Richard Price
LiveOut was started in November 2005, by four Oxford University students. It is an online database of student rental property, and it makes money by charging estate agents and landlords to list their properties on the site.
Do you think there are enough role models of young people who have set up their own businesses? Who if anyone has inspired you?
I find a lot of entrepreneurs inspiring: Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Sergey Brin and Larry Page. It’s also really inspiring to meet entrepreneurs starting out now – people who are taking the risks, and facing the same problems that you are facing.
I love meeting and learning from young people who are in the process of setting up businesses.
How did you get your first break?
Getting LiveOut.co.uk up and running, and profitable, was definitely satisfying. There was no magic formula – just lots of hard work developing the site, and signing up estate agents!
Has this been an important part of getting you where you are now?
I’m currently setting up other online businesses, and my experience in setting up LiveOut.co.uk has been very valuable.
Who is the one person who has been most influential in your success?
Lots of my friends and family have been influential, in terms of pushing me to consider options that I wasn’t considering before.
Have you ever been a part of a network which has helped your business (E.g. MySpace, Bebo, a networking club, informal peer network)?
I’m part of two: Internet People, run by Robert Loch, and Second Chance Tuesday, run by Michael Smith. They’re both really helpful.
How did your idea become a reality? Was it a passion which turned into a business idea?
I realised that there was a need in Oxford for an online database of student rental property.
I talked over the idea with some friends, and they encouraged me to pursue it. I found three others to join as founders, and then we started talking to estate agents to see if they would use the site.
How did you get access to finance (E.g. Friends and family/ banks/ other)?
To begin with, the business mainly required time – time for programming, and time signing up estate agents. After 2 months, the site started to make money.
Have you ever worked for someone else? How was the experience?
I have worked for a few companies, and definitely found that the experiences I had were valuable.
What would your advice be to someone thinking about setting up their own business? How would you encourage someone to ‘take the plunge’ and overcome a fear of failure?
My advice is to start off doing something, anything, whether it is selling lemonade in the summer, or making and selling jewellery. You should learn a lot from the experience.
The business you choose may not make any money, and you may close it after six months, but you’ll learn a lot from trying to set it up.
About taking on risk, a friend of mine, Bob Goodson, gave me some advice: to set something up whilst at university.
You can use the spare time you have to test the waters for your idea. Then you can see how well the idea is doing before deciding whether to take the plunge or not.