Hello, and Merry Christmas!

Well, we made it. It’s Christmas Day and exactly one year since we set up in business. And only one person managed to say ‘That’s not very Thoughtful’ – which was a stick we knew people would beat us with, given the slightest opportunity.

We’re sure this post will be achingly boring to most people, so if you find yourself yawning half way through, you could pour yourself a drink and listen to the Queen’s speech instead. She’s on at 3pm.

This is really written to help anyone out there who’s thinking about setting up their own design practice in the coming months (and to raise a few smiles to those of you of know us).

Are you sitting comfortably? Then let’s begin.

One of our ex-employers would to say ‘to succeed in business, you need three things: balls, luck and hardwork’.

We think that’s a pretty good way to break this down, so we’ll start with ‘balls’.

BALLS
You need them. Why would anyone in their right mind choose to leave the warm, cosy bosom of a benevolent employer (and Ben Casey’s of THE CHASE was particularly warm and cosy), to work 18 hour days, deal with plenty of ‘Thoughtless’ people and live with the constant threat of the bank repossessing your home? Well, the same reason everyone else does it: to be the captain’s of our own ship, have creative freedom, and make our mums proud. For us, it was a very natural career progression. We’ve been lucky enough to have worked on some great accounts, and won most of the more desirable awards… and we felt ready to do this on our own.

Well, not entirely on our own. Setting up Thoughtful has allowed us the opportunity to meet and collaborate with people we greatly admire. For example, our identity was designed with Sami Kortemäki of UNDERWARE. And we found our voice with writer LINDSAY CAMP, who we think of as our ‘fifth Beatle’. (Or should that be whom, Lindsay?)

We also realised we had nothing to lose. In this business of ours, it seems we’re all just a phone call away from being made redundant. So, for three senior designers, we had two choices:

1. Wait for the phone call. Because it will happen – it’s just a matter of when.

2. Seize your own destiny.

For us, it was a bit of a ‘no-brainer’. We’re more afraid of option 1 than option 2. But once you’ve done it, you’ll never look back.

Having your own design practice is a bit like being in government, you come to work each morning and think ‘what shall I do today?’ as opposed to being in opposition and thinking ‘what shall I say today?’ – there’s nothing you can’t achieve.

LUCK (Good and Bad)
We think it’s fair to say we’ve had more of one kind than the other – you’ll have to decide which, for yourself.

To begin with, we didn’t like the idea of walking up to ex-employers, Ben Casey and Lionel Hatch and telling them ‘we’re leaving to set up on our own, and we’ll be gone in a month’.

Ben and Lionel are two of the nicest (and most creative) guys you’ll ever meet in the design world. To us, they practically invented the graphic design industry outside London – before them there was nothing, and we owe them a big debt of thanks. So we took the decision to work an extended period of notice and really start the process of setting up Thoughtful once we left – anything else wouldn’t have been, well – Thoughtful.

We also took the decision not to contact any of The Chase’s clients, once we left. Ben and Lionel have invested a great amount of time and effort in building a strong, respected business and again, it wouldn’t have been Thoughtful to try to undo that hardwork.

So on day 1, we stood outside in the cold with no financial backing, no studio to work in, no kit and no clients.

Now anyone who’s been in business will tell you what you’ve just read is madness – they’d say ‘it’s a dog-eat-world’, and ‘it’s everyman (and woman) for themselves’. They’d say we should have been planning this for months, maybe even year’s and when you leave you take a client or two. But like our good friends at HOWIES, we want to find a better way to do business – a sustainable way to do business, built on long lasting relationships.

We wouldn’t go as far as to say all this was bad luck. It was our own decision to do it this way, but what it effectively did was set us back about three months in setting up, and about 12 months in building relationships with new clients.

Because we now had to try to secure some financial backing, find a studio, buy some kit and get some clients. And anyone in business will tell you, you should be selling whatever you have on Day 1, not meeting with the Bank Manager.

Our first bit of good luck was having the help and experience of a grizzled, old businessman called Peter Williams. Peter’s years of experience of dealing with banks helped us immeasurably, and through his advice, we we’re able to secure the money we wanted.

Now we know not everyone knows a ‘Peter Williams’ and we certainly don’t pretend to have an ounce of his business acumen, but we’d be happy to talk to anyone out there, about anything here (in the strictest of confidence, of course).

Our second, and undoubtably the biggest bit of good luck was not taking out a lease on a studio space we thought we really needed.

