Markou says internet businesses have weathered the worst economic storm since the 1930s successfully because of comparatively low overheads, but more importantly because of continuing growing demand even as most other sectors contracted.
Although online sales growth has slowed this year - to 13.3% according to a report by Verdict Research, from 25% last year and 35% in 2007 - that it's growing at all in the worst recession since the 1930s is a testament to the strength of the sector.
The amount of money spent online in the UK is forecast to grow from GBP8.9bn to GBP21.3bn in the next two years, a 137 per cent rise, according to PayPal in its UK Online Retail Report.
Says Andrew Markou:
"People don't stop buying during downturns, but they do prize value for money, and, because online retailers save money on retail premises and staff, they're ideally positioned to provide it."
The UK can no longer rely on the usual industries to power the recovery, says Andrew. It needs to provide more support to its emerging strength as a key point in the knowledge economy.
"Manufacturing is a minor part of the economy now and we can no longer rely on the City. But one thing the UK can be proud of is its depth of dotcom and IT talent.
"Unfortunately, however, much of that talent is being lured overseas to Silicon Valley because it's so much easier to get the financial and technical support there, and there's a stronger, symbiotic relationship between universities and commerce.
"If the UK is to retain its status as a leading economy it needs to address these issues. A Brit invented the internet and our universities still produce the talent - but we need to support our web-savvy dotcom entrepreneurs if we're to be at the heart of the knowledge economy.
Asked which areas generate the most revenue on the net and will continue to blossom, Andrew says: "Online classifieds - like our flagship brands, BusinessesForSale.com and FranchiseSales.com - social networks, marketing websites and of course online retail will continue to thrive. Online marketing is a huge and growing industry as the return on investment with online advertising blows TV, radio and print advertising out of the water."
When a wave of dotcoms went under after the 'dotcom bubble' burst at the turn of the millennium, some predicted the internet had been overhyped. However, the Markou brothers knew better, realising that the internet businesses failed because they had bad business models - not because the medium itself was flawed.
Says Andrew: "The first dotcom wave failed partly because the paradigm for web business was not properly established; companies tried to apply traditional economics to the new medium. For example, spending vast sums of money on TV or radio advertising, when the return on investment was vastly inferior to getting themselves high in Google through search-engine optimisation or sponsored links.
"There was a lot of hubris: some companies attempted to do more than web infrastructure could handle at that time, tried to expand too quickly or lavished money on indulgent launch parties and opulent offices."
At BusinessesForSale.com they kept on investing in technology and kept faith with a business model based on sound principles.
"Internet use is growing inexorably and as access speeds and digital technologies improve the possibilities increase.
"We decided early on to choose a field with robust demand and a type of business suited to the web. If newspapers are struggling to compete with online news content, then providers of classified advertisers have long since given up the ghost - the sensible ones anyway.
"We knew early on that the web was perfect for classifieds. You can filter searches according to, say, for a business, price, revenue, location, etc, and generate a list of results instantly. Trawling through a newspaper of adverts is always more convoluted and frankly tedious compared to web searches.
"The success of our site, not to mention the eBays, CraigsLists and Gumtrees of the net, have well and truly vindicated us."
Andrew Markou is a veteran in internet terms: he co-founded BusinessesForSale.com with his brother Marcus in 1996 and familiarised himself with the web in the days before it even featured images. The Markou brothers were the first in the businesses-for-sale listings market to realise that eventually everybody would search for businesses on the web.
Since the eBay phenomenon this now seems obvious, but not everyone believed them at the time, many even thinking it was a fad.
Marcus Markou recalls going for a job interview at a marketing company in the early 90s. Asked what he could bring to the company he replied: "I can tell you that the internet will be the most transformative invention for mankind since the railways, and the sooner you get on board the more money you'll make when it takes off." Suffice to say, he didn't get the job and that company no longer exists.
