What is the secret of Friends Reunited's success? We've just tapped into a general wave of nostalgia along with things like School Disco and all the TV programmes looking back at the 80s.
A lot of other dotcoms were retail sites taken on to the web, whereas this was the perfect internet idea - it just wouldn't work without the net. We launched the site in 2000 and things were already going a little pear-shaped with the dotcoms. It was becoming obvious that the advertising, which a lot of sites relied upon, was not a sustainable revenue model. In a way I was actually pleased that some dotcom sites were falling over as you could see that a lot of them were worthless and that borrowing millions of pounds for ideas that weren't that good was madness!
Why the decision to move on? We've had a number of offers over the past few months and we're currently reviewing our options. That could be carrying on as normal, bringing in a management team or selling. None of us are "managers" and it's turned into this multi-million pound business. We're realising that there are so many potential things you could do to the site and we've reached a watershed. So it started off with one quote to the press, and by the end of the week, I'd heard on the radio that we'd sold it for £35m!
Any advice for budding net entrepreneurs? Don't go too mad and don't give away too much of your idea to the moneymen! Start small and be prepared to work hard. In terms of designing a site, we practised what we appreciated as users of the web - keep it simple. We hate advertising and pop-ups, so we designed the site cleanly in the first place. If I was to go to a site and it started asking unnecessary questions, then I'd immediately be put off.
Spam or viruses? We're always getting attacks but our firewall can cope with it. We had commercial people trying to spam but we have pretty good controls within the email system - it cancels your account if you try to contact more than a hundred people in a day. It's been reported in the press that we've had viruses but we haven't. Personally, I'm proud of the fact I've never had a virus on my PC in 10 years.
Broadband? I've been on BT Openworld from the start. Because I work on the net all day long, it's made a huge difference. There were initial problems with it, but I can't remember now what it was like before with slow downloads!
How do you see the net evolving? As people reflect on it, we realise the net does change your life in a more boring way. I use it for banking, news, train timetables and buying stuff. So, rather than revolutionising people's lives, it has become another utility, like TV or the mobile phone.
Favourite sites? www.google.co.uk, www.iii.co.uk/shares, www.willhill.com, www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies (with my daughter!)
Visit: www.friendsreunited.co.uk
