Up to 11 with The Business Village People

We thought it would be good to find out a bit more about some of the people behind the businesses that are located at The Business Village – our very own Village People! We’ve put together a mixture of questions about them and what they do and will be interviewing a new person each month.

To start the series, we turned it up to 11 with Alex Tinkler, one of the newest members of staff with one of our longest-serving tenants, Merlinsoft… Alex is based at Wilthorpe, where he works as Business Development Executive.

How long have you been part of The Business Village?

1 year!
But obviously Merlinsoft has been here much longer – 25 years.

Describe your business in ten words

We develop software solutions for visitor attractions and event managers.

What’s a typical day for you?

The great thing is there’s no typical day. Usually there’ll be a healthy mix of customer queries to deal with, but aside from that it’s a really creative environment. We’re quite free to run with ideas, so a lot of time lately has been put into optimising our website and looking at online promotion. The only consistency is that every Friday at 1pm we all sit down for a takeaway.

What did you do before you began working for Merlinsoft?

I’ve had quite a varied background; most of my background is in contact centres, but I’d previously worked as a marketing exec and even worked in a Sushi restaurant for a short time, while doing my degree.

If you could swap jobs with anyone for a day, who would it be?

That depends… do I get to keep what I earn that day? If so then Jeff Bezos, if not, one of the guys on the ISS.

What is your biggest personal achievement so far?

I’d say having my beautiful young daughter in February this year, but I’m not sure how much credit I can take for that. Otherwise it would be renovating my first home which I started 5 years ago and should be done any day now…

Professionally, what are you most proud of achieving?

Hard to say! Marketing is pretty subjective and it’s often really difficult to pinpoint what part of the mix is working. I’d have to say the knowledge itself. It’s a continual learning experience and that to me is its own reward.

What was the first ever record/CD/download you bought?

I was given an HMV gift card one Christmas and got The Killers – Hot Fuss and Franz Ferdinand’s titular first album. Pretty sure they’re the only CD’s I’ve ever bought!

What is the main ambition you are yet to achieve?

Get a bigger house with a garden and a tool shed for my odd projects at home.

If you were given a flight to anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?

I’ve not really travelled much so I’m really easy to please… I’d probably just throw a dart at a map of Asia and pick the nearest capital city.

If money was no object, what would you do in your current business?

We’d put it into expanding Merlin Tickets. While we already get great feedback on the online system, we’d love to grow our team to add new features and have the resources to invest in enough promotion to compete with Eventbrite head-on.

Bonus question!

Who would play you in a movie about your life?

This is a tricky one! I’d have to say Ewan McGregor. The film would be a rom-com about finding the one while trying to make it big.

Thanks Alex!  Our next interviewee will be Neil Garrett from  one of our newest tenants Ginger Fox!