About Dan and Sarah Diggins  

The story of Dan and Sarah Diggins, founders of Web247.net, is one of entrepreneurship against all the odds.  4 years ago, Dan took a career break to study for an MSc in Computer Animation at Bournemouth University.  They sold their house in Oakham to fund Dan's year out.  After graduating with Distinction, Dan decided that he wanted a complete career change and so, rather than go back into employment, he looked for work further afield, which led him to consider Switzerland.  In September 2005, he and his wife set off from England with their 3 young children ages 5 ,3 and 1 in the back of their car, to try a new life in Switzerland, while Dan looked for work.  After reaching the Swiss alps, their experience was not quite as positive as they had expected and, not quite knowing what to do, they decided to return back to France.  They studied a map to see where in France they could reach within a day's drive from Switzerland, spotted Annecy which is just south of Geneva, and set off across the border to France where they found themselves in a picturesque town nestled at the edge of the French alps, on the edge of a beautiful lake.

However, that wasn't the end of the story, as Dan and Sarah had left England with the intention of buying a house and the properties in Annecy were out of their price range.  Furthermore, Dan had planned to find employment and, while they were staying in Annecy, he had seen a great job with Airbus in Toulouse, so after enjoying a 2 week holiday in Annecy, the family set off down to investigate Toulouse.  Toulouse is a beautiful city, but Dan and Sarah realised very quickly that city life was not for them, so while there, they set up their own companies so that Dan could work from home.  Then they carried on their property search up the west coast of France.  However, Annecy had made such a good impression, that nothing compared to it and, after spending another week touring the centre of France, they returned to Annecy to look for somewhere to rent.

And so, after a 3 month, 4000 mile tour de France with 3 young children in the back seat, an in-car DVD player and Shrek 1 and Shrek 2 to occupy them, plus having to learn how to speak French and navigate their way around Europe, the Diggins had now realised that their dream town was the one they found by accident just 2 weeks after leaving England.

Once settled into Annecy, Dan started to work from home and then, after a year of pocket pc software development, he came up with a great new idea for a company and Web247.net was started.  18 months later, Dan and Sarah have brought to market a great new multilingual service that is trading in English and French and available throughout the world.  Dan and Sarah have partnered with some of the UK's leading organisations to bring the service to market and have established Marketing Teams based in the UK, France and New Zealand.

They've achieved all this whilst settling into a new country, learning to speak French and looking after their 3 young girls who all started school since they arrived in France.