Ever since she was a schoolgirl Sarah Patience has been designing and selling her own things. So it is no surprise that she started up her own business, Saronyx Design. She tells startups.co.uk how she is getting on.
Name: Sarah Patience
Age: 23
Business: Saronyx Design
Type of business: Graphic and Web Design
Start date: March 2005
When did you first decide you wanted to start your own business?
I’ve always been keen to make money out of the things I enjoy. My first business was selling handmade badges in school when I was 12-years-old. I had my own table in the school hall at lunchtimes and even the teachers used to buy from me. Later, while studying art and design at college I spent my free time drawing people’s homes and selling them the results. During university, I set up a small business making and selling handmade wedding stationery, through a friends shop and at wedding fairs. In doing so I built a website to display my work and discovered the opportunities that the internet can offer, which made me even more convinced and determined that I could set up a successful business.
Tell us about your business
Saronyx Design provides web and graphic design solutions to small businesses throughout the UK. We provide complete design solutions to new and existing businesses looking to create or update their visual identity.
What makes you think there’s a market for your business?
I knew the market I was entering into was a competitive one, but on researching other companies, I felt there was still a little room for me. I set out to provide a very personal service; all clients would deal with me direct rather than have several different designers work on their project. My aim was to provide an affordable service to small established and start up businesses, for which I could provide a complete design service. In my local area there were already many website designers and several graphic designers, but few who offered both. By offering a combined solution at a competitive price I felt my service would be especially appealing to new businesses.
Once you’d decided to start a business, what did you do first?
The first thing I did was to sit down and list all my aims and objectives. I made a list of all the services I intended to offer, and began developing my portfolio website. I did a few mock projects to fill it initially, and visited forums such as www.startups.co.uk where I offered my services free of charge to help build my portfolio and reputation for good service.
What research did you do?
The majority of my research was done online. I looked at other similar companies and what they offered to get an idea of my competition, and also visited business information websites such as www.startups.co.uk, which were really useful for planning what I wanted to do and getting advice on how to go about it.
What advice did you seek?
I sort of missed the boat with regard to seeking advice from centres such as Business Link. Initially, I thought my business was too much in the early stages for me to get in touch with them, and then out of nowhere I started to gain clients and with still being employed at the same time, just didn’t have the time to seek advice. When I eventually went full-time, I thought it was too late for them to offer me any start-up grants or advice. I also moved from Edinburgh to Inverness and bought a house whilst launching my business, so missed out on any opportunities for government help through poor planning on my part.
Talk us through the process of writing your business plan.
I found my business plan surprisingly enjoyable to write. I had read several examples online and borrowed a couple of books from my brother who was studying for a business management degree. All of these were a little scary, pages and pages full of lots of detailed facts and figures. As I was not seeking investors in my business, I put together a business plan that was more of a guide for me, to keep me on track and to set myself targets. This made is a lot easier and enjoyable to compile.
How much did it cost to start the business?
The cost of starting my business was minimal, I already had a decent computer, so my main cost was buying all the software I required. I also invested in a decent desk and chair as I figured I’d be spending a fair bit of time in it. All in all my start up costs were around the £1000 mark.
How did you fund this?
I funded my start up costs from my own savings. Most of the money I made over the first few months was invested back into the business also to buy other useful but less vital equipment, a laptop, digital camera, and good quality scanner and printer.
