Neil's story has a ring of success

Alan Bunce • Published 5 Oct 2009 12:26

NEIL McHugh left school at 16 with few qualifications. Now he runs the UK's top mobile phone comparison site.

Former Ashmead student Neil, 32, who lives in Caversham, joined the aerospace industry from school and reached a senior sales role. But in his spare time he read up on how people made money online and decided he could do it. He began by trading domain names and launched a marketing website called Passing Trade. When he sold a domain name for enough money to pay his mortgage for a year, he packed in his job and went full time.

Two years ago he teamed up with Newcastle-based James Zielinski and launched The Right Group; its first venture is www.rightmobilephone.co.uk. That site now offers 500,000 deals while the nearest competitor does 400,000.

He said: "We know about the success of comparison sites in insurance and travel but nobody has hit the nail on the head for the mobile phone sector. But buying a mobile phone is not easy, there are so many options; your tarrifs, your minutes, your handest. There are so many deals out there, it's quite a job to research."

All the big mobile phone companies work with his site on a commission basis. He can promote just about every deal available with the addition of one unique feature - over 5,000 handset reviews. Neil says the credibility he built up through his Passing Trade website helped him secure deals with the mobile phone companies.

He and James now plan more sites selling anything from festival tickets to broadband and also plan to take the mobile phone model to the US using www.rightcellphone.com. A fraction of that market should prove lucrative. The pair meet occasionally but technology keeps them in contact and able to work at opposite ends of the country.

Neil added: "The beauty of what we do is it's all online. We could do it from the beach. A laptop is all you need to stay in touch."

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This article appeared in Reading Chronicle 01 Oct 09

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