David Coveney

I am a

About

Product Builder with Hospitality, Brand & Client Experience

20+ years in hospitality and the drinks industry, building brands, managing clients and launching products, now applied to full stack development.

Location: London, UK
Focus: Full Stack Development & Product Thinking

Experience: Brand Building, Client Management, Sales Leadership
Current: Zest:r & WHY Recruitment

I’ve spent over two decades working in hospitality and premium drinks, launching products into competitive markets, managing key accounts and leading sales teams. That experience now shapes how I approach building technology.

I build products with a clear understanding of users, commercial pressures and adoption challenges, ensuring what gets built is not just functional, but genuinely valuable and used in the real world.

Tech Stack

HTML

CSS

JavaScript

PHP

Node.js

PostgresSQL

TypeScript

React

Full Stack Projects

Gazetteer

An interactive world explorer combining live data, mapping and real-time country insights.

Company Directory

A dynamic employee management system with search, filtering and real-time database updates

Total TOTYM Community App

A mobile-first community app for tracking and trading collectible cards

Distillery Tools & Your Notebook

A full stack tool built for a craft gin distillery — combining real-time duty calculation, COGS management and margin modelling into a private product notebook.

An interactive mapping application that allows users to explore countries around the world using live data. The project integrates multiple APIs to display country information, weather, news, currency exchange rates and points of interest directly onto a dynamic map. Built using JavaScript, PHP and Leaflet, it focuses on handling asynchronous data, API integration and creating a responsive user experience.

Key Features

Interactive map powered by Leaflet with dynamic country selection
Real-time data from multiple APIs (weather, news, currency)
Location-based insights including population, capital and region
Live currency conversion for selected countries
Points of interest displayed as map markers
Smooth asynchronous data loading without page refresh

Tech Stack

JavaScript (ES6)
PHP
Leaflet.js (mapping)
REST APIs (weather, news, currency, country data)
AJAX / Fetch for asynchronous data handling

A full stack mobile-first community app built for fans of a TOTYM Trading Card Game, allowing users to register, log in and manage their personal card collection. Users can browse all available cards, add pulls from booster packs to their collection and list cards as available for community trades.

Built as an MVP with a focus on core functionality: authentication, CRUD operations and a community trading feed. Further development planned including image uploads for users, notifications and enhanced trade matching.

The app has a strong community identity. Users choose a fantasy character archetype on registration (such as "lord of hell" or "flutter in the garden") which assigns them a unique profile avatar, giving the community a fun, themed feel that reflects the world of the card game.

Key Features

User registration and authentication with JWT and Passport.js
Personal card collection management with quantity tracking
Community trade board for listing and browsing available cards
Mobile-first design built for on-the-go use
Full CRUD operations across cards, collections and trades

Tech Stack

React (Vite)
Node.js & Express
PostgreSQL (Supabase)
JWT & Passport.js (authentication)
Railway (backend) & Vercel (frontend)

Try it out

Distillery Tools is a two-part platform built for a real client, a craft gin distillery in the UK. It combines a public-facing tools suite with a private, authenticated product notebook, giving the distillery a single place to manage recipe costings and model pricing before a product goes to market.

The public suite includes a nutrition label calculator for UK compliance and a recipe maker with ABV and dilution calculation. The private Product Notebook sits behind JWT authentication and allows the distillery to log their full cost of goods (ingredients, labour, packaging) against each recipe, then instantly model retail, wholesale and on-trade pricing at any margin.

The pricing engine accounts for UK spirits duty by ABV threshold, applies fixed overhead costs including warehousing, delivery and glass, and selects the correct bottle size cost automatically. An X-Ray view breaks the full selling price down into a visual pie chart, showing exactly where cost lies before the product leaves the door.

Key Features

JWT authentication with httpOnly cookies and bcrypt password hashing
Full CRUD across products and cost line items with dynamic form rows
UK spirits duty calculation across ABV thresholds based on HMRC 2026 rates
Live margin modelling with real-time retail, wholesale and RRP calculation
X-Ray pie chart breaking down the full cost structure per bottle
Bottle size selector (70cl, 50cl, 25cl, 5cl) with correct costs applied per size
Fixed overhead costs pulled from the database per distillery
PostgreSQL on Neon with foreign key relationships across products and cost lines
Deployed on Railway with custom domain at distillerytools.com

Tech Stack

React, TypeScript, Vite, Tailwind CSS, DaisyUI
Node.js and Express backend
PostgreSQL on Neon
JWT with httpOnly cookies and bcrypt
Recharts for data visualisation
Railway deployment with Cloudflare DNS

Built For

Commissioned by a craft gin distillery as a working internal tool. The pricing calculations are based on real HMRC duty rates and the client's actual fixed cost structure.

