SANDRA O'CONNELLspeaks to Laughlin Rigby
THREE MORNINGS a week I get up at 6.30am and go to the gym. I’m trying out the “healthy body, healthy mind” theory. It seems to be working.
I’m at the office by about 8.30am, straight down the M50 from my home in Sandyford.
I launched Travelshake.com with my younger brother, Fergal, two months ago. I was e-marketing manager for Tourism Ireland and he was an e-marketing consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers and we saw a gap in the market for our site.
It’s not a booking site and it’s not a review site, it’s an opportunity for people to plan their travel, find offers and meet the owners of various properties around the country.
It also allows peer-to-peer recommendation, so we have hoteliers recommending a restaurant in their town, or restaurateurs recommending a tour guide.
So far it’s been great, we’ve about 200 businesses – from hotels to events – up there and growing fast. In some ways it might seem like a bad time to start the business but, in fact, services are cheaper than before and consumers are looking for value and shopping around like never before.
The first thing I’ll do every morning is update our social media feeds and put on new pictures and content, to make sure everything is fresh for people logging on when they start work at 9am.
Every day is different but this morning I had some digital video production to do, which meant heading out to meet a client with a high definition digital camera.
I used to commission footage in my previous job, now I get to do the filming myself and I love it, it beats sitting behind a desk.
Back in the office later, I’ll be working on the website, building profiles for clients.
Social media is a terrific way for the tourism trade to market itself, but sites such as Facebook were never really designed for businesses and it can be difficult for clients to know where to start, which is where we can help.
I’ll have lunch at the desk, hopefully something vaguely healthy. I’m 34 now and I don’t want a belly to develop.
In the afternoon I’ll be doing a new client search. Either I’ll be looking for businesses, on sites such as Facebook, who will be amenable already to what we offer, or I’ll be looking for businesses that don’t use social media at all, and offering them a way in.
I’ll do some of our own marketing then, search engine optimisation and Google adwords.
We have software now which lets us make videos for clients from their own pictures for €99, so that keeps me busy too.
I’m supposed to be out by about 6.30pm but at the moment we are flat out until 9pm or 10pm. It’s so different working for yourself. Actually, it’s a fantastic feeling.
Laughlin Rigby is co-founder of Travelshake.com