14-Dec-2006
Stelios Haji-Ioannou - Greatest UK Entrepeneur ever?
Stelios is a serial entrepeneur who started off in shipping before developing his now famous "Easy" brand based upon no frills value for money products and services ranging from flights to pizza (Stelios - maybe you should combine the two for extra inflight catering revenue?).
He is probably best known for all his notable successes, but being a serial entrepeneur means taking a bit of a risk with one's cash to try and identify gaps in the market and it would not be a surprise to have the occasional failure when you try to break the traditional models.
You don't tend to hear of too many business failures with Stelios because he is pretty shrewd.
One failure, or perhaps Stelios just got weary fighting with the Movie Studios was with his EasyCinema concept, mirroring his business model for airline seats and car rental whereby the further ahead you book, the cheaper your seat was (from memory it went as low as £0,50 per cinema seat), obviously hoping to cash in on the popcorn.
Clearly I don't know the financials, but it seemed clear that the EasyCinema concept struggled without access to the latest cinema releases and Stelios ultimately pulled the plug on his Bricks & Mortar Cinemas.
Did that stop Stelios? Indeed it did not; building on the powerful "Easy" brand and already holding "EasyCinema" as a marketed brandname, Stelios simply moved out of the bricks & mortar Cinema business to a model relying upon a virtual cinema and the ability to rent DVDs by post in your own home.
But what's "Easy" about that, you might say?; there must be at least a dozen different providers doing that in the UK today?
With Stelios, there is bound to be a twist, and of course he has one. His offering is uniquely tailored to the DVD renter (like myself actually), that maybe has a busy lifestyle and doesn't necessarilly want to waste money, being tied down to a traditional monthly subscription - once again he has found a gap where you might want to watch a DVD sometime soon, but don't know exactly when the kids might bed down to let you watch it.
With Stelios, you purchase a number of Rental credits (minimum 4) that last for a full 90 days from the date of purchase and you are charged a simple £1.99 (including postage both ways) for every credit (equating to a disk that you rent) irrespective as to how long you retain it provided you still have valid rental credits - those credits are not eroded in any way by the length of time you choose to hold the DVD......Brilliant, or what?
He even has all UK Cinema listings available and searchable on his EasyCinema site and manages bookings, for which he will receive healthy booking commissions. I think EasyCinema will now provide profitable returns.
Stelios, I salute you for all your business vision - the UK could do with a few more like you. Maybe if UK PLC had you as a Cabinet Member we could have an EasyAnswer to all the political hot potatoes and we would have fewer failed Government projects?
It would be remiss not to note that another of Stelios's companies - EasyMobile - recently came to an end when the Joint Venture arrangements to provide the Network infrastructure could not continue. Still, two failures out of an impressive list of successful ventures isn't bad............
Labels: DVD Rental, Easy, Stelios
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