Daryl Willcox Publishing

Telephone 0845 370 7777     Email info@dwpub.com

for PR professionals more

for journalists more

Daryl Willcox - founder and chief executive

Daryl is 37 and launched the company in 1997 after a career as a journalist. He bases the company philosophy on employee care and customer service. Apart from business, he has a passion for the outdoors and cars, bikes, boats and aircraft.

A Brief Biography

Daryl began his career on The Gloucester Citizen before entering technology journalism in 1994 at Computing magazine. He then followed this with a stint working on an English language weekly newspaper in the Baltics before returning to the UK to freelance for the technology and business press.

The idea for Daryl Willcox Publishing came to Daryl while at Computing. While PR companies bombarded journalists with huge amounts of information about technology, little innovation had been used to help with this communication.

He set to work in late 1996 to plan what was to become 'The Source', a website for technology journalists that would include important contact information and press releases in a searchable archive.

The site was launched in March 1997, on a launch budget of £2,000. Nine months later Daryl was still doing two days a week writing news for a magazine to be able to pay the bills.

Daryl decided to start selling what was then a 'loss leader' on the site. A three month plan was born to market the database of editorial contacts and forward features lists on the site to PR people. It was an instant success and this product, called FeaturesExec, has been a core service ever since.

In 1998 the company introduced the first journalist enquiry system in the UK. Now called Tech Response Source, it allowed journalists to post requests for information which were automatically sent to PR people in the technology sector.

In early 2000, the company introduced a new corporate image and finally moved away from 'The Source' name, using 'SourceWire' for the technology journalists' site.

In mid 2001, the company moved to 3,200 sq ft offices in Croydon, South London, and initiated an 18-month project to launch its famous journalist enquiry service to sectors outside of technology.

The expanded Response Source service was huge success. This, combined with the expansion of the Response Source/SourceWire Press Release Wires in early 2004, allowed the company to embark on its biggest ever growth programme.

Planned during the second half of 2004 and executed during January to May 2005, this project saw the expansion of the FeaturesExec Publications Database outside of its original technology and finance niche into all sectors. The enhanced database quadrupled in size and was launched together with a brand new facility for downloading press lists on 1 June 2005.

The successful completion of this project means the company now has a comprehensive suite of media information services covering all sectors and is set for continued growth.

Daryl moved to Brighton, East Sussex in 2004 after ten years in London. He does a little climbing and mountaineering and mountain biking. Daryl holds a helicopter private pilot licence and flies regularly with Fast Helicopters.

Daryl is a descendant of 19th Century entrepreneur JB Bowler, about whom the Museum of Bath at Work is mostly dedicated.