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“Listen to the market. When I first launched, it was just for whole rental properties—but I saw the apartment-share bolt-on was getting all the attention. So I pivoted. I've never looked back.”
Rupert Hunt graduated with a music degree, moved to London, and found himself stocking shelves at a supermarket. Without any programming experience, he interned for a local internet entrepreneur to learn web development—then landed a full-time role at a web agency.
Drawing on his own experience struggling to find a place to rent in London, Rupert built a rental listing site called IntoLondon.com. At the last minute, he added a message board for people looking for housemates—just in case anyone wanted to share instead of rent alone.
The rental listings went nowhere. The housemate noticeboard took off. So he listened, pivoted, and launched SpareRoom.co.uk—a flat-sharing site for the whole UK—on £5,000 of credit card debt.
In 2004, he organized "Speed Flatmating" events—like speed dating, but for finding housemates. One small local paper showed up to the first. The Times of London saw the story and called asking about the next event. Rupert said Thursday. He hadn't planned anything yet—but he pulled it together. By the third event: 2 TV crews, 5 radio stations, 9 journalists. Things exploded from there.
SpareRoom is now the UK's largest flatsharing site, generating over $2M in annual operating profit—all without outside investors. Rupert later used his own site to find flatmates and fell back in love with the business all over again.
"Listen to the market. When I first launched SpareRoom it was just for whole rental properties and there wasn't much interest. I saw it was the last-minute apartment share bolt-on that was getting all the attention. So I listened to the market, took a gamble, and pivoted—I've never looked back."
