Paul Bennett

Paul Bennett is the co-founder of Perchpeek, the AI-powered relocation agent. A natural entrepreneur, Paul started his first business aged 17, selling hand sanitisers outside supermarkets, for which he won a regional award for his “compelling advertising”.

Prior to founding Perchpeek, Paul was a business development executive at Amazon. During his three years there, he moved from B2B sales to the team that launched Amazon’s Treasure Trucks into the UK. He led the Treasure Trucks’ biggest ever, Star Wars-themed event in Trafalgar Square, in partnership with Disney and Samsung, which attracted over 10,000 attendees.

Perchpeek was created in 2018 when Paul and his two co-founders, Oliver Markham and Dr Aasis (Ace) Vinayak, realised how painful relocating can be. Their combined experience in business development, machine learning and real estate led them to create a UK property marketplace, dubbed ‘Tinder for renting’. In 2020 they pivoted the business in response to the specific pain points many people experience when relocating. Perchpeek now provides an end-to-end relocation service for a new generation of relocators – those who can work from anywhere – as well as helping some of the world’s top companies attract and retain top talent.

Paul studied PPE at Oxford, gaining two blues in Field Hockey whilst there. Post-university, he helped organise travel expeditions like driving rickshaws across India. He is a keen ultra marathon runner, winning the 100km Jurassic Coast Challenge race in 2019.

Where did the idea for Perchpeek come from?

Perchpeek came from our personal negative experience of relocating to London post university. From finding your home to setting up utilities, there’s heaps to worry about and very little time to do it in.

What does your typical day look like and how do you make it productive?

Go for a run in the morning and then crack into the fairly usual corporate stuff of meetings, emails, PowerPoints and brainstorming. I’m constantly adopting and failing at various productivity hacks. The latest one to be enjoying airtime is keeping my to do list on a chrome extension called Momentum Dash. It’s basically the same as Trello but I’m kind of vibing it!

How do you bring ideas to life?

I like to write stuff out long hand and then try to explain it my Mum. She’s a fierce critic.

What’s one trend that excites you?

Being location agnostic. For the first time, millions of service-based workers are facing choices about where they choose to live. We could be about to see a huge, huge migration of people and it will have crazy impacts on regional economies.

What is one habit of yours that makes you more productive as an entrepreneur?

I think the biggest thing is not being a perfectionist. This enables me to get stuck into projects without getting bogged down as to whether it’s the perfect way of doing things.

What advice would you give your younger self?

Don’t be afraid to do things differently. The British education system is so rigid and institutionalised, it doesn’t encourage creative ways of thinking – there’s a “right way of doing things”. It took ages to overcome this.

Tell us something that’s true that almost nobody agrees with you on.

That a Global Government would be beneficial.

As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?

Listen to people – everyone’s an expert in something and it’s such a fast way to digest ideas.

What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business?

Pivoting quickly based on talking to customers and their pain points.

What is one failure you had as an entrepreneur, and how did you overcome it?

Tried to raise a funding round and failed in London. We ended up messaging 1000+ Angel investors on LinkedIn to pivot and organise a fundraising trip in the Middle East to raise bridging finance.

What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?

Kids’ shoes that can be adjusted as they get bigger (probably already exists).

What is the best $100 you recently spent? What and why?

iTalki Spanish lessons. Literally so much fun to ward off lockdown boredom.

What is one piece of software or a web service that helps you be productive?

Fireflies.AI – it’s an AI powered notetaker for Zoom meetings so you don’t need to take notes. A lifesaver.

What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?

“Mindset” by Dr Carol Dweck. It’s all about having a growth mindset and is just incredible.

What is your favorite quote?

“Perfection is the enemy of progress.”

Key Learnings:

• Perfection is the enemy of progress.
• Don’t be afraid of cold outreach. It’s magical.
• Make sure you are honest with your progress.