Last year Ed Moyse and Ross Harper graduated from Cambridge University in England. In the past, this would have been a passport to a good job, but that isn’t the case these days. And, as Ed explains, they also had to pay back the money that they had borrowed for their university fees:
Ed Moyse (Standard British accent): In the UK now it’s a bit of a tough time for students ‘cause the education fees have just risen from around £3,000 to £9,000 a year, and also the graduate job climate is more hostile than ever because we, as graduates, are competing not only against graduates of our own year group, but also graduates of the previous year groups who found it difficult to get a job during the recession.
A Business Idea
And so they set up their own business: ‘Buy My Face’. Every day Ed and Ross paint each other’s faces. They put their images up on the internet and invite companies to ‘rent’ them for advertising campaigns. It started out as a joke, but viral success soon helped the dynamic duo land some impressive clients, as Ross explains:
Ross Harper (Standard British accent) : We’ve had some big graduate recruiters. So Ernst & Young and Capita Hartshead and Eversheds are all big graduate recruiters. And we’ve had a bookies, Paddy Power, which is a very large betting website. We’ve had HostPapa, who are a big website hosting company, we’ve had Yousendit, which is a very large delivery service. We just did a logo for ShiteShirts, which is a company which is based around producing really, really bad shirts, novelty joke shirts, and they sent us over a couple of their products, which was really fun, but their logo was a little shirt, which I had to sort of like… I used my imagination and coloured it in different colours and that was quite a fun one to do, I got to exercise my artistic side there!
My Girlfriend Says...
Not surprisingly, people often wonder about their private lives. We asked Ed whether he had a girlfriend:
Ed Moyse: Ross and I both have girlfriends, which is often a shock to a lot of people, ‘cause they hear about these two guys who spend every single day living together and painting each other’s faces, you know, every single waking moment, really, isn’t it? And then they find out we’ve got girlfriends, it’s a bit of a shock to them! But our girlfriends are very supportive of the idea, if perhaps a little jealous of the fact… my girlfriend’s called Louise, she’s a bit jealous of the fact that I see Ross more than I see her these days, but she’s working in London, so it works out all right, I still get to see her quite a bit.
Just Do It!
In conclusion, we asked Ross what advice he had for young people who wanted to start a new business:
Ross Harper: My advice would be, based on the experiences we’ve had: If you have an idea, and you would like to try it out, give it a go, and, as long as it’s new, and you put your effort in, you’ve got a very good chance of it turning out the way you want it to, and really having a good time while doing it as well.
Para saber más: Buy My Face: Mobile Marketing
