Building the global village

From redundancy to head of a company worth millions, the last two years of Roifield Brown's life have been extraordinary.

In October 1999, after losing his job as an assistant in a Notting Hill cybercafé, he decided to pour his energies into creating a community website. The hope was that the contacts he made would help him find work. The 32-year-old has still not found a new job. Instead he is the boss of MyVillage (www.myvillage.co.uk) a fast-expanding network of community sites estimated to be worth millions.

The slickly-designed sites, each dedicated to a specific geographic area, hold news, gossip and information on the region's entertainment, bars, restaurants, shops and services. Mynottinghill.co.uk was the first to go live in the month Roifield was made redundant. By June this year, 66 websites had been launched covering London - but that's just the beginning. The roll out of the Birmingham website is imminent and, in the New Year, sites covering Leeds, Manchester, Glasgow,

Edinburgh, Bristol, Cardiff, Brighton and Belfast will be launched.

'I'm more amazed than anyone how it has worked out,' said Roifield, who still lives in Notting Hill, West London. 'Two years ago, I was skint and unemployed and now I could sell the business and never have to work another day in my life - I feel like the king of blagdom.' He says the aim of his sites is to give people a sense of pride, passion and identity about their community and at the same time offer local businesses an ideal platform to reach their target audience. 'More and more people are getting online now and community sites can really take off,' he added.

Roifield still distributes fliers to keep spreading the word about his business. In his early, penniless days, it was this idea that saved his fledgling enterprise. 'One morning in December 1999, I couldn't log on to the Net - BT had cut me off because I owed them £1,500,' said Roifield. 'I thought I was finished but, when I called the BT man, he told me if I paid £200 of it at the Post Office he would switch me back on.' He then ran out

and struck a deal with a restaurant to put their ad on the back of his fliers for £300. The fliers cost him £100 - and with the profit he was back in business.

Roifield originally ran MyVillage from his flat but a year ago moved to plush offices in west London, where he employs 15 staff.

But why has he succeeded when so many dotcommers have crashed and burned?

'The Internet's just a tool, like any other, not a product, but people have got carried away with the hype and borrowed huge amounts of money for ideas which may or may not work.

'I built up the business from my flat, doing everything myself, and when it became successful people were queuing up to invest in it. It's worked for me - and it's better than getting a job.'

Myvillage.co.uk