In 2004 I was living in Dublin and saw the movie “In Good Company”. It affected me profoundly, not because it was a particularly profound film, but it changed the path of my working life.
Copyright Universal 2004 (IMdb)
Up to that moment, I had never even thought of starting my own business; it just hadn’t occurred to me as something that I would want, or need, to do. After watching that film, I resolved that when that time in my life came that others were depending on me to be able to generate an income, I would be in a position to be able to do that free of the whims or machinations of others. When that scenario came to be in 2013, I grasped the opportunity afforded to me and started Social Media Evidence Experts and have never looked back. Founding, growing and running a business is hard; probably the hardest thing I’ve done in my professional life. But I’m incredibly proud of where SMEE is today, a place achieved with the support of great business partners, mentors and most especially, our ever-growing list of valued clients.
What has made me even more proud this week is the fact that my business, the business I built, has reached a position that can afford me the opportunity to take one day each week out of the office to be a stay-at-home dad to my two young children. Starting next week, instead of phone calls, emails, barista-made coffee and trawling the depths of the Internet, I’ll be finger-painting, cutting the crusts off sandwiches and cleaning. Lots and lots of cleaning.
To our clients, thank you for your ongoing engagement and support, my promise to you is that the SMEE team will continue to deliver our high quality results in the efficient and cost-effective fashion that you have come to rely on over the past four years. I further promise that there will be no little handprints on your reports (unless of course that is something you want, in which case we’ll need to agree an additional fee for that service!).
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