I had developed what I thought was a great proposition, to aggregate daily deals and special offers into a single, personalised daily email.

But I needed to get the message out to a large number of customers if the business was to have any chance of success.

The usual online marketing methods would have been very expensive, so I approached the owners of a big website with price-sensitive subscribers, PetrolPrices.com, and offered them equity in my business in return for access to their subscribers.

They not only agreed, but also offered help with hosting and testing, so that my business instantly had tens of thousands of loyal subscribers and made money almost from day one. It’s always better to own part of a valuable business than to own the whole of nothing.

Other best business decision case studies:

• Expanding a business into a recession
• Major investment into technology
• Listen to your customer