Our judges were so impressed with the calibre of nominations for this year’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award that they added an additional category in order to recognise someone they felt had also shown remarkable entrepreneurial spirit, and that person was Ed Bussey, founder of Quill.
Founded in 2010 to tackle the insatiable need for content by the online consumer, today Quill is a multi-language European leader in content creation, producing specific, vital website content that drives online sales, including product descriptions on retail sites and hotel and destination guides on travel sites for over 170 leading brands. They count Amazon, Tommy Hilfiger, Google, eBay, Forfetch, Trivago and Louis Vuitton among their client base and produce the content through a unique combination of the Quill Network, a global pool of over 2,400 screened freelance creators, and Quill Cloud, an AI-powered workflow and content management technology that it has built and developed itself. Quill has faced its own unique challenges, with multi-language content production not having been done at scale before, there was no roadmap or blueprint for success, however they have proven successful, with a client retention rate of over 90% and a doubled value of bookings in 2018. They have recently been acquired by Webedia Group, currently one of the largest pre-eminent European media companies, which is an exciting development that will allow them to accelerate their global expansion plans. Ed Bussey says:
“The two things that drive me to succeed with Quill are the same priorities that took me into the Royal Navy when I was 17 years old, and which I learned from naval experience: the desire to make a positive difference in the world, and the satisfaction of building teams of incredibly talented people from diverse walks of life.”
