http://yourhiddenpotential.co.uk/2012/05/08/global-personals/ http://yourhiddenpotential.co.uk/2012/05/08/global-personals/#comments Tue, 08 May 2012 06:59:24 +0000 Rachel Dolan http://yourhiddenpotential.co.uk/?p=14386 If you like this post, why not stay updated to our contents as soon as they are published. Subscribe to our RSS Feeds, Facebook Fanpage and Twitter.

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Describing itself as ‘the Facebook for people who haven’t met yet’, members share over 8 million interactions every day, with Global Personals gaining a new member every six seconds. The business creates a platform for thousands of online dating sites to be built, the majority of which are privately owned and managed by website owners.

Founder and CEO Ross Williams created his first agency during his time at university in 1997. In 2003, armed with just a credit card, Ross alongside Steve Pammenter created Global Personals. Since then the business has grown a tremendous amount, resulting in Ross being shortlisted for Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2006, selected for Top 10 to Watch in 2007, and nominated in two categories in the Fast Growth Business Awards in 2008.

Global Personals has a very impressive portfolio of over 7,500 sites with over 1,500 brand name partners internationally, such as FHM, Magic and The Independent. Partners benefit from Global Personals by using White Label Dating, a fully supported free to set up platform created by Steve Pammenter, which enables any organisation to run their own dating website regardless of their size. Branded as ‘the simplest way to break into the dating industry’, White Label Dating allows an individual to set up their own dating site or an established brand to monetise its existing customer base – all you have to do is attract traffic to your site.

Members benefit from Global Personals’ mobile web platform; designed for speed and performance, customers are able to use geolocation services in order to find people in their area, whilst also having the opportunity to ‘flirt’ with people on the other side of the world.

The business has used its inherent tech capabilities to continually adapt in order to keep up with social media trends; the development of a new API has allowed for app development and links GP’s services to sites such as Facebook, a key strategy for growth and innovation through the sharing of information between members.

Founded in Windsor, Global Personals now has offices in London, New York and Melbourne, and has reported an annual revenue of $50m in 2011. In January 2012 Global Personals celebrated their 10 millionth member. Their easy-to-use, ready-made dating platform has attracted a huge number of partners at this stage, and the ever-changing technology embedded within the platform will continue to attract partners, both big and small.

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Beulah London is a unique company that combines high-end fashion with ethically sourced products, maintaining its elegance and beauty whilst promoting social justice. The company was started by Natasha Rufus Isaacs and Lavinia Brennan, two young women with an inherent ability to help others without sacrificing the quality of their product.

Before the establishment of Beulah London the pair spent a large amount of time in India where they worked alongside numerous charities and organisations to promote justice, but the women found their passion after spending two months in the southern slums of Delhi helping women who had been rescued from the sex trade. Natasha and Lavinia worked in an aftercare home called ‘Atulya’ which provided a refuge for these women whilst also teaching them relevant skills which would allow them to be financially independent and prevent the women from falling back into the underworld from which they had been saved.

Their harrowing yet inspiring experiences in India created the momentum needed for the women to create their own company which could continue to deal with the issues presented to them both abroad and at home in the UK; thus Beulah London was born, the aim of which is to provide a new life to victims of the slave trade whilst creating a luxury brand of clothing which is both easy to wear and naturally elegant.

The production of the clothes takes place in a small cottage industry in Kolkata which creates employment in the area and also teaches important and sustainable skills. Although currently the women are not sufficiently skilled to create the garments themselves, they are making accessories such as scarves and bags in order to gain the necessary experience so that one day they will be involved in the whole production process along with members of local communities.

Their first collection ‘Amazing Grace’ which launched in the summer of 2011 represents the transformation and the potential for women to change their situations; Lavinia explains: ‘Our goal is to produce beautiful clothes that empower the women who wear them and the women who make them’.

Although neither Natasha nor Lavinia have any background of fashion, their brand has grown dramatically, with the likes of Kate Middleton being seen wearing their garments. Both women studied history of art, Natasha at Oxford Brookes and Lavinia at Durham, and then went on to gain experience in PR and at an art auction house whilst also being involved with social projects at Holy Trinity Brompton. The company received funding from bank loans and family and friends, plus the supervision of a mentor at TiE UK (The Indus Entrepreneurs) which helped the company to grow in the right direction. The pair admit that it has at times been a struggle and that they were heavily dependent on their parents throughout the establishment of the company, but that their motivation comes from the people at the heart of what they’re doing, the people that need their help.

