Two Loughborough finalists are competing to pitch to Richard Branson

Dom Matcham and Harry Sellers are two Loughborough International Business finalists who are competing for an opportunity to pitch a business idea to the one and only, Richard Branson. 

Dom and Harry realised that even though for millions of people, fitness is an important and enjoyable part of their lives, many still struggle to find the best local gyms, classes, and personal trainers to suit their fitness goals when away from home.

So, they came up with a solution- LEEN. They have developed a platform that pairs the fitness community with local experts which makes maintaining fitness away from home a whole lot easier.

The Tab spoke exclusively to the fitness fanatics about themselves, their business idea and the future of LEEN.

Hi guys, can you tell us a bit about yourselves? 

Harry: We are both International Business finalists, having just come back from placement. I was at Nike- LOVED IT- and Dom was at Morgan Stanley- but hated it! I played hockey in my first two years for the 2’s but have played golf this year in the 2’s as I hated the cardio! Dom has played football in his time at Loughborough and is now the chairman of the football club, his football career has drawn to a close with the highlight of crying on national TV after exiting footballs next star. We’ve both set up businesses at our time at Loughborough.

I set up a business in the summer of my first year of uni called Parkfit, which essentially started out as me training my mum and her friends in the local park. However, through word of mouth I managed to acquire 60 clients over the space of six weeks and was running three classes a week.

What inspired you to create LEEN?

Dom: LEEN was born when I stumbled across the most amazing gym on the Uluwatu coast in Bali. The owner, Toby, had recently moved to Sydney to create a cool, well equipped shrine for fitness. He really knew his stuff and welcomed me to join him for a session overlooking the beach. It was an amazing experience but unfortunately a one off. As for the rest of the trip, I could not find the best gyms, fitness classes or people with Toby’s knowledge and passion.

As I travelled around the beautiful Island, I knew there would be places and people as good as my first experience with Toby, but I could not find them. My goals stayed the same but my location was changing, and I thought, “wouldn’t it be amazing if I could find the Toby’s of the world everywhere I went?”

I returned to England with the motivation to create a platform that linked fitness lovers with fitness experts. I asked Harry to be a co-founder as he is a close friend of mine and has the knowledge of the fitness industry, evident of having just come back from a placement with Nike.

Since then LEEN has be in motion. We have been working tirelessly to create a unique platform that will allow everyone to have an experience like I did in Bali.

The Virgin Voom competition came along as a good opportunity to give us some real focus, and a chance to get some funding and mentoring. Oh, and the chance to meet Richard Branson obviously.

What is the main challenge you see yourself facing?

Harry: At the moment it’s trying to start up a business while balancing our degree which is proving extremely difficult- both of us are working on very little sleep. We have just been sent our exam time table and my only exam is on the 2nd of June which is one of the dates for the next round of the Virgin Competition. Hopefully, we will be able to talk to Virgin and find a slot which works around that, as it’s looking likely at this point that we will get through.

We are looking to create a cool brand as well as a fitness community on a global scale.  As in five or ten years time, people might not even be going to the gym- linking people with gyms is only meeting today’s need. The spectrum is already shifting from gyms to quirky classes like surfboard yoga or aqua Zumba and who knows what the next trend will be, but with LEEN whatever this trend will be they will be able to find it.

Where do you see the project in two years time if Richard likes the idea?

Harry: If we get through the next three stages we will then get a chance to pitch to Richard Branson. If he then likes it along with the rest of the LinkedIn professionals, we would then receive a £250,000 marketing campaign which would massively help in taking the business to the next level! If not, I’m sure we will get far enough to learn a lot from the professional mentors along the way, and it would be a fantastic experience.

When thinking about LEEN in the long term, we are currently in talks with the Loughborough Enterprise Zone who run a scheme called The Studio which is an accelerator incubator for Loughborough students looking to start up a business. They provide funding, mentoring, an office space and links with Loughborough Alumni and businesses.

The first version of our platform is currently being built, but it will be a simplified stripped down version of the final product as we have to make sure people want to use it first!

However, Dom and I have some great ideas in the pipeline and hopefully we will be able to secure funding from business angels and venture capitalists to enable us to extend the website into an app and bring in all the cool new features.

You can vote for Dom and Harry here and join their Facebook group here.