Ben Hardyment: webflix.co.uk

Ben Hardyment
Age: 32
Company: webflix.co.uk

Frustrated at the lack of choice at his local Blockbusters, former film director Ben Hardyment decided to use his knowledge of the sector to start a specialist rental service which offers genuine choice in DVD rental. Now, barely a year old, his online borrowing service webflix.co.uk is growing a cult customer base and is on target to hit £1m turnover, all with a staff of four. After raising £150,000 to start the business he is now looking for funding to build on its success.

2016 update:

After selling Webflix to LoveFilm in 2005, Hardyment took up the role of managing director at DomainBroker.co.uk, a domain brokerage service, before moving on to become managing director at website design company Explosive Media in 2007. In 2009 he founded Zapper, a re-commerce site for the sale of used books, CDs, DVDs and games, which secured £250,000 from Theo Paphitis in series 10 of Dragons’ Den – it remains the largest investment offered by a single Dragon. The investment failed to got through after the show, with Hardyment staying on as CEO until June 2015 when he left to found Parallax VR- a platform for creating, hosting and delivering virtual reality experiences.