Sara Murray, founder of insurance comparison website Confused.com, set up GPS tracking device company Buddi last year. Its expected turnover this year is £4 million

Where did you get the idea?
I was in the supermarket when my daughter wandered off and that experience made me think about how GPS could be a useful tool for people in trouble. I learnt a lot about it from scratch and then developed a prototype.

How does the product work?
It can be used to track vulnerable children or elderly people online when they get lost, or you can contact our emergency response service to locate them.

Where did you get the funding?
I put £200,000 of my own money into the product after selling Confused.com and got a further £1 million from business angels and private investors. We may also be looking for more funding in February depending on our overseas plans.

How did you market it?
Mainly using PR. We didn’t do a lot of marketing because the product is so revolutionary for people with dementia, and there was a lot of media attention surrounding that area anyway.

Where next?
We’ve had a lot of interest in the US and we just finished a week of trials in South Africa. I’d like to develop the product into other aspects of tracking: for example, sending parcels or using it to monitor kids in shopping centres.