Michael Smith

    (£3,000 - £5,000)

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Biography

Michael Smith is the dynamic young entrepreneur who founded the popular gadget company 'Firebox' and more recently, Mind Candy. Its flagship product, Moshi Monsters has grown rapidly since it launched in April 2008.  8m children around the world have signed up and over 1m new players join every month, making it one of the world's fastest growing online games for kids.  Moshi Monsters was nominated for a BAFTA in 2008 and 2009, and in 2010 will begin a global licensing campaign to take the brand into physical products.

Michael was recently appointed to sit on the Cool Brands council which votes on the top 500 Cool Brands in the UK every year (in association with the Observer Magazine). Michael Smith is an inspirational and charismatic speaker in the field of entrepreneurism. Visit Firebox.com

The internet-based gadget shop Firebox.com is an internationally recognised household name, offering funky, innovative and quirky gadgets from around the world.  The company now turns over in excess of £10 million, but it has not always been plain sailing for the young entrepreneur who co-founded the company, originally named Hot Box.

Michael Smith has been fascinated by games and puzzles ever since receiving a copy of Masquerade for his seventh birthday. Whilst at university, Michael and his friends hit upon the idea of launching their own web-based games company.  In 1998, with £1000 cash given to them by Michael’s mother and using the free attic of one of their parents, Hot Box was launched.

The biggest breakthrough in their success came from the “Shot Glass Chess Set”, an idea that was born during a drunken night at the Union Bar!  In 1998 the company moved to London and having made a startling discovery about another company called Hot Box, the pair rebranded and Firebox.com was born.

Michael confesses to his naivety about business in the beginning, but was determined that, with no other competitors in the market, their idea couldn’t fail.  They set about absorbing information from every publication and source they could get their hands on in order to gain the help they needed to drive the company forward.

In fact, their growth was so spectacular that, in late 2004 Firebox was listed by The Sunday Times Fast Track 100 as the 13th fastest growing, privately-owned business in the UK.

Today, following the immense success of Firebox and his latest equally quirky company Mind Candy, Michael is often asked to share his success stories with the corporate sector. As one can expect of a young gifted entrepreneur, Michael’s presentation style is fun, enthusiastic and has a powerful underlying message of overcoming obstacles, sailing through the turbulent times and never giving up on the dream.

“The feedback has been compiled and looks great!  They ranked the event as a whole as 3.8 out of 5 (with 5 being excellent), and words like ‘inspirational’, ‘motivational’, ‘interesting’ and ‘superb’ were frequent comments!  You ranked extremely well receiving 4.3 out of 5”  Startups Live