Arman Khan founded his company with the passionate belief that other IT companies were doing their selling all wrong – with salesman making all the deals and consultants clearing up the mess. So he formed 3net where customers get to talk to the experts first.
“I think there has always been something deep inside that made me want to have my own business, I wanted to do something different, and not be working for someone else.
“I wanted to have control over my destiny and I had worked in the IT industry for about 9 years and I was putting a lot of hours in, at my peak that was 15 to 16 hours a day and I thought ‘I may as well do it for myself’.”
Arman started out in telesales after leaving university and moved up the chain until he became sales director.
The rise through the ranks was invaluable experience for Khan and by the time he set up 3net he felt he had the necessary skill-sets to deal with most scenarios.
Also, during his time in the IT industry, Arman was fortunate to meet his future business founders Andy Boosey and Sean Thornber – both well-respected IT consultants with contacts across the industry.
In February 1999, the three men established 3net, originally setting up office in a converted bedroom of Khan’s flat.
“We each put £10,000 of our own money into the company and took no pay out for about 6 months, we have never had to go to a bank or investor as a result.”
As each had worked in the industry for many years, they were known and trusted by the major IT vendors and were able to get work out of the major contracts that they were signing with customers.
3net’s aim was to provide operational service and consultancy with an aim to make computer systems more efficient.
But 3net was to be something different as they were convinced that their previous employers had got their sales model wrong.
Khan explains: “I went up to the board and said ‘look, we need to change our model, we need to have the consultants at the front with the sales supporting them at the back as opposed to our current model where the sales is at the front’.
“However, they were always more concerned with ‘what was coming in at the end of the month so they could satisfy their shareholders’.
“It was about 12-15 months before I realised that the change I wanted wasn’t going to happen.”
So 3net was born, and with 40% growth year on year, Khan was right to have faith in his convictions.
One of the reasons for their success is because they do not have an agenda to simply sell hardware but rather are more interested in making the systems their clients already have more efficient.
“This made some of our larger clients really sit up and listen because we were the first company they had met who were not simply trying to sell them more products.
“I used to go and see end-user clients who had stacks and stacks of hardware in the warehouse and I would be thinking ‘what’s that for?’
“They would say that they had bought the kit in first and were going to design the systems afterwards.
“Things have changed now thankfully as in the early days there was just a frenzy of buying.”
