Surviving Panda and Google Shopping, with Genie Ventures co-founder Ciaron Dunne

Genie Ventures groups a broadband comparison site, a comparison shopping service and a performance agency, with affiliate a key part of all three. In this Lessons from Losing episode, co-founder Ciaron Dunne tells an Awin interviewer how Google algorithm shifts, failed projects and a costly campaign shaped a company that treats failure as part of experimenting.

In this episode

• Dunne describes Broadband Genie, live since 2004, Genie Shopping and the agency Genie Goals, and hopes group revenue will pass £40 million this year, with affiliate a key part of all three businesses (0:30, 1:01, 1:31, 2:00).

• Google Panda in 2011 hit the SEO-led sites and left him unsure the business would survive; he says the fear lasted years (8:30, 9:00, 10:30).

• Google Shopping hurt retail price comparison, but the group kept going, was an early comparison shopping service partner when Google opened its CSS programme, and says it is now one of Europe's biggest (17:31, 18:00, 18:32).

• Failed ideas include two coffee businesses, Bingo Genie and a desk-sharing site that only found a market once it targeted serviced offices (5:01, 12:31, 13:00, 13:30).

• On awards night in 2025, when the team won two industry prizes, a campaign with tracking problems lost about £40,000; he says it was their own money and the team is not blamed (14:30, 15:01, 15:30).

• Advisers urged focus on one business, but the founders chose to keep trying things; he argues that spread is what let them survive the shopping shake-up (19:30, 20:00, 20:30).

Interview from Lessons from Losing by Awin, published on YouTube.