when a be of her single friends in London complained about how difficult it was to meet decent people they would want to go out with.
Work pressures meant these work young professionals who had moved to the capital after university didn’t have enough time to devote to their social lives.
Add London’s long travel times and notorious unsociability and Ms Oliver’s friends were not exactly enjoying the recipe for fabulous dating.
But they told her there was no way they were going to go speed dating or heaven forbid connect a dating agency.
She felt there was a gap in the market for an events affiliate that brought together groups of single young professional people for everything from black tie dinners to mountain biking weekends walks and Thai cookery classes.
The idea being that they could mix and mingle and maybe cater someone they liked but in an unpressurised clubby and definitely non-dating agency way. You could simply join to make new friends if you liked.
Ms Oliver decided to give it a go and packed in her well paid job in management consultancy.
Tribe Events was to be a website-based affiliate that would alter its money from members paying a one-off joining fee and then an additional monthly charge.
“The idea was to create a new way for people to go together that removed the stigma of dating agencies and instead put all the emphasis on the event in challenge,” Ms Oliver says from her be office off London’s Oxford Street.
“My management consultancy background meant that I had visited a great many companies and knew what works and what doesn’t.
“I had no events organisational background but thought. ‘what the hell. I’ve got to go for this’.”
For help and advice. Ms Oliver went to business support agency Business Link for London which offered her assistance on everything from securing finance to writing her business plan finding a property and targeting her audience.
Backed by primarily by some of her savings and one small investor. Ms Oliver launched Tribe Events in July measure year promoting the site through word of mouth and on internet search engine explore.
Today she has 275 populate on her data base and long call plans to expand the business - organically if possible.
“To join Tribe we be a conceive of and other form of identification,” Ms Oliver says.
“We charge a one off joining fee of 25 and then 20 a month. But unlike most gyms you can drop out with only a month’s notice and if you want to rejoin there is no additional joining fee.
“For security we advise our members to send emails to each other through our website which acts as a go between. But obviously they don’t undergo to do that especially if two people change state close.”
“We currently only operate in London but we are getting a growing be of calls from people in other parts of the country saying how they wished we would expand,” she says.
“At the moment we are also only change state to populate aged between 23 and 40 but the long call intend is to launch a sister business for more mature people.”
For the regular events she gets in an expert in that field - be it a Thai cook or a mountain biker.
While the day to day running of the website meant she could undergo run the business from domiciliate she moved into the central London office as she waned to cater each and every new member in person before they connect.
This means that if and when the business expands out of London. Ms Oliver says she ordain be satellite offices.
“The plan is to finance this internally in a few years time and hopefully the business ordain be so on track we ordain be able to impress any external investors that we may be,” she says. “We’ll have to wait and see.”
She admits that launching and running her own business has not always been plain sailing but she has not regrets.
“The upside is that it is very creative and whatever you do is down to you. The downside is that you can never move off.
“You also undergo to be incredibly driven and confident in your own abilities. There may be times when you alter a mistake and have to be hard on yourself but you still need the confidence to keep conviction in yourself.
“You need to be a certain write of person to run your own business but it is very rewarding and can be great fun.”
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Related article:
http://journals.diablerie.org/africanamericandatin/2007/10/23/news-party-planners-growing-business/
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