Many people will remember the Music Magpie adverts which invited people to send in their unwanted CDs with the promise of a cheque in the post.
The business has moved on somewhat since then, with a focus on gadgets and even, at one stage, designer clothes.
Founder and CEO Steve Oliver says that changing the method of payment gave his business a massive boost last year.
“We changed the payment offer last October to an instant transaction,” he told BusinessCloud at the International Festival for Business.
“When we buy phones, laptops, consoles, tablets now, when they arrive in the warehouse, we pay customers immediately.
“That has been transformational.”
Oliver says Music Magpie is the “lazy man’s eBay”.
“Technology has a responsibility, especially customer-facing, to make things easy,” he adds.
“That’s the mantra of our business: it’s fast, trusted and easy – we’re the lazy man’s eBay.
“We’ll knock on your door and collect it, it’s trackable and insured, we’ll send you an email when it’s arrived and have the money in your account the next day.
“We’re now buying over 1,000 iPhones a day.”
One of the UK’s most highly-rated start-up founders said at the ‘tech entrepreneurs who want to change the world’ conference that he chose Newcastle over London for lifestyle reasons.
Gilbert Corrales hopes his music discovery and promotions platform Leaf.fm will become the “Amazon of the music industry”.