Michael Dawson

The Gift Voucher Shop was set up in 2002 by Michael Dawson. It operates the One4All gift voucher, which consumers can use across 22,000 locations in Ireland and Britain.

Dawson also came up with the idea for the Bikes4Work tax-break scheme. GVS generates €3-€4 million in turnover helping companies to administer the scheme.

He is also the driving force behind the Cycle4Haiti charity event, that aims to raise €400,000 on the May holiday weekend.

Where did you get the idea for your business?

The idea came from a void in the market. I was looking for a voucher for Christmas for my mother for Jury’s Hotel in Ballsbridge, but I was living in Malahide and it necessitated me getting across to Ballsbridge.

So Christmas came and Christmas went and she didn’t get her voucher. I just thought I should be able to walk into a shop and buy a voucher that I could use anywhere.

What’s unique about your business?

This had never been done before. Retailers loved the idea.

How difficult was it to launch the business?

We reckoned we needed £1 million to start and we launched our fundraising about a week before 9/11, so it was excruciatingly difficult to raise funds. Banks were closed after the uncertainty of 9/11. Between family and friends we raised up to £800,000.

All of this stood to us in later years because we launched on a very tight budget and learned how to operate under tight conditions. That became the ethos of the business.

What was the big break for the business?

Brown Thomas was the first retailer to take it. Paul Kelly [the head of Brown Thomas] was the first person to say yes.

I thought it was going to be easier but it wasn’t. I wanted Brown Thomas first because I figured others would follow their lead.

How has the business grown over the 10 years?

We should do turnover of €140 million this year. We went into profit in Ireland in year three, went into Malta in 2004 and into the UK in 2005.

The UK has managed to burn most of the money we made. I went in with a war chest of €5 million for the UK and it took us the guts of €20 million before we broke even last year. It’s gone into profit now.

What advice would you give to anyone starting off in business now?

As a typical entrepreneur, I would expect things to happen much quicker than they do and always left myself short on time to allow for the business to develop and for the product to catch on.

Everything takes longer than you expect. That’s the advice I would give to anyone starting off now. They need to carefully work out how long it will take to bring their product to market and then double it and double it again. If you do that, you’ll get your cash requirements right and your projections right.

How is the recession impacting on your business?

Our business has gone up in double digits each year in the recession here in Ireland. People are more conscious of the security of cards and whether a retailer will still be in business for them to spend their vouchers. We have probably benefited from that. We have also grown our business with corporates, which are now more interested in tax break features of the vouchers for staff.

In your experience, are the banks lending to SMEs?

We had a requirement this year, because of increased business, for higher overdraft facilities and they [Bank of Ireland] facilitated that. Did we have to work a lot harder? Yes, but in the end they did it.

Who do you most admire in business?

Denis O’Brien. He has been phenomenally successful around the world and I’ve seen first hand what [charity work] he has done in Haiti. We have a world-class businessperson and we need to stop beating ourselves up and get on with things.

How do you rate the performance of the coalition Government?

They’re doing a good job. There is a huge amount of energy there. They are going to get some things wrong, but as an entrepreneur, I don’t have a problem with that. You have to try things.

In conversation with CIARÁN HANCOCK