The founder of online estate agency Doorsteps, Akshay Ruparelia, who announced his resignation as CEO of the company this week, has registered a new company.
AKR Real Estate Ltd has been registered with Companies House with Ruparelia the only named director.
The 22-year old, who still features on the Doorsteps website (see image) as a member of the firm’s senior team, has already confirmed that he will be working on a number of projects with AKR Growth Ventures, which he set-up last year. But it is clear that he also has other plans in mind.
He said this week: “The purpose and mission of AKR Growth Ventures is to change lives by helping young founders, startups and charities disrupt out-of-date and out-of-touch business practices – through technology, organisational culture and exceptional performance.
“I shall be releasing a further statement in the coming weeks as I consider the other exciting challenges and opportunities that I have had time to explore since leaving Doorsteps.co.uk.”
The founder of the online estate agency said this week that he has ‘reluctantly’ left Doorsteps because he and his now former fellow director at Doorsteps “do not share the same strategic vision for the company’s growth”. However, a look at their accounts suggests that the firm’s financial position may have also been a contributing factor behind his decision to quit.
Comments (8)
Those big figures in brackets – are they the pennies that investors will not see – maybe the question is – with no physical offices, and a tiny sales force, where did all the money go? If the shares had been in a listed company the city watchdog (who has no teeth) would have barked a bit but £1M plus gone walkabout … and on to project number two – I bet the original investors can not wait – they will be making some negative noise for sure.
Are the outdated business practices he alludes to things like making a profit, exiting or getting to IPO status so everyone who invested gets a pay day. Rather than exiting as no profit was ever possible. A child knows that the base cost of selling a property is £2,785, so if you charge £99, that means err minus £2,686 a pop, scale that loss up and … million plus in the red. You can stop the cash bleed by not having physical offices, minimal staff, and other income streams fin services etc, but pretty soon you are in the brown stuff.
I mean if you went to your bank and said lend me a million plus, as I have a great idea, cars are expensive, instead of selling them for £25,000 we will sell them for £250, you would certainly do some sales, but also you would eat that million in a few months. Luckliy the bank would say no. Go to crowdfunding site, make up a future value of the business, god knows what the financials were that investors saw looked like, and you have a recipe for disaster.
Maybe before ‘helping’ people anymore, take a degree in economics or basic marketing, maybe mathematics, that would be a good place to start.
“A child knows that the base cost of selling a property is £2,785”
I take it that you have some form of ‘official’ substantiation for that figure that you can share with us?
There are many, many adults running High Street Estate Agencies here ‘oop North that can prove to the children you refer to it can be done – and done well and done profitably – for a lot less than that.
Any other mug got a million to waste on another venture???
Yesterday’s news… literally
You will find it in ‘Post #8’ (or thereabouts) of the press-release-masquerading-as-an-article.
Nice of EYE to catch up, though. And of course thanks for the credit as to where the info emanated.
Oh, wait…
Just what the world needs, another “GURU”
Likewise Michael Bruce jumped ship at Purplebricks in May 2019 (or was he pushed) when it was clear the overseas expansion was a huge mistake.
UK inventory has been shrinking ever since to 7890 today .It was over 19,000 in January 2019 prior to Bruce’s departure.
Managed to jettison the remainder of his shares in June 2019 for 100p a share and the share price is currently languishing at around 81p today without a penny piece paid to shareholders.
Many of these captains you don’t find them with their sleeves rolled up in the trenches ,they are astride the white horse galloping away
“Doorsteps founder wastes little time registering a new company”
Nothing new there .He is not alone,many captains with a swagger whilst appear to be at the bridge to troubled passengers are first to the lifeboats at the first signs of distress to the ship
None more so than EYE correspondent Mr.,Quirk
He was in such a rush to register his new PR company on the 1st October 2018 that he failed to undertake due diligence and has now ended up having to change the name of the company from Properganda to Properpr Ltd at the insistence of another established company with a similar name
.Proper Charlie more like
This was a full 2 months before Emoov was put into administration on December 3rd
Drongos who continually fail in business are a danger to society.