Mike Clare has come a long way since selling condoms at college. And, as Dreams celebrates its 20th birthday, Jennifer Creevy finds out how he plans to own sleep
Dreams chief executive Mike Clare was blessed with an entrepreneurial spirit from a young age. As a schoolboy, he traded in bicycles – buying old bikes, repairing them and doing them up, then selling them on at a higher price.
By the time he was 18 years old and at college, Clare had progressed to trading in condoms. Using his mother’s cash-and-carry card, he used to bulk-buy condoms and sell them on individually for a profit to his college friends. Ironically, he is now a governor of his former college. “In those days, there were no machines selling condoms,” jokes Clare. “And, obviously, everyone was too embarrassed at that age to go to the shop and buy them.”
Joking aside, Clare’s commercial awareness stood him in good stead. This year, bed retailer Dreams celebrated its 20th birthday and by its year end this year, sales will have grown by about 29 per cent to more than£200 million. As he gears up to sell a stake in the business he has controlled since its inception, Clare says profits are on track to have more than doubled, to a high of£15 million.
“I always wanted to own a business,” says Clare. “My parents owned a printing business, so the idea was instilled in me at a young age.”
After college, he worked for several furniture companies. “All of which have gone bust now,” he says. They included Hardy’s Furniture Company and Perrings Furnishers, where he worked his way up to area manager.
Having gained experience of the furnishings industry, Clare jumped at the chance to take his own store at Uxbridge. “The shop was in a terrible state,” he remembers. “It previously sold gear boxes, so there was grease and dirt everywhere,” says Clare.
After the store had been cleaned and decorated, he started out selling sofa beds. “I used to do the selling in the week, the deliveries in the evening and the books at the weekend,” he says.
Clare believes that this level of commitment is a no-brainer for starting up a business. “People talk about your own business being about luck and skill, but it’s mostly about hard work,” he says. “If everything you have is on the line, then you can’t just let it fail. If you’re up against the wall, you have to make it work.”
In 1987, Clare wanted to specialise and had to make a decision about whether to sell beds or sofas. “I chose beds and it was probably just as well, or I would have been up against Graham Kirkham,” he jokes.
Since 1987, Clare says Dreams has shown growth every year. The recession year of 1991 was the only year he didn’t open a shop and Dreams’ 170-store portfolio has far surpassed his predictions. “At our 10th anniversary party, I made some predictions about the business and said that in 10 years’ time, I wanted 100 stores,” he says.
For the next 10 years, Clare will continue to open stores, but also wants to “own sleep”. New product lines include accessories, such as linen, pillows and hot water bottles, but he says there is plenty of scope to expand the range to products such as curtains and alarm clocks. Other innovations include dream analysis books and, early next year, Dreams will launch a telephone helpline for insomniacs with tips for a good night’s sleep.
“We started looking at accessories, because we had all these big stores with a vast range of beds and we didn’t know what to put on the walls,” he explains. “So we started to think about all the products or services we could offer that would make us a destination store for the bedroom.”
To expand the business further, Clare is set to sell a small stake – up to 20 per cent – of Dreams before April next year and use the cash to buy another business, possibly in accessories or home furnishings.
He envisages the move to work along the lines of DSGi, which acts as the parent company to complementary businesses including Dixons, Currys and PC World. “Anything we look at will need to be complementary,” says Clare. “We’re not about to open a book shop.”
Clare says he will be opportunistic when looking for businesses and will not rule out acquiring a retailer that will “take him into another room in the house”.
And, while expanding the product range and acquiring businesses will give the next 10 years plenty of ambition, Clare is focused firmly on the business of today. He says: “You can always make wild predictions, but day to day needs to be right first.”
A GOOD BASE
Age: 52
Lives: Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire
Family: Married with four children
Interests: Taking his children to their various hobbies and sports interests
1987-present: Chief executive, Dreams
1985-87: Founder, Sofa bed Centre
1980-85: Area manager, Perrings Furnishers
1977-80: Senior branch manager, Hardy’s Furniture
1975-77: Branch manager, Williams Furniture
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