I walked into a tiny upstairs office at a publishing company in Abingdon. ‘I need coffee first or I can’t function’ said Chris, the chairman of babyworld. ‘I’m kind of like that myself’ - I said. I knew Chris from our Elsevier Science days in Kidlington.
It was May 1999 and the dotcom boom was on full swing. Chris had a vision having recently become a parent that it would be great if there was a website where bewildered parents-to-be could find all the information they needed, read reviews and articles and also buy the products they really needed for their baby. A genuinely innovative idea.
This is where I came in. A small team had been assembled to handle editorial, graphic design, community features and IT - but I was there for marketing and e-commerce.
There was no facebook, no youtube, no twitter and companies were still getting to grips with what the world wide web was really all about.
It was an exciting time. We were buzzing.