EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Maintaining a focus on consumer benefits is “absolutely everything” for smartphone startup Wileyfox, according to Nick Muir.

“We can build scale, but it has to be done with one eye on cost. There is the idea that maybe if we spent millions on advertising, we could grow faster. But that has no consumer benefit whatsoever,” he told Mobile World Live.

Wileyfox announced its first products toward the middle of last year, using a direct-to-consumer model similar to that used by Asian players such as Xiaomi, Honor and Nubia. And Muir said that the fresh nature of the company means it is not burdened by many of the issues which have clouded its more established rivals.

“We do not have glass tower buildings, we do not have legacy pension issues. We don’t have sporting contracts, we don’t have any of those things that add to the cost of a device with absolutely no benefit to the consumer whatsoever,” he said.

But Muir also acknowledged the company had seen some growing pains.

“We went number one for pre-orders on Amazon where we started in the UK, we sold out after three days. Which is both good and bad for an online brand. Great in that the validation and the consumer drive and the messaging clearly works, but bad in that if you’re an online player and you’re not available to buy online, you fall off the top of the charts very fast”.

Watch the full interview here.