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l-r Adam Balon, Richard Reed and Jon Wright

The Innocent story starts in Cambridge, where three friends met whilst working towards their degrees. The recent graduates Richard Reed, Adam Balon and Jon Wright then moved to London where they started the process of coming up with a variety of smoothie recipes and buying £500 worth of fruit to get them started.

In the summer of 1998 the three friends travelled nervously tothe‘Jazz on the Green’ Festival in Parsons Green; a spot full of the kind of people that would drink their smoothies. It was here that they would receive public feedback on their recipes which would determine whether they would proceed with the huge but exciting task of giving up their day jobs to start a business, or whether they would dump the fruit and rush back to their careers in consulting and advertising. Originally the trio had designed a feedback form but traded it in for a less corporate approach.

The idea was simple and succinct: people would try their smoothie and dispose of the (hopefully) empty bottle in one of two bins; one labelled ‘YES’ and the other ‘NO’. Above their stall was the question ‘Do you think we should give up our jobs to make these smoothies?’ At the end of the weekend the ‘YES’ bin was full with only three bottles in the ‘NO’ bin, so the boys went home, flipped a coin for some last minute reassurance, and quit their jobs the next day to go to work on the building of what would become the UK and Europe’s favourite smoothie brand.

Next was the problem that all start-up businesses face; the issue of funding. The boys applied to, and got turned down by, 20 different banks. They pitched at an event for entrepreneurs only to find that nobody was interested in hearing any more about them. On paper the trio were a risky investment; they were friends, they had no experience in their field, they would be competing against massive companies, and they’d never set up a business. This realisation, however ‘soul destroying’#, did not deter the trio. They continued on their path to funding by emailing everyone they knew hoping to find somebody rich, until they got an email back from Maurice Pinto, who they’d heard sometimes made investments. Despite the fact that Pinto thought the idea was ‘dumb’, he agreed to invest £50,000 in the company, which then grew to £250,000 when the other investors he usually works with refused to invest.

The trio then found a manufacturing partner Mike Lord, who had been manufacturing orange juice. He said to the boys “I don’t think it’s going to work, but there’s something in your eyes that reminds me of myself when I was your age, so I’ll do it.”

Advertising was the next step, and with no money to afford it, the trio had to come up with inspired (and cheap) ways to spread the Innocent name. After over-producing, they handed out their smoothies for free to around 50 different shops with the hope that they would call and order more; which they did. They also wrote little nonsensical messages on the products themselves about their natural origin; the idea behind their brand was ‘to make it easy for people to do themselves some good. And to make it taste nice too. We wanted people to think of innocent drinks as their one healthy habit; like going to the gym’#. They also left smoothies on every floor of a building packed full of journalists which again earned them a large amount of phone calls in return for their hard work.

Innocent Drinks continued to grow and grow, with their staff size growing from just three to two hundred and fifty between 1999 and 2010, with their market share growing from 0% to 77.5% within the same time period#. On April 6th 2009 Innocent Drinks announced its decision to sell a stake of 18% to The Coca-Cola Company which was then increased in April 2010 to 58% with the three founders retaining full operational control over the company.

However, Reed maintains that it wasn’t until around 2007 that he reached full confidence with their idea: “Every time something good happened I still didn’t believe – it was just temporary respite from the paranoia that it was destined to fail”

Information taken from:
An interview with Courtney Rubin, July 26 2010 featured: [http://www.inc.com/articles/2010/07/building-englands-favorite-smoothie-company.html]

[http://innocentdrinks.co.uk/]
# Market share source: IRI Infoscan 2006

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It was back in the Summer of 2010 when I had just finished the first year of my BA Hons degree in Media and Communications at Birmingham City University, that I had the idea for my business. As a vegetarian I and had become increasingly concerned by some of the ingredients in many well know High Street beauty products and cosmetics. Animal fats, crushed beetles and pig placenta are common ingredients as well as harsh alcohols. These ingredients are used predominantly because they’re cheap and they’re used as fillers but are clearly not ethical or good for the skin.

Over the summer I started to research halal products as I found their stringent criteria matched my own beliefs. I then found that actually there was a demand for these products not only from the Muslim community but also from vegetarians and vegans. In Islam, ‘halal’ means permissible or what is allowed in the Muslim faith. Where beauty products are concerned animal ingredients, animal testing and haram alcohol is forbidden. Halal certification is a strict process whereby the products are tested and certified halal meaning they comply with Islamic law. I was convinced that there would be a demand for these type of products.

