Tim Good has long wanted to be an entrepreneur, so, after he left university, he wasted no time in setting up his own branding agency, Online48 Ltd. He tells Startups.co.uk how he's getting on.

Name: Tim Good
Age: 24
Business: Online48 Ltd
Type of business: Corporate identity and branding agency
Start date: Feb 2004
Website: www.online48.co.uk

When did you first decide you wanting start your own business?
I studied business law at university but I always knew I’d never go into this field. My interests are not necessarily in design or corporate identity but in running the business but at the same time Liverpool has a lot of companies in need of a drastic makeover.

There are plenty of design companies about but few that can offer advice on the company brand and using this to increase company value rather then fuelling sales.

Tell us about your business
As a business we basically run a nice and simple staged approach to creating a good company brand. We hold a “branding workshop” at the beginning of a project to determine what is needed to create the actual company image.

Then we’ll go away and create this image which may include logo design, website development, literature, business card design etc. This is all done in house with our own team.

To finish off we can offer a small training course to help you “live your brand”. In short this basically means that there is no point in having a really attractive company brand/image if you can’t work with this and complement it with good customer service, attractive proposals and so on.

Was it your first business idea and where did it come from?
It was when I was about 12. We lived in a nice converted farmhouse with fresh spring water and a famous public footpath ran right by.

My two brothers and I came up with the idea of selling bottled spring water to the walkers as the passed in summer. The whole venture was called “Matimat”.

Was your decision to start a business inspired by any other companies or individuals?
I don’t think so. The majority of people think you need bags of cash and good connections to start and run a business and therefore most people don’t ever get round to doing it.

The fact of the matter is that if you keep an open mind, have a good enough plan and work hard at it, then anyone can start-up any business they like. Where there is a good business plan, money will follow every time.

What makes you think there’s a market for your business?
I wouldn’t say that we really fit into a big gap in the market. We just do what we do a lot better than most and when it comes to a company brand, people don’t choose second best.

Once you’d decided to start a business, what did you do first?
Write the business plan. It totally changed throughout the first few months but it gets you motivated when you have a nicely written chunk of paper to refer back to. Otherwise you’re just a man with a plan and nothing to show for it.

What research did you do?
Not as much as I should have done but the usual – checked out the competitors, what they were charging, if their work was any good, Liverpool’s potential for the future and so on. 

What advice did you seek?
Liverpool has a lot of money to throw about for new businesses so I went to all the usual objective one funding sources and others like the Prince’s Trust. Unfortunately, none of them were interested since I had a good university degree and turned me down for start-up grants.

What other help did you get?
For all that I didn’t receive any help financially there was an abundance of advice going around: Business Link, Liverpool University, The Chamber of Commerce to name just a few.

Does the government need to provide more help to people trying to start a business?
Yes. Rather than simply donating money so start-ups that meet a specific criteria they should look into which business plans/ideas are more likely to succeed and put the money towards them. I have seen so many start-ups receive grants that haven’t a hope in hell of passing the two-year mark.

Talk us through the process of writing your business plan.
I used a piece of software build the main framework. I think it was called “business plan pro”. Anyway, this brought my attention to certain points that need addressing within the plan that I wouldn’t have thought of previously. The content was simply a case of putting ideas into words. I also received feedback from Business Link and the University.

How useful has your business plan been and do you think you’ll stick to it as your business begins to grow?
It was useful as a brainstorming exercise to come up with new ideas for every aspect of the business. It isn't very useful as something to stick to though.

The latest plan we've done is totally different from the first and we've seen a totally different market from what we planned for. At the end of the day everything costs twice as much and takes twice as long.