Sarah Taylor

Name:

Sarah Taylor

Business:

U Digger Media

Web site:

www.urbandigger.com

Years in business:

1.5

Number of businesses:

1

Entrepreneurs' Forum member

I was at university for seven years studying for an architecture degree. Only after I graduated and got a job in a practice did I realise that studying for something is a very different thing to sitting in an office for ten to twelve hours a day, earning money for someone else.

I loved architecture, but I was disturbed by the fact that I had all these ideas buzzing round me and had my own mind about what I could be doing, yet I was trapped in that environment. I just felt I needed to explore other options.

I was sitting in my office one Friday afternoon after having worked a sixty or seventy hour week when I got a phone call from one of my friends who was going to Barcelona. I’d spent three months of every year whilst I was at university in Barcelona travelling so I knew a lot of the local spots where there were no tourists. My friend wanted to know where this specific tapas restaurant was where she could use some Spanish and it wouldn’t be overrun with English visitors.

I found that those kinds of phone calls were happening more and more. Because I’ve travelled quite extensively, people were constantly asking my opinions on the best places to go that tourists didn’t know about. I began to see a bit of an opportunity in that and thought, this kind of information is something that people really need.

Travel is something I’m absolutely passionate about. Whenever I’m going somewhere new, I can buy a Lonely Planet book or something and it will be a rough guide, but it won’t provide me with constantly refreshed information. Often I’ve been to places on the advice of guidebooks, and the attraction wasn’t there anymore.

I thought, it’s all about giving people accurate details, which are constantly updated, about places you can get a really good experience from.

I’d also taken notice of the rise in social media websites on the internet such as Facebook and Myspace. They’re forums which are driven by really big user generated content. People were getting more and more into writing their thoughts and feelings and sharing their experiences on the internet.

I thought a website similar to that would be the ideal format to back up what I was thinking about. I would be able to connect with people around Europe and other locations easily, and they could start feeding their local information into the system, making it accessible to a vast amount of people.

The information could constantly be refreshed and it would be a great networking tool for people to share their experiences and advise others on the best, non touristy, places to visit. I could see an opportunity for creating a business around my ideas rising so I thought, why not take it? I quit my job.

I come from a family who have quite traditional careers; they’re all artists or writers. Or architects. So when I told them I was giving up my career in architecture and pursuing an internet based business, it went down like a bomb.

My mum and dad were always very supportive, but my wider family who had helped me through a very expensive education, were less than impressed.

I told them about creating a unique travel website and the general response I got was ‘It sounds like a good idea but what about architecture, wasn’t that better?’ Well, no, it wasn’t really.

What’s kept us going is that myself and my business partner Chris know we have a good idea. We have confidence in the fact that it will succeed because it’s something that people want.

We started out doing some research on the internet and contacted Prince’s Trust. They, along with Newcastle City Council, gave us the initial funding for the business. From there we put a business plan together and got a very basic website set up in order to test the market and see if we could bring in customers and generate revenue from the model that we had in mind.

Once that was established, we were referred to several ‘so called’ enterprise agencies.

I have to say that most of the advice we got from these was bad advice. But when you’re just starting out, fresh faced and a bit naïve, you don’t know any better. You end up taking what they’re saying as the truth.

Unfortunately there’s a lot of people who work in enterprise agencies who aren’t necessarily in it to help you and your business. I’ve found a lot of people had a ‘you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours’ agreement with their friends and colleagues of other businesses.

One agency we went to referred us onto a web design agency. Following their recommendation we took them on to design our actual website. These people ended up being a bunch of cowboys- they didn’t know what they were doing, they said they could do everything we asked them for but they couldn’t.

They ended up sub contracting all the work out again to the point where it got contracted out to students. It looked good on the surface, but it was a really botched job and didn’t function the way we wanted it to at all. It didn’t even enable us to interact with our users which was, of course, the whole point!

That really affected things. A lot of money and time went over budget; it was just a complete and utter nightmare. That’s one of the lessons that we’ve learnt though: you’ve got to get things put down in contracts. I guess I should have known that being an architect: things get overpriced all the time! Also, really research your idea thoroughly so that when you get bad advice, you know well enough to ignore it! That’s something I’ve learned over time.

