Nick Jenkins — Former CEO and founder of Moonpig, the personalized online greeting-card company (now worth ~1.6 billion); Dragons' Den investor and former children's charity CEO.
The gist
Nick Jenkins recounts how he built Moonpig over 11 years, surviving a brutal 2000-2005 stretch where shareholders told him to quit and he was nearly down to zero. He argues entrepreneurs are made not born, that success comes from being better at a thousand small details rather than inventing something unique, and that a viral, high-repeat product underpinned by lean statistical testing was the real engine. Jenkins pushes back hard on the hustle-porn narrative, insisting he had a great social life and never sacrificed relationships, and warns against founders juggling multiple startups. He reflects on selling the business, going into the charity sector, and redefining success as being a good human being rather than measuring only wealth.
Big reveals
- Jenkins reveals the difficult period 'lasted from 2000 to 2005' and at one point all his shareholders told him it would never work and to stop putting money in.
- He had put about 150,000 pounds in at the start and by the end was 'pretty much down to zero,' having taken all equity out of his mortgage-free flat and all his savings.
- The only thing that worked was the viral effect: every customer attracted about a third of another customer because Moonpig.com appeared on the card.
- During one year they spent zero on marketing and customer acquisition yet sales still grew 30 percent.
- He sold most of Moonpig in 2011, merged it with PhotoBox via venture capital, then sold out fully in 2016.
- Moonpig was paying out ~10 million a year in dividends and ~30 million total before the sale, so the exit wasn't transformational.
- After signing ~200 documents alone in a room, his post-sale celebration was cycling home and making a peanut butter and jam sandwich.
- He admits he isn't sure Moonpig would have grown to 1.6 billion had he stayed at the helm, crediting later CEOs Stan and Nickyl.
Things worth remembering
- Jenkins used a statistics textbook from his MBA to calculate the least money needed for a statistically significant customer-acquisition answer (e.g. 2,500 vs 25,000 pounds).
- Moonpig had around 20 competitors that came and went, and at the time held 65 percent of the market.
- Before launching he approached an existing personalized-card company about investing, but it never turned over more than 300,000 a year and died about two years later.
- Moonpig's only stock was cardboard and envelopes, representing roughly a quarter of a percent of turnover, with no inventory and 60-day supplier terms.
- When hiring he favors people with straight A's because they understand the question and deliver predictably, balancing maverick CEOs.
- During a printing-team illness he once worked 24 hours a day for three days to clear a backlog after returning from Australia.
- He learned from fellow Dragon Deborah Meaden that supermarkets squeeze pioneer brands' margins once their products start selling well.
- Jenkins drives a 'very tired old' Land Rover Discovery into the ground before buying an electric car, joking he's not chasing a Lamborghini.
- He cites Bill Gates: by going into business rather than medicine, Gates affected millions of lives instead of a few.
- His most boring early job was transcribing license details from one ledger to another at a Ford dealership, so painful he'd wish it were 5pm at 10am.