Izzy Whizzy, Let’s Get Bizzy
Adrian J Cotterill, Editor-in-Chief
The world needs entrepreneurs (even the French, who President George Bush once said “The problem with the French is that they don’t have a word for entrepreneur”).
Our industry needs them (as well) but there surely comes a point when an entrepreneur’s self-aggrandisement just gets too much – which is usually about the same time as when the startup should effectively curl up and die.
Once such self-aggrandiser is Richard Corbett, founder and CEO of Eyetease – an ‘entrepreneur’ (in perhaps the loosest sense of the word) and who in the industry has already earned the nickname ‘EarTease’.
Richard’s latest claim (on CNBC’s Power Pitch) is that, we quote “within Q1 this year we are already up to 4.2 million dollars in turnover”.
Richard stuck by that story in an email to us “In terms of my company’s revenue, this is wholly accurate. We have hundreds of systems in operation and more in production but I am bound by confidentiality with my clients” – ah, yes, that old chestnut ‘client confidentiality’ which always covers a multitude of sins and lack of sales (the confidential deal that Richard constantly alludes to is with Verifone Media by the way).
He had an employee once but like 100’s of other people we’ve only seen or heard him – he claims though to have five employees and in his CNBC interview (100%, yes 100%, 100%) he says he is eying further investment and international expansion and will be opening up a New York office later this year.
Let’s be honest here – in fact we think industry association’s should setup a formal entrepreneur’s charter (something along the lines of; 1. be honest, 2. embrace the industry, 3. don’t re-invent the wheel, 4. learn from others, etc., etc.), EyeTease media work very, very hard at looking big to the outside world – yet the ‘industry’ they are in, knows just how tiny and inconsequential they actually are AND no amount of awards or self-promotion will change that!
Here’s a startup that quite bluntly refuses to grow. Surely you can only be a startup for so long? UK Companies House lists his turnover at less than GBP 200K in four years.
Watch Richard on video here and you will see he is at least correct about one thing, when he says he was funded by “Friends, family and fools” – the emphasis there, perhaps, should be on ‘fools’ especially as he rigidly maintains that he has 100% (he likes that expression, doesn’t he) share ownership.
July 14th, 2014 at 13:17 @595
I actually know Richard. I used to sit next to him during my time at Google Campus (TechHub). It’s a little sad to have an article like this written about a company that started from nothing and is doing well. Your assertion that Richard is dishonest about his growth is frankly laughable – I’ve seen EyeTease’s iTaxiTop driving around numerous London black cabs with my own eyes, I know how hard Richard’s worked to get EyeTease to this point and I know EyeTease is growing. Bad ‘journalism’ really…
July 14th, 2014 at 13:23 @599
As someone who works in this same building/co-working space as Richard, none of this is surprising. Classic case of narcissism.
July 14th, 2014 at 13:38 @610
Dear DailyDOOH,
I have worked at Eyetease for the last five months and love working here. Just wanted you to know that 🙂
Love
Mumal
July 14th, 2014 at 15:10 @673
If this is what DailyDooh’s “journalism” amounts to, then I don’t think it’s EyeTease that will go going down shortly. Emotive and arrogant journalism which is riddled with personal conflicts of interest usually ends up reading exactly like the above piece, repackaged as “opinion”. If you actually knew what you were talking about, you’d know that this is one of a number of companies forging ahead in this area mobile. I suggest you do some real reporting into this sector rather than taking out personal vendettas on genuinely good entrepreneurs.
July 14th, 2014 at 16:31 @729
Mike
Our regular readers pretty much know what to expect with DailyDOOH’s journalism – we get it right about 95% of the time. We understand our industry and are incredibly passionate about it. What really got to us this time around was Richard’s incredulous claims of turnover – enough is enough and the majority of the industry if polled would agree with us.
I know it’s sometimes hard to take criticism and it’s nice that some of Richard’s friends have sprung to his defence but I would just say that, as journalists we do actually do our homework (we travel more than most, meet more people than most and we do work with the investment community) so we do ACTUALLY have a good understanding of what works and what doesn’t.
I fail to see any conflicts of interest in what we wrote. We don’t work for any media company or technology company that plays in EyeTease’s space.
Finally with regard your suggestion that we do “some real reporting” – again I would refer you to our readers and our 7+ year archive … we do our homework and our own research.
July 14th, 2014 at 16:53 @745
Adrian,
The business is doing very well and we are proud to be working with market leading clients with some major local and international roll-outs. Note, we believe in integrity and honesty at all times. Everything we have put out to market is “100%” accurate.
As the world’s largest technology provider of digital taxitop systems, we do not believe in jumping the gun with the supply of information to the marketplace. We believe in operating with a little more class than that. Hence, we must respect the needs of our clients and publicly announce our roll-outs with their consent and to their timescales.
You mention an “incredulous claim to turnover”. This is of course your opinion and i have no desire to justify any details to you or your blog page. I would however advise that you resist the temptation to attack Eyetease further as it will only discredit you and your site further when information becomes public.
As a final note, it is such a shame that the DOOH industry is voiced by an emotive and arrogant journalist (riddled with personal conflicts) who cannot be bothered to conduct proper research / journalism to get the facts (or respect client confidentiality) but instead repackage bias opinion / perception as fact to feel superior. The British startup scene will never grow if we allow naysayers like you to run wild shooting down companies who dare to make a difference.
Warm regards,
Richard Corbett
Founder & CEO, Eyetease
July 14th, 2014 at 21:36 @941
Does it really matter unless he becomes the world’s largest provider of digital Uber-top systems? Which title he will undoubtedly claim when he puts a display on Cousin Nigel’s Uber car…
July 15th, 2014 at 15:54 @704
Bush did not make the comment about the word “entrepreneur”: http://www.snopes.com/quotes/bush.asp
July 17th, 2014 at 18:58 @832
Adrian has clearly struck a nerve. But why?
Apart from the obvious question: why not help the world with your time rather than polluting more tired eyeballs with advertising screens, the main question is why does everybody being interviewed (as well as the defense in the comments section) reek so of desperation here?
Maybe the London start-up scene so desperately needs some success stories that they push an inexperienced and only too-willing Prima donna on to any and all stages FAR TOO EARLY. So what if current turnover is GBP 200K in four years – that’s also OK… advice for the CEO here is to wait until you have banked that “USD 4.2M” and until that point, your turnover is 200k in four years. Turnover is a legal concept in the big leagues – start treating it that way now or else… just ask HP.
Guys, take it easy with the obvious pushing while so desperately chasing the early win. Your successes will for sure come, but don’t do it at the expense of any semblance of grace. You can be successful without being a douche. And as for the London start-up scene gurus – maybe you could claim to father many better start-ups with their heads down and the volume down. The last thing the scene needs is more loud children with pushy parents.