At the start of the dot-com era (the 1990s) everyone was trying to identify the next big thing. People were becoming millionaires over-night and investors were throwing millions at even vaguely workable ideas. It was a modern day gold rush. Did these companies really need millions to reach their customers or could you grow a dot-com organically? Of course the dot com bubble burst and things became much tougher. However it is still the case that many companies still start out by looking for other people to invest in them.

I come from a very normal background and the idea of risking huge sums of money (even if it was someone else’s) was not appealing. From an initial investment of £3,000 from my credit card in 2003, we are now selling £5 million of hotels, gifts and breaks per annum. One of the huge advantages of an online business is that many of the overhead costs are not essential. You don’t need an office, or a sales team, which are the biggest costs for most businesses. We learned how to exploit digital marketing and became our own experts at SEO and PPC.

But what impact does it have? I think the biggest difference between Hotel Exclusives and our competitors is brand awareness. We came to market first but our competitors launched multi-million pound marketing campaigns with their investors’ money and became household names.

With my next venture, launching soon, I must confess that I’m going to investors. I would like to be the market leader this time before someone with very deep pockets comes along and steals my idea, so my goals are different to what they were with my first business. However you can still achieve a lot with very little money, a good plan, good contacts and great knowledge of an industry, but it does take longer and you have to work smarter. The good news is that if you can do it, you don’t have to share it with anyone.

 

By Chris Orrell, Founder and MD of Hotel Exclusives.

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