Satish Shewhorak

Name:

Satish Shewhorak

Business:

moShine Animation Studio

Web site:

www.moshine.co.uk

Years in business:

4

Number of businesses:

1

Entrepreneurs' Forum member

I started moShine, a motion graphics animation studio with three fellow directors straight after we all left university. At the end of our degrees, when it came to the whole milk round recruitment thing, it was quite a deflating process. We constantly had to prove things to other people in order to get a job.

We thought, rather than going to work for someone else, why not take those skills and profit from the things we’d learnt. Why not set up our own business, and do the things we want to do the way we want to do them. It felt like we were taking fate into our own hands really.

It didn’t feel like a huge risk at the time which was probably a bit naïve. But we didn’t have any mortgages or kids and we also had a lot of student debt so it how much worse could it have got? What did we have to lose? We thought we might as well try it before we had other commitments to tend to.

I’d never really thought about running my own business. It was the fact that the opportunity and the drive was there at that particular time and we decided to run with it. It turned out to be an enjoyable ride. We’re doing work now that we’re immensely proud of. We’re also appreciated for the creative work that we’re turning out which means that we’re rewarded financially too.

Obviously starting up a new business presented its challenges. I didn’t have any family background in business. My parents are in the medical sector so going down this route wasn’t the natural progression they may have preferred. They probably wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer or an accountant or something. That might have been safer at least. But I think that different backgrounds inspire different motivations. Some people might want to break out of certain cultural stereotypes and restrictions and do something a bit different, more risk taking and entrepreneurial. Sometimes you’ve got to forge your own route, and this was something I really believed in and wanted to do.

Our primary driver was to have creative freedom. It wasn’t necessarily the financial drive to become rich. We wanted to express ourselves the way we wanted to. But because we were all from creative backgrounds, which was a lot of fun, when it came to setting up the business, it was quite a challenge to balance commercial concerns with our own values.

In the early days we did some market research and we realised it wasn’t going to be as simple as doing whatever the hell we liked. We slowly had to modify that route and do something that we enjoyed, but was also commercially viable to sustain a business.

Instead of just doing 3D animation like Pixar which is what we originally wanted, we realised that wasn’t all that accessible here in England as a film industry. So we looked towards doing motion graphics and 3D visualisation for TV, broadcast or corporate clients. It was a bit broader and more abstract. But as long as we enjoyed that and there was a market, it was acceptable for us to move directions. What we found was that our work was still really creatively interesting.

We were presented with a lot of help from the region which was really important for us having just come out of university. People like the Entrepreneurs Forum, Business Link and Digital all inspired us and helped us to take that risk and go out on our own. There really is a wealth of support available in the North East for people starting new businesses.

In particular a lot of our business acumen came from regional support. We had to adopt regular practices of the way of working and communicating. It became apparent that one person in the company would have to take on the majority of the business role such as account management, admin and communications. We couldn’t all be purely creative; we had to have that structure beneath us.

It’s not always advised to work with friends and family, but for us it’s worked really well. We all lived and worked together in a team smoothly before we started the business so we on all got on great. Creatively we all have the same influences and we found that we were thinking along the same lines in what we wanted to accomplish with the business. In our office there’s a certain amount of ‘uncommunication’ that goes on because we all have the same aims.

When we were setting up, again with the support of the region, we went to a lot of networking events. We managed to pick up a lot of business tips, contacts and recommendations about how to work and who to work for.

Networking is very important, especially at the start. We got memberships into several different digital organisations, and we started picking up some of our first customers that way.

Not only did we want to promote our own brand, we also wanted to promote networking and creativity amongst other people. We set up our own little events nights called moShine mix, inviting DJs, live musicians, dancers, textile designers and loads more, to come and exhibit their artwork, network and just have a drink together.

We took the traditional networking model, but we were adding much more of a social aspect, which is much more relevant to the creative sector. Through that, we not only began to meet people who we could do business with, but they also became partners that we could outsource work to. It was a fun tool that provided loads of opportunities.

As we’ve grown we’ve made more of a conscious effort to keep an eye on emerging talent in the region. We look to bring them in to do collaborative projects, not only to expand our own creativity but to give these people a chance to stay in the area and realise that the North East is a great place to work.

There’s a huge creative industry in Soho, but it’s neglecting, purely for geographic reasons, the wealth of talent and digital media artists who are based in the North East, who are just as skilled to do the same quality of work.

The reality is that a lot of our work is based in London and Soho. We’ve had to try and adapt to do not only what we’re really skilled at but also not rely on just one industry like TV. There are many other industries in the North East that can support and benefit from what we do; we just needed to expand and educate our market.

Having clients in London can be tough, but it’s a challenge that we’ve had to face. Some people won’t venture further than the M25, and the costs of travel and staying over do add up. It’s not an issue you can ignore really and one that we’ve had to work round and diversify some of the areas that we want to work in, and the services that we offer. I think you need to make a conscious effort to put the hours and money into if you want to have clients in London.

When we were starting out, the hours that we were doing were long and hard. But in reality you don’t really mind when you’re the one who’s reaping all the benefits, creatively and financially.

There’s a cluster of excited entrepreneurs who are all setting up in the North East. So if we were working late on a project there’s always someone next door or down the hall who’s creating some fantastic video game or an amazing piece of digital artwork. We were able to bounce energy and ideas off other people in the same situation. That really offset the pain of working late.

We’ve made loads of mistakes but we see them as learning experiences rather than grave errors! That’s the great thing about running your own business though; the responsibility is all on you. You can feed the lessons that you’ve learnt from failure to how you can improve yourself and your business.

One of the hardest things we’ve had to learn, and what we’ve made the most mistakes with, is price. Sometimes we were overestimating, sometimes we were underestimating. But over time we began to pick up the going rates and began to value our own work compared to the time and effort we were putting in. We got into keeping a record of how long things take and how much the work we did was valued and regarded and that really helped rectify our previous mistakes.

If you’re thinking of starting a business, my advice would be to not be afraid to seek advice. The North East is a great place to pick it up for free. When we were setting up we went to a very successful businessman. He was really generous with his time and gave us lots of tips on creating a business, networking, who to speak to and potential clients.

Taking the risk in not going straight to an employer and having to work by their rules was definitely the right decision. Success to me is being able to have freedom in what you do, be proud of it and be rewarded by it too. If you have an idea and want to follow through with it, aside from having a good plan, you need to have your own definitions of success and have the drive to get there.

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