Off-roader carving out his own path

Under the Radar:David Bassett went out on his own to create Ireland Xt reme, providers of corporate team-building services, writes Ciaran Brennan.

When David Bassett left college, he took a job selling cars to earn some cash until he got a proper job. The proper job never came along. Instead Basset ended up setting up his own business - Ireland Xtreme, a company specialising in corporate team- building services and entertainment.

"I was going to go into medical repping but a job came up in the car industry and I was into cars. I said I would take it as a stop-gap, to be honest. Thankfully I did it," says the former biology student.

It was while working with HB Dennis that Bassett spotted a gap in the market in the provision of 4x4 off-road driving vehicles and training. At HB Dennis he set up Dennis Adventures - a 4x4 off-road driving offering. When the company decided it wasn't core to the business, Bassett along with his friend Simon Collins bought out Dennis Adventures to create Ireland Xtreme.

"For the first 12 months it was, 'what have I done?', to be quite honest. It was very difficult to get funding for an operation like this. You are pitching your idea to people who have no concept of the market, how it works and what are the returns."

The bank turned down the two directors' loan application and, with a €120,000 deal for Dennis Adventures signed, branding developed, an office in Collinstown Business Park secured and a website launched, David and Simon had to raise the capital by remortgaging their houses.

It was a brave decision, but ultimately proved to be the right one. Ireland Xtreme's break came 2003 when Eoin Doyle, marketing director of BrookLodge, saw the potential in the business and allowed the company to start operating from the grounds of the hotel in Wicklow.

"We were in the right place at the right time, but we had the right product as well," says Bassett. "We spent a long time getting our branding right, setting up our first website, getting our vehicles right. But to be affiliated with such a high-end property opened doors for us straight away."

By the end of 2004, its first full year in business, the company managed to break even, thanks to Basset and Collins not taking a wage for the first six months. The following year proved to be a very strong one for the company.

The brand was starting to be recognised, which resulted in repeat custom and unique visitors to the website increasing to 4,500 a month.

Turnover rose by 70 per cent and the company hired a new event manager, Oran Masterson, while the Irish designer of the US Survivor Show was engaged to design a "Survivor" course.

In 2006, Ireland Xtreme secured a deal with Carton House to have its flagship static unit based on site. The company now operates a 4x4 fleet of 21 and has this year secured a €2.1 million deal with Nissan to provide a new fleet of 4x4s each year until 2010, for their off-road driving experience.

While initially 4x4 off-road driving was the mainstay of the company's business, it has since expanded to include a range of indoor and outdoor team games and team-building activities, including treasure hunts, power boat rides, health spa days, shooting and archery, team cooking and conference ice breakers which are targeted at corporates at home and internationally.

"We have about 50 or 60 different types of challenges. A lot of people offer archery and clay-pigeon shooting and we do that, but we are about differentiating ourselves from our competitors," Bassett says. "We have team-building games that are unique to Ireland Xtreme and we are only going to bring about 20 for the 2008 season. We are constantly evolving."

Such evolution will see the launch of teambuilding.ie, a joint initiative with Thrive, a human resources consultancy, to provide team building with facilitated discussion. Ireland Xtreme will provide the event management and Thrive will provide the team facilitation on areas such as communication, conflict and change.

The company has grown 40 per cent year on year with customer numbers reaching 10,500 in 2007. It now employs 10 full-time staff and a floating team of 100 staff for various events.

"We are in year five and we are actually bang on our projections for what we said we would do at the start," says Bassett.