- Who are you? I’m Doug MacSween, Commercial Director of 91BC Property Services. I started the business with Scott Ferguson, who is our technical director.

- What does your business do? 91BC is an online building factor. We provide a responsive, agile, dynamic, customer-collaborative property factoring service which home-owners and residents want to engage with.

Where are you based? We’ve just been awarded office space through the Entrepreneurial Spark programme at Caledonia House in New Gorbals.

How did you get started? We first floated the idea of starting our own factoring business after reading that a body called The Glasgow Factoring Commission (2014) had conducted an extensive study into customer perception.

The results were damming about the industry in general, with some consumers describing their incumbent factor as slow to respond and vague in terms of the billing breakdown.

The most resonant point for us however, was that the application of online technology was minimal.

- What is your background?

I held commercial positions in blue-chip global companies and Scott has a long established plumbing business.

During the buy-to-let boom in the mid 2000’s we decided to have a go at developing.

We’ve done lots of those over the years and in the process we have amassed a network of trade contractors that we know will always deliver.

They are now one of the critical components of 91BC Property Services.

- What is your top business tip? Innovate.

There are lots of factor providers out there, and some are really good at what they do, but we wanted to embrace mobile web technology and apply it to the customer journey.

Rather than allow anyone else to adopt first, we went in search of the best available web engineer who could deliver this pioneering e-commerce platform.

We quickly found our guy and Craig Bruce is now our IT Director.

- How long has your business been running?

Since August 2015.

- Has anyone helped you get started and how?

Business Gateway has been with us from the beginning. We first approached them with our business plan and Lynne Gorman, our adviser, pushed us hard on it; in particular our numbers, competitive landscape, our USP, and skills gaps.

Lynne also suggested that we present the plan to Claire Smith at Scottish Enterprise Wider Innovation team and since then we have benefitted from her expertise also.

- What was your first deal?

A tenement block of eight flats in Glasgow.

- What was your biggest mistake/or what would you do differently?

We haven’t made any catastrophic mistakes so far, largely because we are being careful.

- Who was/is your mentor/or inspiration?

Our inspiration was driven by our desire to effect change in the industry. We really felt that the market needed us.

- Where do you plan your business to be in five years’ time?

Long term we want to morph the business into an application service provider with a licensed product. In the meantime, we will concentrate on getting our brand to the front of people’s minds when they consider appointing or changing their building factor.

- Useful contacts:

Business Gateway - www.bgateway.com/glasgow / 0141 530 2405.

Entrepreneurial Spark - 0141 418 9120

- Contact Details:

www.changeyourfactor.com

@91bcfactors

Doug MacSween

doug@91bc.uk