Campingninja are Geoff Vaughan and Rhian Evans. Campingninja was started in Summer 2009 but the idea was manifesting for a good couple of years before that. Both of us love to go camping, and love to go camping in different places. We know what we want and what we don’t want from a campsite but searching for it, then finding some place that fits (hit and miss to say the least), plus phoning round, waiting for email replies etc just to make a booking struck us as unnecessarily tedious and frankly enough to put anyone off.

The Idea

So, after classically complaining about something for years and never actually doing anything, we thought, “why don’t we try and do something about this”? Camping is brilliant; we have some of our best experiences and times when camping and as many people as possible should be able to do the same but in a hassle free way.

In the pub over a few pints we would lament about the time-consuming nature of just trying to go away for the weekend with a tent, a few friends, and mountain bikes. We had the classic conversations starting with, “why can’t we just…. “ and ending with: “search for a campsite online like you can with hotels, hostels….. anything?” “see which campsites are available in an area on given dates and not have to endure the rigmarole of phoning round loads of them to see if they have space?” “book a campsite online and then turn up with guaranteed reservation - happy days?”

Actually doing something about it...

We sat down and literally wrote out our ideas on a scrap of paper whilst having a picnic outside Farnborough library – glamorous!

We had a very strong idea about how this could all work and how it should work and got excited at the prospect of building a really useful tool and turning it into a community of like-minded people. However, we soon concluded that to build the website which could make this happen would require more money than we had…… a lot more money. We pondered and started buying lottery tickets as we thought that was our most viable investment option…

A Big Idea?
In July 2009 we were both working for adventure tour operator, Explore, and Geoff happened upon the TTG (Travel Trade Gazette) magazine one lunch time. In it was the announcement of “The Big Idea” – basically a travel industry “Dragon’s Den” style competition where the eventual winners gain £100,000 worth of investment and four industry experts as backers and mentors. Geoff casually mentioned that he had sent in an application and neither of us thought anymore of it…. as if that could happen to us. Then in August Rhian flew off to Australia for 3 weeks to visit her sister. A few days into the trip after various messages and texts from Geoff urging me to read my emails I realised that this “Big Idea” had legs – the email read: “you have been selected as one of 6 finalists with the chance to win £100,000 so your idea can become a reality! Congratulations! All that stands between you and the prize money is a panel of judges, a panel made of four astute business people who have personally invested £25,000 each!”


Putting a pitch together
So, we got to work. We knew we had significant time and distance elements against us – 3 weeks to refine our business plan and put together a presentation with us being on opposite sides of the world for over 2 weeks of that. Thank the Lord for small nephews, Skype and Google Docs - nephews for relentlessly waking Rhian up at 6am every morning; Skype for the brilliant way for us to communicate as if we were right next to each other; and Google docs for being able to collaborate on everything. We started allocating tasks for each other and making our way through them. All was going well until a mini-disaster struck – Rhian got swine flu. Being around her nephew and niece meant quarantining herself (in a tent of course) on a beach up the Sunshine Coast of Australia which delayed proceedings somewhat. Thankfully Geoff was soldiering on and doing vast amounts of valuable research and planning.

By the time Rhian returned from Brisbane there were 4 days to go before the pitch. Both of us were still working full on, full time at Explore and with no space or time for jet lag we both spent every possible waking minute perfecting our idea and our pitch with invaluable help and support from our friends, most notably Stuart, Evans, Pete, Caro and Becs.


Facing the Dragons
So, Friday 4th September rolled around and we got suited and booted; had our presentation on a couple of laptops and several different memory sticks – not paranoid at all; and made our way into Central London for our 11am slot. In truth, we were both pretty exhausted but adrenalin is a fine substance for enabling you to perform, which is a good job as we were running almost exclusively on it!

