It is the last working week before the break, and I am writing this from the Dubai office with the Manchester team already winding down a few hours ahead of us. It has been a landmark year for TLC. I want to put a few things on the record before it closes.
The shape of the year
We began 2025 as a business with a strong UK base and a growing presence in the Gulf. We end it with live programmes and platforms running across the UK, Europe and the UAE, and with work underway in Saudi Arabia that I will be able to talk about in the new year. The autumn alone saw six major launches. The team has grown. The client list has grown. The number of guests whose evening passes through something we built has grown by more than I would have predicted in January.
I do not want to recite numbers. The ones that matter to me are not the ones on the website anyway. They are the quieter ones: the group that renewed for a third year, the general manager who told us their floor team actually like the app, the programme that held its membership steady through a difficult summer when the venues around it were losing regulars.
What actually drives the work
People sometimes assume a company like ours is about technology. It is not, really. It is about the connection between a brand and the community of people who choose to spend their time and money with it. Technology is how we make that connection visible, repeatable and measurable. The point of a loyalty programme is not the points. It is that a guest walks in and feels known.
Everything we have built this year, from a beach club app in Ibiza to a reporting layer for a UK restaurant group, serves that one idea. When I look at the projects that went best, they were the ones where the client believed it too. Where the operator cared about their regulars and wanted a better way to look after them. We can build a great deal, but we cannot build that.
Thank you
To our clients: thank you for trusting us with your guests. Some of you have been with us since the delivery platforms of 2020 and have watched the company change around you. Some of you joined this year on a recommendation. Both mean a lot.
To the team, in Manchester, London, Dubai and Berlin: you have shipped more this year than any team I have led, and most of it under real pressure. Three-quarters of you have worked shifts in this industry, and it is the reason the work is any good. Go and have a proper rest.
To our partners, the POS, booking, payment and platform companies whose systems we plug into every day: thank you for the sandboxes, the late calls and the patience. We are a demanding customer. We know.
Next
I am taking a short break. A real one, with the laptop closed for a few days, which anyone who knows me will find implausible. The team are doing the same.
We come back in January with the most ambitious roadmap we have had, and a sixth birthday to mark. There is more to say about that then. For now, if you are running venues over the festive period: good luck, keep an eye on the no-shows, look after the regulars, and look after the people on the floor who are looking after everyone else.
Merry Christmas, and thank you for reading this year.
If any of this is relevant to your estate, get in touch. There is more writing here, and the studio behind the work is TheLoyaltyCo.