In the Beginning…

Well they say that time ‘flies when you are having fun…’ and that certainly has been the case for me, the past 15 years have absolutely flashed by!

It was more necessity than a choice that kick-started my Purple journey following redundancy in 2001 from the software company I had worked with for the previous 10 years.

I have worked in the Information Technology sector since the late 70’s and so I have witnessed the dramatic changes and growth in technology that now gives us the effective power of a mainframe computer in our modern smartphone devices.

The breadth of experience I had gained in hardware and software systems set me on the natural path to engage with digital technologies as they began to rapidly emerge after the calendar tripped over into the year 2000.

They say you make your own luck but being in the right place at the right time also plays a part in how your life journey can take a right, or wrong, turn. For me, this ‘right turn’ moment was securing Zetland Estates as a new client in 2002 to provide marketing services for the Estate and developing their first website to attract businesses to take office space at the Aske Stables.

Adding the Estate to my roster of clients was certainly a feather in the cap and taking a small office myself at Aske put me firmly in front of an exciting new audience in need of a presence on this thing called the ‘World Wide Web’.

In truth I spent the first few years just finding my feet, slowly building up clients and doing all I could to survive as a self-employed IT bloke now also providing website solutions.

I met a Guy called Guy…

In 2004 I met Allan Guy, the husband of my wife’s close friend, and we hit it off immediately becoming best mates. Allan also worked in the IT sector on big grown-up stuff called ‘Change Management’ for the General Motors Group and later as a contractor to BT.

Sadly, or should I say, thankfully, Allan too was made redundant in 2009 and, having also dabbled in website development, he agreed to help me on a website project for a new client.

As with any dynamic duo you can think of (Rodgers and Hammerstein, Batman and Robin, Starsky and Hutch, Morecambe and Wise, Noddy and Big Ears!) there was a successful chemistry with us where individually we were good but together we were awesome. As a big Beatles fan, I prefer to think of us as more like Lennon and McCartney…

Allan soon moved in to join me in the office at Aske where the magic continued to unfold and in 2009 Purple Creative Studio was born.

Fun, Fun, Fun…

Having worked in the corporate sector for many years both Allan and I enjoyed the freedom of being our own bosses and making our own decisions. Consequently, the first 2 years of our business endeavours together were all about having fun while we worked.

We found that we could successfully win and deliver billable work whilst actually enjoying the job. This fun approach was also reflected in how we interacted with our clients making the experience of working with us an enjoyable one.

And so this approach defined the ethos for how Purple would work going forward - always do the best job possible, be professional but always make it fun.

Fast Forward…

From a very early age we recognised that we could probably continue into old age as we were, but in order to create true stability we needed to grow the business so that we could comfortably take holidays and ensure that clients still had support.

Employing our first, and then second, members of staff was really scary. Increasing our costs required us to increase our billings (a vicious circle for any business owner) and there was a great sense of responsibility for other people's futures being in our hands.

But it was a necessary part of our growth plan enabling us to improve and increase our web development throughput.

By this time we started accepting students from the local schools for Work Experience and this resulted in us employing our first Apprentice in 2014. This was a person who had decided that University was not the route they wanted to take but they recognised the need to continue their education to unlock employment opportunities.

This proved to be entirely successful and on completing the Apprenticeship this person was employed on a full-time contract with us.

Since then we have had 10 students go through an Apprenticeship program of which 9 were subsequently employed by us upon completion of their course, proving that this is an extremely effective route into a job.

Over the past 15 years we have grown in all areas:

• We have successfully maintained our staffing levels with a team of 10 great humans
• We have become a multi-disciplined agency offering Web, Creative Design, Social & Digital Marketing and Cloud Services with a smattering of IT still in there.
• We have won numerous awards and accolades for our services including Best Employer and the ERS Silver Award
• We have grown our client base to be nationwide
• We work in both the Private and Public sectors

I am immensely proud of what we have achieved over the years, battling through the endless challenges that come with running your own business, surviving Brexit and a global Pandemic not least the numerous personal events that impact your life and trip you up from time to time.

The Future…

For all of us the ‘future’ can only be speculation based on what you hope or think might happen. Of course you make plans, you forecast figures and outcomes but the forces of nature and the uncertainty of home and world events can all cause disruption.

As we go into our 16th year, my hopes and intentions for Purple are that we continue to win new business to remain stable and underpin further growth. We need to grow the web team but we also want to grow the Digital Marketing team so as to expand our digital services and support to clients.

In saying all of this, none of it is possible without the loyalty and hard efforts of the Purple Family and so to celebrate 15 years, and say thank you, we took the team, and their significant others, out for a dinner treat and a private film screening at The Station here in Richmond.

We thought we should let the team choose the film. Action, Scary, Comedy… Nah, not Purple. They chose the Disney Pixar film Up, a thought-provoking story about ageing and realising that life is messy and not something that we can always control. No matter how you look at it, through the eyes of a child or a senior, there are lessons to be learned on how to get the most out of life.

That just says it all…