An Epiphany moment as Shane moves on to his next enterprise

But since the £18m sale of Epiphany to Jaywing, Mr Quigley hasn’t been putting his feet up on a beach in Sydney, enjoying the fruits of his labour.

Instead he has moved on to a fresh challenge and once again has a big goal in mind. He wants to make his latest venture, Earth Bathrooms, into one of the major homewares and interiors brands in the UK.

The ambitious businessman said: “Earth Bathrooms was this chance for me to show that I can create a brand, launch it online, build it from front to back.

“We want to become the Amazon of interiors.”

Born in Leicester, Mr Quigley’s formative years were spent in Nottingham. His father himself was a self-made man who came from nothing to own a forklift truck business, turning over £3m.

Despite this Mr Quigley was not given an easy ride, as his father was keen to instill the value of money into his son.

“I always had less pocket money than anybody else. I always had to have a part-time job. He taught me the value of money because he literally came from poverty. The other kids got what they wanted. I resented it at the time but in hindsight it was a very valuable lesson,” said Mr Quigley.

After six months studying at Nottingham Trent University, he realised that he wanted to be out in the real world earning money, so he left and got a job at McDonalds. A few months later he landed a job at Dixons doing first level technical support for people having problems with their printers.

Mr Quigley took a series of Microsoft accredited exams and in six months he rose from the most junior member of staff to the most qualified.

He then had a stint at Esker Software followed by Lynx Technology in Derbyshire, helping both firms streamline their business processes. However, he pined for a more exciting challenge and wanted to move into the fast changing world of e-commerce.

Mr Quigley said: “I just became frustrated in that work environment, of the lack of vision of the managers, lack of vision of the business and also I really wanted to get into e-commerce.

“I decided to hand in my notice and move to Leeds. The reason why I came to Leeds was a lot of my friends went to university here. My best friend was living up here.”

He added that it was a straight choice between London and Leeds as Nottingham offered slim pickings when it came to technology and marketing. In Leeds he was appointed sales director at an e-commerce development company called Chapter Eight.

Mr Quigley explains that he landed the role in an unconventional way by firing an informal email to the managing director, in which he addressed him by his nickname.

At the same time as working at Chapter Eight, Mr Quigley also had his own side business selling health supplements online.

He said: “When I’d sold my house in Nottingham I’d taken about £30,000 of equity out of it and I’d invested that in my own online retail business.

“After I had the website built, I paid £30,000 to the best search engine optimisation company in the UK at that time.

“They basically took the money and ran, I saw no improvements whatsoever.

“So I jumped on all the forums to read about SEO and while growing Chapter Eight I taught myself how to do SEO. Within about three months I was ranking on the first page of Google for all the major terms.

“Six months later I’d earned the equity on my house back through that health supplement business.”

Taking this SEO know-how, Mr Quigley built a strong sales team at Chapter Eight, helping it into profit for the first time.

A year after joining Chapter Eight, Mr Quigley along with Robin Skidmore, who he says was his best sales guy, decided to branch out on their own.

“When I first joined Chapter Eight, Robin was the senior sales person there. He wanted the job that I was given, so there was a lot of friction. We argued a lot in the early days, there was a lot of alpha male posturing,” he said with a laugh.

But once they both realised they could make money working together, their partnership blossomed at Chapter Eight.

Mr Quigley explains: “It was basically the Shane and Robin roadshow. We were travelling up and down the country talking to multi-nationals helping them with their search marketing needs.”

One evening the duo were returning to Leeds from a meeting with Polaroid in London when they decided that they should strike out on their own.

Playing on the radio was the song Epiphany by Greenskeepers and that is how the search marketing agency came to be known as Epiphany.

He may have moved on from Epiphany but the one thing which Mr Quigley remains proud of is the culture that they created there. It is a similar culture which he hopes to foster at Earth Bathrooms.

He said: “What I missed from my Epiphany days was creating that agency style internal working culture – it’s an extension of your family.”

While his background may scream e-commerce and digital. Mr Quigley sees the value in traditional bricks and mortar stores and it’s an avenue he isn’t ruling taking Earth Bathrooms up.

He added that logistics was still a huge problem for many in the industry and having a network of physical stores connected by a fleet of delivery vehicles would very much offer a cheaper and more efficient way of doing things.

Whatever the future for Earth Bathrooms it has got off to a flying start. The business which Mr Quigley launched in December is already on target to turn over £4m.

Shane Quigley factfile

Title: Chief executive at Earth Bathrooms.

Date of birth: 16.08.77

Lives: Leeds

First Job: McDonalds

Favourite Film: Heat

Favourite song: Man in the Mirror by Michael Jackson.

Favourite holiday destination: Sydney

Last book read: The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon.

Most proud of: The culture created at Epiphany.

Car driven: Porsche Macan Turbo