TRICKY BUSINESS

PROGRAMME 1: OLI NORMAN

The entrepreneur

Twenty-seven-year-old Oli Norman lives and works in Glasgow. He has always wanted to run his own business. He attributes this to his father who ran a large timber company and travelled the world engaging in 'real Indiana Jones stuff'. Energetic and inquisitive, Oli has been thinking up innovative business ideas from a young age. He took a degree, spent a year travelling, and honed his communication and social skills on the way. He set up DADA with a start-up grant of £5,000 and has seen the business double in size in the last six months. Passionate about his company, he is aiming high and wants to expand into the London market before going global.

The programme follows Oli as he grapples with the practicalities of expanding his business. He has set his sights on establishing an office in London and thinks that he will need a budget of around £75,000 to achieve the move. George Swanson highlights some of the challenges that Oli will encounter but Oli is impatient to proceed. He does not really understand George's advice until he has visited London and seen how different it is from Glasgow. Realising that he is a medium-sized fish in a small pond he reluctantly accepts that he will have to build a stronger reputation, and prove himself in other Scottish locations, before he has a realistic chance of success in the fiercely competitive London market.

The business

DADA has an annual turnover of £0.5 million and is one of the fastest-growing small businesses in Glasgow. It started as an events business specialising in launch parties and developed into a marketing and public relations company. At the heart of its success is a managed database that enables it to ensure that 'the right crowd' attends clients' events. The system works as follows:

• Membership information is fed into the database
• Clients specify a target audience for an event
• DADA interrogates its database to find people who match the client specification
• Selected DADA members receive an email invitation to an event
• DADA staff track attendance and the information is added to the database ensuring that members receive invitations to similar events in the future.

DADA recruits its members through word of mouth, its website and occasional marketing activities. Despite limited direct marketing, the business attracts around 100 new members every day.