Shaking up an industry

Source: Exec Digital UK

Date :10/04/2008 11:41:12

Innovative retail entrepreneur James Murray Wells tells Exec about updating an outmoded industry with a disruptive business model that makes life easier and cheaper for consumers – and helps build a global company in the process.

By Rebecca Waters

When you buy something, do you ask yourself where it came from? Most of us probably don’t. It’s even less likely that you’ll ask how much it cost to make it. One of the few people to ask the latter question is now on the verge of global expansion, heading a business worth millions. Meet James Murray Wells.

Founded three years ago while James was still at university, Glasses Direct is the largest direct seller of prescription glasses in the world. James already has an impressive CV, including Entrepreneur of the Year at the 2005 StartUP Awards, 2005 Shell LiveWIRE Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award and The NatWest Business of the Year 2005. He is also an ambassador for National Enterprise Week.

Changing an industry

James is forthright and doesn’t mince his words, exactly the approach needed when vying for top spot in a marketplace that doesn’t like change. “Glasses Direct was just a killer business. It’s extremely disruptive. I thought ‘well, we’re about to lob this hand grenade into the industry’ and that’s exactly what you want. You want to create something that’s going to change people, change the world. It was a strong consumer proposition so I knew it would take off - but what I was surprised about was how quickly it did,” he says.

But is it really that surprising? James’ business model takes glasses out of the consumer zone - where high-street opticians were making in excess of 1,000 percent profit margins on a single pair of glasses – and offers a cost saving alternative. Now, when people think about market leaders Specsavers and Boots, they also think of Glasses Direct.

“We’re changing this industry, making it better for customers,” he says. “We’re helping to make glasses sales on the internet an acceptable phenomenon and the optical industry is coming round to it. The sooner they get their heads out of the sand and realise that the internet is here to stay the better it will be for all of us.”

Taking a brand global

Just like Steak Media’s Oliver Bishop, the next step for James is to push out the Glasses Direct brand internationally. It was always going to be a global brand; it was just a question of how long it would take to get there.

“We want to make it into a global, billion pound household brand name. If anyone were to create a worldwide brand of glasses online then it was going to be Glasses Direct,” he says. Of course, there is a lot of work to be done to push out the international brand. The size of the US market, alongside the fact that its regulatory environment is similar to the UK’s, makes it an attractive option for expansion.

A new way of thinking

Part of a new breed of entrepreneurs that has shown that even those that haven’t got a business background can give enterprise a shot and see what happens, James believes enthusiasm, open access and hard work are the key to success.

“Everyone’s doing it and it’s easier to do. The web makes business easier because you can get a company up and running on literally hundreds of pounds. Our model shows that there’s no stigma attached to starting something up from home,” he says. “It’s a new way of thinking, a new media take on entrepreneurialism.” Whilst Glasses Direct is his main focus, James has just launched IdeaVolcano together with fellow young entrepreneur Oli Barrett, head of Connected Capital and founder of Mark Your Mark with a Tenner. It’s essentially an ideas blog for entrepreneurs.

Or as James puts it, “a sort of repository for any spare ideas”. “It’s a blog, everyone can contribute to it and everyone can participate in working up ideas. People used to be so protective over their own ideas that they’d just sit there and wouldn’t do anything about them,” he says. It’s an exciting time for James, with the Glasses Direct brand heading global and IdeaVolcano garnering further attention. He will certainly be one of the new media faces to watch in 2008.