Darryl Collins
E-commerce, Internet
Hi, I'm Darryl Collins, former MD of Banjax. Welcome to my profile!
Darryl Collins's Bio:
Darryl Collins's Experience:
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Chairman at Cinemagic World Screen Festival for Young People
May 2002 - March 2007Having been one of the founders of Cinemagic in 1989 (I actually came up with the name in a meeting to discuss setting up some sort of festival) I had almost nothing to do with it for 13 years. I was invited on to the board in 2002 only to find that it was financially challenged! Three years later it is now a thriving and cash positive non-profit organisation. http://www.cinemagic.org.uk/ & blog http://www.cinemagic.tv/
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Investor / CEO at Banjax Studios Ltd
2002 - 2007Ambitious attempt to start an animation studio in Belfast from scratch. Producer of "Lifeboat Luke" 52 x 5 min children's animation TV series, licensed to children's channels and broadcasters around the world.
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Investor at Twingle
July 2001 - May 2006Email software startup focused on data extraction. Before Gmail, historic email was a black hole. A search in Outlook took 15 minutes, and if you didn't know the exact search term, you'd find nothing. Twingle was a small five-person team that envisaged, developed, and shipped a web-based system that made it easy to find any information buried within your email. Despite glowing feedback from early testers, and a good write-up in Business 2.0, the product was unable to gain sufficient traction to withstand the onslaught of Gmail when it launched, even though Twingle did much more (see http://www.simon-cozens.org/content/mail-learning-what-and-how)
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Investor at Rogue Rocket
September 2001 - February 2006Investor in Belfast based comic book and animation company run by Will Simpson, artist for Judge Dredd, Vamps, Rogue Trooper and Batman (http://comicbookdb.com/creator.php?ID=1998), and his brother Ken Simpson, animator.
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Investor / Non-Executive Director at KR Graphics
October 2002 - August 2005Former owner of Belfast based design and communications business servicing Northern Irish clients.
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Investor / Founder / CEO at blackstar.co.uk
January 1996 - June 2001My partners Tony Bowden and Jeremy Glover and I created blackstar.co.uk (now sendit.com), an online retailer of videos and DVDs, in 1997. Through 5 fun filled but fraught years, we managed to grow its annual turnover to around ?10m with hundreds of thousands of customers in over 160 countries. Along the way I raised over ?10m of private equity and venture capital. We sold the business in 2001 when it was turning over c?10m per year. Most of the infrastructure was built in-house on a LAMP platform, enabling us to provide a completely integrated service, and deliver on our key objective of fanatically great customer care. Through our combination of fast delivery and response times (target: 90% shipped in 24h, 90% email response in 4 hours), we maintained the highest customer retention rate in our field and won numerous awards HIGHLIGHTS: * ?1.2m sales / month (Nov-00) * ?9.7m 12 months to Mar-01 * over 6.8m page impressions / month (Nov-00) * over 600k visitors / month (Mar-01) * over 50k orders / month (Nov-00) * over 200k cumulative customers to Mar-01 * over 37k purchasing customers / month (Oct-00) * Northern Ireland Exporter of the Year 1999 * British Video Association, Best Online Business 2000
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Founder / Managing Director at Black Star Films
January 1992 - December 1995Producer of film and TV commercials. Winner of numerous international advertising awards. Particularly noted for Northern Ireland Office 'peace' commercials like "Cats in the Cradle", "Days Like This" and "2 Weddings".
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Producer, Assistant Director, Production Manager at Freelance
1979 - 1992I worked as a film and TV Producer, Assistant Director and Production Manager on feature films, television documentaries and music videos. Mostly based in Scotland, but latterly based in Ireland before setting up my own production company based in Belfast, Black Star Films.
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Investor at Gingerparts.com Limited
September 2009Investor and mentor in online motorcycle parts and accessories e-commerce business. Aspiration to sell all parts for all motorcycles. Very complex vehicle parts market requiring fast and accurate data to ensure customers get the right part for their bike first time, delivered quickly and efficiently.
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Managing Director at Banjax Ltd
April 2008Managing Director of web and mobile applications developer based in Belfast. Developer of over 50 Facebook applications for bluechip companies like Heinz, Tesco, Aston Martin, Guinness, Ulster Bank and Carlsberg through digital advertising agencies in London & Dublin. Specialist in developing and operating Magento stores and complex extensions to drive specialist e-commerce requirements. * Social media software application and multichannel e-commerce development team. * E-commerce growth strategy advisor. * Web site UI and design. * Strategic Consulting in e-commerce, including business plan & sales strategy development. * Market analysis for e-commerce opportunities. * Comprehensive database management and migration from various online platforms to Magento. * Integration of Magento to third-party inventory, channel and support platforms.
Darryl Collins's Education:
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EAVE - Les Entrepreneurs de l'Audiovisuel
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College of Business Studies, Belfast
1978 – 1979DiplomaConcentration: Journalism -
ACE - Ateliers du Cinema Europeen
1997 – -Concentration: Film production -
Film Business School
1995 – -Concentration: Feature film production
Darryl Collins's Interests & Activities:
investing, fishing, cycling, power kites, wife, kids, wife & kids, Belfast, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Dublin, movies, films, animation, toys, gadgets, thrillers, crime fiction, Newcastle United, France, Fermanagh, Vancouver, Software, media, consumer electronics, games, toys, computer animation, CGI, motion picture, movie distribution, motion picture distribution, entertainment, business models, film financing, general management, strategy, business plans, negotiation, deal structure, international, marketing, brand development, brand management, market research, positioning, corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, m&a, start-ups, product development.