We looked at getting more funding from banks, but as soon as they saw we were an online business, they wanted nothing to do with us. It didn’t matter what our concept was or how good we thought the idea was or anything. A business based on a website was just too high risk for them.

In the end we basically invested every penny of our savings along with contributions from friends, family, fools. Then, it wasn’t just our own financial security we had to worry about; it was the people closest to us as well. But that really spurred us along to make a success of what we were doing. For me, I want to see my family happy and give something back to my mum and dad, so that’s a huge motivator.

That’s not to say we didn’t face more challenges along the way. In terms of technological knowledge, as an architect, I had a lot. As an internet entrepreneur, I had none whatsoever. For myself and Chris, that’s been a huge learning curve. Learning all about the internet, the technologies involved, how to build a website, what goes on in the background- it’s all pretty immense and very very clever.

I also didn’t have any business skills and I hadn’t ever learnt anything about running a business. So that was a huge lesson too. We each knew absolutely nothing about keeping financial records, hiring staff, making sales, just running a business day to day.

Between Chris and me, we had to take on the roles of sales director, marketing director, finance. Everything to do with the business we had to do ourselves.

Finding the right people to talk to, people like the Entrepreneurs Forum and Northumbria University, has been a real godsend for filling in the gaps in our knowledge. The connections we’ve made and the advice we’ve got has been second to none and I’m really grateful for that. What we’ve learnt has really helped us to move our company forwards and structure our ideas.

Some of the people we’ve seen talk, their successes and failures have helped so much. You do feel like you’re alone at the start and feel the pit will never end, but it really helps to hear other people who’ve been through it and have come out the other side smiling.

We attend regular seminars at Northumbria University with lawyers, accountants and industry professionals. They taught us the basics of bookkeeping and how to file for trademarks and IP addresses.

The more you can learn and the more knowledge you gain, the more you can put into your own work. People will take less advantage of you if you know what you’re talking about. I feel like I’m just as much an expert in internet technology as I ever was in architecture, and that’s made me a lot less naïve and a lot more assertive in making my own decisions.

The company started out very much as a lifestyle business. I love to travel and I love to share my local knowledge with other people.

In terms of making it into an actual revenue generating business, that was quite difficult. The information is free.

I looked at similar models that were around at the time and saw that primarily they were all held up by advertising. It’s a really big thing in social networking at the minute, I think there’s expected £1.8bn generated in 2010 by that industry alone.

I thought, it’s all about finding who and where all the best businesses were in these cities from the local people. We approached these businesses and brought them on board and got them to pay for their advertising or profiling space.

Then, it would be things like key sponsored advertising. We’re working with the UK Trade Investment at the minute to identify people who could sponsor us like the Newcastle Gateshead Initiative. So there’s various ways and means to make money.

Finding a name which has longevity when you’ve got competitors like Time Out and Lonely Planet, and trying to find a brand that will sit nicely with those people, is a tough one. That’s really where we’re at at the moment.

I do feel confident that we’re going to get there though. I’m very passionate about what I do and believe absolutely that this business will succeed. It is a competitive market, but our business could potentially be so much stronger than the competition.

Without a huge investment our business is the type that will have to move a bit slower and grow organically, but it’ll get there.

I remember that first day in the office. I sat by the phone with my hand trembling thinking, shall I pick up the phone and start selling this thing now? But on that first day we actually made several sales and I just thought, this is amazing.

That’s a really satisfying feeling; to be your own boss and to be earning your own money, but the best thing is probably to be able to provide someone with what they need when they go away. Feedback from customers is brilliant. Someone went to that little place that we recommended and had a fantastic time but would never had known it was there if it wasn’t for us: it’s just great to hear something like that. When you get recognition for what you do and all the effort you put in, it really spurs you on.

If you’re thinking of starting up your own business, really research your idea well, but most of all you need to be passionate and committed about it. When you get bad advice, when people say your idea’s never going to work, really pursue it. Don’t give up.

return to Sarah Taylor's profile