RYAN O’Rorke is the last person to have been born in Kelso Cottage Hospital and this particular baby’s already booming when it comes to the internet big time.
The business that Ryan, 23, set up in the bedroom of his Kelso home has now grown in just a matter of months into a market leader in the field of online deals.
Business management graduate Ryan set up LoveOnlineDeals.com after friends complained they were being deluged with emails from voucher companies such as Groupon and KGB.
Thanks to collaboratgion with these emerging internet firms, his website allows subscribers to get just one message a day informing them of all the deals in their area from a variety of companies.
Harnessing the power of the internet, Ryan devised a new way to search and compare local daily deals on the internet and eliminate the unwanted overload of deals on offer.
His website automatically finds, displays, compares and filters based on user preferences, the best daily deals within the health, food, leisure, fashion and online e-commerce industries that are available from the multitude of daily deal providers in the UK.
Educated at Kelso High School and Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh Ryan told us how he launched his entire business by using the same money-saving concepts that his site now showcases.
“I literally started without a penny to my name. I learned how to code and design the website via YouTube tutorials and had to use my own initiative to overcome problems, secure investments and partnerships that would put the site on the world stage,” he said.
After a round of investment, his company now enjoys partnerships with internet powerhouses, including Groupon, KGB Deals and a well-known Amazon company, LOVEFiLM.
With offices in Edinburgh and Glasgow, he is proud of what he has achieved.
“My motivation remains, at its core, to help people save as much money as possible by finding and comparing the best local daily deals on the market.
“We’re all aware that this type of online deal platform has boomed during the past few months – and LoveOnlineDeals.com seeks to amalgamate all available daily deals into one user-friendly website,” he added.
Ryan moved back to Kelso eight months ago after finishing his university studies, but two months ago settled in Edinburgh.
He only had £5,000 in start-up funds, which he secured from a private investment company and part of that sum was used to build the website.
Now Ryan plans to diversify as his business grows and he wants to expand to include other UK cities.
Currently his website only offers deals in Edinburgh and Glasgow, but he intends to include locations around the UK.
Ryan runs the business from his home in the capital and says the initial success of his website, launched last August, has surpassed his expectations.
“I was just doing my own thing and all of a sudden, things just exploded, and the site now has 84,000 users and I have just employed a graphic designer to take care of the web design stuff while I concentrate more on the marketing side of things,” he said.
“The internet is an incredible tool that lets you reach a vast number of people very quickly. It shows you can start a business from scratch in Kelso and very quickly see it reach a worldwide audience.
“My plan now is just to expand and expand. This has been the most exciting thing I’ve ever done.”