Akshay Ruparelia is a 19-year-old kid from Harrow, North East London who runs an online real estate agency worth millions. Doorsteps was recently valued at around twelve million pounds are just one year of business. Within just a year Ruparelia has raised over $530,000 along with over 500 investors owning a total just over 3% of his company.
He sold his first house while in still in school. Akshay, without a car, would use his girlfriends brother at the time to drive him around to these homes to take photos for his website. Each client looking to sell a home would pay Akshay 99 pounds to take photos of their home and post it on his website no matter what house it was. This price was market breaking considering other real estate agencies would charge 2-3% commission for each sale which equates to around ten thousand pounds.
As of now, Doorsteps has sold more than 1,500 homes all worth around 120 million pounds as a whole, saving customers over a million pounds in just one year. The average sale time is 20 days when dealing with Doorsteps; while the nation’s average is 57 days. Akshay currently employs 15-20 local agents to take pictures and show prospective buyers around. Doorsteps offers a dedicated agent, 24/7 operation, a live online portal, and the opportunity to reach millions of buyers for just 99 pounds. As of 2017, Doorsteps was claimed to be the 18th best real estate agency in the United Kingdom; Akshay claims that in the near future his company will be number one. At this rate, his goal seems as if it is very close to becoming a reality.
During my research the real estate platform continuously appeared as an area ripe for innovation. The public clearly agrees with the scholars on this point seeing that the company has skyrocketed in success in just one year. I also love a cool story about a company’s humble beginning and how it became successful. I wonder if he plans on ever expanding to the United States?
Wow, it is amazing to see someone capitalize on a natural talent such as this. I wonder how his business will continue to expand in the future?
Akshay Ruparelia was able to look at the real estate market and add his own solution to a problem that he saw needed solving. He was able to make it easier and quicker for people to sell their houses and find new houses. Also a story that shows hard work pays off and keep fighting for a business with a future.