Thursday 24th January
Rich Martell, the 23-year old Founder and CEO of Floxx, launched the Junior Entrepreneurship Society on Thursday 24th January. After a rebellious school career, Rich Martell ended up studying computer science at University College London and noticed many of his friends texted about the location of attractive girls on the campus. As a joke, he set up FitFinder where students could post the location of other attractive women. This went viral and had over 250,000 users before being shut down when the London School of Economics threatened to take legal action and to revoke his degree. After a short spell working as a trader in the City, Rich set up Floxx. The funding for which was achieved when- after an approach from an investor from Dragon’s Den- he valued his company at £1,000,000 and raised £100,000 for just 10% of the equity. Floxx has developed a series of successful apps, including Via and Appdaq. Turnover was £200,000 last year and is projected to double in 2013. Rich Martell offered five short but key lessons for future entrepreneurs:
1. Create a good team
2. Work hard
3. Analyse and perfect all aspects of your business – constant trial and error
4. Network effectively
5. Hustle for good deals
This was a successful and enjoyable first meeting of the Junior Entrepreneurship Society and I'm sure all who were there look forward to the future meetings.
Jamie Cuffe (NCWS)