Introducing Resi and why I started a second start-up

If you had asked me in 2015, after I had just sold my first company, whether I would ever touch a start-up again, I would have laughed. Then maybe cried.

Because honestly, I was a mess after Hassle was acquired. A crying, grateful, literally just had a baby, mess.

So, how did I end up from there, to founding one of the leading residential architecture practices in the UK?

As with everything, creating my second start-up — Resi.co.uk — was about two things: product and people.

How Resi came about

With Hassle, my first start-up, me and Jules (my business partner and best friend) came up with the idea when Jules wanted to learn piano but couldn’t find a teacher. We said, wouldn’t it be great if there was a site where you could find all the local services near you? This then slowly became more specific, until at last Hassle was born, a website designed to help you find a cleaner — the most sought after service.

Discovering you need a product that doesn’t exist yet is the dream for entrepreneurs. I worried we had just got lucky with Hassle. What if we couldn’t find another gap for something new?

Then we both entered the housing market, aka hell on earth.

With the money we had both made from selling our business, both of us started looking for some new housing options. Jules wanted to buy somewhere she could do up and make her own, I wanted to do a simple side extension to create new space in the house I loved.

Both things sound simple on paper, and yet Jules ended up spending a fortune dragging builders from property to property in order to see their development potential, and me… well…

First, there was the architect I hired, who I paid £2500, only to end up with not a single drawing two months down the line. And then, on top of all that, there came the contractor who was such a nightmare we ended up needing a new builder just to finish the job. Goodbye, £50,000!

By the end of our housing nightmare, both myself and Jules looked at each other and said: there has to be a better way.

Turns out, there was a better way. We just needed to create it first.

Working out why the world needs your start-up

Okay, so we knew there was something wrong with the housing market, but what?

We had learned in our first business that trying to be everything for everyone just convolutes what you’re trying to do. With our second venture, we wanted to hone in on one area to transform.

In the end, that one area was architecture. Why?

• It’s a vital service that most homeowners avoid because of its elitist reputation.
• It’s dated, some architects barely have a website.
• Prices vary wildly in the industry, meaning no one knows what’s top end and who’s just chancing it.
• It’s the first step for most home projects, allowing us to influence the rest of the customer journey.

And lastly, after my failed first attempt, I had ended up with two great architects by my side. Rich and Nick had 15 years of experience in the industry, and they were just as keen as we were to shake things up.

The stars just seemed to line up.

We quickly worked out what we wanted to create, and what the market was hungry for. This was…

• A company that broke down and simplified the steps needed to realise a home project.
• A service that made great architectural design affordable and understandable to everyday homeowners.
• A product that used tech to bring customers closer to their architect, and allowed them to manage the process intuitively and with ease.

Working out why you need this start-up

So we knew what product we wanted to create. We had brought on industry experts to make it happen. Myself and Jules had the knowledge and skillset to get it off the ground. But there was still one thing I needed to do first.

Work out why I wanted to do this again.

To anyone looking at creating a start-up, I highly recommend working out your reasons beforehand why you want to take on such an insane venture. Because it is insane. Start-ups fail. Money, big money, is lost. There’s long hours, difficult investors, painful rejections, all paving the way to your goal.

I had already done it once. Already ripped my hair out once. The first had been a success, why did I want to do it again?

For me, the reasons why I wanted to jump back in the ring slowly revealed themselves…

• The big reason I wanted to found Resi was because I knew we had a product that could benefit homes across the UK.
• I was also sick of people telling me how ‘lucky’ I was to have sold my first business. I didn’t want luck, I wanted hard-earned success.
• If I’m honest, I love work too. After we left Hassle, Jules and I tried lazing around London and both hated it.
• I also wanted to use this business to create a new kind of workspace, one that could work for anyone regardless of gender, faith, experience, or whether or not they had children. I wanted an office that I wish I had had when entering the working world.

And so, with everything I now needed lined up, me and the other founders set to work to make Resi.co.uk a reality.

Over the course of these blogs, myself and the rest of the leadership team will talk in depth about the challenges and successes we’ve had.

If this glimpse into Resi’s creation has sparked any questions you have on business, home improvement, or life in general, get in touch. Each week we want to be answering the questions future entrepreneurs are asking.

And don’t forget to check out Resi.co.uk!