After spending a few weeks scouring the streets of Manchester from the highest office block to the lowest basement cellar, we settled on a space in the heart of the city’s shopping district. The agent very kindly allowed us to move in two computers, a printer and a few chairs, whilst we all waited for the paperwork to come through. You can see it below.

It wasn’t the most expensive office we’d seen, but as you can imagine for a space in Manchester’s shopping district, it came with a sizable price tag (and a three year lease). But for three thrusting, confident entrepreneurs, it didn’t worry us too much.

It’s fair to say, if the wheels of property leasing moved quickly, we could have very easily signed that lease in week one – thankfully they don’t.

Being in the office for about three weeks allowed us time to see how we would use the space, how much space we needed, but more importantly how much money we would need to turnover every month just to stay in business.

We can’t really name a single moment when we thought ‘THIS IS A BIG MISTAKE’ but with hindsight we can see there were plenty of signs telling us not to take the office. And, once we made the decision not to take the space, we duly apologised to the agent and with the clock ticking loudly above our heads we started looking again… this is where the bad luck starts.

Because we handled the previous situation relatively well, the agent we were dealing with found us another space which had just become available on the outskirts of the city. To be honest, the viewing was just a formality, we were just happy to find somewhere, and as it was a serviced office there was no need for any solicitors to get involved.

We viewed the office on the Monday, with a plan to move in the following Monday. But James took a call on the Friday before we agreed to move in telling him the office was already taken. The owners of the building were using 2 letting different agents, and the other agent had already lined up a company to take the office in a couple of weeks time, and not bothered to tell the agent we were dealing with.

Back to ‘Square 1’.

Our agent then suggested we take a look at converted School House about 500 yards down the road – it was perfect! It was a little bit more expensive than what we’d just been looking at but it felt right. Lots of character, not too big and with room to expand. You can see it below.

The downside was, the building wouldn’t be ready to move in for another three weeks. We weren’t exactly jumping for joy, but we were relieved the end was in sight. We measured up the room, whilst we worked on a project from our respective homes.

Every couple of days or so, we’d turn up just to check the progress of the building and on a Friday evening, just 48 hours before we had arranged to move in, and four weeks since we’d seen the property, James took a call from the agent telling him the owner didn’t want to let out the space to several small companies anymore, but rather one big one, and the deal is off.

It’s now the end of February, and we were spending so much time in ‘Square 1’, we were relieved we weren’t being charged rent.

Fortunately for Thoughtful, in James we have our very own Steven Gerrard, and he took the game by the scruff of the neck. He side-stepped the agent, got passed the receptionist of the previous office and tackled the owners. And by Monday we had secured our first studio. Which you can see below. This was a day or so after we moved in.

Here’s our first lesson:
Don’t rely on other people to make things happen – they won’t. Make them happen. (And, printing your own stationery in-house proved not just to be good for the environment, but also the bank account.)

So, now we had a bit of money in the bank, a studio and some kit, and on March 1st we were all sat in the same room, with big shiny computers and even bigger, shinier smiles (Stuart had just had his brace taken off). We were now up and running. Or to be more accurate, limping…

As so much of our business is conducted via email, and information gathered using the interweb, without a phoneline we weren’t a really a business, we were just three guys in a room smiling at each other. And it took another four weeks for those helpful people at BT to plug us in (which is pretty good, apparently).

Here’s another lesson we learnt:
Clients don’t care where you work. All they want you to be is on time, on brief and on budget. (And, BT are crap.)

Let’s get back to some good luck.

Our third bit of good luck was being chosen as Creative Review’s ONES TO WATCH for April. We have to put it down to luck, you just can’t engineer situations like that. It gave us something to say, which for a new company with no track record and no work to show, it was an amazing ‘door opener’ to a lot of great companies which we wanted to work with.

This bit is definitely bad luck.

We always knew we were going to make a few mistakes in business, the question was how big. Thankfully we stopped this one (quite by chance) before it got serious.

It involves our accountant. Let’s call them ‘X Accountants’. Things appeared to be going well, we met, he provided us with some projections and helped a little in setting us up. We paid what we owed on time and then carried on.

Every now again James would call just to ask some questions about VAT, and the fascinating world of accounting. When James asked ‘how much would it cost us to have our year end figures dealt with by X Accountants?’. The cost came back along with all other account charges to date. It appeared we had been getting charged for every email and phone call we’d made to the accountant during the year. Without our knowledge.

What’s wrong with that, you might be thinking? Well, take a look at what we were getting charged for and ask yourself if you would like it?

What makes matters worse is we had been quite clear with X Accountants about all charges. We are a small company and didn’t want any surprises. We were explicit about all charges being approved up front. But that’s the problem with a verbal agreement, it’s not worth the paper it’s written on.

