Michael Acton Smith: How I made a million with a drinking game

Michael Acton Smith launched his online gadget shop from his business partner's mother's spare room. It took four years to make a profit and struggled through the dotcom crash. But 12 years later, it's pulling in profits of £1m a year.

University chess club pals Michael Acton Smith and Tom Boardman "always talked about setting up a business when they graduated". In 1998, a year after they had left university, they hit upon a plan. "At the time The Gadget Shop was very popular, so we thought, why not make an online version?"

They both "quit the day jobs" and moved into Boardman's parents' house in Cardiff. "Tom's mum cooked for us and let us use the attic as an office so it kept our costs down to virtually nothing." For the first few months their website, Hotbox.co.uk, only sold a handful of items. "We were an unknown website with a poor product offering." After six months the pair were getting desperate "we couldn't live in Tom's mum's house forever". That's when they hit upon a new product idea. "We were drinking in a pub talking about chess when we saw some guys downing shots of tequila. The idea for the 'Shot Glass Chess Set' was born."

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James McKeigue

James graduated from Keele University with a BA (Hons) in English literature and history, and has a certificate in journalism from the NCTJ. James has worked as a freelance journalist in various Latin American countries.He also had a spell at ITV, as welll as wring for Television Business International and covering the European equity markets for the Forbes.com London bureau. James has travelled extensively in emerging markets, reporting for international energy magazines such as Oil and Gas Investor, and institutional publications such as the Commonwealth Business Environment Report. He is currently the managing editor of LatAm INVESTOR, the UK's only Latin American finance magazine.