Cambridge Cluster

It could only be English. Watchmaker Christopher Ward raised funds from Mike France and Peter Ellis to produce the cheapest “most expensive” watches in the world. Having crossed the initial chasm and charmed early adopters in many countries (5,000 sold in 2007 at an average price of £200), CW now is now trying to cross the next chasm to the broader market. The “most expensive” watches achieve this with extensive marketing and product endorsement by celebrities which all adds to the cost of the watch.

Woodworm Cricket Bats took the opposite approach and invested heavily in the likes of Freddie to promote their bats.

They have one thing is common; poor websites and neither is ranked highly by Google. Woodworm uses the cricketbats.com URL – why not woodwormcricketbats.co? They even confuse Google adds so much that they have adds for woodworm treatment. Will they get many click-throughs? The CW slowly loads the images in a very compact site.

This could be the basis for a good case study for the academics with good lessons for aspiring entrepreneurs. Perhahps both companies need to raise funds from VCs to continue growth, work out detailed business plans and appoint aggressive management.