The Ones to Watch: Mark Bowness, Big American Giveaway

Two key factors resulted in the creation of Big American Giveaway:

 

1) I have been involved with previous businesses that are great ideas. I consulated with entreprenuers who have great ideas. The difficulty lies in getting these businesses 'out there' and ultimately businesses that struggle to do so, fold. Business owners are aware that, in today's social media age they have to have a social media presence but again they do not know where to start. “How do we raise awareness?”, “How do we get followers?”, “How do we gain traction?” are common questions.

 

2) Daily deal sites are a pet peeve of mine, not as a consumer, but as a business owner. Services such as Groupon have been marketed with the intention of helping the small local business gain repeat customers. However, after reducing the price of a product by at least 50% and then the marketing platform taking 50% of the income generated a number of business owners have been left damaged by the experience. Furthermore, these customers are deal hunters and simply move on to the next deal rather than becoming a valued customer.

Big American Giveaway solves these two issues by helping business owners gain social media traction and presence in an extremely affordable way. At the same time business owners are able to develop a relationship with their new followers on Facebook and Twitter enabling them to launch deals and offers in a way that is both affordable and manageable.

 

I had the idea for Big American Giveaway in December 2010 and ever since then I have been researching, building the website and working full time in order to bring in personal finances. I decided to go with a highly recommended outsourced web development company and initially they did a fantastic job. Within 24 hours of our official launch we recieved 450 sales which resulted in a few bugs in the site occuring and I had to stay awake around the clock to manage these issues and orders. Of course, it was a great problem to have and we had initially tested but still errors occured.

 

The way to overcome this challenge was with patience; patience with myself, patience with web company and patience from the first customers who were absolutely amazing. Thankfully, the website is up and running nicely and everyone is happy!

 

I have been extremely passionate about building this business and I wanted to do it right. Essentially, I got a job and bootstrapped my life so that I could save as much money as possible to put back into the business. I got a job in a field that would help the business as a social media manager for various brands. This enabled me to gain as much experience and wisdom as possible during the day that I put into practice at night as the website was developed and the business was built.

 

Every single day, in every single state in 2012 we will profile a business that will offer a giveaway. I have developed a unique price structure whereby day one in a chosen state is only $1 with the cost increasing by only $1 per day. The maximum amount that a brand will pay for a day in 2012 is $366. Days can be purchased from the website now and therefore, as well as my personal investment, the website is bringing in an income before it's official daily giveaway launch, which obviously helps!

 

As soon as I had the idea for the business I started to talk to small business owners, brands, individuals with websites, blogs or Twitter and Facebook profiles that they wanted to promote and so I developed a database for launch. When the website was ready I sent a launch email to these individuals which contributed hugely to the 450 sales that we originally gained.

 

From here on in it is a combination of being interviewed on blogs and websites, some media coverage has taken place and we are also in discussions with some key journalists across the USA.

 

Big American Giveaway is a platform that enables individuals to promote their brands, product, website or blog to the people of the USA and therefore the business or brand owner could be from anywhere in the world. Already we have giveaway days purchased from the UK, USA, Australia and Europe with enquiries coming in from as far as China. Therefore there is huge market potential so I am literally talking to anyone who will benefit!

 

I really believe in this brand and the potential of this business. Big American Giveaway could be used as a platform to seriously raise the profile of businesses in order to gain social media followers who can be converted into customers. I am working hard to present an affordable platform that is beneficial to business owners and the public alike. As soon as I have this strategy right and have learnt the key priciples I would like to roll out Big American Giveaway into other markets. I have already had interest from Australia and UK business owners asking if I would do a country specific version for them in their own market. The potential is huge, but, right now it is head down and focus on getting this model right.

 

Before launch I would have completely exhausted the testing of the website so that the errors did not exhaust me on launch!

 

My first business idea was tribewanted.com which was featured in the media around the world, was filmed for 18 months and became a prime time BBC2 programme. The next two subsequent business ideas I launched failed miserably. These ideas were awesome, and here is the lesson, you can't build a business on an awesome idea; a business is built on profit.

 

My advice for anyone starting out is to think like an entrperenuer. Many people have great ideas, they encourage themselves, their friends and their family that these ideas will become 'the next big thing'. An entreprenuer's passion is to make money. Before you launch any idea make sure that the figures stack up. If they don't stack up your idea is merely a cool idea and not a business. My mistakes have cost me hugely and I found out the hard way that great ideas I have had were not great businesses (including purchasing a purple open top bus! Don't ask; no seriously, don't!)

 

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