60 second start-up: Buttercup Holidays
Robert Aconley faces the Smarta stopwatch.
0-5 seconds: Sum your business up in a sentence.
Buttercup
Holidays provides a fun and friendly way to make travel
arrangements online.
5-10 seconds: What's the business model?
So far, Buttercup Holidays has been self-funded: mainly sweat
equity.
Using my cartoon character "Bob Buttercup" to make booking
online travel a friendly, personal experience.
10-15 seconds: Who are your competitors?
Any website which sells holidays online.
15-20 seconds: What's your USP?
Bob Buttercup is the USP. He's proving very popular with
visitors.
20-25 seconds: How have you funded it so far?
It has been self funded. Mainly sweat equity.
25-30 seconds: What were you doing before?
I started as a travel consultant but I have been self employed
for the past 26 years, mainly in a farming environment.
30-35 seconds: Where did the idea come from?
I think the process of booking a holiday/travel product online
tends to be functional but very impersonal. I wanted to make it a
friendly process. I thought having a character like Bob would be a
way of connecting with visitors. There's something about Bob people
respond to. Perhaps he has the Travel X Factor...
35-40 seconds: What's the smartest thing you've done so
far?
Asking a friend to draw Bob Buttercup for me. He is a little
gem.
40-45 seconds: What's the stupidest?
Not joining Twitter earlier.
45-50 seconds: If your business was a biscuit, what would it
be?
Chocolate Digestive. Deeply satisfying on many levels.
50-55 seconds: Which idea are you a bit jealous of?
Reggae Reggae Sauce. Levi Roots probably made himself a multi
millionaire in the 90 seconds he planted 'that' song in all our
brains. Marketing gold indeed.
55-60 seconds: Where are you going to be in 12 months'
time?
Hmmm, Bob Buttercup, the holiday cartoon series - Bob endorsing
Coca Cola in a TV commercial -Dragon's Den - pondering whether to
accept a takeover of Buttercup Holidays from Thomson Holidays or
lastminute.com - most probably having fun with Bob and the
Buttercup Holidays website.