Meet Nick Robinson, co-founder and CEO of Maison Sport
I’m Nick Robinson, co-founder and CEO of Maison Sport, and a former competitive British Skier.
What’s your career background?
Skiing became a focal point in my life from the age of ten, when I began spending most of my time ski racing. After being offered a place on the British Ski Team, I headed to Chile to compete once I completed my GCSEs. From there, I spent a lot of time travelling across Europe competing, while also supplementing my studies with a number of BTEC courses.
I was competing in Zermatt, when I had met my partner and we started a family. At the time funding my skiing was becoming challenging, so I left ski racing and managed to secure a role as an interbank broker. We moved to Geneva where we stayed for around four years.
But I started to miss the ski industry and craved the idea of running my own business. At the time, my brother Olly – also a former member of the British Ski Team - was also dreaming of returning to the slopes. We bought a ski school, a long-held dream, with our friend and fellow skier Aaron Tipping, and I moved from Switzerland to Edinburgh, then back out to France to set up Supreme Ski School. We set out to really create positive change and make a difference in the industry. The ski school continues to run today, expanding rapidly across France where revenue has increased around 8 times since 2014.
In 2016, Olly, Aaron and I set up Maison Sport – a ski instructor marketplace that aims to directly connect independent ski instructors with skiers and snowboarders.
Where did the idea for your business/venture come from?
The vision for Maison Sport was conceived after the three of us acquired the ski school in France. We noticed what we felt was a really antiquated way of booking lessons and we felt there was a real opportunity to solve a problem for customers and ski instructors, by using a technology platform to connect the two parties together directly.
We set out to reduce costs to the customer, while providing a more profitable practice for instructors, affording them more control over their earnings and teaching schedules.
Why did you call it Maison Sport?
We initially launched Maison Sport in France because we knew the market really well there from our backgrounds in skiing and running Supreme Ski School. We wanted the business to relate to the French market and we know they enjoy using local businesses, so that’s why we decided Maison Sport would work.
Who will Maison Sport appeal to and why?
Maison Sport appeals to passionate ski and snowboard instructors, and all levels of skiers looking for lessons. Our aim is to connect the two directly.
We work with independent ski instructors across Europe. We launched in France, initially signing up French instructors in French resorts, and then grew from there. Today, the Maison Sport marketplace includes more than 350 resorts and over 1,200 trusted, qualified instructors across France, Switzerland, Italy and Austria.
In each new country we break into, we always focus on locals first.
What problem does Maison Sport solve and how do you address it?
Before we set up Maison Sport, we spotted an opportunity to solve a problem for customers and ski instructors, by using a technology platform to connect the two parties together directly. Maison Sport offers reduced costs to the customer of as much as 50%, along with a range of other benefits including being able to choose your instructor using real reviews, and provides a more ethical and profitable practice for the instructors, who keep up to 93% of the cost of the lessons.
What’s been the biggest obstacle you’ve had to overcome?
Right from the outset, launching the Maison Sport business has come with a number of large obstacles to overcome.
As non technical founders, bringing a tech platform to market is a massive challenge, it means you have to raise money pre product, which is no doubt far more difficult. Following on from that we launched straight into a foreign market, in a foreign language and have tried to change an almost century old industry on its head.
And your proudest moment so far?
For anyone that starts a business, seeing it work in full swing is a great feeling. Going through the process of creating the platform, signing up ski instructors, marketing to customers and then seeing them book, was a big moment. From there on in, we knew we had something that worked and the key for us now is to continue to build and evolve the business so it can become a big as possible.
Who inspires you?
The Maison Sport community in its widest sense inspires me – Olly and Aaron are a constant source of inspiration, as is the community of ski instructors we work with, and our community of customers. Collectively they keep me inspired to continue pushing the business forward.
What are your three top pieces of advice for someone wanting to set up a business?
My advice would be to have confidence and conviction to go for it. One of the hardest steps to take over the past 5 years has been the initial decision to create Maison Sport. I’d certainly say to anyone thinking about starting their own business, to be prepared to act on one of your ideas and understand that it won’t always be easy to make that commitment, but if you’re truly passionate about it and have done your research, you will learn so much.
Be patient before pushing for rapid growth - The first couple of years of Maison Sport’s journey were a real battle - the platform simply wasn’t working how we envisaged it. It was important for us to turn this around before starting to scale up the business, which led to us really having to stretch out the funds raised in our investment round, but we got there in the end and now have the right people and technology in place to scale the business.
Invest in people – Find the right people that share your vision and values, and you can build a really strong company culture. It’s not been easy to find the right people, but taking our time and being selective means we’ve now built a great team and I look forward to building on that over the next few years.
