FROM KITCHEN TABLE TO CORPORATION

Do you have a burning business idea? Maybe you already run a small operation in your spare time? Take it full-time and you could soon reap the rewards.

WORDS BY BARRY MANSFIELD

SOME OF THE BIGGEST COMPANIES IN THE WORLD BEGAN LIFE AS A part-time operation, but this knowledge is little consolation when you’re faced with the reality of leaving a secure full-time job to go it alone. Whether you aspire to be the next Google or simply want to ditch the day job, it can be difficult to make the leap from running a business in your spare time to making it pay full-time.

That first large order is very often a major turning point for part-timers. Faced with the necessity of cranking up production to meet the demands of the buyer, entrepreneurs can find their situation transformed rapidly from cosy kitchen table setup to a punishing 60-hour working week, with resources stretched to the limit and an urgent need for extra hands on deck. This matches the experience of Nadine Lewis, who ran her Manchester-based company IdentifyMe from home after launching in 2002. It began life under the name Identikids, with Lewis specialising in children’s ID cards that could be fitted to a car’s rear passenger seat and containing vital information for emergency services in an accident.

Then, when Lewis lost her son in a shopping centre in Manchester, she came up with the idea of a wristband for children that contained their parents’ contact details. The idea turned out to be a winner and Lewis had to switch to full-time hours to handle the volume of orders that were flooding in. She was soon supplying local councils, nurseries and police forces, shifting 150,000 wristbands annually by 2005 and exporting to new markets in Germany, the Netherlands and even Australia. But it was a series of massive orders from British high street giants, including Mothercare and Boots, that influenced Lewis’ decision to rent some office space and take on staff.

Despite the large orders, however, Lewis admits that funding was difficult to source. “It was a relief when Bank of Scotland came up with the money,” she says. The kickstart provided by this first loan meant that Lewis could work with the funds generated from her early orders, giving her the ability to grow the business organically instead of having to return to the banks to borrow more capital.

Lewis says that advice from local group Women in Business, Manchester’s ChamberLink and Bolton Business Ventures helped her to manage the transition successfully, not least because they guided her to the NEC Trade Show in Manchester where IdentifyMe was first spotted by Mothercare. She praises her business advisers but points out that there can be a fine line between studious preparation and procrastination. “In business you can never totally remove that element of uncertainty,” says Lewis. “There comes a point where you have to shut your eyes and take a leap of faith. Learn to expect the unexpected.”

Although fortune has favoured Lewis, she believes there could be a stronger support network in the UK for part-time business owners, particularly mothers working from home. “We have a tax credit system, but not if you work from home,” she says. “As for childcare – imagine speaking to an important customer on the phone when your kids are making a noise in the background. It’s not ideal. Other countries have better systems for supporting businesswomen, and I’d like to see something similar in the UK.”

Of course not all entrepreneurs reach the stage of full-time employment before they begin building their own business, and lots of fresh new ideas come out of operations that were started while their founders were at university. Twenty-three-year-old Wouter Broekhof, for example, was studying Information Sciences in Amsterdam when he and his friend, Robert Gaal, conceived the idea behind Wakoopa, a social network for software users that alerts subscribers with updates and provides troubleshooting advice.

When Broekhof graduated this summer, the duo managed to secure free office space in the city centre from their business advisers Meganova, which also helped them to raise €100,000 (£70,000) in funding from DCIF, a Dutch investment fund started by media firms IDG and De Telegraaf. The founders have not taken on employees yet, but Broekhof has used his academic links to identify promising young software developers at the local universities, offering them internships at Wakoopa.

Broekhof says he is a fan of Amsterdam’s Open Coffee meetings, informal get-togethers reminiscent of London’s First Tuesday networking events during the dotcom era. The coffee meetings allow technology entrepreneurs from across the Netherlands to link up and discuss their latest ideas over a cappuccino. “That’s the kind of initiative that has brought about a positive cultural change for entrepreneurs here,” says Broekhof. “Traditionally there’s been a lot of pressure from family and society to get a regular, full-time job, rather than embrace risk. We’re moving on from that, and entrepreneurs are now very focused on helping each other to raise their ambitions.”

Another business that relies partly on talented university interns is GravityZoo, a Belgian start up headquartered in the Dutch/ German/Belgian border town of Lanaken, just 10km from Maastricht. Its founder and CEO Marc Vrijhof has developed a platform that enables people to access all their favourite applications, from Word to PhotoShop, through a web browser on any computer. Despite being tipped by experts as a possible acquisition target for the likes of Google, Marc is modest about the company’s achievements so far.

He intends to avoid venture capitalists until GravityZoo’s cash flow has improved. Instead he has opted to build the business around the so-called “mastermind concept”, which means setting up shop with fellow whizzkids who are offered equity in the company in recognition of their expertise. Work experience students from the nearby university towns provide extra manpower, meaning that GravityZoo’s main resource is brainpower, not money.

In GravityZoo’s experience, the popular perception of Belgium as heavily regulated and bureaucratic is wide of the mark. “When the business went full-time, we actually found there weren’t as many regulations affecting GravityZoo as a software company. This, combined with easy access to some of the greatest minds in the region, made Lanaken the perfect full-time base for us.”

Michel Vanhoonacker, owner of an import-export company and chairman of the Belgium-Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce, points out that the Benelux countries have the most productive workforce in the EU. “You should not only look at taxation when deciding to run a full-time business in the Benelux,” he says. “What you pay in taxes in Belgium is partly compensated by lower rents and very low business rates.”

And his advice for entrepreneurs? “Cash flow is a recurring issue. Many young businesses go bust with full order books. Choosing the right staff and working with them is another problem, as you no longer control the whole process. It can be hard to delegate. However, spending 100 per cent of your time on the business is eventually the best way forward.”

So if you’re dabbling with a small business in your spare time or have long been formulating a big idea, maybe it’s time to take the leap and devote yourself to it full-time. Whether it’s a high-tech start up or a simple concept like IdentifyMe’s children’s tags, the right idea and some dogged determination can yield real results.