Business Profile: Internet millionaire Carl Churchill
Feb 2 2010 by Tom Scotney & Jonny Greatrex
He says: “There was a lot changing in the industry at the time – the dot.com boom had gone. We had created an interesting and profitable business in a very difficult market.
“From my perspective there were certain things that I wanted to do that differed from the company that I was a part of at the time, and we decided it was time for us to part. So I sold my share in that and did relatively well.”
His next venture was the one that he is still working at, and the one that took him into the world of multi-million turnovers and corporate dealings.
Some colleagues he had worked with were developing an internet project called Murphx, and when Carl finished with DMC he was quickly brought in as a director of the new venture.
Murphx provides internet connection services for a number of high profile clients. One major source of work for the company is the BBC.
It supplies the camera streaming for programmes including Springwatch, with live nature feeds of animals in their natural habitat. It also brings in all the traffic from BBC Persia and BBC Arabic into the UK, and arranges the broadband connectivity for the BBC’s Birmingham base in the Mailbox. What was a £250,000-a-year business in 2003 is now worth £20 million, a success which Carl puts down to customer service.
It has also made its first tentative steps towards becoming an international company, with the opening of its first European offices.
He says: “We’ve come a long way and the business is going from strength to strength. In our particular industry you have got to be very well known. The brand is very strong and we’ve got a real customer service ethos.
“We are an innovative business and we’ve got 65 fantastic people in our organisation. This year we are in the last stages of opening up our offices in Munich – we are going to be a full pan-European organisation.
“The first two countries we are looking at are Germany and France, and we’re pretty far progressed with the relationships over there. We have a country manager in Germany now who’s representing our business.
“Our intention is to establish a business that can facilitate any requirements on a European scale.”
While Carl says he’s committed to Murphx at the moment, it’s hard to keep a good entrepreneur tied down, and the ambitious director says he can see a future as an analyst on the cards.
He says: “It’s a very interesting time for us at the moment – we have got a lot of opportunities at the moment. But from my perspective I’ll probably give this biz another few years before looking to exit some how, and we have got plenty of people who are interested in buying the business.
“We’ve had a couple of offers which we’d turned down because we just see a lot more to do right now.
“From my perspective I’d really love in a few years to be working in business rescue – helping businesses that have a good idea or concept but are struggling to get them back on their feet.
“In the history of Murphx we’ve done five acquisitions, every one of them incredibly distressed.
“We’ve bought them for a song and made them work and I love doing that,” he added. “I love getting my teeth into something that’s considered too messy, too much of a problem, or not profitable enough, and really turning it round.
“I’d like to get somewhere in the future that where I’ve got the personal capital to do something like that.”
