I was homeless and living in a car – now I run a multi-million pound property business
A MAN who found himself homeless and living in his car as a teenager now owns a thriving business worth £5million helping other people to buy homes easily.
Kieran Witt, 31, is one of seven and when there was no space left for him in the three bed council house he shared with his single mum and six siblings he was forced to move out and sofa surf with friends.
His ordeal trying for years to get a roof over his head led him to set up a business making the process of home buying easier and it now has a valuation of £5 million.
Kieran says. “We were quite a poor family. I’m the eldest of seven siblings.
“My mum never worked and we were on benefits. We were in a small three bed council house and there’s rules around teenagers sharing bedrooms with young kids. And you can’t have mixed gender sharing.
“That forced the situation where I needed to move out of the property.”
Seventeen-year-old Kieran was in his first year of college studying for his A levels and despite having a part time job, he did not have the means to pay rent.
He says: “That forced the situation where there was nowhere to live essentially and that was the start of sofa surfing with friends.
“I probably did that for about four to six months – bouncing between different friends and out-staying my welcome – and trying to work out how I actually get a place of my own.”
Kieran says he was left a small £1,500 inheritance when his uncle passed away – just enough to invest in a car and then as a way to relieve pressure on friends who he was staying with, he would spend time sleeping in it.
He says: “My duvet and all my possessions didn’t move with me between the houses anymore. They just stayed in my car.
“I would end up just sleeping on the back seat and in the summer months, it’d be perfectly fine, because it was quite warm, but then obviously in the winter, a car’s got absolutely no insulation at all. And so it gets pretty cold.
“I would have to find somewhere to park and sleep without it looking like I was asleep in the car because it’s a bit weird and embarrassing if someone walks by.
“I would wonder how I was going to get a shower – that kind of thing.
“I was fortunate enough to play on the basketball team at college and so had facilities that I could make use of for free.
“The worries were more: where am I going to sleep next? And when you’re in the car there is no heating and you’re eating cold beans or some super cheap biscuits to get you by.”
Once Kieran was 18, he was viewed as an adult so it made it harder for him to get help.
He was given a space in an 11 bedroom hostel but he had to find an agency job in a bank, putting in lots of hours around his studies.
He says: “Once you’re in a hostel, you can apply for housing and a few months into that job I was fortunate enough to get allocated a property.
“So I had my own property and I had a job and stability was returning.
I then got a £1,000 grant from the local council government to furnish the property because obviously, it’s all well and good getting a property, but if you don’t have a cooker, a washing machine or a sofa, it’s only as good as a car.
“So I got a grant to do that and through working, then paid it back.
“I stayed in that job for about 11 years just working my way up through the corporate system.
“I had enough money coming in to pay rent, come off of benefits and have a proper place that you could be proud of.”
HOW THE BUSINESS STARTED
Kieran started his business in 2022.
He says: “I got myself to a position where I’d saved up enough to now buy my own property with a first time buyer mortgage and a help to buy ISA.
“I had to work hard to build up savings for a deposit, but it was relatively easy to then get on the ladder. And that’s where my business started to come to fruition.
The home buying process is just horrific in terms of the process, the stress and the lack of support that you get through it.
I’d spent the best part of the prior five years of my career in finance making complex financial products like investments simple for the average person to understand and actually use. And so that context coming into the home buying process I was then wondering why is this still so complex? Why is it so frustrating for someone or hard for someone to actually work through this process? And that was the genesis of the idea.
“A year or so later I then came to sell that property and purchase a new one with my partner. And it’s at that point, I went through the process again. Exactly the same problems this time.
So that’s when I decided to actually do something about it and I launched Kotini.
“Essentially, what I’ve created is a software platform, a bit of technology that estate agents can use with their buyers and sellers to make the purchase and sale of properties easier.
“We help the agent to follow the rules. So helping them to complete ID checks and anti money laundering checks on their customers.
“But then we also make it super easy for the buyers and sellers to do what they need to in the property transaction.
So, if you use an estate agent today, the majority of the time everything’s paper based or through emails. It’s not centralised and so we give buyers and sellers a bit of control over that process by giving them a place to manage their transaction.
Kieran started the business with a £5,000 grant from a government scheme called innovate UK and he was paid a living wage for one day a week.
He says: “That meant I could quit my job or go down to part time to then start the business.
“That funding worked out to be about £17,000 over the year.
“By February 2023 I had built up the business, using that money, testing a few ideas and different concepts and putting together a business plan.
“By March 2023 I was ready to launch the business properly and start raising investment from a range of different people – funds that take money from wealthy people around the country and then just deploy it into start ups.
“We raised £250,000 at the time at a valuation and with that money, we then grew the business.
“I brought in new people into the team and we started to build our product.
“We are a technology business, which ultimately means that we have to build our products before customers are willing to pay.
“We built a product and sold it to some estate agencies – now we have about 38 estate agencies using it.
“We know our estate agents like our product and they’re referring us to other estate agents. We’re now looking at growing the business and accelerating.
“Kotini is currently valued at £1.55m, and we’re currently in the process of raising investment, which would value the company at £5m.
“I have moved significantly away from being that person who was homeless.”
How to apply for help if you're starting up a business
THERE are a number of schemes you can apply for to get a financial boost towards starting your own business.
There are hundreds of grants available from the Government for small businesses, from getting a discount on business premises to buying cheaper IT equipment.
Use the Government’s business support finder by visiting: gov.uk/business-finance-support to find one that’s right for you.
You may also be able to get a Government-backed start up loan, for example through the Start Up Loans Scheme.
Through this scheme you can get up to £25,000 in personal loans with comparatively lower interest rates than other loans.
To apply for a Government grant or scheme, contact the grant body and ask how likely you are to be approved before applying.
Read the objectives of the grant and make sure you can meet them, then tailor your application around these objectives.
Make sure you have a solid business plan with your business position and balance sheet.
Do you have a money problem that needs sorting? Get in touch by emailing money-sm@news.co.uk.
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