Stars Key and Hutch or the new “trip advisor for student”
- 28 avr. 2015
- 3 min de lecture
As a soon to be second year student at Brunel University, I have lived at home for a majority of my life, and only left 6 months ago to live on campus. This means that, in the last few months, I experienced the joy of looking for a house to rent and, as most students will tell you, this is nothing like sunshine and rainbows.
At that exact point I entered the category of first time renter, combined with my status of student, I became an easy prey for some vicious landlords.
Fortunately, I did not become one of these horror stories that you hear all over campus; but how scary is it to hear that a “landlord” stole a tenant’s laptop as security?
We had the chance to be warned by a number of people about all these issues and also got to meet the current tenants of the house we were interested in. We spent some time talking with them and especially explaining what were both the good and bad points of this property and its landlord.
We also got some help from one of my friend’s relative who is in the real estate sector to check the contracts that we were signing and make sure that they were not trying to take advantage of us.
Renting a house, especially as a first time renter is a quite daunting experience and we were really lucky in that we got to meet some previous tenants, however I get that many people do not have that same luxury.
To help all of us in Uxbridge, London but also all over the world to get that same chance, 3 MBAs from Brunel University created a new social network, Stars Key and Hutch or the new “TripAdvisor for students” according to John Prescott, Deputy Prime Minister under Tony Blair’s government.
The 3 postgraduates used their own experience of finding and renting a house to set up this start up aiming to make the process of renting much easier and much safer. Out of the 3 developers, Paul Ouro, and Rajan Dua continued developing the idea and have designed the website with a star rating system for every aspect of the rental accommodation and a commenting section for everyone to share their experience and their opinion.
Officially launched in January, the Start-Up already became a finalist for Mayor of London Boris Johnson’s competition to make London greener by reducing carbon footprints, and has now entered its second contest with Virgin: Pitch to Rich 2015.
This competition is looking to award “ambitious, thrilling but realistic” start ups all over UK with at the end, a prize of £150 000 marketing campaign and 12 months of mentoring and business advice from Virgin Start Up.
Paul Ouro, co-founder of Stars Key and Hutch and local landlord said, “Winning is very important because, as a Start-Up, we have to deal with so many aspects of business we are unfamiliar with. The support of experts will help us grow and the exposure will be tremendous!”
With already 1 000 young renters registered, and a national awareness, the Start-Up is now a few votes away from passing in the second round of the Pitch to Rich 2015 contest. They are currently ranked 56 out of 635 other Start-Up and Mr Ouro said, “we are so close yet so far, but I feel we can really make it to the top 50.”
The team also received the support of the University and Julia Buckingham, Vice Chancellor of Brunel University “Student and alumni innovations is an area that is flourishing. Stars Key and Hutch aims to revolutionise the lettings market; they are now counting on the public vote to advance to the next round and I hope you will find the time to support them.”
To support them, vote in the virgin contest: http://www.virginmediabusiness.co.uk/pitch-to-rich/start-up/stars-key-and-hutch/
To learn more about the company: http://www.starskeyandhutch.com/home
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