Kollect - The Beginning

The Beginning

Kollect, John O'Connor, John Hegarty and Robbie Skuse met in college, hit it off, and decided to go into business together. Their first venture, 'Upchore', was based on the same 'on-demand' platform as Kollect but mistakes were made, money was lost and much was learnt.Robbie Skuse, who won the title of Young Entrepreneur of the year in 2017, talks us through how Kollect came about.

“When myself and the two Johns started out, we were playing with a few names around the idea of 'Collecting' waste, Robbie explained. “Our plan was a pay as you go bin service, that was always going to be our first niche so we were throwing around names like 'Collectmybin' and 'Collectbin247'. We had focus groups with friends and family on different names but soon realised that by doing that we'd be pigeon holing ourselves to bin collection only, so we decided to just stick with the word collect.

Special-K

Robbie said that he'd love to provide a deep and meaningful reason as to why Kollect is spelt with a 'K', but the reality is far less interesting.“The fact is that most variations of the word 'collect' were taken so we used a bit of creative licence and became more distinguishable in the market, he said. “We were adamant that Kollect was going to be the name because it was simple and effective, which was exactly how we wanted the service to be for our customers.Once they had the name, it was time for to introduce the world to that famous squirrel.“A squirrel collects acorns every year and is as good as symbol as any to be associated with collecting, Robbie said. “We knew that with the squirrel as a logo, it could evolve with the company and didn't have to be just a flat imageit could be 3D, multi-coloured, fluffywhatever! t's a versatile logo that we feel will always be synonymous with Kollect.