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NewsEquine listings website launched by ‘The Apprentice’ finalist
Equine listings website launched by ‘The Apprentice’ finalist
15.02.2010
Lucinda Kelly, one of the finalists in the TV3 series ‘The Apprentice’, has set up an equine classifieds and listings website called Mystable.ie, designed to fulfill a need to view and place potential sales of horses online.
“I’ve always had a huge interest in horses. Nine or 10 years ago I set up my first website for buying and selling horses but the market wasn’t ready as farmers weren’t internet savvy at the time. More recently I identified that there were no video options when people wanted to research horses online and with the increase in broadband speeds decided to push video content and embrace Web 2.0 functionality, such as Facebook, Twitter and Google Maps,” she says.
WEBSITE IS THE FIRST OF ITS KIND IN IRELAND
Claiming that the site is the first of its kind, Kelly says listings cost €5 until a horse is sold. Listings for stallions are €10 per horse. The revenue model will be from this listing fee as well as advertising revenue taken from the site. “There is no other central location for all breeds of stallions and mare owners can find it hard to find a suitable stallion. My aim is to have a complete list of stallions in Ireland,” she says.
“Around 2,000 people have already registered on the site and I want to reach 10,000 visits a month. I’m working with offline partners, such as horse stores, offering vouchers at the tills and aim that the site will be the leading one in Ireland for purchasing horses by the end of this year.”
Kelly’s day job at present is as an online manager with eircom. She also runs another website called Connemaraponyworld.com and is working on a documentary called 'Lloyd’s Story' which follows the development of an ex-racehorse.
AN ENTREPRENEURIAL NATURE
“I would like to work on the websites full time, as I’ve always been very entrepreneurial. My father owned FX Kelly’s and I did Entrepreneurial Studies at UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School.”
Being on ‘The Apprentice’ has raised her profile, she says. “I got a lot of job offers on the back of it. But I decided to go into business myself and use my own finance [around €2,000] to get it up and running, as well as a web development company in India to keep costs down.”
Photo: Lucinda Kelly with her partner Brian Curran and Lloyd the ex-racehorse
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