Charlie Marshall, 38, always knew he wanted to start his own business: he just wasn't sure what business to be in. A stellar student, he landed a job at a TV consultancy on graduating from Oxford. But his heart was never in it. "Whenever I had spare time I was trying to think of new business ideas." Eventually he hit on one that he liked.
"I heard that in New York, soup bars were... replacing sandwich bars I wanted to bring them to London." In 1998, he left his job and founded Primal Soup with an Italian business partner. They rented an industrial unit in the unglamorous London neighbourhood of Park Royal, "got great ingredients from Italy and started making really nice soup". The plan was to sell the soup through a network of kiosks, with the first site located in London Bridge.
But on the eve of the launch, disaster struck. The council had double-booked the site and called to say they were giving it to another company. The pair literally had to change plans overnight. Instead of selling via kiosks, they decided to become wholesalers. "We started out just selling small quantities to delis and restaurants, but eventually we supplied large chains, such as Pret a Manger."
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At its peak, Primal Soup was delivering 20 tonnes of soup a week to the chain. By 2005, Marshall was keen to strike out on his own. The pair managed to sell Primal Soup for "somewhere between £500,000 and £1m" and amicably went their separate ways.
With a fair bit of cash in his pocket he'd also renovated and sold houses throughout the property boom Marshall began to research some of his many other ideas. Early notions including a plan to launch a nationwide bakery chain came to nothing. Then inspiration struck in the form of a "frustrating Saturday morning" spent trying to buy a bed. He spent hours in the shop choosing a bed that ended up costing £4,500 and that would "take months to arrive".
Marshall concedes "I had champagne tastes and beer money", but he still couldn't believe that buying a bed should be so time consuming and costly. After a bit of research, he realised he could cut costs by offering a range of beds in just one colour beige. "We'd be ordering kilometres of the material and so would get a better price." Having no phsyical branches but being internet based would keep costs down. And offering just 12 products, stock would be easier to manage, meaning no long waits for customers.
In 2009, partly funded by his property deals, he raised £350,000 to start The Sleep Room. "Back then, marketing tried to reassure people that buying beds online was safe and cheap. Now people are more used to the internet, and we can focus on our quality." With bed sales going well, Marshall added bedside tables and other accessories. At first he designed the products himself, but as the business grew, he brought in a leading designer.
Last year, he changed the name of the firm to Loaf (as in loafing around') to reflect the fact that it now sells living room furniture and kitchens too. With 2012 sales of £10m, and £18m pencilled in for 2013, Marshall is confident he can grow a £300m British business before expanding abroad. The next step is to open a string of showrooms as part of a "bricks and clicks" strategy that will let customers try the furniture before buying online.
