MAISON Sport was set up in 2016 by three former British ski champions – Aaron Tipping and brothers Nick and Olly Robinson. It aims to connect independent ski instructors with skiers and snowboarders. When European ski resorts closed in March last year the business was hit hard but they managed to raise £1.25 million in a fundraiser.
Name: Nick Robinson
Position: Founder
WHAT IS THE BUSINESS CALLED?
Maison Sport
WHERE IS IT BASED?
Edinburgh
WHY DID YOU SET UP THE BUSINESS?
IT’S a platform for independent ski instructors – customers can book ski lessons anywhere in Europe. The business was set up five years ago with my brother and business partner. We are all skiers.
We originally set up a ski school in France and brought it into the 21st century. We realised the business model could be improved by working with ski instructors from a wide range of resorts. It felt like someone would eventually do it and it should be us. All ski instructors are technically self-employed.
The business is split between Edinburgh and London and we have offices in both. Our shareholder base is Scottish. There’s lots of great talent up here and the Highlands are not far away.
I grew up as a ski racer and that world is dominated by wealthy families. All the parents of kids there had their own businesses but it wasn’t until I stopped racing that I thought about setting up my own. I was competitive growing up and could channel that into that industry. I didn’t want to set up a traditional ski school, I wanted to create positive change in the industry and make a difference.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
IT has been life-changing for ski instructors. The school takes 40% of their revenue and we take 6%. They control everything themselves so they can earn more and work less. When we visit the instructors they appreciate what we do. We have high review rates. Nearly 70% of lessons have been reviewed and 95% of those reviews are five stars.
Usually you don’t know what instructor you will get and people build up an expectation. There are no nasty surprises and our instructors are qualified to the same standard. You can filter it by preference of a younger/older instructor or male/female because all instructors are reviewed independently.
People usually review the ski school but the instructor is reviewed at Maison Sport and is therefore motivated to do a good job. We signed up 100 instructors quickly but there was not a huge amount of trust at first. Reviews help as you can see whether the person who made the review is a beginner and stuff like that.
HOW HAVE YOU COPED WITH CORONAVIRUS?
LAST March all the mountain resorts in Europe closed. We were due to run out of money at the end of winter so we needed to hit our targets. We’ve just done a £1.25 million fundraiser. We didn’t anticipate a second winter of resorts being closed. We focused on doubling our instructors from 500 to 1200.
In Switzerland we focused on the domestic market – the majority of bookings were UK-based – so we needed French customers using the platform. We doubled our booking revenue in Switzerland last winter so we cracked into new markets that we thought would take a few years to get into. Covid has made me realise we will look back on this as a defining moment.
WHAT IS YOUR TARGET MARKET?
WE launched in France initially and we knew that market very well. We wanted to make the business quite French down to the name Maison Sport as the French enjoy using local businesses.
We initially signed up French instructors and lots of Brits, Italians and other Europeans also work there. In each new country we break into we focus on locals first then moved to Switzerland, Italy and beyond.
HOW IS IT DIFFERENT FROM COMPETING BUSINESSES?
OUR main competition is traditional ski schools. We take a much smaller revenue as our instructors charge less because we take less money from them than other companies. A few other companies have done a similar thing but not succeeded – four to five of them have gone bankrupt in a few years. Some offer the booking.com experience and offer comparisons of local ski schools. There’s value in that but it doesn’t change the industry.
WHERE DO YOU HOPE THE BUSINESS WILL BE IN 10 YEARS?
THE biggest seller of ski lessons in the world. When the pandemic hit we didn’t know if we could keep going but raising finance during this period hasn’t been as tough as I thought it would be. It’s a real shame for businesses who get wiped out by this.
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