Survey: How long have you been in business?

[Daffs]

As I'm fairly new to Mumszone and in particular to this board and I'm sure there are people and businesses I haven't had the fortune to meet/know about yet - so, how about a little survey about how long you have been in business and how is it going ?

I've been in business since 1st of January this year and it's going great. I'm so happy I did it now.

Who is next? :D

[megfenn]

I've been in business since October of 2003, but then took some time off to have my 2nd child. Some months are great, some months slow, some months are overwhelming. I'm so glad I decided to do this though! There is always the work/family balance to contend with but on the whole, it's great and I'm really happy and enjoy my work.

[Daffs]

Hello! Nice to meet you/see you! :D Great to see another web designer about :cloud9:

[megfenn]

Nice to meet you too! :D Do you end up doing most of your work in the evenings? My oldest child starts school in January so I'm hoping to start working more 'normal' hours, but I'll still have my little girl with me during the day.

[Daffs]

Nice to meet you too! :D Do you end up doing most of your work in the evenings? My oldest child starts school in January so I'm hoping to start working more 'normal' hours, but I'll still have my little girl with me during the day.

Yes I do mostly work during the evening but I'm lucky in that Lexie (2) is quite happy to do things and let me sit here periodically through the day. She has a desk next to mine so she will draw or do painting or colouring and then when my oldest comes home from school they play together a lot. Saying that, I have done relatively no work today for one reason and another! Some days I get through an awful lot, others like today - nothing! I did have someone ringing up at 6pm tonigt wanting to come around and visit this evening to discuss a logo - I was in the bath and had shut shop for the day, so have to draw the line somewhere I suppose. I'm trying to be less of a workaholic!

[littlesheep]

It's a bit of a tricky question to answer really...

I became self-employed when I left Uni (2000) and worked as an ABA tutor to several children with autism (See www.peach.org.uk for more info). Then after T was born I didn't want to return to work so I started as an Usborne rep in September 04.

After finishing full time work I'd been thinking for a while about selling resources for ABA programmes and am now in the (slow) process of having the resources I made for the children I worked for graphically designed / illustrated with images that I own the copyright for.

On 05.05.05 (as I'm a sucker for cool dates!) Littlesheep Learning was born and it's been growing with more and more educational products being added.

My ideas list is huge so hopefully I've got plenty to keep me interested!

Love Elaine

[obscure]

heya

The official 'birth date' of Glassraven (http://www.glassraven.com) is Feb 11th 2002 - but I was actually operating under a different name fora couple of months before that (until someone setup using a different variant of my URL and biz name also doing web design - grrrr...).

Its going very, very well - the snowball effect has been well and truly set in for the last year or so and I've been kept nice and busy :) I think the fact tha I offer more than just web design now helps as its kept me in the minds of some of my clients for their stationery and flyer design stuff which is great as it adds variety to what I do.

I am making sure I keep aside a certain amount of time per month for working on wahm stuff as I love working with smaller businesses, its really rewarding and is basically partly why I do what I do :)

As Aiden (my youngest) starts school next september I am looking forward to having the extra time to dedicate to the business (though not so sure about the school hols with both of them at home LOL), and also DH is hoping to join me in the business (whilst he sets up his own anyway) which would add a HUGE skill base as he is a cambridge uni computer science graduate with lots of programming skills that I could put to good use :)

I'm also expanding to take on a few freelancers to work alongside me so I can do more as there are just not enough hours in the week LOL!

OK waffle over... didnt realise I had so much to say!
:) Sadie

[antonia]

I set up in April 2003...so two and a half years now. Things have been going well enough that although Im now taking maternity leave, I have a couple of people carrying on with the business for me...a bit scary letting go though!!

Antonia

[Pink~ Faery]

Hello, fancy seeing you here lol!

I've been in business since Aug 2004. It's going great, I am now working on my marketing plan to get lot's more sales!

Niki
xxx