Riverside

I started my first limited company in 1991, when I was twenty-five. It wasn't a proper company, but rather a vehicle for my work as an IT Contractor.

In 1995, my friend Nigel introduced me to the Word Wide Web, and I started to do a bit of work on the side, building websites for people. In 1999, I started doing some work - an e-commerce site - for The Roofbox Company and that was my first proper client.

To be honest, I wasn't sure how I would ever transition to it being my full time job, but then, in 2004, I was approached to do a really big piece of work, so I took the plunge, including hiring my first salaried employee, Steve.

To be honest, that's one of the luckiest things that ever happened to me. Here we are, nineteen years later, and he is now my co-director and part owner of the business.

We acquired offices on Riverside Business Park in 2005, and we're still  there. In all that time, our landlord has only changed our rent once, and that was to lower it to thank us for being good tenants!

I don't come to this office very often, these days. Steve largely runs this side of the business and I don't want to get in his way. But I was back here, today, with the view down the river looking particularly lovely.

I've spent a lot of time over the years, standing just here, pondering the future, from the optimism of the very early days, through the slightly desperate period of learning what's actually involved in running a company, and then (mostly) enjoying the whole business.