Initially I was going to run the business online and thought that maybe I would be able to combine business and studies. One day whilst shopping, I came across a very small but perfectly usable unit in The Pavilions Shopping Centre in Birmingham. The unit had been empty for many years basically because it was too small for most businesses. I managed to get the unit at a very good price and with the help of friends and family painted it and did it up myself to keep costs as low. I soon realised that I had created something very special and was determined to dedicate all my time and energy into the business in order to give it a chance to grow.

There’s no way I could have combined both the business and studies so I made a choice and put my degree on hold. I believe I made the right decision and I found that I had learnt many useful things on my degree course that were very much transferable to the world of business, so my studies were certainly not a waste of time. At first there were so many new things that I had to get to grips with. Everything seemed so confusing; corporate tax, vat, rent and business rates, importation duties, my head used to spin with it all. As time went on though, I did plenty of research and sought advice from people like business link and my local chamber of commerce and things became a lot clearer. Everything in business is a learning curve and every day presents new challenges and obstacles to overcome. Pure Halal Beauty is a unique concept and the first store of its kind that sells solely halal certified beauty products.

When our store first opened in December 2010, we received a lot press features and articles from around the world from national press, international press, local press, bloggers and we were even on television.

As the months went by I realised that some products although they are halal are not particularly natural with regards to their ingredients. I knew we could improve on the products that were available which is when I decided I wanted to create my own natural, halal collection that was completely ethical and eco-friendly.

In the Autumn of 2011, just before we reached our 1st birthday, we launched The PHB Collection- the worlds’ largest range of natural, halal and vegan beauty products. The collection includes, skincare, body care, hair care, cosmetics and men’s and baby products also. Most of the collection is made by hand in the UK, and our packaging is 100% recyclable.

I am incredibly proud of the PHB collection and we have had some amazing reviews and feedback about the quality and efficacy of the products. We did a lot of research before finding a manufacturer that we were happy with and who could offer us what we needed with regards to the ingredients and ethical stance of the products. I didn’t want to use any chemicals, parabens or petro chemicals which are common ingredients in many beauty products, mainly because they’re cheap. We researched and selected ingredients that are gentle, natural and effective. For example rosewood, gardenia and rosehip have some fabulous anti-aging properties, so we use these in our Elixir of Youth range. Whilst ingredients like grape-seed, rose and aloe-vera are used in our Pure & Natural range for Very Sensitive skin because they’re incredibly kind to skin. Also it is important to me that none of our products or ingredients are ever tested on animals or contain any animal ingredients. The halal certification and vegan society registration serve to add extra assurances to my customers.

Since the release of the PHB collection we’ve been inundated with interest from around the world and had a number of exciting opportunities. We’ve had a lot of enquiries about potential distribution and franchise opportunities in the UK and Internationally – so this is something exciting that we are exploring. We hope to expand our number of store in the future also, as we are constantly getting calls from customers who can’t wait for us to open up shops in London, Manchester, Leeds, Bradford etc. So overall 2012 looks like being a very busy and exciting year for Pure Halal Beauty!

For more information visit: http://www.purehalalbeautyproducts.co.uk/
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This is what we talked about.

Hi Churchill, great to have you on YHP, how are you doing today?

I am doing fine though a little sleepy didn’t have enough sleep last night.

Can you give us some background information about yourself?

I am Churchill Nanje a Cameroonian software developer turned entrepreneur based in Buea, Cameroon. I have been doing software and web related business for the past 8yrs.

So Churchill, tell me about yourself growing up? What was your ambition? Were the entrepreneurial – making a quick buck type?

Growing up I have always been the inquisitive type and I always wanted to know how everything works. My dad was a scientist (Civil Engineer) and my mom is a midwife which means I have always been surrounded by sciences and science inclined conversations. My ambitions have always been to do great things in my community and set examples for others. So my drive is mostly doing amazing things that will push the people around me to wonder and also try to do similar.

Let’s talk about your latest startup, Njorku, how did the idea come about?

Njorku was born out of frustration. I have been trying to employ and keep great talents in my ventures but the solutions available for me to do this easier and faster where nonexistent so I decided to fill the void and develop tools that will help job seekers and employers find just the best match including me.

That was not the only reason as the high rates of unemployment in Africa has been a great catalyst in the Njorku journey.

What is Njorku?

Njorku means elephant in my native language (Dikome Balue, Cameroon) but Njorku.com is a job search and career platform for Africans world wide. Its a platform that will host a series of technologies (web, mobile and enterprise) to help the job seekers and employers relating to Africa.

How have you been able to finance the business so far?

