Young entrepreneurs: Ed Hollands, DrivenMedia

Name: Ed Hollands
Company: DrivenMedia 
Age: 23
Website: www.drivenmedia.co.uk

When stuck in traffic during the morning rush hour, all sorts of thoughts can go through a person’s head. For Ed Hollands, it just happened to be the lightbulb moment he was looking for.

Having dropped his fiancée off at work, the 23-year-old noticed three unwrapped blank trucks stuck at the traffic light – and it got him thinking.

Calculating the sheer amount of exposure the vehicles get daily, Hollands wondered why businesses hadn’t used it as an opportunity to advertise their brand. And so, DrivenMedia was born.

Using commercial trailers already travelling the country as mobile billboards, advertisers pay Hollands £7,800 plus VAT for a 12-month package – with production costs per vehicle sitting at roughly £5,500.

In contrast to traditional lorry advertisements, Hollands says that truck drivers must be in transit for five hours a day, five days a week to keep the advert visible – with the business using GPS trackers to ensure this is happening.

With each trailer then being seen by an average of 55,000 people across the UK each day (which puts cost per thousand at a mere 75p) the Tring native, who graduated from the University of Derby, believes he has “the most cost-effective advertising platform in the UK today”. And he’s not the only one.

Appearing on Dragons’ Den in February 2018, the young entrepreneur drove away with £30,000 worth of investment for 20% equity after being backed by new Dragon Jenny Campbell.

Already profitable, Hollands counts his other big breakthrough moment as when his first haulier came on board – offering 100 trailers.

Believing his youth to be somewhat of a blessing and a curse, Hollands told Startups:

“When making deals there have been some people who have doubted my capabilities because of my inexperience. In fact, the reality is quite the opposite, I am willing to bend over backwards to make opportunities work for my clients and investors.”

An attitude that is clearly paying off.

Hoping to one day be the “head of a group of companies”, Hollands is making significant inroads with DrivenMedia already…