A FORMER Helena Romanes School pupil has shown an entrepreneurial spirit after launching a website from his sickbed that could make him $750,000 in a year. Richard Stratton, 22, from Berners Roding, came up with the idea for theonebigad.com when he was in

A FORMER Helena Romanes School pupil has shown an entrepreneurial spirit after launching a website from his sickbed that could make him $750,000 in a year.

Richard Stratton, 22, from Berners Roding, came up with the idea for theonebigad.com when he was in hospital after dislocating his hip while jumping a fence in Cambridge at the end of February.

Mr Stratton, who studied Business Management at Imperial College London in Kent, explained he had been working to raise money to start his own business when the accident happened.

"I had been working doing things like punting, but obviously the accident put a stop to all of that," he explained.

"I was laying in bed thinking about how I was going to get some money together when I hit upon the idea that there must be so many other small businesses and companies out there that are just trying to promote themselves and I came up with the advertising website. Basically it's the chance to give your business the ultimate publicity for only $10."

Companies are invited to add a banner link to their website for the fee of $10. Each week one website is chosen to have its banner displayed at the head and foot of each of Mr Stratton's web pages.

Then, when either 100,000 links have been put on the site or after a year, whichever comes quicker, one company is chosen at random to win 25 per cent of the money the website has made.

"The idea is that any company out there, no matter how big or small, would then have the budget to buy some major advertising on a national scale. Hence the name of the site: the one big ad.com

During the first 10 days of the business going live on April 4 11 businesses had registered their company banners.

Mr Stratton hopes this will attract interest from around the world. Hence, he chose to sell adverts in American Dollars, as they have global business appeal.