The Ones to Watch: Rich Martell, founder, Floxx.com

1. Describe your business in one sentence

Floxx.com, previously known as FitFinder, is a location-based micro-blogging service which allows users to anonymously post flirty messages and descriptions of 'hot' people they have seen in their area, creating 'hotspots' of good-looking people.  

2. How did you come up with the idea for Floxx?

My friends and I used to text each other if we saw attractive girls in the library at Uni. This became an integral part of our library revision sessions!  

This planted the idea in my head that these conversations could be had online and would get more people involved in one conversation about a hottie they've seen on the tube, for instance. The site's just a bit of harmless flirting.  
 
In April last year, FitFinder was born. I created the site overnight and by 9am the next morning, the libraries of UCL (University College London) were full of people using FitFinder. It had over 2000 hits in the first day and overwhelmed the servers.  I remember that evening I received requests from Imperial College and the London School of Economics, to add them to the site and allow their students to use FitFinder.
 
I ran the London Marathon later that week and by the time I had got home I had new requests from Oxford, Cambridge and Nottingham Universities, all of which went live the following week.
 
In one month, FitFinder had created nearly five million impressions across 50 universities.

3. What was your reaction when you were forced to shut down your original website and you received a fine from your university?

I think it was harsh to be honest.  I thought the university would have wanted to encourage me to be enterprising.  

It was frustrating because the website had grown substantially in a month and had created a lot of interest, more than I could ever have imagined it would.  I really felt like I was on to something, but the site was forced offline by the university, who had threatened to withhold my degree results unless the site was taken down. I also had to pay £300 for "bringing the college into disrepute".

I didn’t want to waste the three years I’d spent studying and decided I needed to get my degree, so, I took it down.
 
4. Before your investors Doug Richard and Kevin Wall came on board, did you have plans to re-launch the website?

I’m not one to give up easily. I come from an entrepreneurial family; both my parents are entrepreneurs and I felt that FitFinder was something exciting that had only scratched the surface of its true potential.
 
I was always planning on re-launching the website after I'd graduated, but never dreamed of a re-launch on the scale that we have achieved. Doug Richard and Kevin Wall have given the business expertise, contacts, resource and capital. We've created a great website and an iPhone app, two things I've only been able to achieve with the help of the investors.     

5. Why did you decide to take on investors at such an early stage and how did you attract them to the business?

The original FitFinder site caused a real uproar. After reading an article about UCL closing the site down, Doug Richard [former Dragons' Den panellist] got in touch with me on Twitter. He was impressed with the interest in FitFinder and saw an opportunity, I suppose. I'd proven that FitFinder had market demand and that appealed to him.
 
Doug then introduced me to heavyweight US investor, Kevin Wall, and they have both become the founding angel investors in, what is now, Floxx.
 
Without the angel investment I would never have had the expertise nor capital that the site required to make the most out of the opportunity in front of me.

6. Why did you re-launch the website with a new name?

I’ve always been aware that saying you think someone is 'fit' is a very British thing to say. It doesn't have the same connotation in the US as it does here and I have always believed that the website has global potential.
 
FitFinder then became Floxx. I felt the site would attract a tribe of users, similar to my friends and I sitting in UCL library and texting each other about the hotties around us. We wanted the name to represent a common sense of fun and individuality and I think 'Floxx' does that.  

7. Your company is still attracting controversy with reports that some university campuses have banned it. Do you think that such controversy will hinder your company’s growth or are you convinced that it is viable business?

Only one establishment has banned Floxx and that is a technical college in Northampton that teach under 18s. Incidentally, this college also banned Twitter and Facebook.    
 
I believe that every successful business requires an element of jeopardy. I am hoping that by doing something different, we will be successful. The website is intended as a bit of fun and any negative feedback has been minimal since our re-launch.

8. Floxx is very similar to Facebook in its early days. Do you have plans to take on Facebook and expand your website into a larger social network?

Facebook is about keeping in touch with friends, whereas Floxx is about flirting with people as your spot them. It's impossible to predict how Floxx will take off, but we have been really pleased with the way the site has taken off since its re-launch, and hope that the user numbers will reach into the millions.

9. What are your three tips for other entrepreneurs looking to launch a start-up?

Expertise: Get smart advisors on board early
Enjoyment: Be passionate about your business idea and make it happen
Endurance: Don't take no for an answer. Never give up!