LONDON, September 22 /PRNewswire/ --     With online businesses still thriving despite the recession, the
knowledge economy will be vital to a global recovery.

That's the view of a dotcom entrepreneur whose business survived the
millennial wave of dotcom collapses and is prospering in the present
downturn.

Andrew Markou is co-founder and technical director of online media group
Dynamis, publishers of BusinessesForSale.com (
http://www.BusinessesForSale.com), FranchiseSales.com (
http://www.FranchiseSales.com), BusinessWings.co.uk (
http://www.BusinessWings.co.uk) and other online titles in the classifieds
marketplace.

Markou says internet businesses have weathered the worst economic storm
since the 1930s successfully because of comparatively low overheads, but more
importantly because of continuing growing demand even as most other sectors
contracted.

Although online sales growth has slowed this year - to 13.3% according to
a report by Verdict Research, from 25% last year and 35% in 2007 - that it's
growing at all in the worst recession since the 1930s is a testament to the
strength of the sector.

The amount of money spent online in the UK is forecast to grow from
GBP8.9bn to GBP21.3bn in the next two years, a 137 per cent rise, according
to PayPal in its UK Online Retail Report.

Says Andrew Markou:

"People don't stop buying during downturns, but they do prize value for
money, and, because online retailers save money on retail premises and staff,
they're ideally positioned to provide it."

The UK can no longer rely on the usual industries to power the recovery,
says Andrew. It needs to provide more support to its emerging strength as a
key point in the knowledge economy.

"Manufacturing is a minor part of the economy now and we can no longer
rely on the City. But one thing the UK can be proud of is its depth of dotcom
and IT talent.

"Unfortunately, however, much of that talent is being lured overseas to
Silicon Valley because it's so much easier to get the financial and technical
support there, and there's a stronger, symbiotic relationship between
universities and commerce.

"If the UK is to retain its status as a leading economy it needs to
address these issues. A Brit invented the internet and our universities still
produce the talent - but we need to support our web-savvy dotcom
entrepreneurs if we're to be at the heart of the knowledge economy.

Asked which areas generate the most revenue on the net and will continue
to blossom, Andrew says: "Online classifieds - like our flagship brands,
BusinessesForSale.com and FranchiseSales.com - social networks, marketing
websites and of course online retail will continue to thrive. Online
marketing is a huge and growing industry as the return on investment with
online advertising blows TV, radio and print advertising out of the water."

When a wave of dotcoms went under after the 'dotcom bubble' burst at the
turn of the millennium, some predicted the internet had been overhyped.
However, the Markou brothers knew better, realising that the internet
businesses failed because they had bad business models - not because the
medium itself was flawed.

Says Andrew: "The first dotcom wave failed partly because the paradigm
for web business was not properly established; companies tried to apply
traditional economics to the new medium. For example, spending vast sums of
money on TV or radio advertising, when the return on investment was vastly
inferior to getting themselves high in Google through search-engine
optimisation or sponsored links.

"There was a lot of hubris: some companies attempted to do more than web
infrastructure could handle at that time, tried to expand too quickly or
lavished money on indulgent launch parties and opulent offices."

At BusinessesForSale.com they kept on investing in technology and kept
faith with a business model based on sound principles.

"Internet use is growing inexorably and as access speeds and digital
technologies improve the possibilities increase.

"We decided early on to choose a field with robust demand and a type of
business suited to the web. If newspapers are struggling to compete with
online news content, then providers of classified advertisers have long since
given up the ghost - the sensible ones anyway.

"We knew early on that the web was perfect for classifieds. You can
filter searches according to, say, for a business, price, revenue, location,
etc, and generate a list of results instantly. Trawling through a newspaper
of adverts is always more convoluted and frankly tedious compared to web
searches.

"The success of our site, not to mention the eBays, CraigsLists and
Gumtrees of the net, have well and truly vindicated us."

Andrew Markou is a veteran in internet terms: he co-founded
BusinessesForSale.com with his brother Marcus in 1996 and familiarised
himself with the web in the days before it even featured images. The Markou
brothers were the first in the businesses-for-sale listings market to realise
that eventually everybody would search for businesses on the web.

Since the eBay phenomenon this now seems obvious, but not everyone
believed them at the time, many even thinking it was a fad.

Marcus Markou recalls going for a job interview at a marketing company in
the early 90s. Asked what he could bring to the company he replied: "I can
tell you that the internet will be the most transformative invention for
mankind since the railways, and the sooner you get on board the more money
you'll make when it takes off." Suffice to say, he didn't get the job and
that company no longer exists.

BusinessesForSale.com meanwhile is the world's largest business for sale
website.

Notes for editors

1. Dynamis (http://www.dynamis.co.uk) was founded in 1995 and is a
privately owned company based in London, UK.

2. The company publishes BusinessesForSale.com - a website connecting
business buyers and sellers, FranchiseSales.com - a directory of franchise
opportunities, BusinessWings.co.uk -a resource for anyone thinking of
starting or going into business, BusinessOpportunities.com - the online
business opportunities marketplace, MidMarketExchange.co.uk and the Mid
Market Exchange magazine - a directory of M&A business opportunities.

If you want to speak to Andrew Markou about any of the topics outlined,
contact Jo Dalton on +44(0)20-7324-1948 or email: jcd@dynamis.co.uk.