Westfourstreet

Celebrating One Year

Posted on May 1st 2011 by Richard Bateman

In April of last year (2010) I made the decision to spread my wings and fly solo. I even wrote about it here. The decision itself wasn’t a difficult one to make, but in equal measure it was pretty daunting.

In the weeks leading up to my first official day running my own business and working solely on my own, my feelings were mixed. Ranging from the “oh wow, this is gonna be great” to the “oh shit, where am I gonna bring more clients in from”.

A lot of networking seemed to be the sensible answer and approach, and in and around Milton Keynes there are quite a few business/networking opportunities. Truth be told, I attended only one. Nice lunch, nice enough people, quite a few nice ties too but after about twenty minutes of being there I decided I’d be better off just focusing on the projects I had on the go and just honestly hope for the best.

Snowball effect

So I worked on the projects that I had on the go and continued to get my work out there. Then it happened. The referrals. One project turned into two, then two turned into four and so on. I’ve said it in so many Tweets that I truly love my clients and I honestly do. Who needs a marketing department when your own clients get your name and brand out there?

So now that it’s May 1st 2011, I have officially reached the one-year milestone. Looking back I wont deny that I strongly believed that things would go well, but my own expectations have been blown away. So without coming across smug (I am a little tiny bit…) I wanted to mark this day with a pat on the back, but also a huge thanks to all my clients who make every single day a joy doing what I do which is essentially make pixels look good on their laptop or computer.

To be working with hugely respected organisations such as The Open University and hugely successful retail companies such as Argos is truly awesome. As much as it is working with smaller companies. It's the perfect balance. I'm delighted.

The future

I fidget. A lot. Can’t really settle. Being content only lasts roughly around five minutes with me. There have been on quite a few occasions’ projects that I have had to pass on due to existing and heavy workloads. In the future I’d like to expand westfourstreet and hire a designer or developer. This is something that I can see being very likely before this time next year.

So who knows? But I’ll never take it for granted. It could all fall apart tomorrow but if anybody ever asks me if I recommend going out there on your own, I will always, without any hesitation tell them to "go, do it. Now!". Bring on the next twelve months!

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