Brent Hoberman

Almost a decade after leading the UK's dot com charge with the legendary Lastminute.com, Brent Hoberman has moved on. He tells Growing Business about life in the bubble and where he's going next

Name: Brent Hoberman
Age: 38
Companies: WAYN, Founders Forum, Viagogo, Moveme
Other roles: Non-executive director of Guardian Media Group,
University of Arts London governor, eSuperbrands Council member

Mr Lastminute is living up to his name. Brent Hoberman is late for our meeting. But then for someone who has only just relinquished his ties with the online travel and leisure website he founded in 1998 – stepping down as part-time chairman in January – and who, in theory, is at liberty to enjoy some of the reputed £26m he has made from it, Hoberman is a remarkably busy man.

As well as his recent appointment as non-executive director of the Guardian Media Group, he’s on the eSuperbrands Council, governor of the University of Arts London, an active angel investor in several internet businesses, has set up networking organisation Founders Forum, and was just made chairman of WAYN, a social networking site for travellers. And that’s before we get to project X, but more of that later.

Hoberman has packed more into the last decade than most businessmen do in a lifetime. Although it seemed that Lastminute emerged seemingly fully formed in 1998, the business plan had been in gestation for two years. During that time Hoberman worked in various technology strategy consultancies where he specialised in future gazing on the effect that the internet would have on business.

In between telling corporates how the web would change everything, and helping launch auction site QXL, Hoberman met Martha Lane-Fox, his accomplice at Lastminute.com.

“The ability to raise £600,000 was not as simple then as it would be today,” he says. “We were one of the earliest consumer-brand internet plays. By using the power of the internet to match buyers and sellers we were able to add value to both.”

Although keen to play down the idea that he and Lane-Fox were trendsetters for a new type of business, Hoberman admits that they didn’t play by the established rules.

“I think we did bring a sense that you could just ‘do it’ to business, and that it could be enjoyable,” he says. “We showed that you could launch a consumer brand from scratch, and that the internet enables you to do it much faster.”