When I first decided to really push "So Easy" about 6 months ago, I had quite a few big projects lined up, and also the bank (HSBC) said they'd agree to increase my overdraft from £14k to £30k if I needed it, and that gave me the confidence to really give it a shot.

Over the past few weeks, the big projects that were in the pipeline unfortunately haven't come off, so a few weeks ago, I trundled down to the bank to ask them to kindly increase my overdraft, as promised. And guess what, 2 months after they said they could increase it, computer now says NO.

This has left me in a very very difficult situation. All my solid back up plans have actually deserted me.

I've had conversations with my mortgage company, who have kindly switch my mortgage from repayment to interest only. Not a massive help, but it has dropped it from £1800 per month to £1400 per month...

Sealed with a cherry did pretty well for fathers day, bringing in around £350 of sales, but since then it's just died off, but hopefully we can revive that.

So, as things stand, I've got around £500 available before I max out my O/D and credit card.... So, yes, things are pretty tough.

Since the start of the year, I've really managed to cut back, pretty much on everything I can. There isn't much left to cut back on. I started by suspending my gym / tennis membership, I've dropped my Sky subscription down from £60 a month to £20 (No sky sports anymore :( ), and I've even resorted to eating cereals for dinner (all good for the weight loss, too)...

All in all, I've managed to cut back about £500 per month, but still my outgoings are a little over £3k. 

I've spent many hours thinking of "quick" solutions. Getting a lodger, renting out the house etc... but realistically, none of them are practical. Getting a lodger would probably only get me about £400 per month, and living in a bungalow, I'd find it hard working the hours I do, and being so used to quiet. 

If I rented out my house, I'd only get around £1200 per month, and that wouldn't even cover the mortgage, and I'd still need somewhere else to live.

This is an absolute last resort, but I think I may actually have to swallow my pride and ask my mum and dad for some help. The sad thing is I've managed to get this far in life without much in the way of help from my parents, and I feel proud when I look at what I've achieved,

I guess that if I have to get help from my parents, then I feel like I've failed, let them down, and was unable to "make it on my own".

I've had a conversation with them, and warned them that I may need some help until I sell my house, however, I'm still optimistic that something will turn up and I will find away to get by without a) getting into debt or b) having to borrow from my parents.

Things are so desperate that I even email Auctions again, pretty much begging for some work for a few months. Luckily they haven't replied, to be honest, that's not really a solution, as I'd hate it their and wouldn't be able to focus on my existing work.

I still have a few projects lined up, so fingers crossed, the money will start to come in before I have to borrow off parents, or before I have to sell the house.

Watch this space to find out what happens next in the ups and downs of my exciting life.

Well, it's been mega mega busy since the spring fair, and I've been working flat out on trying to get So Easy Commerce up and running. I think I underestimated how much work there was to get it completed, but it's getting there, slowly. I have three clients signed up to use it now, so I need to get it all sorted.. Lighting guy, Recruitment brother, and Coffee guy (who I have a meeting with tomorrow).

It seems that the family I met at spring fair from South Africa also want me involved in some consultancy fashion which is good.

The biggest project in the pipe line is working with Write From The Heart, a personalised photo frame business who want me on as a share holder and with a small development fee as well. However, after having a meeting with them, I'm convinced I can do this myself and earn more money than the development fee they would pay me.... So it got me thinking...

My bank balance is pretty dire at the moment, and I only have a few more months before I actually run out of money, so I figure, why not set up some photo frames myself and just try and sell them online and see if the seeds of a business start to shine through...  And as usual, when I get a little thought in my head, I start running away with it, so, the new new little business venture is called "Sealed With A Cherry". I figured all the work I'd be putting on for Write From The Heart, I may as well do the same but for my own business. One sale a day would get me more money than they could afford to pay me.

So, Fathers day in a few months, I want to have the new site up and running and taking order.

Which basically means, right now, I have the following projects to work on and finish:

Foxwood Clients - Cement and Recruitment

So Easy Commerce, Lighting, QRT and Coffee.

