If your average working day involves a packed rush-hour train, a soul-sapping workload and a sad sandwich at your desk at lunchtime, you may have considered breaking free from the shackles of the nine-to-five. If so, you’re not alone. A recent survey by CV-Library shows that just over half (55.6%) of British employees are dissatisfied with their jobs.
But swapping regular income for the freedom of being your own boss comes with challenges. Here, former nine-to-fivers reveal how they managed to find happiness by building their own businesses.
The lawyer turned food stylist
Rukmini Iyer went to law school because she saw it as a good career move, but her true passion lay elsewhere. After getting a job in the legal sector, she found the work dull, and took solace in spending her free time doing what she enjoyed – cooking. “I came to the realisation I didn’t want to carry on doing this. I wanted to do what I love, all the time. So I put down a deposit for cookery school,” she says.
With the financial support of her mother, Iyer did a culinary course, with a view to becoming a food stylist. She then contacted food stylists for advice. “Amazingly, they wrote back with tips like ‘go to cookery lessons’, ‘work in a restaurant’, and ‘start assisting.’” To learn the craft, she started by helping out established food stylists, eventually landing commissions of her own. She has since worked for brands such as Waitrose and Tesco.
Iyer is also the author of The Roasting Tin, a cookbook published last year. Her next release, The Green Roasting Tin, will be out in the summer. The only thing she misses about corporate life is the smarter work attire. “Now I’m just wearing jeans all the time,” she says.
The couple who quit the rat race to go into business together
Henry Baker and Tracey Broadway quit their jobs in an effort to get a better work-life balance. Baker had been working in IT sales for 10 years and felt worn down by the stress and a gruelling commute. “At one point I was driving from Southampton to Warwick and back every day, which was four hours in total,” he says. “I just got completely fed up with it, like so many people are.”
He and Broadway, who had previously managed nail salons, decided to move to the Dorset countryside. Baker started an online business selling gardening equipment – but not long after it launched, Broadway was diagnosed with breast cancer, aged 34, and had to undergo chemotherapy. “Because it was such a dark time for us, we were very keen to find something Tracey could look forward to launching once she was feeling better,” says Baker.
Inspired by the challenge of finding skincare products that are safe to use during cancer treatment, they came up with an idea for a new venture. “I spent a lot of time researching skincare,” says Broadway. “It was very important for us to use natural organic ingredients, not tested on animals.”
Broadway made a full recovery and the couple went on to launch their HighBorn skincare range in 2016. They started the brand with a few hundred pounds and no outside investment. It is now sold on Amazon, with a percentage of sales going to cancer research, and the couple, who have two children, say they are on course to make their first million in turnover. Success has been hard won, says Baker. “We’ve had times when we’ve been searching down the back of the sofa for pennies to buy bread,” he says. “I don’t want to sugarcoat it, because it’s been hard, but I’ve loved every minute of it.”
Making the leap from shop assistant to web design guru
Nesha Woolery was working as a shop assistant in a menswear store when she decided to start a fashion blog. “I felt like I had so much more to give people than advice on what jean size they should try,” she says. Her blog design got her noticed and she had requests from readers asking for help with their sites. “At the time, design was just something that I enjoyed as a hobby. But then I realised people would actually pay me money to do something I love.”
She took an online design course and gained work experience. After honing her craft, she decided to test the market. “I did an experiment and went on Twitter offering a blog design for £50,” she says. That attracted her first paying clients. After that, she raised her fee, until she was able to ditch the day job. She now charges £4,000 for a full website design and also teaches other women how to start their own creative businesses. But there have been challenges on the way, including some clients disappearing without paying in the early days.
“It did freak me out,” she says. “But as you gain experience as a business owner you learn how to prevent that.” For anyone wanting to go it alone, a business plan is key, she says. “I created a one-page business plan showing how much I needed to make that year, how many clients I needed to take on to make that happen and how much to charge,” she says. “A simple plan will transform the income that you make from your business.”
