An entrepreneur who woke up homeless in a stairwell at the age of 15 with his first business idea has spent £25,000 on a disused stairwell to provide a rent-free space in London for small businesses to fulfil their dreams.
Simon Squibb, who retired at 40 after selling Fluid, his marketing agency, to PricewaterhouseCoopers, hopes the stairwell in Twickenham, south-west London, will provide a showcase for owners of small businesses.
“When I saw the staircase for sale, there was something about it that really spoke to me,” he said. “Not everyone can afford an elevator to do an elevator pitch.”
The staircase, which has seven landings and was full of rubbish, fire extinguishers and old bicycles when sold, was put on the market for £20,000.
Squibb, 49, is hoping to get permission from the local council to turn it into a pop-up shop, office or “live-work space” that entrepreneurs can use – potentially for up to a month at a time – free of charge.
“The whole ‘buy property, rent it out’ thing is hurting society and I’m not going to contribute to that,” he said. “If I can, I’d like to say to someone: ‘Have it for a month, live there rent-free and launch your business – and then, if it takes off, you can afford to get a proper shop or an online store.’ That would be amazing.”
He said the fact that a stairwell could be sold for £25,000 was indicative of the way the property market had become “out of control”, adding that since buying the property at auction 48 hours before, he had already been offered £50,000 for it. Property developers have also contacted him to tell him that, with the right planning permission, it could be developed and sold for £500,000.
Squibb, who runs HelpBnk, a community of 75,000 entrepreneurs who help each other for free, said he was not interested in developing the stairwell in order to sell it: “I don’t want to contribute to increasing the prices of rent and housing for people. I don’t think it’s net-positive for society. I want to create something – a symbol – that if you’ve got a dream, you can just start it.”
Ideas for pop-up shops on the staircase include a temporary art gallery, a clothes shop – with rails on each landing – and a garden centre as the stairwell is enclosed in glass. “There’s all sorts of amazing ideas flooding in, and I would use my large social media following to promote people’s dreams,” he said.
There was something symbolic about using a stairwell to take your first step in business, he said. “Coming up with the idea, figuring out how to raise money for it, getting your first client – it’s all about taking one step at a time.”
He got his first idea for a business while sleeping rough in a stairwell in Cambridge after his father died and he was made homeless at 15. “I thought: I can’t live like this. I need to do something. And then I thought: OK, all the people around here have got big messy gardens; I’ll see if they want me to take care of their garden to make some money. And that’s what I did.”
If he was not granted planning permission to convert the staircase into a space for pop-up shops, he said he would use it as a place for entrepreneurs to network or try to get his investment. “One idea I’m playing around with is: someone starts at the bottom of the stairs and pitches their idea to me and if, by the top of the stairs, I like it, I fund their business.”