Doorsteps founder reveals ‘next project’ but hints at Doorsteps return
Akshay Ruparelia also reveals that he was paid just £3,000 at the time of his departure, and explains that he not a 'cash' millionaire yet.
Doorsteps founder Akshay Ruparelia has said that he expects to re-join the hybrid estate agency that he founded aged just 17 but from which he resigned ‘reluctantly’ in June.
Talking during a BBC Asian network podcast interview with presenter Sonya Barlow, he revealed that he’d only ‘stepped down for now’ in response to a question from the presenter, leaving the running of his company to his former business partner and co-founder, Mark Kotecha.
The young entrepreneur, who is now 24 years old, also dispelled some of the claims made for his ‘millionaire’ status by several media outlets including the BBC.
“We did a couple of external funding rounds for the Doorsteps business of £2m+ million to help us grow the business in return for a stake in the business… which valued it at £18 million and based on my shareholding that made a millionaire,” he said.
Impactful business
But Ruparelia says this cash will only be realised when Doorsteps is sold which, he admitted to Barlow, is some way off yet – adding that the hybrid agency could only become an impactful business with value once it “achieved scale”.
Ruparelia told the podcast that he wasn’t paid for six months after the Doorsteps business launched, and was only paid £500 a month after that and then, after a few years, £1,000 a month finishing at £3,000 a month just before he left.
His next project, Ruparelia revealed, is a social enterprise recruitment and consulting business helping businesses find talent via the government’s Kickstart and Welfare to Work schemes
Photo: SpeakerAgency.co.uk
I find it hard to imagine how Doorsteps will ever exit, as to my knowledge it does not solve any problem in a commercially viable manner, or improve the UX of an stakeholder. And it has burnt through all of its resources.
At least Ruparelia has de-bunked the myth that a fictional market capitalisation dreamed up by founders looking to raise capital from investors, does not make any founder a millionaire overnight until that company IPO’s or exits.
The truer picture being zero income or low income is often the case for the founding team, during their first sprint phase, despite all the capital pouring into the project.