What is your business background?
I was in the City for seven years and at Merrill Lynch for the last two years in Prime brokerage looking after hedge fund clients. Both my father and uncle were business owners, but before I left banking to do this I didn't have any experience in this area.

Why did you decide to leave your job?
It was a gradual process; I had always known that I wanted my own business and it got to the stage when I thought ‘if I don't do this now then I never will' and I'd had enough of banking. I liked Merrill's but it was like being a small cog in a big machine so I left around eight years ago when I was 27.

When you left did you have any idea what you would do?
When I left I didn't know what business I would start. I took the summer off to relax and the idea came about gradually. I was going out to exclusive clubs and member clubs and I had previous contacts from my banking days, but was still finding it hard to get in. I sometimes went through agencies that weren't offering the best service or you could join a club, but this meant that you had to go there all the time and then six months later they had gone downhill. It was purely for myself at the start: I wanted to be able to get into a wide variety of places whenever I wanted to go, I thought there must be a better way and that I could do something better myself.

After you had the initial idea what steps did you take?
About three months after I decided what I wanted to do I had the website up and running and then started trying to get members. It really was just deciding which clubs to approach and how to get in there in the first place, so I started going out more and making contacts.

How did you fund the company?
I had a bit of savings put away when I left banking and we have grown slowly over the years because we have never had a big investment. I own 90% of the company. We have grown the business by increasing the revenue and then investing some of it back in the company. The first two or three years I was going out a lot as it was all about networking, meeting people in the industry and finding out the best places. After the first few years we became successful after we changed the business model and brought in a lot more members.

What did you change in the business?
It's all about identifying people. There were times I had trouble getting into clubs but when I did and I met the management they wanted me to be in there, I was the kind of person they wanted inside. But when you are standing outside in the cold in a queue the club doesn't know who's who. Our first idea was that we would be a free service so for the first year this is what we did but that didn't work out as well as we hoped. We had aimed to get revenue from the clubs but this was very tricky. We could see
it wasn't working so we introduced a membership fee but kept the referral system and the right clientele.

How do you identify the right people?
This is one area where the banking side helped. I have contacts and we managed to market the business through word of mouth and a referral process, where once you were a member you could recommend other friends.

What is your target market?
We have two levels of membership. The standard membership is full of young, successful professionals that want to go out to the cool places in London and eat in nice restaurants. That membership is only £40 a month so is relatively accessible but we still use the referral system, although people can apply directly for membership. Then we have the Red Membership which is VIP level and is £2000 a year plus a joining fee of £400 and that is much smaller, we only have around 50 Red Members and we won't ever go over 100. That is aimed at senior directors, business owners and entrepreneurs.

What venues can you get members access to?
We have clubs, restaurants and bars. Anything where you couldn't easily get access to yourself. We work with two different levels: for the normal members they save an entry fee wherever they go and at top restaurants always receive free glasses of champagne. With Red Memberships they use us most for the restaurants because we have relationships with the top ones in London and they will get them in at fairly short notice. We have approximately 600 standard Innerplace members and over 100 of the best clubs and restaurants on our books.

How difficult was it to build up these relationships?
Very hard at the start. I went to the very top places and explained what we were trying to do and in those days they were probably stricter than they are now about whom they let in. The City background did help and when we got our first club on board - one of the top ones - that helped and then we got a few more and it all snowballed from there. It took many years to build up: I had to put the time into those relationships.

Do you have many business owners using your service?
Yes, a lot of our clients are business owners that want to entertain clients or potential clients. It is not just about getting people in but also about the advice. People will come to us and say ‘we are out tonight with five guys what are the hot restaurants and bars that we should go to tonight?' We can do other things as well, corporate entertaining and hospitality such as sport and award shows, film premieres, fashion shows, anything that is a bit different to impress clients.

How much has business grown?
Since we put in place the new business model we have grown year-on-year and in the last three years we have really started to take off with double-digit growth. It is about training the staff up in the office in the right way so that they know what they are talking about when members ring up for advice and getting people out to experience these restaurants and clubs so they can pass on their first-hand knowledge.

How has the credit crunch affected the business?
We lost some members at the end of 2008 as we have a lot of bankers and a lot of them lost their jobs. But throughout last year it actually helped in some ways, partly because we changed our marketing focus, as we had always focused on the access. We began to focus on saying that using us was the smart way to go out because if you join and go out more than once a month then you will probably be saving money. More and more people realised that if every time they went out they got free entry to clubs and free champagne at restaurants, then if you are the sort of person that wants to go out in London, it makes financial sense.

What are your plans for the future?
We plan to bring in a new website which we really want to incorporate more interactive features. We are creating an iPhone app, which will be really useful for our members. Later on in the year we will be focusing on people that are visiting London, as people who visit here often don't know where to go.

What traits do successful entrepreneurs possess?
Determination. You need to be tenacious and just keep going. Even if things aren't working out you have to keep believing in your idea and pushing it forward. If I think back to how I set this up having not known anything about the industry or having any clients it does seem a bit of a leap of faith, but I am very glad that I did it and took that chance.

What advice would you give to anyone starting a business?
If you are confident and believe in the product then you should just go for it. It's amazing what you can achieve once you start, you just need to take action and make things happen.

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