This time three years ago (still can’t believe it’s been that long?!) we’d just registered our business with Companies House.

We were working excitedly and feverishly through our pre-launch plans.

We thought we were “busy” (oh how wrong we were!) with our business.

I look back at that time now and it feels like a completely different era. I was so excited I was practically bouncing off the walls when I woke up every morning. Every small decision felt huge. I had an incredible sense of freedom. Everything was shiny and new.

I was also cautious that it may not work out, that I should keep one eye on jobs to apply for just in case, that we had nothing concrete to fall back on, and a lot of uncertainty ahead. But also a lot of hope.

Three years later, I’m not sure we would have done much differently. It definitely would have been nice to have more money at the beginning, since it takes a long time to build up a £10/month service to a liveable level unless you have a lot of cash to start with (or you’re living with your parents or something I guess!). It would have been great to have a third person for tech support and coding, but at the beginning there were too many uncertainties on a shoestring budget.

As much as I love the business, I don’t bounce out of bed in the morning any more. We have had so many challenges and obstacles and so little sleep that it will take me a long time to have enough energy to do that again! Part of the reason is because of how sick the cats have been and how much work and stress they’ve been, and part of the reason is because running a business is an emotional rollercoaster.

Ups & downs

One of the things I’ve stood by is that no matter what you achieve and how successful you are, your problems never disappear, you just end up with a different set of them. Most people don’t like other people being successful. Most people see the rose-tinted view of the outside, because they have a problem that you don’t have, without comprehending or realising that you have a different problem. It’s harder than I thought it would be, but also more rewarding as we’re so close to our customer base.

Each year has got busier and crazier. We’ve “met” so many amazing people. Survived multiple dudes trying to undermine what we’re doing and steal our customers. Survived the onset of a global pandemic. Planted a ton of trees. Donated to nearly twenty causes – ranging from domestic violence to coral reef protection – several of which are on an ongoing basis. We have customers in nearly fifty countries (and more importantly, pretty much all of them are wonderful people we actively appreciate having in our lives).

In some ways, our business is exactly what I planned. Giving back to causes, helping people, trying to prove a theory that you can be successful without screwing other people over. In other ways, it’s totally different. In the beginning we imagined most of our customers would be from the US with some from the UK. Instead our CRM’s client map is all over the place. While from a security/cashflow perspective it means we’re well spread out across multiple currencies, it also means we see the disadvantages of a lot of places too. For example, the UK hosting market is extremely competitive and cutthroat.

We’re not like that, because we prefer to have people who actively want to be with us and are happy with us. But we do see the brunt of some other hosts being aggressive to their customers who switch to us, often with a bunch of lies and speculation thrown in. It does suck, because we never try to take customers from small companies or companies who are doing just as good a job as we are. People are either drawn to us or they’re not, and that’s okay. We prefer people who are actively interested in the perks we offer that are aimed at a specific audience, like our Resource Library and social media groups, as it’s important to us to build a strong community. Given how much work it is to do a full migration from start to finish, we’re not a huge fan of “host hoppers” – we want a high percentage of people who are as committed to us as we are to them.

Money goals

Our biggest money goal was to have enough money and good enough credit to buy my dad out of his share of the house. Ideally we thought we’d need enough money to buy the whole thing; luckily, in the end we didn’t, and we were able to get another mortgage. In many ways it was super frustrating to work so hard and to sacrifice so many things for so long just to maintain our current position, as it felt like we were just treading water rather than reaping any benefits from running our business.

However, I see it totally differently now. How I think about money has totally changed; I’m happy without buying a ton of material things and although I still spend decent money on things that are important to me (like food!), I’d rather save up for something significant rather than buy a pair of expensive shoes. I also don’t see our house situation as a step back, just a necessary step to break ties once and for all and to, you know, not be homeless. In this sense, being able to own our own house is a massive step, even if it doesn’t feel like it because I’ve owned my part of it since I was nineteen. My parents made a lot of awful financial decisions, and I had some of the brunt of that, so it’s taken a while to clear up what I needed to clear up and escape. Because of this, I know that over the next few years I need the security of paying off the house mortgage completely, even though it’s not the wisest thing to do from a business perspective. My childhood was a rollercoaster of my parents getting and losing houses, and it’s deeply affected me.

What’s next?

The next stage for us is maintaining what we’re doing while diversifying our income streams. There are lots of different options for this, the most common being investing in shares or property, and there are also more income streams that are directly tied to our customers’ needs and interests. The former are a bit more of a gamble/upfront investment, the latter are a lot more time-intensive. Hiring and training people is super hard at the moment, as we need to be very hands-on initially. So it depends really what happens with the pandemic, jobs market, and housing market as to which route we start to head down.

As much as I love what we’re doing right now, I’m excited to start thinking about a new project. I’m excited but also apprehensive about the next year, because if each year is getting crazier, who knows what the next one will bring?!