Doing a number on the modern business of work on your phone

BOASTING is a pretty common habit amongst entrepreneurs, while the humble brag tends to be deployed by more self-aware founders — or so I’ve found in the past decade interviewing founders for this column.

- Lucy Tobin

George Lineker, by contrast, takes the opposite approach, sounding almost sheepish about the success of his telecoms start-up. “It’s embarrassing how simple it is,” he laughs.

Lineker (yes, he is former England football captain Gary’s son) is the co-founder of YourBusinessNumber, where customers pay £4.99 a month for a virtual phone number used to contact clients via WhatsApp Business, without the need for a second phone line.

“It works because it’s so easy,” he explains. “Customers put in their personal number on our website, receive WhatsApp Business verification messages 30 seconds later, then have a second number, which forwards all messages onto their existing number.

“We’ve stripped everything out of a traditional phone number offering — data, minutes, texts, apps. Our customers can then use their new number for WhatsApp business during set hours, not be tied to their phone — they can take control of when they’re working, not being bombarded all the time.”

Lineker, 31, started the business two years ago with tech entrepreneur Sebastian Lewis, 37 — they met over burgers and beer in the garden of former Manchester United chief executive Ed Woodward.