About Me
Thanks for visitting Enjoy the Journey, my blog on start-ups, UK entrepreneurship, trends and opportunities and other random stuff.
My aim here is to share my musings on all things entrepreneurial; whether it’s the challenges of setting up, companies that I like, or trends and opportunities that I find interesting and think are worth pursuing. There will be some UK focus when offering practial thoughts/advice, but otherwise I’ll be looking at things on a global scale.
The blog is called “Enjoy the journey” because that for me is what entrepreneurship is all about. To read more, see my first post on Enjoying the Journey.
My Background
I come from a business background and my passion for the start-up scene comes more from enjoying the way that new businesses can improve the world by applying new technology, rather than a deep fascination with the technology itself. I love business opportunities that focus on a need, a pain or a real want and that then identify the technology that can meet it.
I grew up in Harpenden, just north of London, England. I then went to Cambridge University where I started off studying History and ended up studying Managment. From there I joined Bain & Company, the strategy consultancy, where I was lucky to be able to focus on retail and consumer products and services – both of which are easy to get excited about. After consulting for the best part of four years, I popped over to France and picked up an MBA with distinction from INSEAD before coming back to London to throw myself into the start-up scene. I launched Wigadoo with a couple of brilliant classmates (John Connolly and Uma Rajah) and we’ve spent the last couple of years on the start-up roller coaster: raising money, overcoming seemingly insurmountable hurdles, getting the site live, loving the radom PR, signing deals with major companies, suffering the sleepless nights over tech issues … but overall just really enjoying the journey.
Also, thanks to Wigadoo, I was voted the Observer’s Courvoisier Future 500 One to Watch for 2008 (and no, neither the clothes nor the pose were of my choosing!)
What is Wigadoo?
Wigadoo is a co-ordinated payments platform that facilitates social purchasing. Or, in English, it is the easiest way for a group of friends to organise anything when money’s involved. Wigadoo targets a universal pain: that organising a group of friends is difficult, especially when money is involved. Whether’ its a ski trip, a hen do or a night at theatre, one person always ends up playing the role of organiser … and they normally end up getting stitched. It’s difficult to work out who’s in, impossible to get meaningful commitment from friends and the organiser nearly always ends up paying for everyone and then chasing them for cash. Well, Wigadoo makes all that easy so that no one gets stuck with the organisational headache or the bill.
To see how it works. Here’s Wigadoo in 60 seconds (thanks to Erik, our Swedish tech genius):
To find out more see articles/clips on the following sites: BBC, eConsultancy, the Guardian.
The Wigadoo journey came to an end in the first half of 2009. We were unable to raise a third round of funding – in the “interesting” financial environment – for an idea that was still a good two years away from profitability. (See more on the Wigadoo blog). Seeing a dream die is always tough … but we’ve certainly no regrets about giving it our best shot.
And if you’re reading my blog and have a strong opinion or want to add something, your comments, thoughts and recriminations are much appreciated.
