A Brutally Honest Year In Review

The best friend & I

Canada

In February, my best friend and I work-holidayed to Quebec to see our good friends Nick Plante (zapnap), his wife Amanda and Nick Tomarello. It was the first time I’ve visited Canada but definitely not the last. We managed to book the time perfectly for the Winter Carnival where we saw such things as the ice hotel and went sledding.

The idea was that we would go out and visit the awesome sites during the day, and work on a project during the night. It worked very well and sparked us to create Startup Workaway (I’ll be at the next one!) The basic premise is to take geeks out their comfort zone, put them with like minded people and watch what they create.

Best Friends & Businesses

Unfortunately, it wasn’t all good. The middle crumbled for me. During the middle of the year I lost my other best friend tragically, shortly followed by a romance becoming seriously ill with cancer, breaking down and going AWOL. It seriously broke me. Two people that I had spent years talking to every night without fail were suddenly out of my life. I tried to remain as professional and normal as possible for my business’ sake.

At the time I was running London Made and we had just grounded ourselves by taking on some free work that ended up being more than we could chew. It was a huge lesson and the first time in a very long time that made us a big loss. I personally ended up in debt over it and we had to fire our rather unsympathetic client. It made me realise I should have done it sooner. We were being taken advantage of and it was my want of exposure that kept us on it. The sacred promise of riches. The project was then handed to another agency and it is still yet to have seen the light of day.

Running a business is incredibly hard work. There are both extreme ups and downs of equal measures – much like normal life. I’ve run a company in multiple countries, multiple people. At the top of my game I had a maximum of 15 people employed/contracting with us. And I just mentioned one of the many bottoms. Without failure, there is no success and I am proud of my mistakes. They could have been a lot worse.

We still have one last client to release soon. I can’t wait. They’re adding a few new features and going through a Private Beta. It’s work we’re really proud of so I can’t wait to talk about it when it’s ready.

Being entrepreneurial is incredibly important to me. I’m a day dreamer, I spend my days in the clouds. Dreaming of what businesses I could run (and also if I was a super hero, how different my day would be.) I dream of winning the lottery but not spending it on my retirement but instead on businesses.

Mark Boulton Design

Work was great. I was wanting to move to a different city and expand London Made, maybe find a partner in the process. Everything was great. Out of nowhere I got asked if I would consider moving to Cardiff for Mark Boulton Design. I had met Mark many years previously and had much admiration for his work to benefit the industry.

I said Yes without hesitation and went for an interview. Though it was a big decision, I was very sure of it. I had no interest in moving to Wales, I wasn’t sure if I could work for someone else after spending so much of my life not doing so. However, my Lead Developer had got a good job offer, my contractors were all busy and I knew that I’d benefit greatly from having Mark’s mentorship.

Within the company I found my footing leading the UX on an awesome client. It’s been months of really hard work but I couldn’t be more excited for when it finally releases. My time at MBD so far has been a hell of a ride. (I also learnt the hard way – keep yourself hydrated or get knocked out for weeks.)

More Health

Since I arrived in Cardiff I got complacent with my diet and gained weight. I’ve been working hard on changing that. I’ve started swimming before work (I kept it up for 1-2 hours every day for 2 weeks — although that’ll stop when my hours change next month unfortunately) but I’ll try to keep it up somehow.

Cardiff

Moving to Cardiff was an amazing decision. I’ve lived in a few countries in a few continents but none has ever felt like home like here does. I’m definitely going to be settling here for a while.

Side Projects

I still try to keep up the side projects. I’ve got a ton of side projects I want to do but so little time to do them. I am however keeping up to date with Crummy.

I’m not going to pay for the renewal of designblogs‘s domain (previously of designablo.gs) as it’s costing me too much (I already pay for hosting.) However, I will give it a proper design and work on more.

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