“Millionaires Are Made In Recessions”

Or so the saying goes. With many people struggling to make economies or to make their budgets stretch that much further right now, anything which can save money has the potential to make money, for a person with the right idea.
Will Millar from Canterbury certainly took the quote to heart, and decided to see if he could come up with a brilliant business idea which needed little or no capital to start up, but could generate an income for himself. He put pen to paper and describes the results;

“With a list as long as my arm – some better than others – I went through the filter process of seeing which businesses could be started with no capital whatsoever. Eventually – everyday life took over and the list was forgotten”
Like many people, finding the ‘right’ idea can’t be forced, it sometimes takes a Eureka moment for everything to fall into place. You see a solution to a problem or find a gap in a market to exploit. For Will, the fact that we’re all trying to save money nowadays has proved to be the inspiration he needed for his new venture – ‘Journey Checker’.

“I was trying to arrange transport to visit my parents in Scotland and was shocked by the costs quoted for rail, train or coach routes when I visited the relevant websites. After much time and effort I found the most cost-effective solution was to combine transport methods, and I made a large saving by travelling first by coach to London and then onto Edinburgh by train”

“My search had provided me with some very interesting problems which needed solutions. I didn’t know the names of smaller operators, like Greyhound UK, who offer highly affordable coach travel on selected routes. The most frustrating thing though, was not being able to calculate the most cost-effective way to travel, without visiting numerous websites and noting down prices and offers with different carriers. Why couldn’t I just use one site, a bit like MoneySupermarket.com, where my entire journey could be keyed in, my preferences logged and my options displayed?”

So the idea for Journey Checker had been born, fitting neatly into the slot of ‘saving people money’ – always good in a recession. But Will’s original idea for a new business had involved starting up with no capital, and Journey Checker was certainly never going to be born without funding for the website interface which the whole idea relies upon. So what did he do?

Firstly, Will went to www.peopleperhour.com to get quotes from highly skilled web designers and developers, in order to set a realistic budget for such a large scale site. Apart from having very precise data capabilities, the venture would also require licences, in order that real time travel prices and information could be accessed. After many discussions it was found that the site start up would require £9,000 – not exactly a small amount for many people to find. But Men’s Health Magazine managed to come to the rescue with a great idea for raising finance – crowd funding, which is growing in popularity in uncertain economic times.

Will placed his idea onto www.crowdfunder.co.uk very recently and is hoping for a large number of small investors to vote with their feet and back Journey Checker, by investing as much or as little as they can afford. The joy of using Crowdfunder is that if a project fails to make the amount required, investors get their money back, so it’s a very safe way to invest anything from £10 to £1,000’s. The site takes a small commission fee for successful pitches, and some pitches end up taking far more investment than originally planned for.

The Journey Checker site will generate revenue in the same way as comparison/broker sites, whereby affiliate commission will be earned from the travel companies for each successful transaction. Although travel commission is far less than insurance commission, Will sees this as less important than the fact that the site will be able to bring much smaller players into the journey planning equation, meaning they may well enjoy far increased sales from a successful Journey Checker site. It really will be win-win all round.

Whilst the Crowdfunder pitch is on-going Will, 25, is spending his time arranging links with transport providers, in order to hit the ground running once the site is ready to be built. For a young man, he’s really shown how an everyday problem can allow you to create a brilliant solution. With a solid background in marketing, Will has the skills and knowledge required to make this venture succeed, through developing excellent working relationships with all parties concerned. Although young, he definitely has what it takes to work at high levels within industries, something which is vital when trying to deal with multiple companies of all sizes.

Want to get on board on be involved in the site? You’ll be given a credit for you donation, no matter how small and will be helping a budding entrepreneur to realise his first step towards his lifelong dreams – to own a property business and his own airline.

To invest in Journey Checker or to find out more about what you will receive in return for your investment please visit www.inventorsshowcasemagazine.com and read the full story in the August edition – you could be involved in the next big thing after all!