Martha Lane Fox - Lucky Voice

Building a business through a recession takes courage and focus. But Martha Lane Fox is not daunted by the prospect. Lucky Voice, the karaoke company she founded in 2005, is expanding from its current four locations to open in Brighton, with further expansion planned with partner Tiger Tiger.

Lane Fox is confident Lucky Voice can ‘clean up and dominate’ the ‘higgledy-piggledy space’ that currently characterises the karaoke market. “It is a bit terrifying to say it is recession proof but I think there is something interesting in our model,” the entrepreneur says.

Such confidence comes naturally to Lane Fox, who was the poster child for a generation of dotcom entrepreneurs after she and Brent Hoberman built Lastminute.com and floated it on the London Stock Exchange in 2000. “My businesses have always been started from a passion and if something else comes from it so much the better,” she says. “Lucky Voice is a complex and more far reaching proposition than I ever could have imagined.”

Lane Fox originally funded Lucky Voice, a copy of a Japanese model. Marks & Spencer chief executive Sir Stuart Rose was an early investor. But the board now includes Spark Ventures chairman Tom Teichman and Karen Jones, former chief executive of Spirit Group.

Many of the lessons learned whilst building Lastminute have been applied to her latest venture, in particular the blending of online and offline to create a business of substance. Lastminute, where she remains a non-executive director, has just opened a standalone store in Manchester with other openings planned. She points out the company employed a similar strategy several years ago, and says: “No one can afford to ignore online and see how it  is translated off line.”

The Lucky Voice business model is similar: revenue comes offline from room hire and drinks from the bar; while online revenue comes from subscription advertisements. The hybrid model is the next iteration of web businesses.

This time round Lane Fox says that, from an online perspective, there is still growth. “Click out to the real world and it is much tougher – and of course I would have my head in the clouds if I thought it was not tough out there – but I am an advocate of not ignoring technology,” she says.

The key to kick-starting the economy is to free up the flow of credit, says Lane Fox. “More could be done to support women; and to encourage and support entrepreneurs.”

She admits that some of her scariest moments in business came in the early days of building Lastminute. “Would we be able to raise the £600,000 to kick the business of? Would we get the technology to work? The scary things were operational around the business,” she says.

Once they secured funding the business model delivered. “We took a lot of flak and had to show people we were working hard but what we were seeing was our business was growing.”

Lastminute tapped into a particular zeitgeist, and Lane Fox is the first to admit that an element of luck played its part in the company’s success. She describes herself as fortunate to be able to look back on so many ‘best moments’ in business. “One of the things I have enjoyed most is the incredible access I have had to people,” she says, citing Bill Gates and politicians. “Conversely to that I loved building the team of people. I am proud that people stayed a long time in the business. The same thing is happening at Lucky Voice, we are all working double hard and seeing good results.”

In May 2004, Lane Fox suffered a near-fatal car accident, in which she broke her pelvis in six places and seriously damaged her arms and legs. She says that has made her more determined to do the things she wanted to do anyway.

Lane Fox remains a role model for entrepreneurs – not just in business, but also in her dealings in wider society. She is a trustee for Reprieve, a prison reform charity, patron of education pressure group CAMFED, and has set up her own charity, Antigone, a grant-making trust.

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