Bootstrapping to $13 Million from the UK: David Lloyd, CEO of The Intern Group (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: I have a few questions. In terms of university strategies, at what point did the universities start coming on board? At what point did you start closing university deals?

David Lloyd: We closed our first university deal in 2013 with Europe’s largest private university in Milan. They remain one of our best university partners. They send us between 60 to 100 students every year. It’s been a very gradual thing. Universities move slowly but between 2014 and 2018 where we are now, our partnerships with universities have grown from one to more than six. Now, it includes even Ivy League universities like the University of Pennsylvania.

Universities are gradually realizing that their students want these internships overseas. Many of them are still working out how to do it. Do they do it for credit? Do they fund the students? Do they let the students pay themselves? Universities are really struggling how to stay relevant in the current world, but they’re obsessed with employability and internationalization.

We give them a way to help achieve both without adding staff or cost. It’s a gradual thing. We’re still five to ten years away from it being a mature industry, but I am certain that all universities will end up following the lead of the early adopters.

Sramana Mitra: The other question is competition. When you started, there were a lot of people doing this. What do you think has helped you gain the level of traction that you have got?

David Lloyd: The first thing I’d say is purpose and commitment. I and my co-founders have never been here to make a quick buck. We want to build something to last. That transcends everything we do. We’re extremely purpose-driven. All of our staff firmly believes in our purpose to help people achieve their full potential.

I really do think that level of commitment has stood apart. Then I couple that with one other factor, which is professionalism. If you look at the backgrounds amongst our management team, we’ve got people who’ve come from extremely competitive sectors. Our management team would be competitive in any sector.

If you go into finance like I did, you’re competing with some of the smartest kids in one of the world’s most competitive destinations and one of the world’s most competitive industries. We chose to enter an extremely uncompetitive industry.

Sramana Mitra: If you were to assess the market size, you said you’re looking at half a million deals across 300 universities around the world. Is that how you look at TAM? You also have student side that you also factor in separately.

David Lloyd: We look at the 500 top-ranked universities in the QS Rankings. We look at the size of the student bodies. We look at the size of the contracts with many of those universities and calculate 500 by half a million dollars. That’s one way to assess it.

Sramana Mitra: At this point, you’re at about $5 million in revenue.

David Lloyd: It’s around $13 million.

Sramana Mitra: Fantastic. You self-financed and you’re already at $13 million. You have a reasonably good market size ahead of you. What I like about what you’re saying is that while it’s a good sized market, it’s also not a billion-dollar market. You don’t have a lot of venture-funded competitors crawling all over you.

In my book, that is actually an advantage. You can build a very good business in nice niche that has substantial headroom to grow a business, but it’s also not super competitive.

David Lloyd: I think that’s a very accurate assessment.

Sramana Mitra: Very good. I’m delighted to hear about your business. Thank you for your time.

This segment is part 5 in the series : Bootstrapping to $13 Million from the UK: David Lloyd, CEO of The Intern Group
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