Image via WikipediaIn 1989, while working for a large company which sold mobile phones to large companes, Charles Dunstone, founder of Carphone Warehouse realised that “mobiles appealed to people with really small business who didn’t have a big office infrastructure behind them. Suddenly plumbers and builders could get new work whilst they were working.”
That is clear and simple. Armed with £6k he started from a friend’s flat, was evicted and set up in a shop. Initially, sales came from radio adverts and then “we reached a point where the phone kept ringing even though we hadn’t advertised” and the brand was created.
Why Dunstone and not the many other people who were selling phones from flats and shops? Who knows but even when at school he employed others as sales reps so was used to delegating and monitoring results. Then he shared the business with a friend who had qualified as an accountant and soon they were selling ooo’s of phones each month.
Once he built up credit lines with suppliers and the customers paid up front, he followed on the steps of other famous retailers and generated cash to fund the growth which explains why he still owns around a third of the business. A different Equity Fingerprint from the high tech world but perhaps an easier way to build for the big time.
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