It is that heart-stopping moment every parent dreads. That young child you
think has been trotting, docile, in your wake through the crowds has
disappeared.
For Sara Murray, the moment came in a branch of Sainsbury's in Kent. She was
with her daughter Rowena, who was five. “I was just nearing the checkout. I
turned round to say something and she wasn't there. I said, 'My daughter's
gone. I can't see her'.”
Ms Murray called security and what was clearly a well-rehearsed process got
under way. “We swept the aisles for what seemed like an eternity but was
probably only five minutes.” Rowena was found, having gone in search of one
of the miniature shopping trolleys she had enjoyed riding on during previous
visits.
However, the true genesis of buddi, the tracking device that the serial
entrepreneur is launching, came four years later, on a skiing trip to
France, when she sent Rowena off on her own for tuition. The ski school
asked Ms Murray to write her name and mobile number on a slip of paper to go
in her daughter's pocket in case she got lost. “I thought it was ridiculous,
with modern technology.”
She decided to find some sort of satellite navigation tracking device that
could be used in such situations. Back in the UK, she went on the internet
and eventually found a company in California that had spent $180 million
developing just the thing.
“I went to try to buy one. They said it wasn't in stock. It's going to be a
while.” Then they admitted it wasn't available in Europe. Ms Murray even
offered to be their European distribution agent, but the device was set up
only to work in US metropolitan areas. “I decided to make one myself,” she
says. “I knew the difficult thing would be building the hardware, because I
had never done it before.”
It might seem an impossible task. But Ms Murray had experience in creating
businesses, a range of contacts in finance through a brief City career, and
a friend who had invented a touch-screen TV and could introduce her to a
couple of engineers.
“I was completely consumer- orientated. I said, this is what I would like it
to do for my child. They were completely technology-orientated. There was a
gap,” she admits. “Most technology companies build technology and look at
where they can sell it.”
The group built a prototype and Ms Murray sought funding from business angels.
“Because I had been in business before, I knew people and they were prepared
to back me. Without a track record I would have struggled.”
Among the many people she knew was Anthony Bolton, one of the City's most
respected fund managers. She is admirably well-connected; the name of Brent
Hoberman, the founder of lastminute.com, drifts into the conversation and
fellow investors in buddi include Mark Hawtin, of Marshall Wace, the hedge
fund, and the economist and writer John Kay.
Her first business plan involved marketing buddi along the lines of early
mobile phones, effectively giving away the gadget in exchange for future
revenues from its use. Mr Bolton persuaded her that this would push any
effective revenue streams too far off to make the venture viable. Instead,
each buddi, which is made in High Wycombe, costs £299, which offers a slim
margin over the cost of manufacture and another £20 a month for unlimited
use. For this you get a square box, not much bigger than a watch, which can
hang around the neck.
To find someone's whereabouts, you log on to the buddi website and are
directed to the relevant page of Google Maps. Movements can be tracked in
real time. The device also contains a panic button, which alerts one of two
constantly monitored call centres and allows them to locate it. They call
the named guardians, listed in order of preference. The panic button also
sends an audio feed to the call centre.
The guardian has the option, based on what appears to be happening at the
scene based on the sounds on the audio feed, of going there directly or
calling the emergency services.
It is one of a number of such devices under development and claims to work
almost anywhere on Earth. Though initially targeted at children, it can be
used by any vulnerable people, such as those suffering from dementia or lone
workers whose jobs bring them into danger, such as social workers visiting
difficult clients.
Ms Murray has arrangements to supply the device to about 30 local authorities.
She expects the NHS to be using almost a quarter of a million of the devices
in three years' time.
There are also plans to market it in South Africa, where one of the call
centres is situated and in the US and Europe. A marketing campaign will open
in the first half of the year, with ads on buses featuring the slogan “Do
You Know Where Your Kids Are?”.
So far, the venture has cost a little more than £1.3 million, funded by two
rounds of calls on business angels, although further cash will be needed.
Although her career so far has seen some abrupt moves, Ms Murray insists
that she is there for the long run.
Her father worked for Chloride, the batteries maker, and ran other business
ventures, and her mother taught German. After reading physiology, psychology
and philosophy at Oxford - “I was one of those people who didn't know
whether to do arts or sciences” - she helped to set up a management
consultancy in Chicago that specialised in pharmaceuticals. “I thought it
was a way of learning to run a business,” she says. It is a career path
frequently followed by would-be entrepreneurs.
She then moved back to London to work for Hambros. In an atypical moment of
self-doubt, she accepted the job over a better-paid one at Merrill Lynch
because she wasn't sure she could do the latter. Hambros was at the time
part of the old City, rich and relaxed - there was, famously, even a croquet
lawn on the roof of its offices near Tower Hill. “A guy got sent home for
coming in with brown shoes. They sent him home to change his shoes.”
Ms Murray left after a year or so “'cos I got bored” for a year in
Switzerland, where she set up her first business, Ninah, which used
technology to improve companies' marketing. “Aged 23, I sat in front of the
chairman of SmithKline Beecham and said, 'I can do your marketing strategy
better'. He said, 'How old are you?'. I said, 'You don't ask a lady her
age'. I thought I must have looked about 30, which didn't bother me at the
time.”
The company was eventually sold to Publicis, the French media group. She
created an online insurance venture, inspop.com, which directed customers to
various providers, and sold this to Admiral Group, too late to take full
advantage of the dot-com boom.
She joined the Admiral board, but left before long. “I found myself at dinner
parties fielding questions about where I got my car insurance.”
It does suggest a certain impatience with actually running things, I suggest
to her. “I'm more of an inventor, I suppose.”
She accepts she is fortunate in having made her first pile relatively early,
which meant that she did not have to take too many risks with her personal
finances. “Because my first business, luck, judgment, whatever, went well,
it's been easier for me.”
You also have to ask where this overwhelming self-confidence comes from, which
allowed a 23-year-old to tell the chairman of one of the country's biggest
businesses how it could perform better. She believes it was her mother, who
always encouraged her to strive for the best. “People are happiest surviving
in a challenging environment.”
At the start of what looks like it could be an awful year, some people,
perhaps.
CV
Born: November 1968, Lancashire
Educated: Malvern Girls' College; St Hilda's, Oxford (physiology, psychology,
philosophy)
1990-91: ZS Associates, management consultant, Chicago
1991-92: Hambros Bank, asset finance
1993: Set up Ninah
1999: Set up inspop.com
2001: Sold inspop.com; joined and left Admiral Group board
2002: Sold Ninah to Publicis
2003: Left Zenith Optimedia board
2005: First round of buddi funding
2007: First buddis sold
Family: Married, one daughter, three step-children
