Red Button Design visited by 1 in 400 UK residents

3,300,000 people watched "The Dragons' Den" on December 17th

Web stats indicate that around 108,000 people visited Red Button Design's website between 9pm Mon 17th and 9pm Wed 19th.

So.... 3.3%, around 1 in 30 people, who saw Red Button on TV looked us up online....
The average response rate for targeted advertising is 0.7%

Overall in December we had over 147,000 visitors to http://www.thisisredbutton.co.uk/

Less than 4% of those visitors used a Mac

6 months ago our biggest referrer was facebook.
Now it is shared by Google and bbc.co.uk.
6 months ago we had an average of 60 users a day visit the site.
Now we average 4,901.

The CIA think there are 60,776,238 people in the UK,

1 in 18 people in the UK watched the Dragons' Den (5.5% of the population)

1 in 400 people in the country have been to our website at some point.


*dashes out to buy dark glasses and a headscarf!*

Red Button Design Shortlisted for HSBC Award.

Yes, yes, you must be getting bored of us by now but I thought I'd just quietly mention, for those of you still with us, that Red Button Design have reached the semi-finals (final 100) of the 2008 HSBC Unipreneurs Awards.


HSBC Unipreneurs 2008 is a new £20,000 business award which aims to discover and encourage a new generation of university educated business entrepreneurs. It's also supported by the National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship and is therefore connected with all 168 UK universities."

From the website: "http://www.unipreneurs.hsbc.co.uk/"

The Word on the Wire..

http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/other/display.var.1907118.0.Trio_aim_to_make_a_splash_on_TV_show.php

http://www.lammo.net/dragons-den/104/dragons-den-series-5-episode-9

http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/display.var.1912327.0.city_trio_tame_dragons.php

http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.1911293.0.Dragons_unanimous_in_backing_Glasgow_students.php

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/7147893.stm

http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/display.var.1908537.0.students_take_water_idea_to_den.php

http://money.uk.msn.com/business/dragons-den/article.aspx?cp-documentid=7023363


forum gossips! (these are my favourite!)

http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=50841

http://www.motorhomefun.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2867

http://www.theenvironmentsite.org/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=11338

http://www.ukparentslounge.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=653574


if you see us anywhere else, let me know!

WANTED: Have you seen these Entrepreneurs?

If you see an article about Red Button Design in the paper, please hang on to it! We're having trouble collecting them all (we've already missed quite a few) alternatively if you see us in the paper give one of us a text or email so we know!

Many thanks,
Manda.

How many emails can a BlackBerry hold?

Just a quick one to sincerely thank everyone for their congratulatory messages and offers of support.

There's a joke in the Red Button Offices that as I don't work for a wage (yeah - that's a point all of you who want to get into this entrepreneurship lark! 9 months without an income... ouch!) but because I don't get paid in a financial sense I get paid with tit bits of praise and thanks. Infact I believe the term "Approval Junkie" has been coined for me. Nevertheless despite Oxford Said's Business School deciding that our £45,000 prize winnings wont be transferred until January (!) and the resulting frugal Christmas at RBD-HQ knowing so many of you share our visions will spur me on for another wage-less month!

And when the countdown clock read zero...

Well the fateful day has finally come around, spent the last week doing press stuff, interviews, pre-recording radio shows and other fun and games. Got a call from 'Radio 5 live' this afternoon, however, asking if I would go into a Glasgow studio, tonight at 11pm to be interviewed live by Richard Bacon...

They were surprised I refused!

11pm? On the night of my show airing? At a few hours notice? Ummm Richard Bacon, are you kidding me? I admit, I was ranting a bit by the third time they called but ... Seriously? forgive my disregard for your ego but I made plans, I have friends coming and with any luck I wont be sober enough to air live by 11pm!

Thanks to everyone who has contacted us to wish us luck etc. We are very grateful and will get back to you *all* over the next few days. Meanwhile I still have an hour and a half to bite my fingernails down to a quick and you've still got time to get yourself a wee dram on our behalf.

Manda

Press Release

Red Button Design win £45,000 in Oxford University's 21st Century Challenge Competition with their life saving water transport, sanitation and storage device.

The trio scooped a total of £45,000 in prizes on the night for their Reverse Osmosis Sanitation System (ROSS) which can effectively and cheaply provide safe water for the developing world.

Entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, policy makers, academics, corporate guests, sponsors and competitors gathered at the Saïd Business School in Oxford for the annoucement this week. The judges awarded two prizes, the first a £10,000 prize to a company addressing a pertinent problem affecting people in the 21st Century and a second for £35,000 awarded to the ‘Global’ winner representing the most investable social enterprise.

Steve Rayner, Director of the James Martin Institute for Science and Civilisation at Saïd commented:

‘The competition exemplifies what the School stands for, bringing together business with social and environmental issues that address the problems we are faced with in the 21st Century. The strength and quality of submissions was outstanding and the overall winner was selected on its ability to meet certain criteria; the scale of the problem being addressed; the impact of the individual business on problem solving; and for its simplicity and elegance’.

The 21st Century Challenge, the largest such competition in the UK, is designed to encourage commercial solutions to help solve the major social and environmental challenges of the 21st Century. More than 180 entries were received from 23 countries. Participants had to submit a five page business plan focusing on one of the three challenge tracks. Three finalists were drawn from the entries to each track and the nine finalists then went forward to the grand final event and pitched their business plans to a panel of judges.

Red Button Design was founded by Amanda Jones, a Glasgow University Graduate, James Brown and Nicky Pang who are both studying Product Design on a joint course run by Glasgow University and Glasgow School of Art.

The judging panel for the grand final comprised:

Professor Steve Rayner, James Martin Institute for Science and Civilization (Chair)
Rob James, DFJ Esprit
Keith Evans, PricewaterhouseCoopers
Jonathan Guthrie, Financial Times
Wendy Hart, Grant Thornton
Ravi Kapur, NESTA
Antony Ross, Bridges Ventures
Nicholas Pitts-Tucker, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC)
Richard Sanders, Permira

For further details please contact Amanda Jones:
Amanda@thisisredbutton.co.uk

Let Me Put You Out Of Your Misery!

It's been confirmed:

9pm December 17th,

last in the series as suspected.