Founder
David Gash
Why airstad local exists, who is building it, and why now.
David has spent more than twenty years marketing service businesses. Usually for the smaller player, against competitors with bigger budgets and wider reach.
“I have always liked winning as the underdog, against competitors with bigger budgets and wider reach. That is exactly the fight my clients are in every day.”
That is the reason airstad local exists in the shape it does. A trade business competing against national franchises, directory platforms and rivals who spend more on marketing in a month than it spends in a year is in a familiar position, and it is a winnable one.
- Why build it now
For most of that career the work could only be done one role at a time. That ceiling has gone.
The parts of this that used to need a full marketing department can now be run properly for a business with eight people and nobody in charge of marketing, at a price that business can actually justify.
Local search matters more to that business too. It decides a great deal of who gets the call, because customers check Google, reviews and AI assistants before they ring.
It is still winnable for a smaller business that does the basics every month, on a system and not on good intentions.
- Who else is involved
- David's sons are building this with him. It is meant to last rather than to be sold on.
I have always liked winning as the underdog, against competitors with bigger budgets and wider reach.
That is exactly the fight my clients are in every day
What David has done before
- 2002 to 2010
Ran his own marketing business for small and medium-sized organisations, including hospitality, IT and telecoms.
At its peak he was the outsourced marketing department for 20 of them at once: brands, stationery, websites, search and email.
The work outgrew the hours one person has, so he took on fewer clients rather than hand the work to someone else.
- 2010 to 2014
Marketing for a communications installation and maintenance business, up against household names with far bigger budgets.
He built its brand and its websites and grew the enquiries that came straight to it, so it could take on bigger jobs.
- From 2014
Marketing for two London IT services firms: the first as its only marketer, the second as head of marketing and then marketing director, on the board.
airstad local does what that first business did, marketing for many small businesses at once, on a system rather than on one person's hours.
The rules David runs the business on are set out in our values.