To say the pitch was an unusual experience would be somewhat of an understatement; Geoff and I have done plenty of presentations in our time, but this was a different ball game: we have not been interviewed on camera prior to presenting before; have not been surrounded by lights and cameras during a presentation; and had not been stood in front of 4 people who had the potential to change our lives based on what we were about to say before. The one thing we did know though was that we were passionate about our idea and that we really believed it could work and that we were the ones to make it work. So, in a way, it was all strangely enjoyable. The pressure was immense, but sharing our idea was exciting and fielding the vast and varying questions from our potential investors was challenging, but then satisfying too. The questions leapt from “what will your marketing strategy be?” to “….and have you thought about how you might structure your database?”. It all lasted way longer than our original time allocation which we felt positive about as it felt as though we could all talk about it for hours. We left to do further press interviews and have a chat with the TTG organisers, then suddenly we were back out in the normal world not really knowing what to do with ourselves.


The Wait
It really didn’t take us long at all to decide what to do….. we went to the pub . These situations always require a debrief, and debrief we did – all afternoon, all evening and into the night with a little help from our friends. During our “debrief” we were called by a representative from the Dragons to negotiate equity, which was duly all done from our location – a pub in Parson’s Green. This boosted how we felt but also threw up endless, “I wonder if it means……..” type of thoughts.

The wait lasted for 3 weeks until the TTG Awards ceremony where we would find out our fate. During this time we talked to many people and had a memorable meeting at another top quality venue (Subway, Staines) where we concluded the more we thought about it, the more we knew we would pursue our idea and make it happen whether we won or not; granted this would be a lot more difficult without the immediate investment and backing, but we felt we could do it and that the idea was strong enough. This didn’t stop us having almost permanent butterflies about it all and didn’t stop the 3 weeks feeling like it was 3 years…

The TTG awards
So, it was the moment of truth. Geoff bought a dinner suit and Rhian bought a dress as we realised turning up in jeans and fleeces may not be quite the right attire.

TheTTG Awards are a very glitzy industry affair in Park Lane – you know it’s going to be good when it’s one of the dark blue squares on the Monopoly board. We were nervous anyway, but when we sat down at our tables and were next to all the other finalists and the previous year’s winners it all became very real. We concluded that we should make use of the wine at the table; that way it would be easier for when the Big Idea winner was announced, whether we won or not. Our plan was flawed: the Big Idea was to be awarded before dinner, before any other award. First thing we said, “well, that’s ruined dinner either way hasn’t it”!

The other finalists were all interesting and intelligent people who had great ideas – we knew we had tough competition, but at least we weren’t going to have to wait much longer to find out the outcome.


The Moment of Truth
The concept of the Big Idea was announced and a film shown which included an intro about Dubai (Dubai Tourism being the sponsors); a section about each of the investors and also footage from the day of the pitches – there was a lovely focusing in shot of Geoff’s hands and some footage of Rhian looking incredibly serious in front of a presentation.


To be honest we didn’t take it in much as our stomachs were in our mouths. Jane, Chris, Paul and Olly all came on stage to talk about the pitches and ideas and how difficult it had been to choose a winner, but they had decided on their winner based on their passion, innovation and the idea being a complete start-up with loads of potential….

…..and the winner of the 2009 TTG Big Idea is……CAMPING NINJA!!!!!

Spotlights were upon us, our name was scrolling in massive lights about the stage and the announcer was talking about “Geoffrey Vaughan and Rhian Evans……. set up Campingninja…… etc”. Very surreal as we walked up on stage and were greeted by smiling investors and a suitcase full of £100,000 worth of £50 notes. Lots of flashes from cameras and clapping and cheering and Geoff and I could not stop laughing and grinning when realising that life as we knew it was about to change.


The whole thing was quite overwhelming but so exciting. We carried the suitcase backstage and ran out the door with it…. or actually realised it was all fake cash and they wanted it back for next year. Our investors were so excited as was Lucy and Ian – a real feeling of celebration and hope – lots of hugging, swearing in disbelief and pinching of ourselves ensued.

We were desperate to tell our family and friends and spent then next couple of hours actually outside the hotel on our phones whilst drinking champagne – kindly provided by Carolina, Stuart and Debbie who were waiting for us outside in order to console or celebrate.

What a night – more celebrating, chatting with our new investors, a bit of dancing, much champagne and then the luxury of a cab home instead of the night-bus.