LONDON—Simon Burckhardt and his business partner, Jon Collinson, sat in commiseration at an upmarket restaurant in Cannes, France. They had lost hope. It was 2003. Three months in from starting their consultancy business, they decided to promote themselves at the annual Mobile World Congress – the world’s largest trade show for the phone industry. Burckhardt had previously worked for large companies in the phone industry, but this time there were no luxuries involved: they took Easyjet flights to Italy to save costs, hired the cheapest car possible, drove 100 miles over the border to France, and stayed in a “very functional” motel 50 miles from the conference venue.
At the conference, Burckhardt and Collinson networked and met new people but nothing came out of it. They had no leads. Disappointed, they treated themselves to a nice meal in Cannes, ordering a ridiculously expensive piece of fish that nearly bankrupted their business.
As they sat out in the French sunshine relishing their restaurant meal, Collinson’s ex-colleague walked past, sat down, and got chatting. He was interested in their business. “Come and see me,” he said. And through that they got £50,000 worth of business.
“If we hadn’t been sitting in that restaurant, giving him the impression that we were doing well, he might not have had the confidence to say: ‘Come and see me’. If we hadn’t been there we wouldn’t have signed the contract,” reflected Burckhardt with a smile. “Of course we didn’t tell him we were staying in a completely functional hotel.”
They had made their business seem bigger than it was – by accident.
Burckhardt is now director for the UK branch of Vonage, a US based company founded in 2001 that provides cloud communications services for businesses and consumers. One of the company’s target markets is start ups and small businesses. He knows exactly what it’s like to be a start-up.