If this hadn’t been picked up when it was, we could ended up with a bill in excess of 5k. It would appear this is ‘standard practice’ – so be aware.

The lesson here is: Always read the small print in any contract.

We’ll finish this bit with some good luck.

Thoughtful have been asked to judge the D&AD global awards this year. It’s a huge honour for such a young practice. And we’re really, really looking forward to it.

HARDWORK
We’d say being a single parent and trying to raise a family is hard work, not what we do.

So, to sum up m’lud. If you’re thinking of setting up on your own, here’s a few tips that may help smooth out the ride a little:

1. Don’t do it on your own.
It’s a huge task for one person. There’s so much that doesn’t involve ‘designing’ which will have an impact on how much work and ultimately money you can generate. Of course it can be done, and successfully, but make sure you know what you’re taking on before going it alone.

2. Know what you’re all doing.
If there is more than one of you, make sure you all know what your role is in the company. At Thoughtful, James handles new business and the money side, Chris handles creative and keeps the blog moving and Stuart handles creative and awards. Any other bits, like recycling or ordering stationery we sort between us.

3. Be interesting.
Don’t just pick any old name for your company. Think long and hard about how it can help get you in front of clients. Take design group LOVE for example – a great name, in our opinion.

In an increasingly crowded marketplace, a good company name opens up a myriad of ways to sell your business. And, think about who you want to work for. This sounds obvious, but everyone is chasing the likes of Honda, Nike and Royal Mail. Improve your chances of getting a brief by going after clients off the beaten track. Besides, if you’re not going to do something new, why bother? We’re trying to find the next Honda, Nike and Royal Mail.

4. Give some thought to the company you’re leaving.
Three people leaving in quick succession is a big blow to any business, so do as much as you can to make your exit as smooth as possible. And, don’t steal your employer’s clients, it’s bad karma, plus designers love to gossip – this is a small industry and bad news travels twice as fast as good news.

5. So, what do you do if you don’t have any clients on day 1?
Make sure you have at least 12 months wages behind you. And, even then keep a tight rein on what you spend – we’ve lived off Diet Coke and Jaffa Cakes for quite some time, this year. Why? Because it takes about 12 months to turn a phone call into a presentation, and a presentation into a job, and a job into money.

6. If you’re going to speak to a bank, don’t just speak to one.
We’re still waiting to hear about our application for a business loan, from the bank that thinks there is ‘Another Way’. And, get a good business plan together with projections – an accountant will do this for you (but see point 9 first). This process can take 2-3 months, so bear that in mind.

We don’t want to go into too much detail about the financial side of setting up Thoughtful, other than to say, if you want to borrow money from a bank you need:
– some of your own money to show the bank you’re serious
– a well thought out business plan
– a reliable accountant to help with your projections

Remember, a bank manager doesn’t know the design business, how good you might be as a designer, or what award you’ve just won. Think of it like you’re about to go on DRAGONS’ DEN. Banks deal in facts, and are risk adverse. They want to see you’ve done your research. They want to know about your competition, if you have any clients, how you plan to chase invoices and where you see your business in five year’s time.

7. Do your homework (or legwork to be more precise) regarding a studio space.
If you’re planning to rent some space, make sure it’s flexible (no long term contracts) and very cheap. As we said, clients don’t care where you work from. The only way to do this is to get out there and see what you can afford, it can take up to two months to find the right place. It’s tiring and depressing but stick with it. We’d suggest not paying more than 5k a year for about 300 sq ft (including service charges, business rates and rent).

8. It might be good to talk, but not for four weeks.
If you have a new studio, it will take BT about four weeks to come and hook you up to the interweb, and it’ll cost about £180 . So either have your studio space sorted before you leave your current job, so you hit the ground running. Or make sure you know what you’re going to be doing in that time e.g. working on your presentation.

9. Learn to ask questions.
No-one cares that you’re a new start-up with limited funds. Make sure you ask up-front about any charges before you meet ANYONE, and before ANYONE starts work on your behalf. If a print spec changes, ask how it will effect the final invoice. If an accountant needs to speak to you face to face, ask if it’s absolutely necessary – and if it is, go to see them.

10. NEVER take ‘no’ for answer.
If there’s a client you really want to work with, keep knocking on their door. They’ll either get really annoyed and issue you a firm but fair solicitor’s letter, or eventually see you’re serious about their business and let you in – either way you’ll get an outcome.

