Man turned ‘last £200’ of student loan into ‘multi-million pound’ business | Personal Finance | Finance
Before graduating from Oxford University, Joe Seddon, now 25, grew up in a single-parent family in West Yorkshire and attended state schools. Mr Seddon told Express.co.uk that after witnessing first-hand just how high the barriers are for ambitious young people from low-opportunity backgrounds to reach top universities and careers, he wanted to “do something about it” – he’s now turning over millions while doing so.
Mr Seddon said: “I believe that talent is spread evenly, it’s just that opportunity is not. The Government, businesses, and universities were all talking about levelling up and becoming more representative of the population, but whilst there was lots of talk, there was very little action.
“I wanted to change that by launching a company that would build innovative technology to unlock the potential of talented young people from low-opportunity backgrounds.”
Mr Seddon launched his business, Zero Gravity, from his childhood bedroom in Morley with “the last £200” of his student loan and no other funding.
Zero Gravity is a free online platform which connects state school students with university mentors to win offers at Oxbridge and Russell Group universities, as well as graduate careers.
Since launching in 2020, Mr Seddon has grown a team of 25 people and has secured £4million of investor funding, allowing him to help more than 8,000 low-income students achieve top university places, and then into top careers.
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Mr Seddon said: “You don’t need a fancy office or team to get going; just an idea, a clear plan of action, and a relentless drive to deliver results.
“I used the £200 to buy a domain name and web hosting and then used self-taught coding skills to build a website and basic version of, what is now, the Zero Gravity platform. I bought subscriptions to a variety of SAAS products to optimise my productivity, enabling me to create professional videos, graphics, PowerPoint decks, and marketing campaigns without having to pay external agencies.
“I then launched Zero Gravity to the world with a marketing campaign on my own Facebook profile which led to over 1,000 user sign-ups within the first 24 hours.”
Speaking on how he persevered through the challenge of having no initial funding to kickstart the business, Mr Seddon said: “There’s a horrendous concept in the world of early-stage business called the ‘friends and family’ funding round. Founders are expected to raise money from people within their immediate network in order to kickstart their businesses. However, to most people, this is not an option.”
Mr Seddon continued: “Not everyone has a rich uncle who works in investment banking who can invest £50,000 in their idea. When I launched Zero Gravity at the age of 21, I certainly didn’t have anyone in my network who could invest, so I had to operate for the first six months with next to no funding.
“I had to build a network from scratch, and I did this by growing the Zero Gravity brand on social media and, from that, securing media opportunities. After a couple of newspaper articles featured what I was doing, investors started to reach out to me and from there I was able to build a network of investors.”
When growing a business from nothing, Mr Seddon stressed the importance of being “relentlessly focused” on achieving “a few” set goals.
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Mr Seddon said: “It would’ve been mind-blowing to my 21-year-old self that Zero Gravity would be working with amazing clients such as HSBC and KPMG to transform access to the workplace. But this is just the start for us and I want to see Zero Gravity levelling the playing field across the entire workforce – first in the UK, and then the world.”
Mr Seddon continued: “To date, we’ve raised £4million from social impact investors and Zero Gravity is now worth multi-million pounds.
“Zero Gravity is completely free for our members, and we make money by working with leading employers to identify top talent from low-opportunity backgrounds, and transform access to their internship and graduate roles.”
Mr Seddon added: “Don’t expect to have a ‘eureka moment’ when it comes to finding a ground-breaking business idea. Focus on solving a problem that you deeply understand and have a unique perspective on. Some of the biggest companies today started out in bedrooms solving the problems of their founders.”
