From Bedroom to Boardroom

On the 20th of July, 25 years ago three computer science students in their second year at the University of Exeter decided to set up a company. That company was called Optix Solutions.

It was .com bubble time. boo.com was about to go bust for selling clothes online - those crazy fools! Amazon was a bookstore which had just started selling music CD's. Google was practically unknown, Altavista was the main search engine alongside Yahoo and Ask Jeeves!

Having learnt HTML and some basic Python on our course, we'd been having lots of discussions (usually incorporating some form of alcohol) about how we could be the next .com millionaires. It was simple, all we had to do was start a company and the money would literally fly in! How hard could it be ;)

That first year was one in which the three of us went about our studies in the day and built websites by night - some hand-coded, some with the help of Dreamweaver, Flash or Frontpage. Our main challenge was getting them working in both Ie 4 and Netscape Navigator ?? (even reading that will send chills down some people's necks - you know who you are)

When it came time to graduate in the summer of 2000 we were faced with a big decision, a sliding doors moment no less. Do we take this seriously or go and get a 'proper job'. On paper, we were in a fantastic position. We had excellent degrees from a great University. We were ready to earn the big bucks in the city but for some reason, something was calling us. There was only one thing for it and we decided to throw everything we had at getting this new venture off the ground. Our entrepreneurial journey 'proper' had begun.

Our coursemates all left Exeter and went off (mainly) to London to start jobs they'd found on the Milk Round. We rented a house in Exeter with four bedrooms, one for the office and one each for us. In our new makeshift office, we had a single dial up connection (I don't think we'd progressed to ADSL at that point). I made sales calls while the other two uploaded and downloaded websites we were building for our clients. We had to share it around depending on the priority and need! We had a fax machine balanced on an old chest of drawers in the middle of the three desks and A LOT of wires!

We raised loans to the value of ￡8000 from family which helped us see out those first few month's rent and bills but from then on, it was down to us...and boy was it stressful. The midst of time has cloaked my exact memories but that feeling of going to bed praying a cheque (yes a cheque) would turn up in the post the next morning so we could pay our rent will stay with me forever. I distinctly remember one day our accountant asked me when we were going to give this up and get a real job!

The first five years were touch and go and we just about survived, living hand to mouth. We dealt with everything from partnership disputes (one of the original three founders left in the first year) to staffing challenges, to almost going broke on numerous occasions. Somehow though, we got through. I spent the majority of that time selling anything web-related I could, to anyone who would listen and James Dawkins made the websites come to life when I bought them in. When Google emerged from a Garage, we quickly moved into the world of SEO (search engine optimisation). Still one of my main loves today, I'm constantly fascinated by the different changes in the search space - it certainly keeps you on your toes. In those early days all we had to do was place the keywords we wanted to be listed for in the background colour of the website, buy a link for ￡299 in the Yahoo Directory and get a listing in DMOZ! Then came the years of heavily optimised doorway pages before link building (*cough* buying) ruled the roost. Google's ever-more impressive algorithm soon put paid to those slightly crude practices and an era of quality content was born. Now, 25 years on we're looking at the coming together of Ai and Search with the introduction of SGE in America - there is never a dull moment in the search world and I love it as much today as I did back in the early 2000s.

Over the next 10-15 years we grew more into a Strategic Digital Marketing agency and the balance switched from web design to creating digital marketing strategies for our clients. A key reason for this was the raft of off-the-shelf products coming to market like Wordpress, Wix and Squarespace. All very good, all very eroding of our market! We had to pivot. Those years were a lot of fun as we became recognised regionally and started to pick up well-known local client names as well as some nationally. A very special moment was the day James and I decided to treat ourselves and ordered two new matching Lotus Elises! On the day they arrived, we went up to Bristol to pick them up. Not run in yet, we pootled back down the M5 in the pouring rain at about 50mph with lorries overtaking us, while we sat in essentially tin trays on wheels, bricking ourselves...but we loved them and it was the first time we'd really treated ourselves for the hard work we'd put in.

In the last five years, we welcomed Robert Stevens as the first-ever director outside the original three and together we built a management team which has ultimately seen Rob take on the mantle of Managing Director and now steers the ship. Alongside Rob, we've seen off Covid, won a national award for the best boutique agency to work for in the UK, we're on the journey to become B-Corp and we broke the million-pound turnover barrier for the first time (not bad from an original 8k investment!)

You may also have seen the recent appointments of Candice Short , Ali Newton and Paul Lawrence as our Executive Leadership Team and in whom we are looking in excitement at the next phase of Optix journey.

There are too many people to thank and call out in this post but just a few that jump out from the early days include Jonathan Goldman ?? our first 'fractional' developer (read student earning some pocket money), Sean Fielding, RTTP at Exeter Uni for helping us enlist on the Graduate Business Partnership where we not only learnt a lot but we also picked up a number of our first clients! I don't think we'd be here today if we hadn't done that course. Matt Whale who took a chance on two kids playing at business to give us our first overdraft and Noel Pascoe (retired) who took on that baton and helped us with all our banking and finance needs as we grew. There are plenty of people who have helped us over the years from clients, to suppliers, to staff to mentors and introducers but it's simply not possible to call them all out. You know who you are and I thank you for everything you've done for us.

However, there is no one we owe more to than Jamie Banks (aka Dad) who has been by our side that whole time and stopped us slipping up on more times than it's possible to remember. A mentor to James and I as well as our Chairman and confident. Without Jamie, I simply wouldn't be writing this.

I can't believe Optix is 25. It's been our baby, a toddler, a child, a teenager and now a fully grown adult. I reckon we've employed over 100 people in our time. That's jobs created from nothing, all benefiting the local economy. I just can't believe that time has gone so quickly.

I'm so proud of what James Dawkins and I have achieved and now with Robert Stevens and the team, what the future holds. It just goes to show that if you have a dream to run your own business, it just takes a lot of hard work, guts and determination to see through the hard times but you can do it.

Here's to whatever the future has in store....

I hope like us you'll raise a glass to Optix on the 20th of the month. Happy Birthday Optix!