CAN DO SPIRIT

Apr 14 2009 by jez Davison, Evening Gazette

THE leisure and outdoor activity markets are helping a creative Middlesbrough agency to fast-track its expansion.

Mango Creative Studio, the brainchild of Welshman Vinnie Morgan, aims to hit £250,000 turnover by the end of 2010 on the back of soaring demand for its online booking systems.

Established in October 2007, the Middlesbrough-based company started life as a web development and mobile telephony operation.

But Vinnie discovered that developing bespoke web-based packages from scratch was both time-consuming and not cost-effective.

He made “basically no profit”, on revenues of £100,000, despite his five staff working flat out to fulfil client orders.

Now the 25-year-old has developed a portfolio of e-commerce and e-booking systems that can be tailored to the specific requirements of hotels, travel operators and tourism bureaus.

Vinnie, a finalist in the Best New Business Awards 2008 and now an If We Can, You Can challenger, says: “We already have the module in place so we can turn around projects much quicker. Our aim now is to become the UK number one in online booking systems.”

The move has helped generate £60,000 in the first four months of the trading year and the company is on course to generate double-digit profits on annual revenues of £180,000.

It has also allowed Vinnie to win work from Middlesbrough art gallery mima as well as Nottingham Council and national extreme sports organisation Sphere Mania.

But he’d like to see more help for fledgling businesses to become established SMEs by attracting bigger agencies to the region - even if that meant more competition.

“We would see it more as an opportunity than a threat,” he says. “It would give us a chance to partner up with these agencies and win more work.”

Ultimately, Vinnie plans to sell the company and concentrate on other ventures, claiming that “once you’ve run one business, you can run any business”.

Originally from Carmarthen in South Wales, he came to Tees Valley in 2002 to study for a degree in web development before successfully completing a Masters in Visual and Web Applications. He took summer courses in business and finance and marketing and sales before plunging into his new venture with the help of a grant from Middlesbrough Council.

To this day, he has no regrets about going solo so early. “Writing a business plan, book-keeping, accounting - it’s all common sense. I don’t think I’ve suffered by starting a business at such a young age.”