Interview ney I
t’s fair to say that three- time entrepreneur Ed Bussey has a knack for spotting a digital trend.
He mastered the art of selling branded clothing online as a member of the start-up team at
Figleaves.com (sold to N Brown for £11.5m), as well as sparked the trend for social networking via your mobile as COO at ZYB, acquired by Vodafone for $42.9m in cash.
Now, he’s going it alone with iTrigga, a digital start-up specialising in writing for the web on any topic, in any language. They achieve this through a unique piece of technology called Quill, along with 300 writers and editors across multiple languages and territories to provide cost effective, on-brand content. iTrigga’s content solution has already helped companies such as American Express, IKEA, Littlewoods, WPP, Aegis and Omnicom increase digital revenues and reputation. And if Ed’s track record at industry-changing digital enablers is anything to go by, iTrigga is set for international success. When did Ed’s entrepreneurial journey begin?
“I think it happened while I was a student at Cambridge” Ed says, “I won the Young Entrepreneur of the Year competition in my second year for writing a business plan for a new publishing company, with the prize being to go to San Francisco with five other UK winners to an international entrepreneur’s convention.
“I hadn’t planned to set up the business as it was just an idea at this stage, but I was so inspired at this conference that I couldn’t wait to get going. I remember meeting young entrepreneurs from around the world and hearing the likes of Michael Dell speaking. It was so inspirational and opened my eyes to a new direction that I had never considered seriously pursuing.
“When I got back to the UK I set up the publishing business from my college room with four people working for me and sold the company before I graduated. That was the start.”
Ed’s first attempt at creating a publishing company was then put on hold, with a stint in The Royal Navy followed closely by joining the start- up teams at
Figleaves.com and Zyb. And after the sale of Zyb to Vodafone in 2008, Ed spent the following year doing his research, reaching out to an extensive network of entrepreneurs
17 entrepreneurcountry
and investors he had amassed through working at two very successful start-ups.
“When I spoke to people a topic that kept coming up was the convergence of content and commerce on the web. It looked like e-commerce businesses were going to have to become much more like media companies, and with a significantly greater emphasis on their content, particularly their editorial content. Equally, I spoke to
publishing companies who were
saying that they would need to become more like e-commerce companies, with more effective monetisation strategies.”
iTrigga was born out of the early stages of this convergence, and today the company is going from strength to strength. And despite being Founder and CEO, Ed still finds the time to take part in activities outside of his passion for business, in particular outdoor pursuits. A Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, he has taken part in mountaineering and endurance expeditions in regions such as the Bhutan, the Indian Himalayas, Alaska, Costa Rica and Southern Africa. How did he find the time to juggle it all?
“For me, it is really important to lead a balanced life. I don’t have an off button and I always try to make the effort to create a balance between family, sport and work.
“In Japanese culture they believe you can only switch off by doing something equally focused but completely different, so for me, the solution to the stresses of building a start-up is to challenge
Ed Bussey on a mountaineering expedititon
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