Shopatweet

To get to the current stage it has cost Dan £40,000, which he admits is incredibly cheap for what he is trying to achieve. The site will be in BETA testing at the start of March, which means for the next two months businesses can sign up and advertise their products for free and have the chance to suggest any amendments that they think would improve the experience. Additionally, all readers of The Business Moment who sign up will enjoy a further three months of free advertising once the site goes fully live. The only charge will be a 5% commission on any sales.

So far about 100 companies have signed up, but the crucial stage is now to get more businesses involved explains Dan:

We’ve obviously had to keep it quite quiet until now, but the aim at the moment is to target small-medium sized businesses with a little bit of a marketing budget. And I think it will benefit those businesses hugely because there’s no real area or space like this on the internet for them to show their products or their services at a reasonable cost really. This goes back to one of the reasons I started it, because at the time when I was doing affiliate internet marketing I was adding a lot of adverts through Google, through Facebook and everything else to try and promote my affiliate side of things. It was mega-money with very little return. So what I decided was that we’re going to make something very affordable. So basically it will be £150 a month or £5 a day for any business and for that they’ll get their own website, they can post 10 products a day, and they’ll get all the statistics and everything else. The reason I know that this is affordable is because I have friends who own car garages, and they’ve paid £2,000 to Autotrader or Ebay, or similar platforms, so it’s very affordable in that respect. But I’m also trying to focus on the additional benefits for business in terms of the feedback, the reviews, the market research. I really think it’s quite a complete tool for businesses

For Dan, getting to this point is almost unbelievable. As he says: “When you’re looking so far ahead and it’s just an idea it’s very difficult to get there. But I would say if you really, really want to do something, you can make it happen. I know it sounds cheesy, but the proof is that we’ve managed to do it! When we were told it couldn’t be done and plenty of people were against it, and I suppose if anything it’s just hard work really!”

Dan also acknowledges that he would never have been able to do it without the team he has developed along the way that now number eight in total, including copywriter Seth Rowden and Financial Director Clive Unit: “It’s only been possible really, from the relationships that I’ve built with the professionals who are now my friends. The creative team I should say, from the designers to the copy writers to the developers. It’s been down to that that we’ve been able to do it.”

What is particularly remarkable about this story, and a testament to the sites potential, is that many of these highly skilled professionals are working with little or no pay. Such is their belief in Shopatweet that they have agreed to delay payments or work for equity in the company – a very unusual arrangement which illustrates the absolute faith these individuals have in Dan’s vision.
Dan is also grateful to the investors who have come on board, namely Andy Bradley, Sam Gatehouse and Matt Felton as he says, “without their help and financial input Shopatweet would not be where it was today.”

So, is Dan Davies the next Mark Zuckerburg? Sign Up to Shopatweet in March for free and discover for yourself. https://shopatweet.com or email: to find out more.