I recently asked Dominion Acquisitions if they felt the strain of the recession

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(Free-Press-Release.com) February 21, 2012 -- In response the Managing Director explained confidently and empathetically; that she understood that yes people were struggling and yes people needed to prioritise their expenditure. But that she felt the recession was a filtering process that made her work harder and smarter. Not that I doubted her sincerity but I needed to understand more and so asked her to explain, how was it that so many companies were struggling, how did she not feel concerned?

Dominion Acquisitions Managing Director informed me that the recession need not be a roadblock to your success, instead we should embrace it, she went on to highlight other companies that were born in a recession: Disney and Microsoft two huge examples of phenomenal success stories in times of adversity, who ploughed through, believed in their product and gave whole heartedly everything they had to their dream, never giving up on the end goal.

Not meaning to seem sceptical I agreed with her true grit, but wanted an example of a company closer to now, she laughed and dived on in, telling me of her overwhelming excitement to be fortunate to have experienced firsthand the reasoning behind the success of LoveFilm. The managing Director of Dominion Acquisitions was passionate to inform me of their phenomenal success story.

LoveFilm, the DVD and online film rental business: who Amazon agreed to buy the 58% of the company it doesn't already own, in a deal that allegedly values it at around £200m. For a company that was only started in 2004, to become£100m revenue business with operations across Europe in just seven years is pretty impressive; it had got to the size where Amazon pretty much had to buy it out if it had any aspirations of taking on US rival Netflix on this side of the pond. Today's deal should prove a nice little earner for the investors and senior execs that have got the business where it is today…

This deal isn't a complete surprise: Amazon has owned a 42% stake in LoveFilm since 2008, when LoveFilm bought its European DVD rental business, and the two companies have apparently been in negotiations for several months about a complete buyout. Strategically, Amazon arguably didn't have much choice: US market leader Netflix is apparently targeting European expansion, so if Amazon hasn't done this deal, maybe Netflix would have done. Which probably wouldn't fit in well with Amazon's apparent global online retail dominance masterplan. Even if it does mean buying back a business it has (kind of) sold once already.

LoveFilm's corporate history emerged from a tie-up of three online DVD rental companies - Online Rentals, ScreenSelect and Video Island - and has since been growing across Europe, largely via other small acquisitions, backed by VC money. It now has the best part of 1.5m subscribers across the continent, and did about £100m in sales in 2009. It has also established a digital streaming service - significantly, since we imagine the idea of having DVDs delivered by post will sound ridiculously old-fashioned in a few years' time. So it's fair to say that LoveFilm has become quite a British success story.

So what next for Lovefilm, with the backing of Amazon, with its exceedingly deep pockets, presumably won't hurt. The big competitive threat is obviously the arrival of Netflix - but the combination of LoveFilm's European presence and Amazon's resources should make for a pretty formidable force
But in the short term, the good news is that today's deal should equate to a nice windfall for all those people still with skin in the game - from the VCs, to the original entrepreneurs who decided that online DVD rental was the next big thing.

I asked Dominion Acquisitions why they felt Lovefilm had such great success, apart from the obvious backing from Amazon, the Managing Director, explained; that yes having the backing of Amazon will without doubt be a massive asset, but she felt that it was down to the product. Lovefilm understood its customer base, they saw a need in the market, and they recognised and resolved all those annoying issues that came with renting a movie, the late fees, having to travel to return them. Quite simply they simplified everything; they saw things from their customers’ viewpoint and eliminated all of the negatives. There are no late fees, you don’t have to travel back to the store, you literally put it in the provided free postal envelope to return what you have watched, and there is no time limit on how long you keep the movie either. Lovefilm recognised that some people still want to be able to insert a disc and simply watch a movie, for the others you can stream thousands of movies to your I pad, TV or PS3 and Xbox. They have catered for the entire market and made it readily available to anyone.
After my time with The Managing Director at Dominion Acquisitions I understood her lack of fear for the recession, she had watched and learnt from others, she believed in her product, she believed in her business and new with the right product and belief you can achieve anything not matter what the economy has in

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