Entrepreneur wins novelty prize

Richard's previous ideas include a charity game called Pig Brother

A Bath entrepreneur has won the "Hot Novelty" category at the 2006 Gift of the Year Awards.

Richard Counsell, 30, puts his success down in part to the help and advice he received from the SETsquared Business Acceleration Centre in Bath.

The centre at the University of Bath helps local start-up companies by providing advice on accessing funding, mentoring and networking opportunities.

"The mentors made sure we made the right decisions," said Mr Counsell.

Richard's success has been rapid. At 28 he was living and working in a one-bedroomed flat in Bath and struggling to gain financial backing for his ideas.

"SETsquared gave (my company) Aardvark the foundations to grow from a one man band in Bath, to a fast growth success story," he said.

Richard had recently won the Lloyds Bank 'The Big Idea' business competition and, in 2000, the Barclays Bank/Sunday Telegraph's 'Ecommerce Business of the Year' for his launch of an online farm shop called Somerset Organics.

Before his latest success he came up with Pig Brother, a charity initiative to raise funds for farms hit by Foot and Mouth.

It involved five pigs named Blair, Brown, Widdecombe, Portillo and Becket who battled it out to stay in a sty designed by Changing Rooms' presenters Handy Andy and Laura Macrae.

More than 3m people worldwide visited the site to play the game.

The range of customisable hands-free animatronic character phones which won the novelty gift of the year award are called Verballs. They move and 'talk' when someone talks to friends or family over the internet.