So Easy Design, Sterling travel and a few others,

So Easy Fulfilment, Coffee guy

... and Sealed With A Cherry

Is this a bit too much for one person to take on....???...   Not for Super Ben, it's not.

This time next year, I'll be a millionaire...

Now that things have settled after the spring fair, I can now take stock of what's on the horizon and what direction I should be going in for the rest of the year.

It's apparent the the whole of the So Easy Brand has potential. The brand is good, the products, although aren't unique, there is a market for the simplicity I'm trying to achieve, so that is going to be a big focus for me for the rest of the year.

I think for the next few months I'm going to be juggling a lot of projects at once.

For Foxwood, I have a couple of Recruitment projects, another site redesign for JamCem, which will involve a redevelopment of My.Foxwood. 

Also, following the Spring Fair, I have another large project for WriteFromTheHeart Keepsakes. This could hopefully be a monthly retainer plus equity, but I guess it's going to take some weeks to finalise. 

I also have a quote to do for a local networking group which could potentially end up being about £10k work, but not sure if that will come off or not.

Another good contact from the Spring fair was a guy who wants me to be distributor for his Surf products, Ola Ketal. I thought this would be a great project to test the So Easy solutions from start to finish, but although I love the brand and his products are pretty snazzy, I just don't think I can give it the time it needs to make it a success.

So, I'm still looking for a nice little project to test So Easy from start to finish, so Im thinking of setting up a little musical gift shop... E-commerce with So Easy Design, manage across market places, and the do the fulfilment too, but run it as a proper customer.

 

Simon is quite keen to start pushing the fulfilment side of the business, so I think that will be a good point of focus over the next few months, however, following the spring fair, I have a number of contacts that want e-commerce solutions, so I'm going to have to get cracking on that too. Still a lot of work to get it to a launch-able state.

Got another meeting in the morning in Knights bridge, with a family I met at the Spring Fair. They are also looking for a fulfilment solution, but also a start to finish solution for their son. This could be a great little project to get everything up and running with.

My main goal is to try and use big projects from Foxwood to fund the development of So Easy, up to a point where So Easy is generating around £3k per month.. Then I can relax and take a few holidays.

The last few months have been tough, but I've really managed to move So Easy forward significantly, so the risk of cutting down some clients to focus, has paid off. However, the bank balances are not looking great.

I still feel I need around 6 months to get So Easy off the ground, so I went to the bank to borrow £30k. This should give me the buffer I need to get everything up and running.

I must admit, I was a little concerned about getting into debt again, but let's face it, it's not like I'm spending it all on clothes or holidays... It's to help build up the business. Plenty of people have so much more debt than that, and this is for the bigger picture. I also have around £100k equity in my house now, so, I won't lose sleep over it, and hopefully it will give me the boost I need to start earning good money again.

Happy Monday, and I'll update you all again soon... 

i arrived at Birmingham NEC, 14:00 on Saturday, ready to drop everything off at the stand and get an early night. What I wasn't aware of was that I had to book a parking space outside the loading bay, and pay a £50 deposit. Refundable, but if I was a minute late, I'd lose the deposit. Not knowing where to go, I was starting to panic. No idea where Hall 4 was, but luckily I managed to navigate round all the halls and find my entrance.

When I finally found my stand, I have to say, it was very disheartening. A tiny little empty stand. I looked around at all the competitors in the hall with their fancy lighting, and plenty of room to sit to customers and chat. "How was I going to attract any customers?".  Tired from the drive, and the stress of finding the stand, I then realised I was still on the clock to get my £50 deposit, so I quickly unloaded the car, and took the car back to the car park (and got my deposit back. I made my way back to the stand (20 minute walk from the nearest car park, the NEC is huge), and slowly started to put the stand together, setting up the banners, and the computers etc...

I finally get everything how I wanted it, and I have to say, the results weren't too shabby. Let's not forget, budget was very limited and this was all organised in just 6 weeks.

