The Story So Far....Early Learning for a Small Business

I began my project less than two years ago. My Eureka moment - the exact point in time when I reached for my white coat, clipboard and Professor Pat Pending wig - came a couple of days after our little boy was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. My wife, Audra, was to quit her job to become his full time carer.

 

A family of five is a pretty expensive brood to maintain. My kids’ continual growth is visible to the eye, the little fella (5) wears trousers and shoes out for England, my daughters (11 and 15) both attend rather expensive dance schools and insist that their clothing becomes “so last season” just days after purchase. All of them eat as if they have hollow legs and school trips, birthdays etc., place a constant strain on the pennies.

 

So, what to do? We had just my modest income from my salaried job in communications and little else to survive on. There were just three options: 1. Cut the expenditure/live on beans and toast/buy clothing from Save the Aged - 2. Sell/donate kids to medical science – 3. Create another income.

 

Well, beans don’t agree with me and no-one in their right minds would take my kids on, so I had to look to create another income.

 

But what to do? At 45, I’m a bit old and worn to be a professional footballer, rock star or gigolo. I have worked for 14 years within a large police force and I’ve gone about as far as my post will allow. I’ve always been one to “challenge” authority so career progression within the force was highly unlikely.

 

I’d always been reasonably creative. I’d written comedy for TV, had music published, produced poetry that ended up in anthologies, painted, sketched cartoons and tried my hand at stand-up comedy. I was determined to make money out of something creative.

 

I’ve always been a bit of a computer geek. As a young bloke, I had a Sinclair ZX Spectrum (Sir Clive’s offering that required a portable cassette tape player to work – Happy days!), progressed to an Atari ST and the rest as they say, is as good as a change.

 

I had been building websites for friends and family since 2003 using Adobe Page Mill and MS Front Page and produced some pretty average web pages to be honest. But I’d enjoyed the process and thought that this could be a vehicle for creating an income.

 

I spent the following months spending every free hour developing my skill-set, ditching table-based design for CSS, hand-coding everything I created, learning about accessibility and usability, researching the market, listening to web dev podcasts, reading every book and magazine I could lay my hands on relating to the design. When commuting to work, I had an iPod plugged in my lugs playing small business and web design podcasts/audio books.

 

I lived and breathed the business months before it had a name, a client or a website. For the first time in my life, I was really - no, reeaallyyy – determined to get to my goal.

 

I made a conscious decision to make the most of my time. Not one moment would be wasted. Even during shopping trips, I would photograph clothing colour-mixes on my mobile phone for future reference.

 

My wife has been amazing and very tolerant. Not only was I working sixty hours a week with the force but I was putting in at least an additional thirty hours a week on groundwork for the business. It’s really important to have au understanding partner.

 

In November 2006, I launched Orange Crush Design to run alongside my full time work with the police.

 

It may be early days I have invoiced at least the equivalent of my full-time salary each month since December. I have also been placed on a potentially lucrative performance-related retainer by a large sports retailer.

 

I’m still working all the hours God sends and I’m sure there will be trials and tests in the future but I’m enjoying every moment of developing “my baby”.

 

I love my work, I love my clients, I love the challenge and I think I may be onto something.

 

I have self-penned guidelines I adhere to which I hope will keep the momentum going:

 

·         I’m honest with myself and my customers.

·         I have fun!  I don’t take myself too seriously.

·         I always give my customer a little extra in addition to the contracted work. (I may submit a client’s site to twenty or so directories, circulate its details to all my contacts and add an application to the site which I know will be appreciated).

·         I’m passionate in my work. I don’t cut corners and I won’t compromise on quality.

·         I work bloody hard.

·         I charge what I’m worth.

 

That’s the story so far. I hope there will be much more to report in the future.

 

I hope this article will be of help to someone else starting out on the long road.

 

If you would like to know more about my business, I’d be delighted to hear from you.

 

 

Stephen Cree

 

http://www.orangecrushdesign.co.uk

 

 

Article Source: http://www.theukarticledirectory.co.uk