Whilst at university studying for his finals, Jamie needed to get a pair of glasses. After visiting his local optician he was so staggered by the £150 price tag that he set about trying to find out the real cost to make a pair of prescription glasses. He soon discovered that the mark-up charged was huge and saw an opportunity for someone (Glasses Direct) to offer a great value product and service at a fraction of that price.

After finding a laboratory to support his idea for providing better value prescription glasses he set up shop in his parents’ front room with friends and family helping out. Word began to spread and within two months of trading, the phone was ringing constantly and the orders began to pour in. With thousands of enquiries by the end of his summer holidays, what had begun as a sideline project had become a real business.

Glasses Direct, the first online prescription glasses retailer was born.

After this phenomenal early success, Glasses Direct out-grew Jamie’s parents’ house. We moved into our first office, a converted barn in Wiltshire and put our operations into this one small space. We were answering calls, building the website and sending out glasses from here.

At the same time we also started recruiting our first members of staff. First on board we found ourselves a Finance Manager, Deidre Walker (who we nicknamed The Sheriff because she kept law and order) to look after the pennies, an Office Manager, Amy Kent, (Amy Kent) to keep us running smoothly and Customer Service Advisors to make sure the rapidly increasing calls were being handled efficiently.

We then went out and found ourselves a great PR agency to help us tell people about Glasses Direct. Brian MacLaurin Associates were appointed in December 2004.

In the New Year we officially launched Glasses Direct to the press, getting some great coverage in The Sunday Times, The Express, The Mirror and The Daily Mail.

We appointed two clinical advisors, both ophthalmic surgeons who helped us to raise our profile in the optical industry, set pioneering standards for operating on the internet, and help us understand the regulations of selling glasses. We also started recruiting Dispensing Opticians to help us ensure we were building a fantastically professional service and providing the best optical care for our customers.

By this point, we were busting at the seams and so upped sticks and moved to a new office next door, with two-floors and a lot more room.

Jamie won Shell LiveWIRE Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2005, our first award!

Orders were increasing rapidly and whilst we were providing a reliable service to customers when they placed their order we wanted to ensure we were keeping an equal control over the quality and delivery of our products at the other end. So in July 2005 we opened our first warehouse in Gloucester and recruited a full-time fulfillment team to run it.

Jamie won Wales and West Country Credit Suisse Entrepreneur of the Year 2005

We'd long-hoped to offer our customers a way of virtually trying on their glasses and after lots of development launched CustomEyes in October 2005.

Jamie and Glasses Direct won two Natwest Startups Awards - Business of the Year 2005 and Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2005

More recruitment as we grew, this time we brought on board a small marketing team to help tell more people about the business.

We completed our second investment round.

A great end to our first full year!

Jamie had long recognised the importance of getting people with great experience to work with Glasses Direct, so after meeting David Magliano (former Marketing Director for EasyJet and Marketing Director for the London 2010 Olympic bid) at a business event, Jamie asked him to join the Glasses Direct board and help us with marketing the company.

With David Magliano on board and a desire to tell more people about Glasses Direct we under-took our first big marketing campaign. The Specspensive campaign in Newcastle saw people dressed as sheep walking around Newcastle, handing out flyers and telling people "Don't get fleeced by Specsavers". Billboards, radio and local events saw the campaign create a lot of noise in the Newcastle area and beyond. For more information on the Specspensive campaign click here.

Up until this point we'd only been able to offer single vision and bifocal glasses, but had long recognised that there was a real need for a service that provided varifocal glasses to a wider audience and at a better price than our competition were offering. In April 2006 we launched our varifocal service, working with our travelling opticians who visit customers at home or at their place of work and ensure the utmost standards in varifocal fitting.

Also in April we completed a third investment round and received our first shipment of glasses from China.

Jamie wins Isambard Kingdom Brunel Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2006

In June we launched our first selection of designer glasses, enabling our customers to have greater choice in both price and style.

Gordon Brown spoke about Glasses Direct in his keynote address speech in Enterprise Week and Jamie became an Ambassador for UK Enterprise.

New Year saw our 2 millionth unique visitors to the website and a completion of a fourth investment round. In February Miss Montgomery ordered a Cushy frame and by doing so placed our 100,000th order.

Glasses Direct was named as a Brand to Watch by the Superbrand Council

In August 2007 we secured Venture Capital-backed investment from Index Ventures and Highland Capital Partners. This funding allowed us to continue to grow and recruit an experienced senior team to lead Glasses Direct to the next stage of development.

We appointed our first Chief Operations Officer, Jon Cumberlege (who helped setup Betfair previously) to oversee our Customer Services Team, Dispensing Opticians and fulfillment process.

To enable us to grow faster and recruit the very best people to work with us, we moved our Management, Finance & Marketing Teams to a new office in London.

Scaling up the rest of the business was the next logical step and after much searching for the right office, we found a great location in north Swindon. We closed our old office in a converted barn and our Gloucester warehouse and moved everyone under one roof again.

We now have a 40+ strong team in Swindon taking orders, providing optical support and sending out prescription glasses every minute of the day. They love their new office space and even have a ping pong table to keep them on their toes in their lunch-breaks.

November also saw the recruitment of our Marketing Director, Phil Gates to lead a newly recruited, specialist team in communicating with you, our customers and ensuring you always get the very best value product and service from Glasses Direct.

Well, what can we say, orders have more than doubled in two months and are continuing to rise. Our January Sale enabled us to offer you some amazing value quality prescription glasses and you voted with your mouse mats with many of you ordering two or three pairs at a time.

What's in store for the rest of the year?

Keep checking back, we're running some exciting seasonal campaigns, launching a whole host of new products, developing new ways for you to try your glasses on at home and really hoping to grow Glasses Direct by listening to you, our customers and by giving you what you want from your buying experience. It's going to be good!