16 entrepreneurs


Taking on the world with hard work and a tidy desk


Lee Biggins is a born entrepreneur. Not content with the traditional schoolboy paper round, he saved his lunch money for a rainy day, ran a mini car washing empire and sold cold drinks on hot days to fishermen on the Basingstoke Canal. Fast forward two decades and at 36 he is sole owner of CV-Library, billed as the UK’s leading independent job board, and has a string of awards to his name. The business boasts an impressive database of over seven million CVs, big brand clients and is on course for a record £11.5 million turnover by this summer. As he prepares to embark on the launch of a major global venture this autumn, he found time to talk to Alison Dewar


Born and brought up in Fleet, Biggins’s first foray into the commercial world was at the feet of his father, who ran his own very successful carpet retail and fitting business. He describes himself as a “cheeky chappy” who found it hard to concentrate on his schoolwork and recalls telling his teachers that he didn’t need any qualifications because he was going to have his own business. He duly spent time in his father’s company before deciding to spread his wings further afield and it was while he was looking for a job that he came up with the idea of CV-Library. The business was launched in 2000 from his bedroom. Today it employs 75 people and his awards include Entrepreneur of the Year at the Inspire Business Awards 2013, SME of the Year in the Thames Valley Business Magazine Awards 2013 and seeing CV-Library ranked in the Deloitte UK Technology Fast 50 Awards 2012 for the second year running.


school to learn computer literacy skills and took on a business partner to build the website. At the same time, I was working as a temp doing telesales in a recruitment agency to learn the ropes. I went to local business classes through Business Link and although many banks turned me down, secured a £9,000 loan from NatWest to start the business. After I’d had the idea I also discovered there were other job boards out there like Monster who we were competing against, so we had to work hard. I’m a natural salesperson; we used search engines and identified lots of partners to generate the CVs and traffic to the site that we needed. It took a long time and was a lot more difficult than I had thought it would be.


How did you grow the business?


It doesn’t seem like a natural jump from carpets to recruitment. How did that happen?


I never dreamt I would end up working in an office, but through a friend I was originally offered a job in the Caribbean. When that fell through, I had to start looking for another job. I bought a book on how to write a CV and once I’d done that I started to think there must be a better way to get it out there rather than visiting all the recruitment agencies. I was 21, it was when Martha Lane-Fox and LastMinute.com was taking off and I came up with the idea of a website where everyone could put their CV on it and employers could come to find the staff they needed.


How did you make the move from good idea to working website?


I bought myself a computer, went to night www.businessmag.co.uk


I was still temping and doing very well, then Dad asked me to go back into the carpet business and help him. We moved CV-Library into one empty building next to his business and for three years I ran both. Gradually CV-Library expanded until it took over almost the whole complex and I had to run it on a full-time basis. Dad could see how well the business was going and he was very pleased and proud for me.


Who was your first big client?


The BBC phoned us up one day, they had found us on the Internet and wanted some CVs. They gave us a cheque for £117.50, we never did bank it, we kept it as a souvenir of our first deal with them. Now we work for top companies including Accenture, Mitie, Xerox and Game Retail and have around 14 million monthly job searches.


Recruitment was hit hard in the recession, how did you survive?


The recession was a big turning point for us. THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – MARCH 2014


Large corporates realised how much they were paying recruitment agencies and they cut back, which meant they came to us directly as effectively in-house recruiters. We swept up market share at a time when others were struggling. We were the only job board to recruit more people and make a profit at that time so we came out in first place. Plus, my co-founder and I had modest lifestyles. I still lived with my Mum and we invested back into the business. There were no smart cars or big houses to pay for.


What’s the secret of your success?


I worked for my Dad after school from the age of 14, he taught me really strong work ethics


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