Njorku was initially self funded then I brought in a co-founder Betrand Kima based in Baltimore,MD. Who has been financing alongside me till we have successfully raised seed funding from Tchepannou Inc in Canada. So right now we got seed funding covering the servers, marketing and technology.

What’s your business model?

Our business model is a mixture of alot of things and there is no clear cut model right now we will try a couple of things which we are doing right now and by 2013 we sure will be making some profit. For now I can say our model is based in HR solutions, Hr services, subscriptions and advertising.

Is the business profitable?

Njorku is 9 months old and its not yet profitable but it shows alot of potentials

What has been some of the most crucial things you have done to grow your business?

I have spent sleepless nights brainstorming on options
I have written codes for long hours (16hrs) nonstop without a break or food (sort of fasting )
I spend a minimum of 2hrs every morning pondering about Njorku and every step that has to be taken and analysing steps and errors.

What three pieces of advice would you offer entrepreneurs starting out today?

Research is very important
Devotion, persistence and strong belief in yourself and your ideas
Marketing is as important as programming and even more important when starting up but less when growing.

What plans do you have now to expand your business further?

We plan to take the business into every African country and serve millions of job seekers and thousands of employers within the next couple of years

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Search Engine Optimization is the way for businesses to be found online. Search engines use complex algorithms to determine what websites should correspond to the search queries users type in. Cracking the search engine code is extremely difficult, however, the whole idea is that the most relevant website always wins. If a company can become the most relevant website in its field, then it doesn’t really need to crack the code. Here are some powerful tips to help boost a company’s website’s relevancy.

Social Media & Buzz Generating

Social media/online marketing (finding an online/social presence and also branding a name for your company through marketing) provides a business with an approachable voice. It’s difficult for a company to get conversation going on a website. But conversation is easily created on a social media platform. In fact, that’s the point of social media. In respect to Search Engine Optimization, social media helps a company extend its reach. By reaching out and eventually funneling users to their sites, companies are carving out a bigger presence for themselves on the Internet. Social media also creates buzz. You want your brand to be discussed as many times as possible across the Internet.

Community Building & Traffic

Connecting directly to other, relevant places is extremely beneficial for Search Engine Optimization. When you link to powerful places on the web, then you get some kickback from their success. The deals website Tanga.com is a good example. They have an affiliate program. If users promote and link to Tanga, then they can benefit from Tanga’s page ranking as a deals and online coupon website. Users should also be interested in guest posts. If a blog owner gets to post somewhere else then they will surely put a link on their blog. This creates a bridge between the two sites and they can share relevant traffic. Having a popular site will boost your reputation with search engines and help your page’s ranking.

Clout Creation & Focus

No website can be relevant for everything. It’s necessary to focus your content so that a search engine can easily identify how to rank it for certain topics. Instead of a myriad of words, make sure you limit your work to a few themes. If your goal is to show-up when someone searches for “pocket watches” then topics surrounding pocket watches, links to pocket watch-relevant websites and the phrase “pocket watches” should all appear on your site very frequently. Use social media and strategic linking to further build your reputation as an expert on your subject matter.

Putting a lot of energy in one direction should help your website to drift from the pack as an authority on the topic. If a particular page seems to be the hub for all things “hub caps” then it will turn up at the top of the page when someone searches “hub caps.” It can sometimes seem repetitive to continually push the same idea, but brand consistency will only help your reputation as an expert.

Combining all three of these techniques will help a business to harness a relevant website. If a business chooses what it wants to rank for, and really pursues becoming an authority in that niche, then it can certainly boost the company’s ranking on search engines. There are also many SEO firms that can provide this service.

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Written by Holly Watson

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ROCKTAILS is a premium frozen cocktail, sold ambient and frozen by the consumer. It is created for 20-35 year old females who entertain more and more at home, but can’t get access to convenient, bar quality cocktails.

Background

Naomi and her co-founder Helen both left uni and moved to london to work. Naomi worked for an FTSE company while Helen worked for AISEC.

After spending time in the corporate world , Naomi decided to leave her company to find something she was more passionate about.

Helen long year’s sabatical came to an end and instead of going through the corporate route, she decided she wanted to do something much more fulfilling.

The co-founders who initially met through a leadership development organisation AISEC were set for the next adventure.

The Idea

After spending their fair share of time in cocktail bars, they realised it was much more complicated to re-create the bar experience especially when it came to house parties or cook-up for friends.

The ingredients were expensive, it was time consuming and no-one wanted to miss out on the party preparing cocktails.

