Nick Jenkins

Entrepreneur Nick Jenkins founded Moonpig.com in July 2000 after spending eight years working in Moscow as a commodities trader. He returned to the UK in 1998 and, keen to start his own business, Nick wanted to utilise possibilities of the internet to find a gap in the market and provide a commodity that just wasn’t available on the high street.

While studying for an MBA at Cranfield, the idea for Moonpig.com stemmed from a process of eliminating various other business models. Nick wanted to use the capabilities of the internet to make a personalised greetings card, something that you couldn’t buy in the average card shop. It was still early days in the e-commerce world, so Nick’s online venture was truly innovative for its time.

Nick Jenkins’ instincts proved fruitful. He spotted his opportunity while buying greeting cards – he’d Tipp-ex out the card’s caption and write in one of his own. Allowing customers to create their own cards over the internet was his brainwave. In 1999, he bought some factory space and invested  his own money into the business. Having hired a web company and recruited a printing specialist, in August 1999 Nick signed up greetings card publisher Paperlink as an investor. In return, they gave Moonpig.com the rights to sell its card designs online.

The original launch of Moonpig.com in 2000 coincided with the collapse of the dot-com bubble which meant progress was difficult at first, but the company raised further investment from private investors and venture capital, and the advent of broadband and digital cameras together with news spreading by word-of-mouth meant sales steadily increased, with the first profits being made in 2005, after five years and four rounds of fundraising. Moonpig.com had created a new sector within the greeting card industry.

After making their first profits, Moonpig rose from strength to strength, dominating brand recognition and the online greetings card market. By February 2008 it had over three million customers, selling 12 million cards a year and is now one of Britain’s fastest growing companies.

Moonpig.com expanded into the Australian market in 2004, and in 2010 it launched in the United States. It was purchased by Photobox in 2011 for £120 million.

Nick is now a Dragon on the BBC Two show Dragon’s Den. After proving himself that he can take a start-up to a million-pound venture, he now scouts the potential in others too. An ideal business speaker who can share his entrepreneurial experience, Nick is perfect for the corporate circuit.