Karen Hanton founded restaurant booking site toptable.com in
2005 after selling her first two businesses. Toptable.com is the UK
and Europes leading restaurant reservation, review and search site,
and has over 30,000 restaurants from 14 different countries
recorded on its database. Karen set up with business with the help
of Sir Alex Ferguson and Gary Rhodes, now founding shareholders.
Karen has won awards including the Financial Times/Moet Hennessy
Extraordinary Achievers Award and was named one of the top 100 most
influential people in the first decade of the internet in an
NOP/e-consultancy poll.
In this video interview Karen explains how she came about the
idea for toptable.com and the desire to develop an online community
for restaurateurs. She gives expert advice on how to build a
website and talks about the life of an entrepreneur. Hanton details
the pros and cons of being the first in the market and the
importance of adaptability, as well as marketing guidance on
engaging customers and website functionality.
The successful female entrepreneur also talks about how to get
finance and whether she faced problems with getting celebrity
sponsorship, as well as the process of selecting shareholders and
equity distribution. This interview is a good source of information
whether you are looking for building up customer profiles,
developing a web site or financial advice.
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