They kept waiting for someone else to spot the opportunity and create the service. For years, nothing happened until Naomi decided to plan a summer money spinner and instead of selling alcoholic slush puppies, they decided it was time to put their passion to action and create the cocktail and since then, the idea has blossomed.

At the end of August, the two co-founders decided to move out of london and work full-time on their startup, after weeks, weekends and evening planning the business whilst also juggling their full-time jobs.

On 7th Spetember 2010, they opened their makeshift office in Cardiff and the rest now is history.

The company won the Wales ‘The Pitch’ Heat and are also nominated for Venture Candy Metro Advertising Award, as well as being in the last 5 for Startup Britains MAA Marketing Award.

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Glenn Shoosmith is the founder and CEO of BookingBug, an online booking and reservation system for small businesses.

Companies can use the system to share availability of services with it’s customers and take bookings online. Options can be customised for the type of serviced offered, availability can be shown by the day, week, hour, class, event or course. The system updates in real-time and has the options of a widget that can be shared and published via blogs, social media and affiliates.

Glenn founded BookingBug back in 2008 with the goal to revolutionise the booking and reservation process for SMB in the services sector. Glenn wanted to make it easier for a small business to fill it’s available slots, thus be more cost effective and efficient, but also help the customers by allowing them to easily see availability and book services there and then.

BookingBug used the embeddable booking widget to partner with affiliates who help open up the reach for businesses. This adds value for the customer who gets the bonus of added convenience for customers, while providing more traffic and therefore more conversions for the business.

Glenn is a software developer and has worked at many large companies before including Bank of America, CNBC, Reuters and most recently RBS who he left to start BookingBug.  It can often be hard to leave a good job and risk it all to start your own business, but the rewards can be far greater. As well as the opportunity to make more money, the fact that you can work on something you are passionate about and make your own decisions, work your own hours, that’s the main attraction.

Earlier this year BookingBug secured investment of $350,000 from a group of angels. Glenn notes that it’s “only a small round but it’s designed to pursue more aggressive growth.” Glenn hopes this round can take the company to the next level and prepare for a larger round of funding in the future.

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Do you need a degree to be an entrepreneur or is it something your born with? Or is it a bit of both? Some of the most famous entrepreneurs to date started their companies while at university. It’s not essential you wait till you get your degree and you will probably learn more by doing.

So who has built a successful company from their dorm room? Well I’m sure Mark Zuckerberg will be first to  spring to most people’s minds these days. But there have been many, so read on to see 10 great dorm room success stories.

1.) Mark Zuckerberg

Lets start with the obvious. In 2004 Zuckerberg created Facebook from his dorm room in Harvard. Facebook started of as just a Harvard ‘thing’ but as it rapidly grew Mark decided to drop out of Harvard and move to Palo Alto, home of silicon valley.

Facebook has gone on to become a regular part of our daily lives. Currently the site has over 600million users and is valued at around $50billion.

2010 even saw the release of the film ‘The Social Network’ based on Mark Zuckerberg and the creation of Facebook.

2.) Bill Gates

Bill Gates the founder of the most well known computer software company Microsoft. Gates, synonymous with the tag of richest man in the world, created Microsoft in 1975 at the age of 20. Earlier that year gates and school friend Paul Allen saw the release of the MITS Altair 8800 based on the Intel 8080 CPU and were inspired to start their own software company.

At the end of 1975 Gates took a leave of absence from Harvard, to work on Microsoft full time, never returning as a student.

At the close of 2010 fiscal year, Microsoft had $62.48 billion in net revenues and $18.76 billion in net income for the 12-month period

3.) Michael Dell

Michael Dell was a pre-med student at the University of Texas when he started Dell. In 1984 with $1000 and an idea he founded Dell. Starting at the university he attended he worked upgrading computers in the labs before applying for a vendor license so he could win bids on contracts for the State of Texas. He would go on to win these bids by not having the overheads of a store.

By the age of 27, Dell was the youngest CEO to have his company listed in the Fortune 500 corporations. Soon after in 1996 Dell started selling over the internet and not long after that were raking in over $1million in sales every day. In 2010 Michael Dell’s net worth was an estimated $14billion.

4.) Jerry Yang and David Filo – Yahoo!

Yahoo founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo in 1994 was the worlds biggest web directory/search engine before Google came along. The site, started by two electrical engineering graduate students at Stanford University grew rapidly during the Dot Com bubble, but struggled after the bubble burst.

Yahoo diversified it’s offering becoming a web portal and and his recognised as a leading online brand.

