It’s called Rifu – and Daniel Scarborough is determined to start a Rifu-lution.

The 33-year-old has come up with an app, now in test phase, which could revolutionise marketing for small businesses.

Or, perhaps that should be, Rifu-lutionise?

The idea for what was to become Rifu first began to take shape in 2019.

Researching how to grow his other business – YourManWithAVan.co.uk which he started while at university nine years ago – Daniel came across influencer marketing.

It’s defined as a type of social media marketing that involves endorsements and product placements from influencers.

But, said Daniel: “To influence anything currently, only really people with large followings get traction.

“That makes it completely inaccessible to small businesses.

“Few can afford to throw thousands at an influencer campaign to get 0.1 per cent return.

“But, we forget that everyone is an influencer.

“I don’t have any proof, but I would argue that someone with 100 followers would potentially be more effective at sharing a product or service than one with 100,000.

“That’s simply because their followers are their friends and family who really care about the information and posts.

“However, working with the current technology in place for influencers we would not be changing the system.

“We needed a new system.”

One evening, reminiscing with friends about how he used to run music festivals, it was agreed that attendances could easily have been boosted if everyone brought an extra person.

And that‘s when Daniel’s idea really began to take shape.

He said: “Instead of paying a marketing agency to throw mud at the wall for us, why don’t we incentivise our customers?

“They know our target market better than anyone.

“I had the idea of a technology, could this be done through an app?

“An app where you could connect with your friends, family, customers – anyone.

“Businesses would then say ‘this is what I do” and how much they are willing to pay for a sale/customer.

“Users could then share their favourite businesses with their friends and family and the business would gain customers.

“Thinking about the festival and the tactic of “bring another person”, the technology could be the same – bring another person to a business.

“That is making word of mouth a tangible marketing channel.”

Daniel started looking into getting the app off the ground and came across HyperApps, an incubation company.

He said: “They were amazing.

“I met the owner and talked about the idea and how feasible it would be.

“We both signed a non disclosure agreement to keep the idea safe.

“They helped me get my early thoughts together, plan my pitch deck and then it was a case of finding investors.”

A year ago, Daniel raised the capital for his app, franchised his YourManWithAVan business and moved to Poole from Hertfordshire to work with his new business partner.

They also chose the name for the app, Rifu.

Daniel said: “We wanted something truly different that people would remember.

“This was the start of the Rifu-lution.”

Now, 12 months later, Daniel said: “We’re very nearly ready.

“At the beginning of this month we had the exciting news that the Apple and Google Play stores had approved our application and we were going live.

“We’ve just started a test phase with local businesses in Dorset as we’re keen to make sure it works, is smooth and bug free.

“When it’s ready, everyone’s happy and we’ve built a community, or as we like to put it a ‘movement’, we can press go and push it out to the rest of the country.

“And then, who knows, maybe even one day to the rest of the world.”

• rifu.com