smallbusiness.co.uk: Helping your business think big

Juan Lobato founded website builder Basekit in 2008. In the same year, the company won a competition run by the pan-European mentoring and investor network Seedcamp

Where did you get the idea?

It was clear that web browsers were becoming increasingly powerful. We saw an opportunity to launch a company which enabled website creation without installing any software as everything could be hosted in the cloud.

How did you finance the project?

I had sold my previous company and at first I invested some of my own money. We approached venture capitalists and raised £2 million, largely based on winning the competition and the fact that no-one else in Europe was providing the same service.

What’s your marketing strategy?

At first we didn’t spend any money on PR; we just used word of mouth and the online community. In June we decided to get PR on board to increase the visitors to the site and drive up the subscription rate further.

What next?

Around November this year we will have fully localised platforms for the Spanish and Portuguese markets. We believe websites are created the same way across international borders, so this is a truly global opportunity. We have 14 different nationalities in our team so we are well prepared!

Coming from Spain, what do you think of doing business in London?

London is a great place to start a company. It’s where you find the talent, the capital, and the business initiative. I’ve been here 10 years and London is not quite Silicon Valley, but it’s getting better.

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