We’ve launched Yuup, a new online marketplace where you can book and gift experiences in Bristol. With the aim of helping local businesses and individuals with a talent or an idea to create new opportunities, find customers, and unlock new means for sustainable income, we’re aiming to inject £1.1 million into the local economy and create 125 jobs in our first year.
We developed Yuup over the COVID-19 lockdown, fuelled out of a desire to support small businesses, solopreneurs and creative and innovative people with a passion they want to turn into an income stream. Our business’ goal is for over 90% of Yuup’s experiences to be run by Bristol-based independents and people sharing a skill or a side hustle.
Yuup is this week also celebrating its launch with a line-up of limited Special Edition experiences, which can only be booked through the marketplace, and I couldn’t be more excited!
These include a culinary crawl with Michelin-starred chef Josh Eggleton around his favourite local producers, a vegan baking class with Bristol's own Bake Off star Briony May Williams, a modelling workshop with Aardman's senior animator Jim Parkyn, an exploration of the city’s most colourful spots whilst perfecting the art of smartphone photography with Jess Siggers (@PorthJess), and customers will also be able to hear the stories behind Bristol’s world famous street art on an exclusive tour with UpFest founder Stephen Hayles.
Yuup was actually born from my own personal experience. Everyone knows there’s so many amazing things to experience in Bristol – from arts and craft, to food and drink and sports and adventure, but there wasn’t a resource where you could easily find it all and book (or gift) in one place. So Yuup was born; a sustainable and mutually beneficial way to support the local economy.
The events of this year have been really hard on everyone, with many small businesses within the city feeling the full brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic on their bottom lines. We believe Yuup will be a true force for good, enabling small and microbusinesses to unlock a whole host of new opportunities to help bolster their revenue streams. At the same time, following months of being under lockdown, what could be better for local people than the opportunity to get out and try something new in the city.
But I’ve not done this alone, I’ve enlisted a number of great people I’ve met over the course of my career to form Yuup’s founding team. And testament to the cause and belief in what we’re doing, they’ve invested their own money to help support the launch.
Yuup is a local business designed and developed by people in the city, and we the Bristol circular economy very seriously. All parties involved in bringing Yuup to market, from sales and marketing to web development, are based in the city.
Each experience takes place in a small, socially distanced group and Yuup experience hosts are required to follow government guidelines on COVID-19 and many to undertake risk assessments in line with these guidelines and put any necessary mitigations in place. Each experience listed on Yuup includes COVID-19 guidance prepared by the host describing the specific measures to ensure it’s safe.
Yuup is always on the hunt for new experiences to add to its marketplace. If you have a skill to share, a talent to expose, a coveted craft or an exciting side hustle just go to Yuup.co to sign up as an experience host.
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