The Beginning

On the 13 August 2009 I officially registered my business with the Companies House and became Director of my own company. Two weeks ago I managed to get my company's website up and running and I thought I'd set up this blog to document my journey into the world of business. I'm also a University student so I've got to somehow juggle studying and managing my business, along with whatever else life throws at me. This is my story.

I don't want this whole blog to be a plug for my business so for the meantime I won't be identifying my business, although if this ever does get popular and enough people are curious about it I might reconsider. I've always thought it a bit sad to come across random blogs that were updated diligently and suddenly stop. It makes me wonder why they stopped and what happened to that person. Did they give up? Have they moved on? It's like reading a story without an ending. So regardless of whether this blog becomes popular or not I'm going to try to keep this going as long as my business. It is informative for anybody interested in starting their own business, particularly university students, but moreover it's a way for me to record the day to day happenings of my business. After all, it is a learning experience for me. The business I have started might not be the one I'm still working on in 20 or even 10 years time but the experience I gain from it will be invaluable in the future. I also like writing so this is a good outlet.

So to give some background information I am running an online retail website. It has been officially open about 2 weeks now and I've had 10 sales so far. These have mostly come from the eBay section of my business; unfortunately my own website has not registered any sales so far. Since launch I've been trying to get the word out about my website, posting it wherever I can and I've had some help with my family members spreading it to friends and colleagues but it's hard to get people to trust a new website. After all, why shop at an unknown Internet site when you can go to a brand name like Amazon or a high street shop? This is a big obstacle for me and definitely something I have to overcome if the business is ever going to truly take off.

University starts again at the end of September which is on the other side of the country from my parents' house but luckily due to the nature of my business it's quite flexible in that I can simply take stock with me and post it from my term time house instead. I'm starting as a fresher although I'm 20 years old because I took a gap year and am restarting my first year due to changing the course I'm on. I was doing a joint honours degree last year but decided to major in Psychology since that is what I am best at and is where I will find my preferred career.

Starting first year again is inconvenient in the sense that all the friends I made the first time round and am due to live with this year will graduate a year before me but it does allow me a slightly easier first year as I've already done half the work that will be set last year which gives me more time to focus on my business.

I don't want to set myself an update schedule for this blog as I don't want to force posts out in the event nothing significant transpires between one post and the next but I will try to update at least once a week plus any time anything significant occurs.