Snooth was founded by Philip James (St Hughs MChem 1999).

Snooth is the world’s largest wine search engine and social network and is revolutionizing the way people choose wine.

Snooth was founded in November 2006 and closed its first round of funding in December of that year. Based in New York City, Snooth combines proprietary algorithms with the world’s most comprehensive wine database to accurately identify the wines best-suited to an individual.

Snooth analyzes a user’s unique set of interactions with the site and, using its recommendation engine, leverages this digital fingerprint to generate highly-personalized wine recommendations. Snooth also interprets wine queries more naturally than most search engines and optimizes the relevancy of search results, by incorporating semantic search elements into its core technology.

About Us

Snooth has two Oxford connections:

Philip James, Founder. After graduating, Philip worked for Merrill Lynch in London, before coming to New York to get his MBA at Columbia Business School. After graduation he worked for an online wine retailer as their Exec VP.

Kabir Soorya (New College MCompSci 2010 – expected), worked for Snooth during the Summer of 2007.

Obstacles

Getting traction on day 1: like any other social network, there’s no value to an individual user until other users are already on the site. Trying to create that first core group is a bit like trying to sell the first fax machine.

Successes

Crossing 1 million ratings proved to be the tipping point for us. Now, when we write to a winery or wine store they know who we are, and are ready to work with us. We spend most of our time managing the flow now.

Further Details

• Visit www.snooth.com
• Read the Snooth Blog
• For more information email us at info [at] snooth [dot] com

James is the founder of myTripBook.com. He graduated in 2001 with a BA in Modern History from St Annes’s College.

Profile of myTripBook.com & future ambitions

myTripBook.com launched in May 2007 and was previously known as Travelhiker.com. It is a travel social networking site where members can post travel diaries, reviews, videos and photos or search those from others. People can also use the site to find a travel companion or to find advice on a particular trip or destination. Members can therefore also benefit from the collective knowledge of the community.

The site is designed to appeal to all ages and types of travellers. All the information on the site is given a location so that it is easy to search based on location from a world map on the homepage. There is also a unique revenue-share system whereby people can put their own Google AdSense code with the travel guides that they write. Presently advertising space is sold to holiday companies which appears alongside the content for each location and visitors to the site will also be able to buy flights and accommodation through third-party travel providers in the future.

The future ambitions for the site are to increase membership to make the site as useful as possible for people that visit or join, by creating a depth of local knowledge as well as creating a user-friendly experience for people to want to share their own travel knowledge.

Problems he’s had and how he’s overcome them

The site underwent a major overhaul in May 2007, complete with new name. This was the result of feedback from existing members on how the site should work and what it should do. Usability studies and asking for feedback from existing members is the way in which the site will continue to develop.

Major successes

Major successes to date have been the launch of myTripBook.com in May 2007, significantly improving on the first version of the site as well as continuing to attract members from all around the world.

Further details

• Visit www.mytripbook.com

Profile of Blue Ventures

Blue Ventures is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to facilitating projects and expedition that enhance global marine
conservation and research. Since 2002, we have run over 25 expeditions with over 280 international participants to Madagascar, Tanzania, New Zealand, The Comoros and South Africa.

Blue Ventures co-ordinates expeditions consisting of scientists and volunteers working hand-in-hand with local biologists, marine
institutes, NGOs, and communities whose livelihoods depend on these ecosystems, to carry out research, environmental awareness and conservation programmes at threatened habitats around the world.

Profile of Travelroots

Travelroots is a responsible Travel agency set up to try to help ensure that travel does good, not harm. Despite their good intentions, most tourists damage the places they visit. Travelroots believes that the best holidays are those places where ones hosts care deeply about their local environment and their guests.

Problems he’s had and how he’s overcome them

Setting up and running a fully-functioning diving and research centre 250km from the nearest phone/road in South-West Madagascar, with no communication other than by satellite telephone. We overcame it by an incredible amount of hard work!

Major successes

Last year we were highly commended in the responsible travel awards, this year we have won the SEED Awards. Our project incorporating; Madagascar’s first community-run, self-sustaining experimental Marine Protected Area was chosen as a ’shining example of how economic development and environmental protection can go hand in hand’, by the international panel which made the selection. More recently I was runner up in the social category of the Enterprising Young Brits Awards, from over 4000 applicants.

What I love about (social) entrepreneurship

Being able to be free to run with your own ideas, dreams and goals!

Further details

• Visit www.blueventures.org
• Visit www.travelroots.com

What is Boso?

Boso.co.uk is an online marketplace for students to trade all those items they need while at University but may never use again. Users can browse items for sale, advertise their unwanted possessions, and post requests for wanted items.

Who are we?

BOSO was founded by Kulveer Taggar and Harjeet Taggar through the OE Young Enterprise scheme. Kulveer graduated from St John’s in 2005 and having spent 7 months as a Commodities Analyst at Deutsche Bank, he gave in his notice in February to run BOSO full time. Harjeet has Law finals in 2006 and Tom Blomfield, the Technical Director is in his third year of a Law with French course at Balliol.

Boso now employs students from Universities across Oxford and London as on-campus brand managers, with Keren Mitchell looking after Oxford.

Where we are now?

BOSO initially launched in Oxford where it has well over 1,000 members and now boasts membership from over 60 universities. This success has lured web-designers Groovytrain into redesigning the site and has even attracted the interest of the media: the team are currently being filmed for upcoming Channel 4 show Tricky Business. So far, all this has been achieved without any serious marketing but all that is about to change. BOSO’s co-founder cousins Kulveer and Harjeet Taggar are looking to market the site extensively at universities in Oxford and London this term and have already recruited regional marketing teams and sought to develop links with student bodies –a method that they hope to be able to roll out nationwide when they pursue the widespread expansion planned for the summer.

Further details

• Visit www.boso.com
• Read the Boso blog
• For more information, please contact Kulveer Taggar: kul [at] boso.co.uk

For the immediate future WearFair will develop a wider product range, as well as develop innovative systems with which to make the website as interactive as possible. We are also constantly working on maximising our search engine rating. In the long term, WearFair will expand its geographical reach, and distribution centres will be set-up in Ireland and America.

Further details

• Visit www.wearfair.co.uk
• Read the WearFair Blog
• For more information contact Stephen Bardle: stephen [at] wearfair.co.uk