KEYNOTE INTERVIEW
majority of them agreed to become shareholders. They all wanted a knowledge base that they could tap into and get involved in. I won’t mention names, but they were some of the top groundsmen and greenkeepers in the field of football, rugby, cricket, golf, racing and tennis. You will know who they are and I was very humbled by their commitment.”
“This was all in the first year, and I now had some finance behind me; around £100,000. I used £25k of that to have a West Midlands IT company build a website - they charged what they wanted back then - and that was the best of five quotes!” “At the same time, I had approached the IOG to see if they would like to become partners in the project, but they saw it as a threat to their organisation. In fact, I’d go as far to say that they actively campaigned to stop me. I’ll say no more!”
“I’d secured managed office space at
Award winning garden at the Chelsea Flower Show
at £1 million pounds and was offering shares at 1%.” At this point, I detect a chuckle in Dave’s voice and it is clear that not even he was convinced of his valuation for a start-up business.
“I was doing all this immediately after the
Dot.com crash when most observers were
saying that the internet had no future. The majority of companies in our industry didn’t even have a website. I’d speak to them at shows and demo days and they’d just say ‘our business is fine thanks, we don’t need the internet’!”
“But I ploughed on. I travelled all over the country meeting up with my peers and the
Wolverhampton Science Park, but I really needed help as I was spending evenings and weekends writing articles, sourcing a rudimentary range of products and generally trying to keep on top of everything, including my day jobs!”
“It was Richard Skirrow who suggested I speak to John Richards, who had retired as the managing director of Wolves about six months previously. According to Richard, he was ‘just writing a few column inches for the local rag, opening hospital wards and
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01889 271503 PC June/July 2020 15
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