This was the first time in years I'd actually been in front of customers, selling a product. It didn't take long for me to get back into the groove, and after the first day, I'd received over 20 decent leads already.

My main aim of the exhibition was to test the market to see if So Easy has a good customer base, and I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised with the great feedback I was receiving, both for the product, and the brand.

The next 4 days were tough, but I collected some great contacts and I think I'll have to put the exhibition down as a success.

Well, I've spent the last 5 days selling an entire solution that doesn't quite exist, so I'm up against it to get everything working smoothly.

I have to say, that the weeks leading up the NEC, I managed to get so much completed:

However, that's just the start... Now that I have so much interest in the solutions, I have to actually get them finished. 

So, it's bye bye social life for a few weeks / months and head down to get this shit off the ground...

This week, I felt like I was hitting a brick wall.  This is the third business I've set up, but only the first I've done completely on my own, and it's hard. 

The biggest obstacle I seem to have at the moment is that I'm working to get everything set up, but without a deadline. I don't yet have clients because the system I'm building isn't complete yet. 

I had a little look around at some of the competitors for So Easy Commerce, and the competition is vast. Massive companies with investment, teams of people and a system that's evolved over years of hard work. How can I, on my own, compete with that?

So, feeling a little bit sorry for myself, I need a kick up the arse. 

Now, every year, in February, Birmingham NEC hosts the Spring Fair, the largest exhibition, possibly in Europe, for wholesale and any anything e-commerce. It's a 5 day event, with a footfall of over 80,000. So I decided to enquire about exhibiting. I didn't get my hopes up, as I assumed they would have sold all their stand already, but I was in luck, they had 2 stands left...  So I took the plunge and booked one.

Saying that I'm up against it is a huge understatement. Baring in mind, that we are now in the first week of December, and the Spring fair is the first week in February, and I'm planning on exhibiting for So Easy Commerce AND So Easy Fulfilment, I now have the seemingly impossible task of setting up two new businesses (that haven't even been started on yet) and getting them ready in just SIX weeks

So, I thought I'd just make a little list of everything I need to get done in just 6 weeks.

Well, I've never exhibited before so, here's the things I need to get sorted for the exhibition

So, the most important thing is to get the front end websites up and running, so at least I have something for customers to visit and get information from, so I now need to set up and build websites for the follow:

This is where most of the work is going to come so I'm going to break it down it sections

This won't really be seen by any customers but it's the core of the entire system. The system needs to manage user log in details across all of the So Easy systems. Users will be able to use the same email / password and via the license, subscribe to any of the businesses.

So, for this to work, I need to integrate with payment (direct debit) and have a fully automated system so customers can set up trials, and then subscribe to the full system.

None if this built yet.

For some reason, thought out my whole life, whenever things have been tough, something always seems to come along. I guess the most memorable instance of this was when I was running VCAB, the recession had just kicked in and business was bad. I was very close (about a month away) from having to declare bankruptcy , and losing everything, including the house... Then, out of the blue, one of my existing clients offered to buy the business. 

Some people call it luck, but I guess if it keeps happening, then it can't be luck, can it? Someone once said, "I'm a big believer in luck, in fact the harder I work, the more I have", which I couldn't agree with more.

So over the last few weeks, I've been focused on building up the So Easy Brand. It's a lot of work with no immediate reward, but hopefully in the early part of 2015, the sales should start flooding in.

And, again, out of the blue, an existing client just phoned up to enquire about fulfillment.  Now, over the last 5 years, I've been involved in a business selling music and film memorabilia (GreatGearStore.com) and we have a little warehouse where we manage all the picking / packing and posting of hundreds of items per day. A few years ago, we set up So Easy Fulfillment, offering a pick / pack solution for other customers. We've never pursued it as a business venture, as it's never been a priority, but bizarrely, over the last few weeks, this has been in the pipeline to get up and running for next year.

