Ben Fielding - Corporate IT to IT business owner
"The best thing is that now everything just feels connected – like this is my life. I’m not switching from Dad mode to husband mode, to work mode to business owner mode. It’s just my life now. I am just doing what I want to be doing…doing what I love.”
Overview of earlier career
Early career in graphic design. Moved into IT within big companies and moved up the ranks from technical roles to management positions. Then joined a small 50 person IT firm which more than doubled in size over Ben’s time there and moved into account management roles. Started his own company with a partner 6 months into this final, full-time role working as an employee. Three children (9,6 and 2).
The trigger for change?
Ben choose to work within a small, high-growth IT firm for the last few years of employment but began to notice that others around him had several business ideas running at the same time and was inspired to join with a partner to start up his own business on the side. “As I don’t play golf or tennis - the side business became my hobby on the evenings and weekends.”
“The company I was working for went through the growing pains of getting bigger, with the arrival of more specialist roles and many senior management personnel changes - some were great but others were destructive. One new leader proved to have a cataclysmic effect on my enjoyment of work”. Ben put a great deal of energy into that particular relationship but there was some fall-out as one might expect.
In this instance the fall-out was Ben’s motivation. After a family holiday Ben returned to work and could distance himself from the personal emotion of his situation and could see more clearly that his future was not within that company. “I decided that I would deliver and make sure that the team performed well but not with the level of commitment and loyalty I had previously offered.”
First steps?
“My business partner and I had long discussions to agree practical and financial targets relating to the moment when I would join the business full-time i.e. the point at which our company could nearly manage me. I made a commitment to join as soon as that happened and then make the success of our business my focus. We agreed that I would keep working and earning money from my other job until that point.”
Even though a new boss arrived, “the best boss I have ever had – an utter genius” who convinced Ben to commit to a 6 month turnaround project, his previously unwavering commitment to the company and his role had both been irreparably damaged. “It was only a matter of time” before he jumped into his own company full-time.
What Ben learned?
“Not that I got it right in the early days but I’ve learned to get all the stakeholders on board to help structure my days and my weeks. I have a wife, three kids, a dog and older parents who worry about us all the time. I had to negotiate with my employer, my business partner, my wife, my kids and my parents about where I would spend my time rather than reactively being pulled in lots of different directions. That made a big difference.”
“Knowing my business partner inside out was key. Luckily, Stuart and I have had 20 years to get to know each other but we are still learning business behaviours beyond our personal behaviours. For instance, I have a different way of reacting to negative feedback to Stuart and we have different decision-making processes. We are chalk and cheese in so many ways but knowing exactly how we differ and allowing each other to react to the same things in different ways makes communication much easier.”
“We’ve discovered that having loose agreements on common goals works better than if the agreement is too specific. If we are very specific and don’t hit a goal, we are both gutted. On loose agreements we work towards the same goal and more often one or two of us is happy.”
“When we agree on spending or anything important – which happens about once a week – we make sure we look each other in the eye and shake hands. This burns it into our memories and differentiates it from all the hundreds of conversations we have on a daily basis.”
What Ben would do differently if he had to do it all again?
“I had an opportunity to leave and join a much smaller company about a year before I left my last employer. If I had put my energy into a smaller company, I might have found new enthusiasm and learned more to take with me into this business. Easy to say in hindsight though.”
How it feels on the days when he knows he has made the right decision?
“There are definitely days when my head is swimming but I just need a few minutes to level out and then carry on. The best thing is that now everything just feels connected – like this is my life. I’m not switching from Dad mode to husband mode, to work mode to business owner mode. It’s just my life now. I am just doing what I want to be doing…doing what I love.”
Any regrets?
“I don’t regret the mistakes we made. They have either toughened us up or made us grow up. If it had been too easy, we wouldn’t be where we are today.”
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