How the start-up visa led me to business opportunities in London

We caught up with Saket Gautam who graduated in 2014 after studying Business Administration. Saket successfully applied for the Start-up visa (formerly known as a Tier 1 visa) and has since gone on to set up multiple businesses in London.

Saket reflects back at his start-up journey from his time at university to the present day.

'I wanted to create a tool to help people earn a living. There are so many people who do not have jobs and resources but are willing to work and have required skills to be a cleaner or a plumber but they cannot find jobs. I wanted to provide them work and create jobs.

Today we have a team of 50 cleaners and 15 painters who work for the company Local London Contractors. I have created 60-70 jobs with this company'.


How it started

'The first idea - I wanted to build a mobile application to connect cleaners with consumers in London. The idea was to create a marketplace by connecting cleaners directly with consumers by use of their smartphones. The mobile application was using the smartphone GPS to track the location of the cleaners and we were assigning them jobs in their local areas.

We were making cleaners more efficient and were reducing their administrative work. We wanted to create a platform to support small businesses.'

Support

'The biggest support that I had came from the B-Enterprising team and the start-up manager. Throughout the 2 years I was mentored by Paul Adams who supported me with the overall business strategy. He also helped me to overcome challenges on our day to day operations. Your business is as good as the team around you. Initially, I had trouble hiring good people and a lot of people I had hired didn't match expectations. It took us almost 5 years to get to where we are today. A lot of startups underestimate the time they have to spend on hiring people. Hiring people is one of the key challenges faced by Entrepreneurs worldwide.'

Tips for entrepreneurs
'You hear a lot about 'Do What you Love' but I would advise you to do a business which makes money. I never wanted to run or start a contract cleaning or painting business, I just wanted to do a technology business. After running the technology business for 2 years and burning over £100,000, I pivoted, and started taking cleaning contracts for construction sites. If I had continued with the tech startup than I would have gone bankrupt.

Entrepreneurs should be open to explore different opportunities while doing business. Never get stuck on an idea. Figure out how to make money. Try to avoid taking investment in the first few years of your business. Do it with your own money and grow it slowly. Money can't solve all the problem of the startup world.

Well, I have had a great experience in starting a business. I can say that I love every single day of my work life and I am living the Entrepreneurs dream. It's important to figure out what makes you happy. For me, it was all about helping people and creating jobs.

Learn the basics of cashflow and money management and your first hire should be a sales person in your startup. If you have sales in your business, everything else will fall in line.

Today we are turning over £2million per year and have ideas to start few other businesses in near future.'

Find out more and apply for a Start-Up visa here.