So, with the initial interest of the new Fulfillment client, it's given me that extra boost I needed to crack on with So Easy Fulfillment, and So Easy Commerce, and hopefully we will have some paying clients in the next month or so.

I know I always worry when things get tough, but deep down, I always believe that something will turn up, and it appears that it's happened again.

I'm confident now that in 6 - 12 months, I'll be pulling in a decent income across the So Easy Group from the following:

Exciting times

I've also got a meeting set up next week with a great designer, who will be doing all the designs for So Easy when I get new clients. The design side of the business has never been something I've enjoyed doing, so finding a great designer has, again, lifted my spirits, give me an extra buzz to go out and sell, knowing that the sites will look fantastic.

There's been a number of times where I have seriously thought "what have I done?" and considered looking for a job, or going back to some of my older clients for work, but I have to stick to the plan. It's only been four weeks, and the amount of work I've managed to get through has been immense.

The hardest part is when I keep looking at my bank balance and reality hits home, that I only have a few months before I run out of cash, but I've been here before, and managed to build up a business, so I just need to commit and go for it. It's always going to feel like a struggle in the early days, but I'm sure it will be worth it in the long run.

The biggest downside so far is that I have had to sacrifice my tennis for a month (only playing once a week) but I can't argue with the results, the progress is certainly visible.

I've managed to get the whole site finished, and I have to say, it's looking great... Check it out  So Easy Design Site

I've also made some great progress on the editor.

Not's not quite time to start marketing it yet, but I have now got a few clients set up on the new system. Lots more work to be done, but I reckon a few more weeks and I'll be close to it been ready for proper launch.

This has been slightly on the back burner for a few weeks, but I've still managed to get loads done. The main bit being the event scheduling.

Pubs / Venues can now set up recurring events, weekly, daily, every other week , monthly etc, and they all show up in the search results just from one database entry. 

The direct debit functionality is also set up and ready to go... Just need a few final touches for the front end, and we could be ready to get out there and sign up some pubs. Rock 'n' Roll...

On top of all that, I've managed to get some mini projects signed off for my recruitment client, and also squeezed in the hours for Great Gear Store.

So all in all, although my personal life has taken a bit of a hit, work wise, I think we can class October as been a massive success.

Site is live, but there's nothing on it.. I really need to crack on and get a good looking site live

This is the main focus.

I've got the home page designed now, but need to work on content for the rest of the site.

The template editor has taken shape, I can duplicate templates, create themes, upload images and I've even got the Getty Images search working.

Now I need to re-develop the drag and drop system for the clients to use, this is going to be a big chunk of work, and I have a couple of clients waiting for it. Should look good though cos it's all in bootstrap.

This definitely has legs, and I've come a long way in a short time.

I have a design in place for the home page. From a back end point of view, pubs can sign in with facebook, claim a venue, set up direct debit and almost create an event (just the final saving to do)

It's getting there...

The decision:

I have a number of large clients, the biggest of which is currently EIGroup, based in Reigate. The pay is great, but it does involve spending a good 10 - 20 hours a week working on their projects.

Whilst this is great, and the money really helps towards the mortgage, I'm trying to build up my new business, the "So Easy Brand". 

So I've made a decisions, to park the Reigate client for a few months and focus purely on the new business. Some might this this is a stupid move, giving up some guaranteed cash, but I really need to build up the new business, so I'm a believer in "Fortune favours the brave".

I've effectively got about 6 months of cash to survive on, so over the course of the next few months, I'll be documenting my work progress, and hopefully it will end with a successful business.

Why I'm shitting myself...

There's no turning back, but it is slightly worrying.

I now have two businesses:

Foxwood Design:  Which has a income of £450 per month from various clients

So Easy Design: Currently has an income of £100 per month

My total outgoings (personal and business combined)  is £3520... Leaving me a monthly shortfall of around £3k...

Basically, I need to get my arse in gear and start building up the business..

Tick tock, I have about 5 months before I run out of money completely.

Wish me luck