16 May Daily Deals in Marbella, Celebrating 10 Years of CoolDeals

Cooldeals, the ultra-popular daily deals site exploded onto the Marbella social scene in the summer of 2011.

The result of a chance meeting between Gary Lewis who had recently invested in Spectrum Radio and Bingo Baron, Alex Holt. Cooldeals was a classic case of right place, right time.

Having sold his hugely successful online Bingo business: Costa Bingo, Alex was looking for a new challenge. At a trade show in Chicago, he stumbled across a new “Daily Deals” company called Groupon, which at the time was one of the Worlds fastest growing businesses.

The idea behind Groupon was that by offering discounts of up to 50% on daily deals, hospitality businesses could attract lots of new customers into their restaurants and bars. (Fast forward 10 years and now many other bricks and mortar businesses are loving the power of “Daily Deals”).

What a great way for restaurants to showcase their business and for diners to try new places at super low prices

Customers would discover great new venues through the coupon scheme and would return time and again at full price. It was and is a winning idea for everyone.

The financial crisis had hit the Costa del Sol hard and the Groupon model was a perfect fit for the needs of struggling hospitality businesses.

As an investor in Spectrum Radio and Home and Lifestyle magazine. Gary was perfectly placed to promote the concept of “Daily Deals” across the area.

Now we just needed someone to make it happen

As luck would have it, Gary’s friends and owners of Euro Weekly News: Steven and Michel Eusden mentioned that senior media executive Richard Codd had just moved to Marbella and was looking for something to get stuck into.

Previously of the Trinity Mirror Group in the UK. and Reading 107 FM (now 107 Jack FM) The radio station owned by Auto trader boss John Madejski, Richard was perfect for the top job and happily, he accepted the challenge.

How could we build the site? this was a really big deal, especially 10 years ago.

Here’s where lady luck struck again. It turned out that Alex’s friend Marcus Piercey, had recently replicated the Groupon model in the UK. He called it “Tickle” and had serious success with it in Norwich, Cambridge, and London.

The team flew to Norwich and did the deal to replicate Tickle in Spain. Marcus would provide the systems and the advanced software that he’d developed for Tickle.

Now we just needed a name that worked in English and Spanish. Tickle wouldn’t work on the Costa del Sol

Richard came good on the Name for our Daily Deals Site. And in August 2011 CoolDeals was born.

The rest is history as they say. Now, 10 years later we’re launching the next chapter in our story. Building on everything we’ve learned CoolLife will transform the deals landscape and guarantee our success for the next 10 years.