Archive for the ‘ASAP Ventures’ Category
First Daily Deals Summit Europe
If you wish to know what is happening in Europe then this is the first event
http://ddsummiteurope.co.uk/agenda/
There are a pile of “Industry Experts” including:
Peter Briffett – MD, LivingSocial UK
Saurav Chopra – CEO, HuddleBuy
Stefan Glaenzer – Investor in numerous online ventures
Gerard Doyle – CEO DiscountVouchers.co.uk
Fabian Heilemann – CEO of Dailydeal.de which sold recently to Google for 115$ Mill.
Kevin Wray – Nimble Commerce
David Hirschman – StreetFight
Regards
Doug
Popularity: 1% [?]
Off again
Not posted for ages, but in case any still reads it:):) And even cares:):)

I’m off to play else where again,so just an update of what has happened:
- The carrentals.co.uk business has not had me involved for almost 3 years now and the guys and girls keep growing it, over 150,000 rentals this year and they are slowly launching round the globe. Well done to everyone.
- Comparecarrentals.com.au which is simply a Australian car hire comparator is still growing…was a slow start but looks like the guys have cracked it. Over the past 6 months I have stepped back and they are off on their own.
- DiscountVouchers.co.uk is still growing at a stupid pace, just under 6 million members, 150,000 visitors per day on a good day. Not a lot I could do any more as I am rubbish with a business when it gets real. Well done to all involved and I will see you now and then when I pop into London and we go for lunch. Good luck with the “interesting” things ahead. I’d love to be involved but as you all know I would just be a pain as the business moves to being “real”.

So what next?
Well I am setting up Potential.co.uk, a sort of online incubator as I believe the UK just does not seem keen on startups…not in comparison to California anyway. So I have bought some domains/sites that I thought were interesting to play with and talked to some of my ex staff who were good people and slowly the wheels are coming into motion. The initial idea being to play with ideas for these domains and also invest in some more interesting concepts. As normal just to have some fun and also to feel like I am helping the people I like.
So initial domains thrown in the pot are:
- asap.co.uk - finance and utilities comparison
- catwalk.co.uk – fashion
- electric.co.uk – energy comparison
- emigrate.co.uk
- fad.co.uk
- greenpreferenceservice.com – stopping junk direct mail
- iq.co.uk - serious iq tests
- iqtest.org.uk - iq test for fun
- motormart.co.uk – car sales
- package-holidays.com - package holidays comparator
- recycle.co.uk - recycling goods
- secretdeals.co.uk – daily deals for unique products
- unlovedmobiles.co.uk – recycling mobile phones comparator
These we had but will probably park unless someone has an idea:)
gadget insurance…..
- allcreditcards.co.uk
- allsavingsaccounts.co.uk
- bingoboutique.co.uk
- car-hire-insurance.co.uk
- cashback.me.uk – cashback
- cheaphotelbookings.com
- contents-insurance.co.uk
- departure.co.uk – cheap flights
- greatfriends.co.uk – dating
- greathotels.co.uk – hotel comparison
- moneyforgold.co.uk – money for gold
- plutonium.co.uk - insurance
- promotions.co.uk – competitions
- publicliability.org.uk - public liability
- qualitymobilephones.co.uk – mobile phone comparator
- repossessedproperty.org.uk
- secret-hotels.co.uk - lastminute secret hotels
- snow-boards.com
- topcurrentaccounts.co.uk
- wam.co.uk – payday loans
- xpoker.co.uk
Also looking at stuff that is more disruptive in concepts, so not really web sites but things related to fb/mobile/toolbars/tools. Some we have started the builds, stuff that we think maybe useful and really have no means of making any cash but look interesting.
Just having a laugh Josh:):)
Doug
Popularity: 1% [?]
Carrentals.co.uk wins more prizes
We came runner up in the awards for the best meta search engine tonight at the Travelution Awards.
Skyscanner.net won it who do have a great product, so well done to them. But also a well done to everyone who has worked on www.carrentals.co.uk over the past year.
Doug
Popularity: 2% [?]
Promotions.co.uk to close as of June 30th 2010
As of 30/6/2010 www.promotions.co.uk will close and no longer offer feeds or whitelabels for partners. The reason for this is simply the economics of the business do not work and we are concentrating on www.discountvouchers.co.uk.
Thanks to everyone who has been involved.
Regards
Doug
Popularity: 2% [?]
i-level staff looking for work??????
We are looking for staff for www.discountvouchers.co.uk to be based in Surrey, so sorry to be a bit of an opportunist.
www.discountvouchers.co.uk is now the 4th biggest discount site in the uk and the fastest growing :) :)
We operate a very different culture to most companies, but we don’t seem to loose staff.
So if you are looking for something then email me or contact us on the www.asapventures.co.uk contact form or pm me on a4u.
Doug
dougs on a4u
Popularity: 2% [?]
Car hire Forum launched
We have launched a forum for people to talk about all their experiences related to car hire, good, bad and indifferent:) Its a new area for us so we are still working out whats what, so if you have any experiences then please join in the forum and tell us your experiences.
Tell us information about car hire at airports and even talk about suppliers. Who you use and why?
Well done to all involved as I know behind the scenes it has not been just simply putting up a forum:)
Cheers
Doug
Ps We have alos added more guides:)
http://www.carrentals.co.uk/car-hire/lichfield-guide.html
http://www.carrentals.co.uk/car-hire/somerset-guide.html
Popularity: 2% [?]
Hum Bug
In days of old when I was the MD of the company I used to get loads of pressies:):)

Alas since I stepped aside and let Gareth/Andy/Simon run things whilst I just became arguementative I get bugger all:

Merry Christmas everyone
Doug
Ps. I wonder what Andy/Gareth/Simon got and did not tell me about:):)
Popularity: 1% [?]
Our Server Overloaded – A First Ever
Looks like out discount voucher site is doing something right:) www.discountvouchers.co.uk today stopped working…..that never ever happened to me:)
Our estimates are the server will have had almost 200,000 visitors today…so a bit upset as the revenue loss is considerable. But when told I actually laughed:
“Looks like we have created something that works then:)”
Hope your Chrismas ia an interesting as our’s is becoming:)
All the best
Doug
Popularity: 1% [?]
Been busy busy busy
Finally we launched www.recycle.co.uk which is sort of a freebay…ie you can list stuff you wish to get rid of and people can call you to take it off your hands. Only about 12 months late but alas the other main money making parts ofthe business took priority.
The sexy bit of it that I love is the mobile phone recycling comparator:)
Back to the grind
Doug
Popularity: 1% [?]
Carrentals.co.uk to Run Co-op Travel Car hire Business
Carrentals.co.uk has signed a deal to power Co-op Travel car hire business. This is the first large white label deal we have signed…….more to come:):)
Doug
PS. We added even more guides
http://www.carrentals.co.uk/car-hire/lichfield-guide.html
http://www.carrentals.co.uk/car-hire/somerset-guide.html
Popularity: 2% [?]
