The first step is the hardest

When I started Zanshuri I had just been made redundant. My wife and I were two weeks away from our wedding day and the mortgage was due. So of course, I did the sensible thing and went full time on running the business.

With no clients, no funding and no previous real knowledge of sales.

Fortunately, I was armed with two decades of industry knowledge in IT security, network management and big data having worked for IBM, Zurich, the MPS and various tech businesses in the US, the UK and Asia.

I thought I was quite well prepared.

But nothing prepares you for running your own business.

My savings dwindled to nothing in a shocking space of time. I had to sell my car, my motorbike and pretty much every nice thing I had ever owned. When I turned to my wife one day and told her I was thinking of selling the house, she must have thought I was mad.

So I sold the house.

What followed was six years of the hardest work of my life. And I had been an intelligence officer for the police a few years earlier so I was on more than nodding terms with difficult, but this was something else.

I took part-time jobs in warehousing, care services, van work; basically anything that might help pay the bills and keep the wolf from the door. My wife was now pregnant with our first child and our savings were completely depleted. One winter evening whilst working as a pizza delivery driver in London, I was knocked off my scooter in the rain and found myself under the wheels of a car!

I think that was the first time I really asked myself if it was worth it.

Long story short, it all worked out.

Today I can smile as I relive those moments, but at the time I am certain I did anything but smile.

I did carry on though.

And that is what matters the most.

My baby, the business, Zanshuri is now something special.

We have grown exponentially and work with some amazing clients all over the world. Our products and services are industry-leading and every day I still find myself excited and happy to go to work.

I am certain my wife still thinks me a little mad, but she never says it out loud. Bless her.

Our son is definitely a little off-kilter.

Damn. I guess I will have to write a book after all.