Orange
Building a community business from scratch
A roaming supper club for Londoners; founded, designed, and operated as a live product experiment in community building and experience design.
FOUNDED
Summer 2020
STATUS
Active & growing
FORMAT
Supper clubs, bar nights, walks
MY ROLE
Founder & Creative Director
THE PROBLEM
London's social scene, for people in their mid-to-late twenties, tends to cluster at two extremes. On one side: frequent, repetitive pub nights with the same faces. On the other: high-effort, infrequent occasions like weddings and festivals where you might meet someone new but the conditions aren't exactly conducive to it. There's a gap in the middle; a regular, structured environment designed specifically around the chance to meet people you wouldn't otherwise meet.
I'd been thinking about it for a while, but the moment that made me act was a conversation with a friend who hosted small dinners at home. She'd invite three people and ask each of them to bring one more. Simple mechanic, but it worked. I took that idea and scaled it: invite 25 people, each brings a guest, and you have a room of 50 strangers sharing a meal.
WHERE IS IT NOW?
10
Events run across supper clubs and bar nights
500
People in the Orange community
~£1.5k
Estimated profit per event
100%
Sold out across all events run
Every event has sold out. Demand grew enough that capacity expanded from 50 to 60 guests. There's now a waitlist. The venue, Hatch in London E8, has described Orange as the best event they host, which led to a partnership with favourable hire rates. Drinks revenue on top of tickets means the business turns a consistent profit.
DESIGNING THE EXPERIENCE
Running Orange has been a live exercise in experience design applied outside of a screen for the first time. The core creative challenge in the brand document captures it well: how do you create something that feels cool without trying to be cool? How do you make something playful without losing credibility?
The answer was to optimise for realness over perfection, energy over aesthetics, participation over performance. The brand identity (being developed in 2026) is built around that tension: understated chaos with warmth. A visual language that feels alive and slightly imperfect rather than polished and corporate.
The growth mechanic is the product. The +1 model is the acquisition strategy. Each guest brings someone outside the existing network, which means every event organically expands the community without paid marketing. What started as 80% people I already knew has shifted to 70% strangers. That metric has since become the thing that matters most.
I designed the entire brand from scratch. The identity, visual language, typography direction, colour system, graphic motifs, and tone of voice. Building it has been an exercise in the same kind of thinking I apply to digital products: starting with the positioning, working out what the brand needs to feel like before deciding what it needs to look like, and making deliberate decisions at every layer rather than defaulting to what's fashionable. The 2026 rebrand is an evolution of that, a more considered, scalable version of what Orange has always been trying to be.
WHAT I’VE ITERATED ON
Ten events in, the product looks significantly different from where it started. Most of the changes came from noticing what wasn't working and fixing it, the same loop as any digital product.
OPERATIONS
Solo to streamlined
The first event was run entirely alone; food going cold, WhatsApp conversations missed, I was being stretched too thin. Now, Stripe payments connected to booking links, templated guest invites capturing dietaries and relationship status, and a paid person on the day for guest experience and table service.
VENUE
Partnership over transaction
An increasingly strong relationship with Hatch has resulted in venue hire capped at £100 per hour versus £150 for other events. Built through consistency and reputation rather than negotiation.
ACQUISITION
Network to Instagram
Moved from relying on personal network to Instagram as the primary lead generation channel, bringing in guests who don't know me, which is the whole point of Orange.
CAPACITY
Demand-led growth
Expanded from 50 to 60 guests after consistent sellouts and waitlist pressure. A straightforward product decision, increase supply when demand is proven.
WHAT’S NEXT?
The long-term vision for Orange is a roaming members club; no fixed address, no fixed format, but a consistent community and a consistent feeling. The format can change. The reason for doing it doesn't.
Walks
Monthly Sunday morning walks; Hampstead Heath, a swim in the lido, finish in a pub by 4pm. Lower barrier, higher frequency, same community energy.
Frequency
More event types means more touchpoints, more sign-ups, and a community that stays warm between events.
The Juice
A newsletter to build the Orange world beyond the events themselves. Upcoming events, what’s on in London, album challenge engagement. Content that feels like the brand: warm, slightly unpredictable but worth opening.
