CIARAN'S STORY

It was a rainy night in Manchester when my world changed forever. 

I was on yet another solo business trip - something I was well accustomed to after 25 years of travelling for work. This time though? I had just closed the biggest deal of my career and I had no one to celebrate with. So I did the only thing I could do. I called my wife, and then booked into a nice restaurant to toast myself. 

As I walked through the room, being led by the maitre d’ to my table for one, I counted ten other people in the room all dining alone. Ten tables for one. Ten strangers with stories to tell. 

I was placed at the back of the room. Crisp white table cloth, sparkling silver cutlery, one glass, one setting. Perhaps I had an air of needing to talk to someone, perhaps the stars simply aligned - but the guy at the adjacent table struck up a conversation with me. He had a book with him “Never eat alone” by Keith Ferrazzi. We laughed at the irony of it. 

At the end of the meal he gave me the book. Little did he know the impact he, and it, would have on my life from that moment on. It was a chance encounter, but that chat, that book, that guy, that night - it changed everything. 

I realised that he and I were two out of millions of people facing the same problem - the loneliness and isolation of the solo business traveller. The missed opportunities. Our needs were not being met. No one was catering for us. And if no one was catering for us, then no one was capitalising on us. 

It became glaringly obvious to me that there was a massive gap in the market - a blind spot that hadn’t been addressed - and someone was primed to fill it. 

It took a little while for me to realise that that someone was in fact me. But following lots of conversations with friends and colleagues, who soon became focus groups, that then became business meetings, that eventually became partnerships and deals and deadlines and launches - I finally looked around and I was at the helm of something really special. Something that started as a seed and had grown into a full time, all encompassing passion. 

I left the security of my great job in a great company and threw myself wholeheartedly into this startup world. 

Table4One is one of those ideas that you can’t believe someone hasn’t had already. Almost before we knew it, Table4One had been downloaded 50,000 times in over 100 countries. 

Business travellers, event organisers, employee wellbeing advocates and the hospitality industry at large have been crying out for something like this. 

Like any great idea it has simplicity at its core. It’s an app that matches up business travellers based on location combined with interests or industries. It addresses the isolation of the individual, creates happier employees, more content customers, and provides added revenue to businesses. 

We are currently busy growing, striking up partnerships with hotels and other innovative brands within the travel industry, and developing the next iteration of Table4One. 

Never has the value of real face to face connection been more clear. As we return to travel in all its forms - the team at Table4One are ready. We’re on the cusp of something much bigger and much better than what has gone before. Business travel is about to get exciting. 

We have big plans - so if you’re looking for an investment opportunity with huge growth potential, then pull up a chair at our table and talk to us now. 

We’re all only one conversation away from something magical. Meet those people. Have those conversations. Grow your tribe. Pursue your passions. Realise your dreams.

 “The man with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds”, Mark Twain   

We all know those people who live in the past. 

These days we’re being guided towards living in the moment, in the present, being more mindful. 

The people who live in the future are rare, sometimes misunderstood. 

Occasionally, if you’re lucky, you may encounter the extraordinary.  

Someone who creates the future.  

David Taylor is one of those extraordinary people, and he’s not really a crank! 

He has a phenomenal knack for delivering game changing radical solutions across the travel  sector that have gone on to become the norm in the industry.   

As a young engineer in British Airways, he followed his gut and stepped out of the predictable world of Aircraft engineering and into the unchartered realm of imagining new business ideas.  

A new phenomenon was emerging onto the horizon at the time. Some spoke excitedly of the World Wide Web, while others feared the internet. David remembers a conversation with a BA Board member who said, “people won’t buy airline tickets online, they’re too worried about credit card security”.    

Despite the pushback and the uncertainty, David persevered with what he knew was right. With likeminded colleagues he co-founded ba.com to sell British Airways tickets online in 1995.  

If that wasn’t enough of a challenge, David then set about convincing the BA board to show all of the airline options online, including their competitors, for corporate clients and then trust that they would choose BA.   

The conversation went like this, “So let me get this straight. You want us to spend millions developing software for BA that allows our corporates to book flights with our competitors?”  

Again David followed his gut and, alongside another travel industry trailblazer Johnny Thorsen (who was then with a Silicon Valley start-up called GetThere), they developed yourtravelmanager.com.  

Together, they developed the blueprint still used to this day for most business travel booking engines.  As well as being a huge success for BA with 93% of bookings in favour of BA, GetThere went on to great success, eventually selling to Sabre for $757M.  

David then rose to a new challenge in completely unchartered waters as employee no. 1 with Opodo. David took the reigns as Operations Director and, with McKinsey by his side, built the first European pan-European online travel agent.  

David’s instinct for seeing the future, and then building it, has spanned over 3 decades and touched most parts of the travel industry.  

It includes building an AI engine, long before AI was even a buzzword, for package holidays. 

He then expanded Worldspan into Asia. 

He helped to launch one of the first online only Travel Management Companies.  

He was instrumental in bringing another new product (Travelpass) to market, which allows airlines to sell multiple flights and unlimited flying with a subscription. Post pandemic recovery, you’re likely to see much more of this with the likes of Etihad launching this product recently.  

Most recently, David’s gut has brought him to Table4One.  

His instinct for spotting game changing solutions that go on to become the norm in the travel industry was triggered again.  

He sees an amazing opportunity to create a new business and a brand-new business model.  

There is a big problem that needs to be solved, coupled with a huge commercial opportunity.   

Solo business travel has so much potential – and Table4One not only solves its problems, and provides huge opportunities at every touchpoint, it also makes the world a better place.   

David’s philosophy in life is to look for the good things, because there are good things everywhere.  

Table 4One is a good thing! 

David is excited about building the future with Table4One, and to see it take wings and fly!!