Meeting future business partners at sixth form college
I have always worked. Before I moved to Ghana I had a paper round and when I came back to the UK in the summer before sixth form college I immediately started working on a local farm. I was 16 and getting paid £2.50 per hour.
Thursday evenings after college and a Saturday shift at Sainsbury’s soon became my regular part time job. The money was slightly better than the farm and I managed to save up for my first car, a second hand VW Polo.
I knew practically no one when I joined Farnborough Sixth Form College as I had just returned to the UK from Ghana. However, it was at Farnborough that I met Paul Maunders in my mathematics and computing classes and by-the-by Brendan McLoughlin too.
Brendan had set up a company called Fubra which was going to sell Italian domain names online (the website exists to this day, LiveToDot). He succeeded in persuading Paul and a couple of others to join his company instead of going to university. Although invited to join them, I was looking forward to the adventure of moving away from home.
While I took the boring academic route, these two entrepreneurs went on to turn Fubra into an established and successful online media company and our paths would cross again in the future.
(Written January 1st 2009. Republished from Tim's personal blog on startups & small businesses)
