A Seedcamp investor was so impressed with a former stonemason's online business that he also became its chairman. They talk to Director about the growth of mybuilder.com

Ryan Notz I never thought I wanted to start a business that was going to become bigger than just me. I had an idea; something I thought would help improve the construction industry. I wished there was a better way for me to get work. Having been a user of eBay and other sites I thought one could apply those ideas about marketplaces and feedback to our industry.

Alex Hoye I decided to stay in Europe [after selling GoIndustry, the industrial auction company] instead of moving back to California, because there is a really exciting entrepreneurial culture that's growing in Europe and the UK leads the way. That's one of the reasons I got involved with Seedcamp, to cultivate the entrepreneurial spirit [Hoye became chief executive of digital marketing agency Latitude last August].

RN Starting up was difficult. Very few people would have thought of putting even £1,000 into my business. I had to be willing to put my own money into it, everything I had. But it was a sign of commitment. That's the minimum that anybody has to do as an entrepreneur. Every day, every week you try and get one tiny step further and win the interest of some proper investors.

AH One of the nice things about online businesses is that your cost base is relatively low compared to the size of opportunity. It scales in a powerful way. If you have a committed founder you can create a pretty big business with limited capital. The most important thing is to have a good idea, good execution and make it work. No amount of capital, as [the dotcom crash of] 2000 proved, can make up for a bad idea.

RN Seedcamp offered €50,000 (£45,000) for 10 per cent of the business. What was bad from their point of view was that the business was one person. Very few businesses that are founded by one person make it. Despite that, they saw that I had got pretty far on my own without any serious professional investors. I met Alex during the Seedcamp week. Although he was supporting me in the decision-making process he said he was secretly hoping I didn't win [funding] so he could invest in me. So I said there was room [for further investment].

AH First and foremost you've got to believe in the founder and I believe that Ryan is capable, dedicated, a good people person and a good thinker. Second, I like marketplaces as a whole. There's the network effect-as you build it becomes relatively easier to add more and more people to the network. The hard part is to achieve liquidity, which Ryan now has. To build on that on a marginal cost base is fantastic. I'm thrilled with where it's going.

RN I was interested in the fact that Alex had started up a business that was reasonably similar to mine, a Web marketplace. And his company had survived the dotcom crash. The struggle in the early days was finding investors who could add more than just their money. But he had that.

AH I liked the success-based aspect of the business model. Every builder makes a decision based on what they are going to get out of it. So they're more likely to pay [mybuilder.com] if they've been paid for a job because of it.

RN In the early stages Alex spent a lot of time with me. He was a chief financial officer in a previous role, so he was very good with the finances. And he helped me recruit. We'd meet several times a week. He was acting, as a lot of investors do, in a type of non-executive director role. He was very hands-on.

AH There were a lot of things about achieving scale and about dealing with business issues that Ryan wasn't as knowledgeable about and I loved being able to offer some advice there. We now have a fantastic board, and it's a pleasure to interact with them. It's an honour to be a part of that.

RN As we progressed and things started to get more defined, he was quick to step back. At the time I was like, "Whoa, I haven't heard from you in two days". But I quickly became comfortable with that. Now, he's chairman and he's around when we need him.

AH In order to make your business grow you need to be aware of what your competition's doing but frankly you need to drive your own business to make it work. When the economy is slower, that's more important than ever. It's less about being hyper-sensitive to what the Smiths and Joneses are doing but making sure you're doing all the building block pieces of what makes your company tick well.