Posted on Tuesday, 23rd February 2010 by Admin
AN e-reader pioneered by a Welsh entrepreneur is taking a lead in a market dominated by brand giants such as Sony and Amazon.
Neil Jones, originally from Neath, is founder of Interead, which makes the Cool-er e-reader – a product which claims 20% of the market.
The firm, based in Reading and Miami, was established in 2009, after Mr Jones undertook some research into the publishing industry.
And the banker-turned-serial- entrepreneur says he is not concerned by the prospect of increased competition in the market from the Apple iPad, launched last month.
Interead’s Cool-er product is smaller than the iPad, fitting into bags or pockets and is compatible with 19 document formats.
Mr Jones said: “2010 will be the year of the e-reader. I am not unduly worried by the competition from the Apple iPad. It costs in the high hundreds of dollars and does not look as if it would fit easily in a pocket or handbag, which is how we see the market going.
“Last year, when I set up the company, I would have been happy for the Cool-er to rank fifth by sales worldwide. I now think we can be number two, taking over from Sony.”
Mr Jones began Interead after starting to write a novel and learning about the publishing industry. He found that literary agents could receive 15,000 submissions a year and only take on a handful of authors, so wondered how much unpublished quality writing was waiting to be discovered. Coupling his experience as an independent author with knowledge of the unfulfilled potential of electronics books and the gadgets on which to read them, he recognised an opportunityto create an iPod moment for e-readers.
Interead was born, and Mr Jones assembled a team to develop Coolerbooks.com, and in turn the Cool-er e-reader. It took four months for the Cool-er to go from being a bright idea to a physical product.
He said: “E-books and physical books will co-exist for many years. For example, I love cricket, so I buy two sets of Wisden, one to have on the shelf and another to read on my Cool-er.
“Interead is Google’s first international partner for its Book Search project to digitise out-of-copyright books. The books are free to download but they drive traffic to our site and the cost for us is marginal.
“Last April I heard Google had signed up Sony as a distributor, but the agreement was not exclusive. So I flew to San Francisco to see Google and we signed a deal four weeks later.”
Mr Jones had intended to be a professional cricketer, spending five years on the books of Glamorgan as a youngster.
But he then decided to focus on academic work and spent time as a NatWest graduate trainee in York and Leeds before moving to the bank’s head office in London.
After five-and-a-half years in the industry he was named head of financial services consulting at Sema Group.
In 2002, Mr Jones took out a mortgage on his home to found the companies N2Check and Checksure.
Through these companies he created innovative approaches to supplying credit reporting information, challenging long-established and well-known brands.
In 2007, he sold his N2 Check businesses to Dun & Bradstreet in a widely reported and successful deal.
“After selling N2 Check, an online credit checking business I founded, to Dun & Bradstreet, the business intelligence group, in 2007, I sent the first part of my thriller and a synopsis to a literary agency,” he said.
“They loved it, but said they could only take on two or three authors a year, and received 300 submissions a week.
“My resulting business idea was an e-book publisher, which led in turn to me creating the Interead online bookstore.
“At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this month, I presented on the stand of UK Trade & Investment, the government trade promotion body, where I told people how we were a David taking on the Goliaths that are Amazon and Sony.
“It is great to have a British success story and I love presenting – by slide three, the place was packed.”
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Tags: Brand Giants, Giants, Welsh Entrepreneur
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