i-to-i entrepreneur Deirdre Bounds back on the scene with travel start-up
LEEDS entrepreneur Deirdre Bounds has launched a new business with the aid of international venture capitalists.
GoCambio.com is a travel and language exchange site. It is intended as a database for those looking to travel, and learn or teach new languages with online TEFL courses.
Ms Bounds and an Irish venture capitalist have invested £350,000 in the business whilst a US investor has taken 2% after investing an undisclosed sum. There are four other offers on the table for investment.
The site will be fully launched next week, and was delivered by a Leeds web development firm First 10 under Dan Bosonworth, with 300 sign ups already.
The Irish office will be based in Waterford, Ireland with 8 staff already in place.
Ms Bounds started her first business i-to-i, from a Leeds bedsit, capitalising on the gap year market and short courses to teach English. It was highly successful and 11 years on employed 80 people.
A former stand-up comedian who appeared in an episode of Channel 4’s ‘Wife Swap’, Ms Bounds sold i-to-i for around £20m to TUI Travel in 2007.
Ms Bounds and her team became shareholders, eventually selling off their stake in the company.
Couchsurfing and airbnb were the inspiration for the new business that entrepreneur Ms Bounds is setting up with her brother, and stemmed from her attempts to find a language exchange for her 13 year old son who was learning Spanish at school.
She said: “I learnt a lesson in selling i-to-i that the transition from being an entrepreneur and having control over the business you created, to being more of an employee, was a difficult one.
“The English language market is the second biggest global market after medicine – the world wants to learn it.
“I wanted to make learning a language and cultural education affordable, and with the exchange there is no middle man, people won’t need to pay a penny.
“It’s about immersing yourself in another culture in a different way than you would in an all-inclusive holiday, in a hotel with probably lots of other British people – I feel we can do the world a lot of good.”
GoCambio has already undertaken a focus group at University of Leeds, going live with 200 students, who are the core audience for the site.
Ms Bounds is aiming for 1m people on the GoCambio database by 2017 and will be marketing the firm through careers officers, and language departments at universities, and is considering partnership possibilities in the future with companies like STA and Interrail.
