Currently...

I’m currently working on a project to help champion, promote, support and connect female entrepreneurs. It’s called the http://femaleentrepreneurassociation.com" rel="nofollow">Female Entrepreneur Association. I also run an online mobile phone unlocking company and a communications and digital media company… sometimes I wish there were more hours in the day!

As I’m working on so many different things I have to be really organised with my time – which definitely doesn’t come naturally to me. I split my days into specific tasks and write a lot of To-Do lists.

My main priority at the moment is the FEA Project – I’m currently working hard on making new connections.

Before I escaped...

I set up my first business about six years ago now. At the time I was 19 and I was just about to go into my second year of studying law at university. I was so poor from all of the spending I’d done in first year and when the opportunity arose to start a business, I jumped at the chance.

I knew nothing about building a business, but I figured I’d need a website, so that’s where I started.

I asked as many people as I could about how to get a site online and within a few weeks I’d built the worst website in the world. I’d heard of Google Adwords and decided I’d advertise through it to get traffic to the website. So, with a credit card and a daily spending limit of £30 on Adwords, the business was officially up and running.

Over the next few months I tried to learn as much as I possibly could in order to improve the business. I learnt how to make more people click on my adverts and how to turn more visitors into customers. It wasn’t long before the business really took off.

During my third year I juggled my law degree with going to night school to learn about web development and actually running my business. It was challenging, but all worth it.

After I graduated I decided to carry on building the business. It became one of the largest online unlocking providers. The site was receiving over 100,000 visits to the website every month and we were selling over a thousand codes per month throughout the UK, USA, Canada and Australia.

The development of social media really helped me to grow the business. I asked customers for video testimonials, which I put on YouTube – they’ve since received over 300,000 views.

Whilst building the business was exciting, I started to feel incredibly lonely. I worked from home, I outsourced everything I possibly could and ultimately my computer became my best friend (sad, but true).

My moment of truth...

When I set up my first business, the moment of truth was when I realised I was going to leave university with an awful lot of debt if I didn’t do something about it!!

The second moment of truth (when I decided to start the FEA Project) was when I realised that my computer was probably the closet thing to me. It was either, be totally miserable and alone forever, or get out there and figure out other ways to have 'colleagues' and make more friends without having a job.

I think a massive determining factor in me actually 'going for it' is the belief that I’m not going to be around forever – I know I’ve only got one life to do all the things I want to do and achieve all the things I want to achieve and if I don’t go for it then what’s the point?! If other people can achieve amazing things, then so can I.

Planning for it...

When I set up my first business it’s fair to say I didn’t really plan at all. Sometimes I think you can plan yourself into paralysis!

Goethe said “the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too… Whatever you can do or dream you can... begin it! Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”

This is so true – the moment you commit to something and take action, things start to happen (obviously!). That is exactly what I did – I just started doing it and figured it all out as I went along. I went with the philosophy “ready, fire, aim” not “ready, aim, fire”.

I do believe in setting goals and having a vision of where you want to end up though, I think that’s very important.

The worst and best bits...

The best thing about building my own business is that I feel free and I feel like I can really achieve whatever I want. I’m not constrained by someone telling me what to do or what time I have to be in work. Last year I went travelling around Australia and my business was running itself and making me money every day – that’s how amazing having your own business can be.

So many of my friends tell me that they feel depressed on Sunday evenings – I have not had that feeling since I was at school.

A major challenge for me has been trying to overcome loneliness. When I left university and decided to carry on developing my business I had no idea how isolated I would feel. It really made me realise that having success and no one to share it with is rubbish! I really missed socialising on a daily basis and meeting new people on the same wavelength as me.

Having said that, the perk of having a business, like I said before, is the opportunities to go travelling and do cool things with your time. But you have to have put enough time and effort into the business to be able to go away and leave it to run itself. With the new project I’m working on, I wouldn’t dream of gallivanting around the world – I want to focus on making it successful.

Best advice...

“Believe in yourself and anything is possible” – my mum and dad have always told me that.
 
I’ve had some good advice given to me over the years:

• take yourself seriously in business
• treat others as you would like to be treated
• always be learning and improving yourself

Useful resources and information...

I read a lot of books & listen to a lot of CDs. The ones that have had the most impact on me are:

• http://www.amazon.co.uk/-Myth-Enterprise-Great-Thriving-Business/dp/0061733822/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1305720373&sr=8-2" rel="nofollow">The E-myth by Michael Gerber
• http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ready-Fire-Aim-Million-Agora/dp/0470182024/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1305720430&sr=1-1" rel="nofollow">Ready, Fire, Aim by Michael Masterson 
• http://www.amazon.co.uk/Habits-Highly-Effective-People/dp/0684858398/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1305720472&sr=1-1" rel="nofollow">The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
• http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mastermind-Marketing-System-Abraham-Nightingale/dp/1905453639/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1305720508&sr=1-1" rel="nofollow">The Mastermind Marketing System by Jay Abraham

I would never have been able to achieve the level of success I have without learning from these people. http://femaleentrepreneurassociation.com/learning-from-experts/" rel="nofollow">