Grad2Director updates – James Thorn
In February we published a blog highlighting how our Grad2Director program had helped eight recent York St John graduates turn their business ideas into viable opportunities, becoming directors of their own companies in the process.
“Validation, Confidence, Belief”
We recently had the chance to sit down with York St John graduate and current Postgraduate student, James Thorn, one of our eight Grad2Director participants to be supported by the University with funding to start up their own company.
James’s engagement with Grad2Director started with an ambition to start his own company, but without a refined business idea, instead, James had identified a problem with the private rented accommodation sector, and was determined to develop a solution that would benefit landlords, agent and tenants alike.
Having first graduated from York St John with a degree in Business Management in 2013, James went on to spend a number of years working in the property industry before coming back to York St John to study a Master’s Degree in International Business Management. During his time working in industry, James quickly identified that communication was a significant issue in the property sector, “The main source of complaints throughout the property sector arise and escalate due to a lack of communication, where tenants often feel they are left in the dark when not continuously updated about a situation regarding their property” James told us, ” in a situation where a tenant is raising an issue with their agent, that issue is usually separately communicated across a number of stakeholders, using a range of different methods before the issue is finally resolved.”
James regularly checks Eventbrite looking for technology or entrepreneurial related events in the local area, and one day came across a series of workshops being hosted at York St John as part of our Grad2Director Programme. “I booked onto a workshop through Eventbrite and ended up having a 1:1 with John on the same day, which was really good, we talked about my thoughts and came up with an idea, most importantly John challenged me to prove the communications concerns I was aware of existed, so that when I had a product to present it was based on evidence and research that had been carried out. I managed to speak to a lot of landlords, agents and tenants, explaining that I was doing a research project as part of my master’s degree, and through that research I was able to confirm and validate the communications issues across the property sector, which gave me the foundation I needed to develop my solution.
James’s research and underpinning knowledge of the property sector led to the development of his property management tool, Tenancy Stream, designed to make property management smarter by introducing a single client friendly, efficient and transparent application to streamline communication between landlords, agents, and tenants, one of the features of which is an AI-driven programme with instant replies that reduces the hassle and admin pressures by ensuring that all the relevant information about any given issue is made available right from the start, cutting out a lot of early backwards and forwards communication.
The progress James has made through Grad2Director means that his website is already live, with the company ready to start talking to potential clients, with a view to having Tenancy Stream live and working with partners by June/July this year. We asked James where he sees himself and Tenancy Stream in 6-12 months’ time “Hopefully within the next 12 months we’ll have established ourselves as a real property tech contender in the London property sector, with an office based down there along with a small tech and sales team in place, beyond that I would love to start expanding into international markets, although John is really good at making sure I keep my feet on the ground, he often refers to me as a dreamer because I’m always talking about my ambitions and where I want to take it next, and it’s often really good that he’s there to bring me back to the present and keep my focus balanced on the short term as well as long term.”
Finally we asked James what three words he would use to describe what Grad2Director has done or given him, and what advice he would give any current students thinking of starting their own business “I think I would say validation, confidence and belief, John has been really helpful from that respect, he has such extensive knowledge of technology and business start-ups and has been on hand to offer invaluable advice and guidance at every stage, he knows what makes a good business idea and I’ve just felt supported by him and the University from the very start. In terms of advice for current student I would say speak to John! and go out and test your idea with the appropriate stakeholders.”
If you will be graduating in 2018 and have a business idea of your own, then keep an eye out for when our Grad2Director programme opens again later this year, maybe this time next year you could be running your own company.
