Fuel for the future

How can an internet site, looking to relocate to an English speaking country be persuaded to choose between the UK and the US?

Fast facts

Company: Fuelmywebsite is an online portal that guarantees small business get online coverage across popular social networks and blogs.

Country: France

Industry: Software-Website

Website: www.fuelmywebsite.com

Problem: How can an internet site, looking to relocate to an English speaking country be persuaded to choose between the UK and the US?

How GEP helped: Introduced the company to investors and strategic partners, placing Fuelmywebsite on the radar as a business that could help to promote UK SME’s to trade effectively internationally.

Result: Fuelmywebsite is helping to get SME’s online and exporting. It is gaining 40 new SME customers a day, helping them have an online presence and build their businesses overseas.

Internet site, Fuelmywebsite offers businesses an affordable and guaranteed online presence. By being in the Global Entrepreneur Programme (GEP), Fuelmyblog Ltd has been able to leverage the Dealmaker networks which has resulted in meetings with investors and strategic partners – all of whom have an interest in promoting online international trade for small businesses.

In 2006 when ex-management consultant Kevin Dixie and his family decided to move to France, he did much of his research on the internet. He found that the most honest and reliable information came from bloggers, who wrote from the heart, with no bias or affiliations.

This gave him an idea. He set about creating a small social network site that allowed bloggers to talk about a range of life experiences, from restaurants to schools, but without any of the spam mail that often blocks up blogging sites.

Kevin soft-launched his website, Fuelmyblog, in 2007 and within the first five weeks it had over 500 users.

Initially, the company made its money through advertisements or competitions posted on the site. But by early 2008 Fuelmyblog decided to commercialise the site, promoting blogging as a medium through which companies could transfer knowledge about their products to potential customers.

“Blogging is unlike tweeting or using Facebook,” says Kevin Dixie, Managing Director at Fuelmyblog. “Unrestricted by a word count, blogs are honest and unedited reviews, available to everyone. By late 2008, we were working with media agencies on behalf of their large corporate clients to promote their products, grow their business or increase their site traffic. If a client wants feedback and reviews on a new product, for example, we email our pre-authorised blogger list, ask who wants to try out the product and choose 50 bloggers to carry out an evaluation and post their reviews on their blogs. The reviews are 100 per cent genuine. We don’t edit them at all, and clients have to be prepared for that. If a customer doesn’t like your product or service, they are likely to tell all their readers not to use you, and negativity can stick forever. But, if the business responds positively to negative comments, and takes action to remedy the issues raised by our bloggers, this is a good result all round.”

Moving with the times

By early 2009, Fuelmyblog had grown to a social network of over 15,000 approved bloggers around the world, with well over 2 million people clicking on the blogger widgets monthly.

To make things clearer to businesses approaching the site, Kevin also launched fuelmywebsite.com. By this stage most of the company’s business was coming from the US and the UK and Kevin was making frequent trips to both. It was becoming clear that he would have to relocate away from France to one of these countries to support the growing business.

In the summer of 2009, Kevin attended a networking event called Open Soho where he met a UK Dealmaker from UK Trade & Investment’s (UKTI) Global Entrepreneur Programme (GEP) team.

After a chance discussion about the business and his current relocation dilemmas, the GEP team offered to assist the company in a soft landing into the UK. The GEP team proposed practical assistance, such as help to create a roadmap for a UK base, identifying customers in the UK, setting up introduction meetings with potential investors and introducing the company to the wider UKTI network.

Kevin took up the offer for a soft launch and the GEP team set to work. The GEP helped to showcase Fuelmywebsite and identify opportunities to use the site to promote UK companies interested in trading internationally.

Over the next 18 months, Fuelmywebsite maintained regular contact with the GEP team discussing the potential benefits of being based in the UK. So persuasive were the arguments that Kevin finally relocated to the UK in early 2010.

By November 2010, the GEP team had arranged for the company to attend a digital trade mission to Abu Dhabi and Dubai where the company pitched its services to senior Government Ministers, an Abu Dhabi Media company, and high profile companies such as Microsoft.

As a result, Fuelmywebsite entered into talks with some of the contacts it made about possible investment and is planning a further trip to the region in 2011.

Closer to home, Kevin’s own local MP is the Minister of State for Business and Enterprise. Kevin met with him and explained his proposition to get SMEs guaranteed online coverage through Fuelmywebsite.

The GEP team kept up the momentum and introduced the company to senior officials within the Department, including the Director of High Technology Sector and the Director for Investment in UKTI, to discuss ways in which Fuelmywebsite could help SMEs in the UK.

“Until we got involved with the GEP team, we didn’t realise that helping SMEs was so high up on the Government’s agenda,” says Kevin. “Through our association with the GEP team, we have been able to promote our business ideas, and demonstrate how with our help, SMEs can get an online presence and win businesses abroad.”

Meeting growth targets

Since meeting with the GEP team and the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation & Skills, Fuelmywebsite has slightly changed its own focus, moving its main attention away from media agencies and larger corporates to working alongside SMEs.

The company has also expanded and now offers an import package for overseas companies wishing to set up a presence in the UK, helping them to register their company and set up a bank account here.

“Our association with GEP has been a really positive experience for us all round,” says Kevin.

“By slightly changing our focus to the SME market we have gained over 200 new clients in the first two months of 2011, and are now getting nearer to our target of securing 40 new clients per day. We are also helping to guarantee online coverage for small businesses, with people starting to talk about their products or brands. For those companies that want to export, our method of blogging is a quick and effective way to break into an overseas market. It’s such a compliment for this concept to be recognised as a worthwhile business proposition by the UK Government, and this really adds that extra bit of gravitas to our business.”