
Internet Entrepreneur. Marketing Guru. bruce@everiss.com
Coventry, United Kingdom

Internet Entrepreneur. Marketing Guru. bruce@everiss.com
Coventry, United Kingdom
email bruce@everiss.com
Twice in my career I have joined a startup computer games company (Imagine and Codemasters) in the senior marketing role and helped each to become the best selling publisher in the UK in it's first year of trading.
I also set up and ran All Formats Computer Fairs for nearly 20 years and over 1,000 events around the UK and through many very prosperous years until the function of these fairs was replaced by the internet.
Now I work on my successful online sites whilst looking for new opportunities in the video game industry.
Event management. International marketing. Internet marketing. Corporate strategy. Troubleshooting. Communications: Internal, Corporate, Brand, Community, HR etc.
(Sole Proprietorship; Myself Only; Publishing industry)
November 2006 — Present (1 year 9 months)
Artforums is one of a number of online communities I started. I run this hands on, developing the site and marketing it. This has further extended my knowledge of online marketing. With over 100,000 page views per month it is firmly established in it's market.
My initial target is for the business to be about 100 times bigger than it is now, it grows all the time so will get there. Patience is so important with an online business.
Bruceongames is a video game industry blog that regularly attracted thousands of visitors per day before it was six months old and which rapidly made it to become a Technorati top 100,000 blog.
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Events Services industry)
1988 — 2007 (19 years)
Everyone said it wouldn't work, putting home and business computing together in one day retail events. But it did. After a lot of hard slog we succeeded to the point where many others used my business as a template for theirs with fairs taking place for many years in every major town and city in the UK.
I ran this as a virtual business, with everything possible sub-contracted out. This enabled me to scale the business up and down very easily to match the seasons and other market fluctuations.
(Privately Held; 201-500 employees; Computer Games industry)
2003 — 2005 (2 years)
An interesting role, reporting directly to the Chairman and giving presentations to the board. I was mainly involved in corporate strategy, troubleshooting and our relationship with government and trade bodies. I was a founder member of the Computer Games Industry Forum which was overseen by and met at the DTI in London.
I was also involved in a successful effort to change the IP law in the UK to help protect our properties. This involved lobbying and working with our local MPs.
(Public Company; 201-500 employees; Computer Games industry)
2001 — 2003 (2 years)
I came in and made PR a powerful strategic tool. I set up all the systems to simultaneously issue press releases worldwide in all the applicable local languages and created a rolling schedule of releases planned to support every brand the company owned as well as supporting HR, recruitment, corporate and local community issues. My strategy treated online and print seperately to maximise impact.
I was responsible for the tactic of having online community staff for each brand which garnered significant results. We also promoted the company website almost solely by embedding URLs in every press release till it became one of the most popular sites in the industry in Europe.
We had many events for press throughout Europe and the USA, territories where we had our own marketing offices. For other territories I worked with our agents worldwide.
I also ran internal communications and created a monthly internal newspaper and organised many events, both formal and informal.
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Computer Games industry)
1985 — 1987 (2 years)
Just after they started up I saw what they were doing and liked it so invited myself for an interview. It was a very small company and my responsibility was marketing and anything else that needed doing. Within the first year we were number one publisher and the Gallup chart showed we had over 27% of the UK market at the highest point. Once again it was an opportunity to be very innovative and once again the competition followed those innovations.
(Marketing and Advertising industry)
1982 — 1984 (2 years)
Imagine were the first modern, professional publisher of computer games in the UK.
Much of what we invented became standard industry practice. In fact in some areas, such as PR and the use of home grown celebrity, the standards are now lower.
I was the director in charge of both sales and marketing. Our aim was to pretty much double turnover every month. When the UK wasn't big enough we went international. The competition followed everything we did but they were always a long way behind.
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Retail industry)
1978 — 1982 (4 years)
This was fun. During my accountancy training I read about the new microcomputers. So I begged, borrowed and stole some money and in July 1979 opened one of the first computer stores in the world. In Liverpool.
You can read more about those days here: http://zxgoldenyears.net/everiss.html
Another thing we did was to publish one of the first home computer magazines, Liverpool Software Gazette: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_Software_Gazette
We rapidly found ourselves overtrading on a narrow capital base so I sold out to the Hi Fi retailer Laskys and we put stores within their stores around the UK. Laskys were part of Ladbrokes and were kind enough to put me through their management training mill at Carewell Lodge.
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Accounting industry)
1977 — 1978 (1 year)
On coming to the end of my articles in accountancy I set up a book keeping company for the partnership, they gave me some equity. The system we used batch processed on leased mainframe time and was aimed at medium to small businesses. I got the company going with a client base giving a steady flow of business. My first taste of being the boss!
life 1952 — 2008
I initially trained as an accountant to gain technical business knowledge. I then left, in 1979, to set up one of the first computer retailers in the world, Microdigital in Liverpool. Since then I have run my own business or been in senior marketing positions, so have learned on the job.
1968 — 1972
1963 — 1968
My main hobby is SCUBA diving. I am a PADI instructor and have over 1000 dives. I am a keen traveller and have travelled very extensively, SCUBA diving, visiting the great art galleries, backpacking and just going to places to see what they are like. Motor cars have been a passion all my life. I currently own an old Ferrari and a Caterham.
I am a professional member of PADI.