11. Don’t expect a supplier to care about your work, sometimes they don’t.
We briefed one of Manchester’s biggest and brightest web agency’s to put together our small Thoughtful mini-site which we wanted to launch on Christmas Day, last year. It took them 3 days, it wasn’t anything like we briefed them to do, and they couldn’t put it right because they were going on their Christmas do – they went and got merry and we got a bill of £500. In the end, we did it ourselves in couple of hours, on Christmas eve with the help of a friend. Oddly enough the same web company we used recently went into liquidation.

12. Free pitches are shit.
We liken it to walking into a restaurant, ordering six main courses and then telling the owner you’re only paying for the meal you liked (and after a team of chefs have spent two weeks preparing the dishes). But they are a reality, and if you have no clients they can be the only way of winning work. They also give you a better chance of winning work than spending three days filling out a Pre-Qualification Questionnaire. Despite all our account experience, on paper Thoughtful ranked 46 out of 66 companies looking to get on the NWDA’S recent design roster (we dread to think who was below us). If you don’t know, PQQ’s work on a scoring system, we failed to get scored in 7 of the 16 sections of the PQQ, largely because we haven’t been in business for more than three years. We even got ‘nil point’ for awards. We’re not suggesting don’t do them, we’re simply saying don’t be surprised when you get knocked back.

13. Design relationships.
Put as much effort in designing relationships, as you would designing a new visual identity. We are in the business of communication, so get to know what makes the people in the companies you work with tick.

14. Be generous with your time.
(If you’ve made it this far, you clearly have time to spare.) Make time to see everyone and anyone who wants to see you. Take MICHAEL JOHNSON for example. He’s a designer at the very top of his industry, and with that comes the inevitable increased demands on his time. Yet Michael has always made time to speak to us, respond to emails or offer advice. He’s set a great example for us to follow. We can’t understand why heads of design groups suddenly behave like heads of state when they get ‘Creative Director’ printed on their business cards. We work hard to ensure we respond to all emails (especially students) and see anyone that wants to see us, but we limit any meeting to 15 minutes. (If we’ve missed any emails, sorry, please get in touch again.)

15. Life can be hard enough, so make time to enjoy yourself.
We like to attend as many talks as we can, to learn as much as we can about the industry we’re in (as well as industries we’re not in). It often means we have to sleep on trains, work weekends or late nights but we were doing that anyway.

None of this is by any means the recipe for success. There’s so much beyond our control that can go wrong. We’re currently discussing the impact a recession would have on us, and what we would need to do to get through it. Because as we all know, if it happens, marketing budgets are ‘first to wall’. Thankfully, we’d never have the unenviable task of letting the receptionist go – we don’t have one. And, we quite like diet coke and Jaffa Cakes for lunch.

Well that’s it. Setting up Thoughtful hasn’t so much been a learning curve, more a vertical line, so we have to doff our caps to those of you who’ve done it. You have our deepest respect.

Thanks for taking the time to read this Christmas post. We hope it’s been of some help. And, fingers crossed we’re still around this time next year to write a new chapter.

Thoughtfully.
James, Chris & Stuart

(By the way, nearly 11 months on, the builders are still working on the School House.)

Thoughtful thanks must go to (in no particular order):
Lindsay Camp
Mat Wright
Billy Harkom
Anna Gerber
Tamsin Valentino
Louise Wookey
David Hieatt
Clare Hieatt
Scania Price
Ade Gunn-Wilson
Sami Kortemäki
Bas Jacobs
Akiem Helmling
Daniel Eatock
Maragret Harry
Mike Forrest
Patrick Burgoyne
Eliza Williams
Peter Williams
Michael Johnson
Jane Littlefair
Paul Smith
Louise Merrin
Sean Hawkridge
Ben Casey
Richard Scholey
Katie Alcot
Tom Alcot
Helen Ruse
Gary Stevens
Rosie Budhani
Galahad Clark
Stephen Owen
Hugh Gummett
Sarah Fleming
Carol Ainscow
Teresa O’Dwyer
Helen Carroll
Sam Coombes
Laura Drummond
Emma Sinclair
Tracy Graham
Daniel Graham
Leo Graham
Ian Campbell
David Crow
Pollyanna Clayton-Stann
Andrew James Jones
Joseph Keirs
James Callahan
Ian Stevenson
Dave Harrison
Steve Daniels
Kate Plowright
Nick Shorney
Phil Dust
Ken Garland
Vicky Eltringham
Lionel Hatch
Chris Greaves

If there’s anyone out there who can offer up a bit of advice or horror story of their own which could help someone who’s thinking about starting up, please leave a comment.