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Chapter 1 Preview - A Quarter Of
www.aquarterof.co.uk
AQuarterOf.co.uk is the coolest
place on the web to buy those long lost,
retro sweets (candy) of the
past.
The founder Michael Parker
wanted his online store to be quirky and
have a strong 'personality',
reflecting the atmosphere of 70s and 80s childhoods. What better way
than create the site in the style of an old fashioned comic book? With
the help of Whizzer and Chips cartoonist,
Colin Whittock, AquarterOf.co.uk
was born.
Your name:
Michael Parker
Company name: A
Quarter Of Ltd
Website URL:
www.aquarterof.co.uk
Your company / website vision
statement / goal:
To recreate the “Chocolate Box”
(the sweetshop at the end of our road
when I was young, combined with
“Whizzer and Chips” (the comic I
used to read). To create a
nostalgic website that people enjoy – a
fun, authentic, quality place
and to become the “Amazon” for sweets
both past and present.
What you sell / services you
offer (brief description of your company):
The sweets that they used to
sell in the “Chocolate Box”, and the sweets
that they would have sold today
had it still existed.
Have you always wanted to run
your own business? What were some of
your previous jobs / companies?
Previous jobs include cashier in
a petrol station, Remunerations and
Benefits Analyst in the HQ of a
multinational, marketing manager at a construction company… and running
Atticus Finch Marketing (my own marketing business). Running my own
business was not always my aim
but the desire grew through my
previous employment and the fact that I
most enjoyed seeing ideas
transformed into fully fledged ventures. A
Quarter Of was created to be a
fun idea (there was not some big
sophisticated master plan behind
it)… and that sense of fun remains. Everything that a company like
Lastminute.com was (massive money
behind it, cash burn etc) A
Quarter Of… wasn’t (and isn’t!)
Have you got any qualifications? Please tell us about yourself
academically?
I have a degree in Operational
Research and Marketing. My education
has been a big help – A Quarter
Of was not the sort of company that
started off with massive
investment, advertising and personnel – it has
evolved (gradually initially)
and to start with I was doing everything from website design to weighing
out the sweets, book-keeping to buying the sweets… and taking all of the
orders down to the local post office.
My education gave me the
background and confidence to be able to do
this.
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