Moonfruit Lounge

There's been lots of talk of impending global doom and recession following the financial crisis in the developed world, but what does it all mean for you? I think as consumers we're starting to 'feel' the impact a bit more with sales decline, job losses etc., starting to affect more people. In the UK the Federation of Small Businesses has suggested we "use the internet to increase sales during the downturn", which we're seeing in our results as more and more people are buying sites with Moonfruit to start trading online.

What do you do when you've launched a new product in the dizzy dotcom days? The answer is simple - Advertise! If you remember the conventional wisdom of dotcom times, it was 1. Build something, 2. Raise money, 3. Advertise the hell out of it, 4. Grab as many customers as possible, 5. Sell or float the company, 6. Retire and write a smug book about your experiences. We were entering stage 3 and starting to ramp up the spend. Little did we know we'd never get to write the book...

How do you raise £1m? Good question. The answer to which was not to raise £1m, but instead to raise £5m, as we were told at the time by another internet entrepreneur. Apparently this was much easier. A good .com business plan needed ambition, and ambition required cash, so in a way if your plan lacked ambition you wouldn't get the cash, so £5m it was.