When TheEmployable heard of two recent unemployed university graduates, who came up with the wacky idea of selling advertising space on their faces for a whole year to pay off their student debts, we thought this was a story we really needed to follow! 

Could approaching companies to advertise on their faces, really lead to a debt free post graduation life?? Maybe so. Either way, as funny as it initially may seem, this has the opportunity to bring the two guys, Ross and Ed, a little bit of internet and press notoriety and also is in essence, a very entrepreneurial and innovative idea, that could become more than just a bit of fun. We thought it was only fair to buy the two guys’ faces for the day to support the idea (look out for TheEmployable day on the 20th October) and also catch up with Ross and Ed to ask them a few questions about BuyMyFace!

Wow, great idea guys, but when did you think that BuyMyFace could actually work?

From the start – that’s why we decided to put so much time and effort into kicking it off.

Did you ever have moments of self doubt when you thought that this might be a little stupid?!

We always knew it was unusual, but this is why it might work too.  Before the website was up and running, it was sometimes hard to convince friends and family that this could be a winner, but within 2 days of our website being live, we sold 10 days, and have now nearly sold out our first month.

Have you heard of anything similar to this elsewhere in the UK or further afield?

We’ve been inspired by the stories of other ventures that have something unique about them, but as far as we know, our idea is original.

Have you a targeted marketing plan to try to target some big companies? i.e. McDonalds, Facebook etc. Any big interests so far?

Our plan is to snowball… and that means starting small.  Big companies might not be interested in buying some of the very first days, whereas smaller ones might jump at the opportunity to have some very affordable advertising.  In fact, some of the very first days were bought by friends and family because they thought it would be funny to have their names painted on our faces.  The balance has already started to shift, as our first FTSE 250 company has got in touch.

Anywhere else you would get sponsored?!

Not exactly sure what this question is asking… if it’s “would we sell other parts of our bodies”, then the answer is no, except for Ross, who already is – just ask round the streets of London on a Friday night for a girl who goes by the name Consuela… (only joking!)

What did you study at University?

Neuroscience (Ross), and Economics (Ed)

What if one of you gets a real good job, would you still keep the face painting up for the next year?

For us, Buy My Face is going to be an incredible gap year.  We’re not exactly sure what we’ll be doing when the year’s up – something entrepreneurial would be fantastic, although doors are beginning to open up to us, so we’ll have to play it by ear.

8. Do you plan to take this forward as a possible long term business?

No. We wouldn’t want our idea to lose its novelty or appeal.  We do have other ideas, but we’ll only be painting our faces for 366 days. At the end of the year, our website will become an exclusive online list (with hyperlinks) for everybody who’s bought our faces – that way you’ll get much more than just one day of advertising with your purchase.

Do you have other entrepreneurial ideas in the pipeline?

Since being next-door neighbours in our first year, we’ve been keeping track of any entrepreneurial ideas we have in a black book.  We’d love to try some out, so hopefully Buy My Face will give us the financial freedom to do so.

What if someone comes to you with a complex design? Who’s doing the
painting?

Well that’s what we’ve been practising all summer for – check out some of the pictures on http://buymyface.com/ to see for yourself.  If someone happens to upload something ridiculous (one of my friends wanted us to paint a picture of my face on his face on my face), then we’ll artistically adapt it so that it looks as good as possible.

How you will make sure that your face gets media coverage every day?

Our idea is well integrated with social media.  We’ll be doing something different every day to make our idea fun to follow online.

How did you take this idea, from initial idea to startup? Have you had much support or help? 

After working out exactly how everything was going to work, we took our idea to our friend and web designer, Thomas “the Tech Engine”.  Friends, family, and even some people we’d never met before, have been very helpful.

Do you see yourselves as Entrepreneurial?

Mmmmmmmhmmmmmmm….

Good luck to Ed and Ross from TheEmployable and as their website states; “Face it, Its Brilliant!” We urge everyone to take a look and lets all support this cheeky but innovative idea!

Buy My Face can be found at;

http://buymyface.com/

Check out all of TheEmployable interviews here!!