our most viral brand so far.
With a small business, there’s often bumps in the road, can you talk about any challenges?
Bumps in the road are something you have to expect. It’s our fault! When you decide to put your business on social media, you have to expect to be sold out. You want people to come through the door, but you also want them to have good service and good products, so you have to find that balance. Unfortunately, when it’s too busy and the queue gets too big, the stock goes down and so does the level of service. We really had to mitigate how many people we had coming through our doors in those earlier days. We’re a small unit, we have 16 tables. We were seeing 2,000 people a day to start with, so we had to learn to manage expectations. You want people to really love what they get, so we really struggled with it. How do we make this viral, but not too viral? How do we give a good product but make sure we have enough of it? We really struggled in the first six weeks. We struggled to get enough stock, to get enough staff. You just need to ride the wave and know at the end of the queue there are customers happy to wait. Social media definitely has its pros and cons, and the first six weeks taught me a lot.
How did you tackle those challenges then?
We reacted pretty quickly, we would always match what we did the day before. On day one, we had a forecast for 400 matchas, but we went through 1,200. We were frantically going round every cash and carry, but gradually you get suppliers you can call at the last minute and say, we will be busy tomorrow. I think it’s about growing relationships and growing our knowledge of the industry. It was also leaning onto people we knew personally to help us out!
What made you choose this specific location and how important do you think it is to make your mark as a local coffee shop?
It’s very near where I live. I always wanted to be able to drive to a coffee shop on my way to work in the morning. It’s also located in a train station, on the Glasgow to Edinburgh line, so there are commuters. We’ve got a school at the end of the street. It’s a pretty perfect location.
How important do you think it is to use local suppliers and other Scottish producers?
We’re massive on that. If you can use someone down the road, you absolutely should. We use a local fruit supplier, a local milk supplier, and I think that’s something people really value. We struggled with this in the early days as our fruit and milk suppliers couldn’t keep up with the demand when we went viral. We had to apply a bit of pressure and assure them it would calm down. There’s great produce in Scotland, lots of beautiful meat and beef. We’ve just changed our autumn menu.
How do you think the Scottish government can support more independent small businesses?
I would love support. We don’t get a lot of support from the government, we don’t have grants etc. We don’t have the same visibility for support as, say, a business in London. A lot of money in Scotland goes towards education, that’s the crux of it. We get free education, including free university, which is a massive credit to Scotland. But that does come at a cost.
How important is it that people support their local, independent coffee shops rather than just going to big chains?
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I always say with a shop like this, you’re investing in local people. We’ve got 25 members of staff, who either are from the local area or are living around here while training at college or university. 80% of our work force are students, who are really trying. They’re the new professionals of the world. If we can support them in any way to get them motivated or get to work, we should!
Have any of your fellow contestants visited the shop and would you like a visit from Lord Sugar?
I’ve had Victoria up to visit, Dani up to visit and Rochelle’s been giving a lot of support on socials. I would love to see Lord Sugar come to Skinny. He actually reached out to congratulate me and say, what the hell are you doing! He reached out about two weeks in just to ask what I was doing.
