WOODBlOCXManufacturers of a modular wooden building system used

to create any garden structure you can think of

What made you want to start a business in your specific field?

We have a family sawmill in the Highlands of

Scotland and were looking for a product which we could

manufacture, promote and sell directly to the public.

We didn’t really go into it with a speci�c target

audience in mind. There are so many gardens in the UK and so

many passionate about their gardens that we hoped in creating

a quality product we could �nd our own place in the

market.

Was your business influenced by identifying an untapped target audience or did you always have your specific field in mind?

How did you finance your start-up? We were lucky that the sawmill we are part of is already a well-established business so we were able to fund the start-up ourselves and share costs such as labour with the sawmill.

Did you make use of start-up funding? Were you aware of the options?We were aware of grants through our local enterprise company but none of the revenue streams suited what we were doing at the time so we were on our own really.

How important was researching your competitors before launching? We knew when we started that there was not an obvious competitor in the market. The closest thing to WoodBlocX is using railway sleepers which can be dirty, heavy, di�cult to cut and expensive to be delivered.

HOW DID YOU DECIDE ON THE BEST PLATFORM FOR YOUR PRODUCT/SERVICE?

We wanted to sell directly so we control our customer’s experience. So I built a website with lots of ideas and information on

and customers can �nd out nearly everything they need on there and other than that we are available on the phone through normal working hours.

Do you have a website optimised for mobiles and/or tablets? How important do you think it is for businesses to have this?

Our website is not optimised for mobiles yet but it’s getting more and more important. Through looking at the statistics of visitors to the site the grown in mobile and tablets has

been 45% in the last 2 years. So we obviously want to make the process as simple as possible for customers to �nd what they are looking for.

Is there enough support for new and growing SMEs? Where we are in the Highlands there does not seem to be too much networking or sharing of ideas and resources. A forum or meeting

group would go a long way to helping meet other business and learning from their experiences.

What’s been your biggest mistake, regret, lesson or struggle?

The thing that has been the biggest struggle has been trying to keep on top of all the

opportunities that are coming through and making sure that we maximise the

marketing potential of each one of these to help build up our brand and

get us more into the public domain.

Make sure you work hard but also keep your

motivation high and stay fresh by making sure you look after

your health and wellbeing outside of work by staying

active.

What’s the best piecE of business advice you’ve been given?

How has being based in a relatively rural area of the UK affected your business? Do you think being part of

a local community is important for a start up?We sell all over the UK and many people �nd it hard to

believe that we can ship our BlocX all over the country on a next day service. Being part of a local community has

kept our levels of customer service really high. Living in such a relatively small community helps you realise how

important word of mouth is for a company or product and we always hope to o�er a really high level of customer

satisfaction at the end of the day.

Do you work with any other local businesses to be able to provide your customers with their final product?

We work with a delivery company called Caledonian Logistics speci�cally their Inverness depot and without

their help and amazing service we would struggle to give our customers the level of service that we are able to o�er.

How did you find being a part of the BBC’s Dragons Den and working with Peter Jones, and what one

thing will you take away from the experience?Being on the Dragons Den was an amazing experience.

Seeing how they put the show together was brilliant in itself. Being under the studio lights for 2-3 hours was also

quite an exhilarating experience. Coming away from it at the end with a Dragon on board was a superb result and

the exposure and credibility that the appearance has given to WoodBlocX has made an immeasurable

di�erence to our company.

www.insight.bt.com