Working as a commis chef in Claridge’s hotel in London for celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay made Mark Pearson question his career choice. It was not Ramsay’s legendary temper that made him think again, however.
“Actually, Ramsay is quite patient, and working for him was hugely inspiring,” said Pearson. “I just started asking myself, do I want to do this job for ever? The hours are long and the wages are low. I was on £16,000, which is not much to cover rent, travel and food in London.”
When Pearson was offered the chance to open a gastro-pub kitchen in Clapham, south London, at the age of 21, he took it. “I did everything from scratch, from creating the menus to taking on staff. Within a couple of weeks it was becoming popular and customers were soon queuing to get in.”
Despite this success, Pearson was working seven days a week and after a year and a half he felt burnt out. “I took a couple of months off, my first holiday for years, and had a long think. I realised it was a really tough business and that I had bigger aspirations than dealing with chefs who don’t turn up on a Saturday morning.”
He started looking for business ideas by reading online forums and looking for new trends. He spotted an item about a machine that could etch a personal message on a flower petal. “My mum had been a florist so I decided to order the machine. I was a bit nervous because it cost a few thousand pounds.”
Pearson began promoting the service online. “Within a couple of weeks I made my first big break. Valentine’s day was coming up so I contacted some of the newspapers and television shows. We managed to get on This Morning with a message to the presenters on a rose. We got prime-time exposure for the website and sales went through the roof.”
Although he was making money, Pearson soon realised he was working just as hard as when he was a chef. “It was such a seasonal business and required lots of manpower. It was a hell of a lot of hard work and very time consuming. I realised I needed a business that was easier to scale up.”
He spotted just such an opportunity in 2006 while trying to find a discount voucher for a rail ticket he was booking online. “It took me about 30 minutes to find a voucher to save £5 and I realised there was no one site to gather money-off vouchers together. That’s where my idea came from.
“I set up a simple site listing a few discounts and sent them to the customer base of my flower business.” Word spread quickly and within a few weeks he had thousands of customers.
The venture initially made its money from advertising sitting next to the voucher information and was soon making a few hundred pounds a day. Pearson quickly realised this business had potential and required far less intensive customer service than the petal-etching business. So he wound down the latter and started working full time on the new venture, which he called My Voucher Codes.
In late 2007 the economy started to slump and the number of visitors to Pearson’s website began to soar. He was soon attracting interest from newspapers and television. “At that point the retailers started coming to me and asking what can we do to get more exposure with you?”
Pearson realised he could make more money by taking a cut of every sale made than by advertising alone and turnover soared to £1m by the end of the first year. Growth since then has been rapid and the company employs 30 people and will soon be recruiting 20 more.
The business is expected to have turnover of £9m this year. “We have created this amazing community of users who help each other save money,” said Pearson.
“It’s all about coping with growth now. We are looking to expand, including moving into the Continent, and investigating how we can get on to mobile phones through texting or picture messaging.”
Hundreds of copycat sites are making the online voucher business more competitive but Pearson is convinced there is plenty of growth left in the sector, something investors also believe. “We receive around one venture-capital request for a meeting per week,” he said.
Pearson, 29, has always worked hard but money only partly explains what drives him, he said. “I am from a poor background. I saw mum struggling to make ends meet, taking on different jobs and doing a lot of hours. I think that might have been the spark. Being able to buy my mum and stepdad a house was my proudest moment.”
His advice to other would-be entrepreneurs is this: “Have a plan and use your time wisely. The opportunities have never been greater. The internet has opened up so much scope for businesses with low cost and huge growth potential and you can learn so much from it. Everything I did I taught myself by reading forums and blogs.
“Read about people you aspire to be and find out what worked for them. Other than that, don’t let anyone say you can’t do something. Don’t give up. Just go for it.”
Although everyone thinks they know what this means, they don't! A good location doesn't mean the best area in town when you are a developer. If you buy in the centre of the best area then you are going to pay the highest price and that doesn't leave you any room to make a profit. A good location, for me, means somewhere on the fringes of a good area that, in time, can become part of that good area.
Buying at auction is a good way to pick up a bargain, provided you don't get carried away with the emotion of the auction itself. Set yourself a limit and stick to it and don't get carried away with winning at any cost. An auction is like a game of poker, only in this case, you can see everyone's hand before you place a bet!. Don't even bid until you have seen what everyone else is doing and put your first bid in at 'going twice.' Only the last bidder ever wins at an auction. If the bidding doesn't reach the reserve price, try and negotiate with the seller afterwards. The property wouldn't be at an auction in the first place if they weren't very keen to sell.
Always have in mind who you are aiming to sell to once you have refurbished your property. If you plan to rent or sell to students, for example, there is no point in spending a fortune on the highest quality fittings, but a professional couple may expect more. If it is a family home, think about the décor. And importantly, it isn't about your taste, it is about what would appeal to the type of person who is going to buy it.
Ultimately, the property market depends on five key criteria - interest rates (which may peak at 6.0%, but these are still historically quite low), low unemployment, low inflation, demand and supply, and the very important 'feel-good factor'. The market is starting to slow up again. However, the last few years have been pretty good. London has a great story for the future. The Olympic Games should ensure that property values remain buoyant, together with a strong City, tourism, the new Wembley Stadium and terminal 5 Heathrow, to name but a few huge projects. The rest of the country will come off the boil in my opinion and struggle to maintain past property price increases.
Loads of property 'experts' bang on about adding value, but the truth is there's a limit to how much value you can add to a property with a refurbishment. And because you can never know what will happen to your development, or the market, in the months it takes you to get your property back in estate agents' windows, it's imperative that you build in your best chance of making a profit by buying below the market price in the first place.