Product Development

WHY Recruitment - HATS Platform

A CV-less hiring platform matching hospitality candidates to venues based on values, culture fit and capability

Zest:r - Rewarding Hospitality

A hospitality loyalty and advocacy platform built to reward staff, retain talent and connect brands with the people who champion their products

Zest:r came from a problem I know firsthand. Hospitality has a retention crisis, and the way brands, venues and staff interact around rewards and recognition is broken. I built Zest:r to fix that: a platform where brands invest meaningfully in the people who champion their products, staff get rewarded with experiences that actually matter, and everyone in the ecosystem benefits.

I built Zest:r from the ground up as both founder and developer, using AI-assisted development workflows to take the product from concept to a live MVP. The marketing site launched in early 2025 and the product platform went live in April 2025.

Alongside the build, I have developed the platform's partner network from scratch - bringing on industry-leading reward providers including WSET accreditation partners, a leading drinks charity, a photography professional, and a podcast and L&D provider. I negotiated terms and partnership structures for each. The platform launched with premium brand partners and some of London's best venues already committed to the pilot from day one.

Every decision on this product has been mine: identifying the problem, designing the user journey, making technical decisions and iterating based on real feedback from the market.

Key Features

Staff rewards and advocacy tracking
Brand and venue management dashboard
Mobile-first product experience
Marketing site and product platform as separate deployments
Concept to live MVP in under 12 months

My Role

Founder, product owner and lead developer
Built using AI-assisted development workflows
Concept to live MVP - April 2025 launch
Code available on request

Curriculum Vitae

Summary

David Coveney

Product-focused developer with over 20 years in hospitality and drinks brand building, combining deep commercial experience with full-stack development. Proven track record of launching and scaling brands in highly competitive markets, managing key accounts and leading sales teams. Now building technology platforms that solve real operational challenges across hiring, retention and team engagement within hospitality.

Core Skills

Frontend: React, TypeScript, HTML, CSS
Backend: Node.js, Express, PostgreSQL
Tools: Git, Stripe, SendGrid, Railway
Commercial: Brand building, sales strategy, go-to-market execution
Product: UX thinking, MVP design, API integration

Product Development

Zest:r (In Development)

Hospitality rewards platform designed to convert brand spend into team incentives. Currently building full-stack functionality including marketplace flows and activation logic.

WHY Recruitment (In Development)

Culture-first recruitment platform focused on improving hiring quality and retention. Developing matching logic and application workflows based on real-world hospitality operations.

Commercial Strengths

20+ years in hospitality and premium drinks markets
Full lifecycle experience from product launch to national scale
Strong client and stakeholder management across venues, groups and brand owners
Experienced in building and leading high-performing sales teams
Deep understanding of on-trade dynamics, trends and commercial pressures

Professional Experience

Managing Partner

September 2025 - Present

WHY Hospitality Group

Advising hospitality venues and brands on commercial strategy, team engagement and retention
Leading product design and development for Zest:r and WHY Recruitment, translating real-world challenges into scalable digital platforms
Bridging operational insight with technology to create solutions that are practical, adoptable and commercially viable
Working closely with operators and stakeholders to shape product direction and ensure real-world relevance

Full Stack Developer (Training)

May 2024 - Present

IT Career Switch & Code Timber

Developing full-stack applications using modern technologies including React, TypeScript and PostgreSQL
Building production-style applications with authentication, APIs and database integration
Applying development skills to real-world hospitality problems through live projects

Sales Director

August 2021 - September 2025

BBB Drinks, UK

Led national sales across wholesalers, premium retail and on-trade groups in a highly competitive drinks market
Managed and developed a team of 6–10 across sales, brand and operations
Played a key role in achieving over 100% year-on-year growth through targeted strategy and execution
Worked closely with brand owners to position, launch and scale products across the UK market
Managed full sales cycle from prospecting through to long-term account growth and retention

Head of On-Trade & Field Sales Manager

2017 - 2021

Southwestern Distillery (Tarquin’s Gin), UK

Secured and developed key prestige accounts including Selfridges, The Savoy and The Goring
Led national on-trade strategy and managed a field sales team across the UK
Played a key role in scaling the brand within a saturated gin market
Built long-term relationships with operators, groups and buyers across premium hospitality

Earlier Career in Hospitality & Brand Management

2004 - 2017

Brand Ambassador positions with premium international brands

Various leadership roles across premium venues and hotels

David Coveney

About

Product Builder with Hospitality, Brand & Client Experience

Tech Stack

Full Stack Projects

Gazetteer

Company Directory

Total TOTYM Community App

Distillery Tools & Your Notebook

Product Development

WHY Recruitment - HATS Platform

Zest:r - Rewarding Hospitality

Curriculum Vitae

Summary

David Coveney

Core Skills

Product Development

Zest:r (In Development)

WHY Recruitment (In Development)

Commercial Strengths

Professional Experience

Managing Partner

September 2025 - Present

Full Stack Developer (Training)

May 2024 - Present

Sales Director

August 2021 - September 2025

Head of On-Trade & Field Sales Manager

2017 - 2021

Earlier Career in Hospitality & Brand Management

2004 - 2017

Contact