ENTREPRENEUR INTERVIEWs - SERIES 1

INTERVIEW 5 - Seán, THE TECHNOLOGY BUSINESS OWNER

In the final interview of Series 1, Seán shares his views about the highs and lows of entrepreneurship, persevering for 6 months before he got his first client, and his top software resources.

Seán, what do you do, why do you do it and how did you get into it?
I run WPStrands and we are going to change the view of website maintenance from a non-essential luxury, to an affordable necessity.
We do this for business owners who are delighted to have their WordPress website maintenance (configuration, backups, updates, security, coding, performance checks etc.) done for them at WPStrands, https://wpstrands.com.

After 24 years in a corporate career I wanted to do something meaningful for online business owners, and for myself.

How long have you been an entrepreneur?
Two years, but it feels like I only started doing it properly in the past 6 months!


What are the biggest highs and lows of entrepreneurship?
The highs:

• Learning and freedom - I love both.
• Knowing I'm doing something that genuinely helps people.
• Seeing how happy a customer is when you get them out of a jam.
• Every new customer we work with.
• Being able to be with my daughter more - for important moments, or when she's sick.
• My biggest high was getting my first large corporate client. It's interesting to be providing specialist services to the kind of companies I used to work for.

The lows:

• The doubt and insecurity.  It's a predator constantly circling, ready to pounce at random times, though the circle is slowly getting wider and wider!
• Getting way off schedule because of client problems.
• Dealing with the naysayers, including close family and friends.  If they can't be convinced to believe in you, then just fall back on being stoic.

After 6 months with no clients, thinking: "Why am I wasting my time on this? I've no idea what I'm doing and no-one cares."  The thing that kept me going was knowing that 80 million WordPress websites exist. Surely the owners of a few hundred of them would be interested in my help if they only knew about me!
Both the highs, and the lows come and go. Thankfully with increased experience, confidence and knowledge, the ratios of highs to lows increases.


What are the most important lessons, or realisations you've had about life as an entrepreneur?

• Most people do not work very efficiently, but you can learn lots from those who do. Smart time management and routines are important.
• Most people are not reliable, but you can learn lots from those who are.
• Most people do not have your expertise, and they ARE willing to learn from you.
• Selling is not evil, or greedy.
• There are no secrets. From the ancient Greeks, through to Carnegie, Napoleon Hill and Tony Robbins, the most important things have always been written about: purpose, belief, desire, persistence and consistent work. There is very little about getting things done that hasn't already been written.
• It's hard. Much harder than you think!
• It's rewarding. Much more rewarding than you could ever imagine. The simple satisfaction of waking up every day eager to get to work and help people is incredible.

What are the top tools that have made a significant difference to your business?
I would have to say:

• Buffer, www.Buffer.com for social media scheduling.
• Google Calendar, https://calendar.google.com/ for scheduling, planning, and keeping myself on track.
• Slack, www.slack.com and Skype www.skype.com for communication.
• Canva, www.canva.com for images of all kinds.
• Piktochart, www.piktochart.com for images, and charts.
• Irfanview, www.irfanview.com for quick image editing and resizing.
• Wave, www.waveapps.com for invoicing.​

​You can find out more about how Seán got started at: https://wpstrands.com/bootstrappers-journey-100-customers/.

Contains copyrighted material from the book: Entrepreneurial Espresso.