If We Can, You Can

Author:

Mark Easby

Business:

Better Brand Agency

Published:

12/12/2008 16:53:00

Myself and my two partners are just getting used to having ownership of our own company having been trading a month, including getting our own processes and our own office set up. It’s all incredibly exciting, but incredibly nerve- wracking at the same time!

I have a bit of a chequered background really. One of my parents was a teacher, the other worked for the ICI for over 45 years in security. Growing up I was never involved in the business world, and I chose my University degree in Media Technology out of interest. The internet was just finding its legs at that point and I thought it was a really exciting opportunity to get involved with.

So even though I was never an academic, I went down that route anyway and ended up coming out of my degree with a pretty poor result.

I was disappointed, but out of the blue I was given an opportunity to join a company in the web industry, and it was almost like an apprenticeship. It was a small business and I found myself immersed in that industry, learning how brand communication is changing and how technology is making a massive impact on that. I discovered that was where I wanted to be.

I worked for the company for the next eight years, built up experience and a network, and found that over time I wanted more of an ownership over the direction the company was taking. And I discovered two other people who worked in the company felt the same way as me.

My partners and I all share the same mindset, the same ethos, and we work very well together. We recognised that that was a sturdy platform already built, so we began to talk seriously about setting up a company ourselves, and we discovered we shared some great ideas going forward. We decided to bite the bullet and hand in our notices.

Never in a million years would I have thought I would now be running my own business. When I came out of my degree I went to Jersey to work as a hotel porter and it was the best job I’d ever had. I loved the environment and the people and never dreamed I would be sucked into the business world until I got there and realised it was exactly where I wanted to be.

It has definitely been a challenge setting the business up, but it is also very rewarding in terms of all the opportunities we are eager to soak up, and the people we are starting to meet. We positioned very good people around us, and I have to say that made the transition a lot smoother.

We needed to make sure our finances and legal issues were well looked after, and it was critical we had someone who we trusted and understood us as a company to do that. In addition we learnt about VAT and it’s implications, as well as the day to day accounting that a small company would require. It was hard especially because we’re all creative people, but we knew that side of the business had to be stable.

We also needed to identify a suitable bank. We went out and spoke to quite a few, 75% of which were not forthcoming and simply wanted bricks and mortar or some sort of guarantee which we weren’t comfortable on giving.

One of the banks however, wanted to know about us, and recognised what we were bringing to the table, and he gave us the facility to help us set up.

Once the logistics of the company were in order, it was very much about getting the brand right. We needed to think about our name, who we were as a company, what our proposition was, and what we wanted to stand for.

The word ‘Better’ runs through our core; it’s everything we want to be, it’s how we want to add value to our clients, it’s the environment we want to create for our staff, and it’s the processes we want to put in the business.

We’re in a pretty unregulated industry; there are a lot of people out there saying, “We’re the best at this,” and “We’re the best at that.” What we wanted to say is that there is always something to learn, but we have constant ambition to be better so that we can consistently improve our offering to clients.

I believe, now more than ever, that companies need to be close to their customers, regardless of whether they are product or service driven. It’s not about burying your head in the sand, it’s about developing an effective communication tool to manage that. For this reason we’ve tried to be as transparent and as open as possible in our interactions with clients.

We’ve definitely faced challenges in getting the business off the ground, and we’d be daft to say there hasn’t been a few negatives along the way. One of our main challenges is time management; we’re working on a few projects at the moment which is giving us revenue for month one and month two, at the same time as deciding where we want to go as an agency.

For example, we have some great technology ideas bouncing around and we’re talking to partners such as Codeworks about them. We’re also looking for funding from Finance Tree to take this idea and product forward. But that in turns brings its own challenges; does it sit within the core agency, and if so do we need to give away equity?

We’re trying to answer all sorts of questions at the moment, and fight our way through numerous business challenges at the same time. We need to make sure we spend substantial amounts of time on both winning client work, and trying to take our ideas forward so that we don’t miss out on opportunities, and the core business that we’re trying to develop is not compromised.

The key to that again is getting the right people and partners around us. On day one when we first got in the car to go out and talk to people about our branding and communications, we never would have imagined we would be involved in the type of conversations we’re having now. Codeworks have been brilliant and have certainly removed some of the burden in terms of time management, building a prototype, and prioritizing our resources.

We’re very excited to take up the numerous opportunities that have presented themselves, but we need to make sure that going forward, everything is done properly and for the benefit of the core agency.

To be honest, it does involve a lot of time with my laptop on my knees! I got married recently and juggling a 24/7 job with my social and home life is very difficult, but I can’t stress enough the importance of the people around you. My wife is fantastic and has been a tremendous support.

She understands the commitment we’re making, and that the investment of time we put into the business now is an attempt to make a better future for ourselves and our families. She works shifts and often doesn’t come home until 9 o’clock at night, so I try to make that my deadline to finish work too.

I think there is a common misconception about the lifestyle of an entrepreneur, and that if you do sit with your laptop on your knee all the time all you do is work, work, work. But a lot of the way we build business is just by talking to people, sharing ideas and talking about processes. I enjoy these conversations all day long, in person, or on Facebook or Twitter! So it’s always a good thing.

Talking long term, we really want the business to grow. We’re initially developing a suite of freelancers so that we can remain flexible, which is important especially in this current climate.

But we also want to form partnerships with Entrust, Codeworks and the universities so that we can find the most talented and enterprising graduates to join our team, and so that they can see that staying in the North East has a great bundle of career opportunities.

When we look at ourselves now, and the situation we were in eight months ago, we’re blown away by the progress we’ve all made. Back then we had ambitions to set up our own company certainly, but now we have a stable and sustainable core business with many exciting things on the horizon. We can now sit back a bit and decide where we want to go and who we want to work with, and having the flexibility to do that is just amazing.

We’re not measuring our success on pounds and pence (they’re nice don’t get me wrong, but they’re not the driving factor), instead we’re measuring success on lifestyle and our ability to look strategically at where we want to be 5 and 10 years down the line. It’s a rollercoaster, but I’m looking forward to continuing the journey.

If you’re thinking about starting a business yourself, I believe the most important thing to do is to seek the right support- business support, partners, colleagues, and making sure that your family and friends are right behind you. I can’t recommend this enough.

The North East is also the best region to find support. There’s always a door open for any issue you might have, and we’ve taken a lot of value out of talking to the organisations based here. Building up a network of support has definitely opened up opportunities that we wouldn’t have dreamed possible for a long time.

Within yourself, it will take a lot of energy and a lot of resilience, but these things are made far easier if you have a passion for what you do. I wouldn’t be sat with my laptop at 11 0’clock at night while my wife is watching ‘I’m a Celebrity’ if I didn’t truly love what I’m doing!