Hartside Student Living / BB-Demo – Discovery
Callcompleted
Hartside Student Living · 2025-11-28 14:30
Bethany Cole wants agreements, resident tickets and invoices in one place for partner reviews. James Whitworth wants a clean contract and low overhead. Growth is pencilled in at £57k total deal value, with signature targeted for 27 Mar 2026.
What was said
What this says
Current to 13 Oct 26Bethany Cole wants agreements, resident tickets and invoices in one place for partner reviews. James Whitworth wants a clean contract and low overhead. Growth is pencilled in at £57k total deal value, with signature targeted for 27 Mar 2026.
What happened: Lewis Kerr ran a discovery call with Bethany Cole and James Whitworth on 28 Nov 2025. Bethany described pulling agreements, tickets and invoices from three people before each university partner review.
Customer view: James wants the brain not to need babysitting by a small data team, and wants the executed order form to be the only document worked from. Bethany said she never buys without him.
Commercial: Growth is the shape discussed, with forty users and eight connectors. The £57k is the total deal value with implementation included, not an annual price, and the split was promised in writing.
Watch: James asked for a written security answer and will not be rushed on the contract. The call does not show whether the 27 Mar 2026 signature date was met.
Themes
Current to 9 Oct 26Theme
Partner review single view
Importance
upsell
Sentiment
positive
Voice
decision-maker
Who was there
BB-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
Current to 9 Oct 26- Lewis Kerr to send a written summary, the total deal value split and the order form.
- Hannah Lowe to run a demo on Hartside data and put the security architecture in writing.
- Bethany Cole to send the list of universities for the demo.
Risks
Current to 9 Oct 26- James Whitworth will not be rushed on the contract and wants the order form with enough time to read it.
- A small data team means the brain must not become an overhead someone has to babysit.
- Universities ask where resident data goes, so a written security answer is needed.
Opportunities
Current to 9 Oct 26- Growth tier for partnerships, resident services and finance, with the dashboards builder.
- Shared drive connector for the scanned agreements, with email as a possible second phase.
Transcript
Lewis Kerr NoneHello, can you both hear me alright?
Bethany Cole NoneLoud and clear, Lewis. Hi. James is just joining, I can see him in the lobby.
James Whitworth NoneGood afternoon. Apologies, I was closing off something with the auditors' queries. Can you hear me?- Lewis Kerr NonePerfectly, thanks James. No problem at all. How's the week been, is it the usual end of November rush?
- James Whitworth NoneIt is, yes. Cash collection from the universities never really lets up at this time of year. The first term invoices are all due about now.
- Bethany Cole NoneAnd I've had three partner meetings since Monday, so I'm very much in the thick of it too. But I'm glad we've got this slot, because it's exactly the kind of thing that keeps coming up in those meetings.
- Lewis Kerr NoneGood, that's a helpful place to start. So, just to confirm what I understood from our first conversation, Bethany, you want to see each university's nomination agreement, the resident tickets and the invoices in one place, and you'd like to have that working before the next round of partner reviews. Have I got that right, and is there a date you're working to?
- Bethany Cole NoneThat's right. Partners first, always. What I'd like is for us to walk into a review and not have to say, I'll come back to you on that. At the moment I ask one person for the agreement, another for the ticket history and finance for what's been paid. By the time I've pulled it together the meeting has come and gone.
- Lewis Kerr NoneMm. And how many of those do you do in a typical term, roughly?
- Bethany Cole NoneWe're in eight university cities, so there's a review cycle for every one of them, and some of the bigger universities want more than one a year. About twelve thousand beds in total. So it adds up quickly.
- Lewis Kerr NoneRight, that helps me size it. Can I ask what you use today? Where does each of those three things actually live?
- Bethany Cole NoneThe agreements are partly in our CRM and partly in a shared drive, to be honest. Some are scanned PDFs with notes in the margin. Resident issues are in the helpdesk. And the invoices sit in the finance system, which is really James's world.
- James Whitworth NoneThey do. And I'd say the finance system is accurate, but it doesn't know which university an invoice relates to in the way Bethany's team thinks about it. We reconcile by hand each month.
- Lewis Kerr NoneThat's very common, James. So the question the brain answers is something like, for this university, what did we agree, what's gone wrong for their students, and what have they paid.
- Bethany Cole NoneExactly that. Because what will the university ask? They'll ask whether we've fixed the heating complaints in that building, and whether they've been invoiced correctly for the rooms they nominated. And I'd rather know before they ask.