5.) Larry Page and Sergey Brin – Google

Sergey Brin graduated with an undergraduate degree in computer science from University of Maryland. After graduation, he moved to Stanford to acquire a Ph.D in computer science. There he eventually became friends with Larry Page, initially they didn’t particularly like each other.

They crammed their dormitory room with inexpensive computers and applied Brin’s data mining system to build a superior search engine. The program became so popular at Stanford that they decided to suspend their Ph.D studies to start up Google in a rented garage. In fact Sergey is still officially on leave!

6.) Shawn Fanning – Napster

Shawn Fanning founded Napster with his business partner Sean Parker in May 1999. Prior to it’s launch Shawn spent 4 months coding Napster, an online programme that made it easy to share and download music. Before it was shut down in 2001, it gained huge notoriety after becoming the target of many music industry backed lawsuits due to the P2P (peer-to-peer) nature of. Napster was the first massively popular free file sharing programme and has returned today as a legal paid service.

Shawn was studying at Boston’s Northeastern University at the time and was just getting into programming in his spare time. Within two years Napster had 80 million registered users.

7.) Matt Mullenweg – WordPress

Mullenweg was a 19 year old freshman at the University of Houston when he developed WordPress, back in 2002.

WordPress, has become the blogging service that most serious bloggers turn to. In fact this site has alot to thank Matt for as well. WordPress is currently used by 13% of the 1,000,000 biggest websites and has been downloaded almost 13 million times.

WordPress is continuously growing at a fast pace with Open source software being a large part of WordPress’ success.

8.) Paul Orfalea – Kinko’s

Paul started Kinko’s in 1970 while studying at the University of Southern California where he graduated from a year later. He started up his company from a 100 square foot space, on the University campus. His idea for Kinko’s, a photocopy chain, came after encountering a copy machine in the university library.

The company name came from a nickname he got while he was younger. He was called Kinko due to his curly red hair.

In 2000 the company was bought by FedEx for $2.4billion and it’s name became FedEx Office.

9.) Fred Smith – Fedex

FedEx it self, although not created while Fred Smith was a student, came from an idea he had while at Yale. In fact while an undergrad at Yale Fred wrote the FedEx concept in a term paper. The concept became reality in 1971 making a profit 4 years later and expected to see profits of $1.6billion in 2011.

Fred joked that this all came from what was probably a ‘C grade’ paper.

10.) Todd Krizelman and Stephan Paternot – TheGlobe.com

What was one of the fist social networks well before Myspace and Facebook, Todd Krizelman and Stephan Paternot founded the internet startup in 1994. Although it has since ceased operations as of 2008, TheGlobe posted the largest first day gain of any IPO when it went public on November 13, 1998.

The founders were undegrads at Cornell when they came across a primitive chatroom on the uversity networks. After TheGlobe.com issued its IPO the founders, 24 at the time, were thought to be worth about $100million each. This was the peak for the pair and after that it was all down hill.

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28 year old Tim O’Shaughnessy founded LivingSocial in 2008 and although originally Facebook app developers, they soon moved into the online daily coupon industry. Social buying has gained notoriety over the past year with the huge coverage gained by LivingSocials rivals Groupon.

Groupon who recently turned down a $6billion offer from Google, has seen massive growth over the last 18months and Tim wants to see the same happen at Groupon.

Tim estimates that, together, the two companies own 98 percent of the market.

LivingSocial only moved into the market after acquiring a company called ‘Buy a Friend a Drink.’

“We worked with beer, wine, and spirits companies and partnered with restaurants to give people coupons for free drinks,” says Tim O’Shaughnessy.

Last week LivingSocial saw a huge spike in traffic. Why? Well it was due to e-commerce giant Amazon. Last month in a strategic move, Amazon invested $175million in LivingSocial in an effort to counteract a potential Google-Groupon combination. Last week, LivingSocial offered 50% off on Amazon.com, which led to 1 million Amazon vouchers being sold. It was the biggest group-buying deal in history.

They may still have a way to go to get to the level of Groupon but they are certainly one to watch out for and hope that last weeks traffic boost can help push them up a level.

They also have a Unique Selling point that will help them. Unlike Groupon, LivingSocial does not need a minimum number of people to purchase a coupon before the deal is activated. Instead it offers an incentive for its 85 million users to spread the word.

“When you buy the coupon, we sent you a custom link and if three people buy off your link, then your purchase is free,” explains O’Shaughnessy

Everything You Need to Know to Start and Run a Successful Online Business

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