Nigel Botterill Biography

Nigel Botterill (40) is the managing director of Raring2go! and also of sister companies MyMag and The Best Of. He set up the latter two years ago when he realised that the community magazine that his wife Sue had founded contained all the ingredients for a successful business model. In just six months he had sold over 150 MyMag programmes, giving step by step guidance on how individual can launch their own magazine business. Today this figure stands at more than 900. MyMag was launched in the US in May 2006 and Nigel plans further global expansion over the next 12 months.

With a background in marketing, Nigel was ideally suited to promote the magazine programme. But he soon realised that there was further scope to the concept and he started to develop the idea of a community website that would provide information on local news and events, and which would include a business directory that would provide genuinely useful information rather than just an address and phone number. Nigel launched the product, called thebestof.co.uk in July 2005, and today there are more than 300 sites set up across the UK.

Following the huge success of both My Mag and thebestof and an approach from business partners Sally Frost and Kirsten Williams who had been trialling the Raring2go! concept in Wolverhampton there appeared to be overwhelming evidence to suggest that the marketplace was crying out for a product such as Raring2go!

Nigel started his career at Barclays before becoming marketing director at mobile phone airtime business, Singlepoint. He moved to Card Protection Plan as managing director where he took the turnover from £3m to £25m in less than two years. Fed up with making money for other people, Nigel then set up his own marketing consultancy N5 in 2002 but the road to growing the ultimate successful business was even closer to home and recognising that Sue had found a winning formula, the Botterill’s launched MyMag in early 2004. Just two years later the company turnover stands at £6million. The US launch and new product launches in the pipeline will increase this figure further in 2006.

Nigel was awarded the Glazer Kennedy Information Marketer of the Year in 2004 and 2005, in so doing becoming the first British person ever to be awarded the US accolade.

He was also ranked No.37 in the ‘Top 50 UK Entrepreneurs of the Year 2005’.

Dave Carruthers Biography

Dave Carruthers joined thebestof in September 2004 as Technical Director. He was appointed not only because of his past experiences in designing bespoke web solutions but also because of his entrepreneurial spirit and passion to get involved with such a new and exciting concept.

Dave has expanded his team significantly to develop the Raring2go! site from concept to actualisation. Dave has overseen the project from the outset and bought his passion, drive and experience to the party to create a product which he believes will be the market leader within a relatively short period of time.

Dave manages a team of highly skilled developers and designers from the company’s offices in Solihull, the Midlands. He is responsible for all technical elements of the website including future development and operational performance and stability. Dave’s passion to genuinely provide the best website anywhere in the world for local information has led him to commissioning Jacob Neilsen and the NN Group and Big Mouth Media to work with him in developing and enhancing the Raring2go! proposition.

In his spare time, Dave enjoys a game of golf, rugby or a workout in the gym.

Mike Giles Biography

Mike Giles joined MyMag in January 2005 as Sales Director and is responsible for sales of both MyMag and thebestof.co.uk. Mike also overseas the sales for Raring2go! and the expansion of the business as a whole.

He oversees the incoming enquires for both sides of the business and manages the fulfilment and support for franchisees nationwide.

Mike is hugely excited about the potential for Raring2go! both from a franchisee perspective as well from an advertiser and reader perspective. ‘There is such great demand in the UK for a product such as Raring2go!’ says Mike ‘There is nothing available in the UK which offers the depth and breadth of the magazine and website combination offered by Raring2go! Once again, we have built a product in partnership with Sally Frost and Kirsten Williams on the back of demand from the marketplace and proven that the concept works. We have since further developed and enhanced the offering and are looking forward to watching the business grow rapidly over the coming months’.

Mike has always been inspired by enterprise and has held management positions at Lidl and Benjys since his graduation from Bristol University, where he achieved a degree in German.