- Lewis Kerr NoneUnderstood. And James, from your side, what would you need to see to feel this is worth doing?
- James Whitworth NoneHonestly, two things. First, that it doesn't become another overhead that somebody has to babysit. We've got a small data team. Second, that the contract is clean. We pay on the terms we signed, so I'd want to see the order form and be very clear about what's included before anyone does any work.
- Lewis Kerr NoneThat's entirely fair. I'll send over the order form when we get to that stage, and nothing is agreed on a call like this. To put a number on it so there are no surprises later, the shape we've discussed internally is the Growth tier, and the deal value we've pencilled in is £57,000. That's the total deal value, with the one-off implementation included, not an annual price. I'll confirm the split in writing.
- James Whitworth NoneThank you. So fifty-seven all in, and the split between the one-off and the annual part to follow in writing. Which version is the signed one, when it comes to it? I'd want the executed copy to be the only thing we work from.
- Lewis Kerr NoneThe executed order form is the only one that counts, James. Drafts are superseded the day it's signed, and I'll make that very clear on anything I send.
- James Whitworth NoneGood. I don't mean to be difficult.
- Bethany Cole NoneYou're not, you're being James. It's why I never buy without him.
- Lewis Kerr NoneHa. Well, it makes my job easier. Let me describe Growth briefly so we're all talking about the same thing. It's for several teams, so university partnerships and resident services would both sit on it. It comes with forty users and eight connectors, the dashboards builder and a quarterly review with your customer success manager.
- Bethany Cole NoneForty users should be fine. Partnerships is a handful of people, resident services is bigger, and finance would dip in.
- Lewis Kerr NoneAnd connectors, the CRM, the helpdesk and the finance system make three. Is there anything else you'd want connected, calls, email, the shared drive?
- Bethany Cole NoneProbably the shared drive, because that's where those scanned agreements are. Email would be useful but I can see that being a second phase.
- Lewis Kerr NoneThat's sensible, and it's plenty of headroom within eight. Now, who on your side would own the data side of this? Someone has to be the person who knows where everything lives.
- Bethany Cole NoneOur data and reporting manager. She'd be the admin. She's very good, and she'll have opinions about every connector, I should warn you.
- Lewis Kerr NoneOpinions are what we want. I'd suggest she and the resident services manager come to the demo as well, so you see it on your own data and the right people can poke at it. Hannah Lowe, our solutions engineer, runs those, and she'll want to ask what you most need to know.
- Bethany Cole NoneYes, I'll bring both of them. We're close to the holidays, so it might need to be right at the end of the year.
- James Whitworth NoneLewis, one other practical point. Security. Our universities do ask where resident data goes. I'll need something I can show them.
- Lewis Kerr NoneVery reasonable. The short version is that the brain is built and runs inside your own Snowflake account, so the data doesn't move into our environment. Hannah can go through the architecture properly and put it in writing, and I wouldn't want to improvise on a security answer from memory.
- James Whitworth NoneThat's what I wanted to hear, thank you. In writing, please.
- Lewis Kerr NoneOf course. So, timing. Bethany, you mentioned the next reviews. When would you ideally want it live?
- Bethany Cole NoneBefore the spring reviews. If it were running by the end of March I'd be happy, I'd have a full cycle to build the evidence for the summer.
- Lewis Kerr NoneThe date I have against the deal is Friday 27 March 2026 for signature. If that's the target, we'd want to work back from it, demo and a proposal first, then the paperwork with James. Does that feel realistic?
- James Whitworth NoneIt's realistic provided I have the order form with enough time to read it properly. I won't be rushed on the contract.
- Lewis Kerr NoneUnderstood, and that's why I'd rather you had it early than late. So, next steps. I'll send a short note today summarising what we've covered, including the Growth shape and the total deal value in writing. I'll also get a demo date in the diary with Hannah, Bethany, and your data and reporting manager and resident services manager invited.
- Bethany Cole NonePerfect. And I'll send you the list of the universities, so Hannah can pick one or two to show on.
- Lewis Kerr NoneThat'd be ideal, thank you. James, anything else from you before we finish?
- James Whitworth NoneNo, that's everything. I'll wait for the note and the order form. Thank you both.
- Bethany Cole NoneThanks Lewis, this was really useful. Speak soon.
- Lewis Kerr NoneThank you both. I'll send that over today. Goodbye for now.
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