INTERVIEW/Donald Douglas, Return2Sender:"Property and technology have almost gone in bipolar directions," he says, looking back. "There were times when I was working in technology I was thinking I could be making money a lot easier and a lot faster if I had stayed with property."
Douglas had moved to London to work first for an advertising agency and then as marketing manager for ContactDetails.com, a wireless social networking site. Again, Douglas says timing would prove to be the decisive factor in the fate of the new company.
"ContactDetails was way ahead of its time," he says. "It was all about putting your information online, updating it yourself and giving people access to that."
As Douglas tried to sell the concept to schools and colleges, fears about security and privacy meant there was no take up.
"Nobody would do it," he says. "It just showed that timing in business is absolutely everything. I guess for every MySpace or Bebo or Facebook, there have been probably 10 others."
As the dotcom bubble burst, investors pulled the plug on ContactDetails. Douglas, who was 27 at the time, was left searching for a new job. That's when he came up with the idea for Return2Sender, a mobile advertising agency.
"What was interesting about ContactDetails was there was a feature within the product that allowed you to update your address book or your profile with a message and then to query your address book with a text message," he says. "We said that would be perfect for direct response advertising: you text in, you get something back."
Without a definite product, business plan or company, Douglas and a colleague, Mark Mulhern, contacted Viacom Outdoor Advertising with the concept. The advertising agency loved it and snapped it up.
"No sooner had we put out a press release that we had signed a deal with Viacom did they get hundreds of calls from people saying they had the same technology to do this and anyone could do it. In theory, anyone could do that - there were no real barriers to entry, but what we focused on in the early days was selling the benefits as opposed to the technology. We had a first-mover advantage."
A lack of funding forced them to return to Ireland with the business, where they bedded down for a few months with a digital agency run by Douglas's brother. Money was still scarce and Mulhern left after a short time, but Douglas was determined to keep going.
He sold his apartment to finance the firm's expansion and it paid off. Today, Return2Sender is an independent mobile marketing agency that provides technology and mobile marketing services to advertisers, mobile operators, content providers and advertising agencies.
"I have taken it from text messaging into multimedia messaging, into video, mobile websites, into banner ads and mobile search," says Douglas. "We are all encompassing. The mobile phone has changed from your personal device for texting and talking to friends. People are using it for e-mail and browsing, pictures, videos, photographs and music downloads."
As well as advertising agencies, clients include blue-chip companies like Coca Cola and Diageo. The company employs eight people and is turning over over €1 million. Douglas says it will post a profit this year.
"It took us six years to become profitable," he says. "You have to grow and defend your position at the same time." But he knows that advertising can be fickle and is determined to expand into new areas using the technology the firm built. In a few months, he plans to launch Momento, a mobile greeting card site. He has also raised €50,000 in seed capital from Enterprise Ireland for Gobble, an ad-funded content channel. With property taking a nosedive, getting into technology years ago may have proved his timing was right in the long run.
On the Record
Name:Donald Douglas
Age:35
From:Dublin
Background:He is managing director of mobile advertising agency Return2Sender Ireland, which he founded when he was 27.
Qualifications:Masters in advertising from DIT, member of the Irish Auctioneers and Valuers Institute and a bachelor of arts in economics and French from UCD.
Admires:Bob Geldof.
Most likes to:Play the guitar, run and play tennis.
Favourite film:Chinatown.
Favourite book:The Sportswriter by Richard Ford.
