Jonathan Merry is a 23-year-old founder of MoneyTransfers located in Aldgate, London. A new online business that started in February, employs three staff members and has turned over around £125,000 in revenue since launch.
Here is his Under 25 story!
“My business is an online money transfer and remittance comparison site, simply put – we help people save money when sending money! We monetize via partnership agreements with the money transfer companies such as Transferwise, which means we get a commission when someone signs up and transfers via our referral link.
I started in February of 2019 and I had a few reasons for doing so. The biggest being that my previous company operated a number of affiliate comparison sites in the forex trading space and so I learned the affiliate and comparison operations very well. From here I spotted a gap in the money transfer market while looking for a provider to send money to my friend in Poland.
We found that most providers don’t list their fees until you sign up or talk to them on the phone, an outrageous proposition which means that you spend a lot of unnecessary time comparing and most people won’t bother. Looking at my bank I found the fees were around 9% but the cheapest money transfer provider was 0.5%!
People needed to be informed and know this, and so the idea was born and I spent the next 3 months researching and building my business case and applying for business loans.
The main personal challenge aside from profitability which is the no.1 challenge new businesses always face was burnout from stress and overwork. Moving from doing the work to managing and planning it in, alongside having your own money on the line means the work is completely different and you often feel like you’re in a sinking ship.
Stress starts eating at you and contributes to burnout cause you’re working all the time to solve every problem to try and solve your stress. I’m still managing this now but it’s still a real challenge!”
Jonathan has taken an everyday problem and created a great solution that many of us did not know we needed. Until you have to send money to someone overseas or they do no thave QuickPay or Venmo then you will find yourself in a similar situation not knowing what interest rates you are charged. If you want to see rates for yourself make sure to check out MoneyTransfers!
The Under 25 section of 1PRCNT is meant to showcase to everyone that there are plenty of young entrepreneurs out in the business world making strides to better themselves and the world around them.
If you are an entrepreneur under the age of 25 and have a story you would like to share then please feel free to email us and we would love to interview you!
