Outsourcing to India is nothing new. But today alone we’ve been cold called by 3 companies, all based in India, wanting us to outsource technical development. I’m not sure if this is good news or not really, but I do know it’s very annoying to have the same conversation over and over again! The only experience I’ve had of outsourcing to India didn’t go particularly well, so while I understand all the benefits (which I’m also continually being reminded by sales people on the phone), I’m still very reticent about the idea. That combined with my own frustrating experiences of dealing with some of the large outsourced support centres used by the likes of BT and Dell.

One thing I do find interesting is the increasing use of extremely English sounding names in the approach emails though, perhaps an attempt to sound less foreign and scary to little UK companies who might be put off by dealing with a foreign person. I’ve even had an email this week from an Indian company that are visiting the UK in the next couple of weeks and want to meet up with us to learn about “our unique India-Based Managed Service Proposition, the Virtual Offshore Development Centre”.

So Indian companies really seem to be upping the offensive… Should we, as a UK based services industry, be worried? Or should we be embracing this new pool of affordable talent and just let them do all the work?

Personally I think the time taken up today alone, trying to get off the phone to cold callers and deleting emails I don’t have time to read, puts me off the whole idea completely. But then perhaps if I outsourced all my work I’d have all the time in the world!

Only a couple of months ago 18a Productions opened a business bank account with HSBC. They seemed as good as anyone else, and we’d heard good reports. And out of the 2 banks only a short walk away, they were the ones who returned our call, unlike Barclays.

After a couple of meetings with a less than alert Bank Manager, who knew less about interest rates than we did - it was open.

So I was less than amused earlier today to call in - and queue as usual - only to see a sign saying that our branch is closing on the 1st February 2008! (The ‘8′ of 2008 was written in permanent marker on the glossy printed poster - very professional - almost as bad as Tesco). You’re not telling me they didn’t know about that planned closure when we opened our account 2 months ago?! When we stated we were opening an account with them because the branch was so handy?! I was given a list of alternative branches - all a drive or a 45 minute walk away. So much for “The World’s Local Bank”!

And seeings you ALWAYS have to queue in there, it’s not like they’ve got a lack of demand!

This is just the latest in our string of problems with HSBC -
When the paper work started arriving for our new account - the company names they were coming up with ranged from silly to absurd. Sometimes using my Surname, sometimes using Tom’s name and the 1st 3 letters of mine! No mention of 18a Productions anywhere!

The worst, which used my Surname twice on following lines, was on a Customer Services Questionnaire! Needless to say they’re getting an interesting reply!

This was all after we were informed we HAD to take out a Company Charge card - like a credit card. We didn’t want to but were told we had no choice if we wished to proceed with the account - and seeings we’d already wasted hours with the dopey bank manager, we agreed rather than start again down the road. It was fine - because the card was free… this year. There would be a charge however after the 1st year… a charge for each card and we had to have 2. Bringing the total to £80 for something we didn’t want! So as soon as we’d left the bank we had to ring up and go through the process of canceling the card, which we could do at any stage - but wanted to do it whilst it was fresh in our minds rather than forget and get charged in 12 months… like they hope you’ll do.

So now we’re faced with closing that account and opening one with Barclays afterall - or only being able to visit the bank when we have a couple of hours to spare!

Making the most of your time is very important when working for yourself. It’s a great feeling to have complete freedom over your working day, but if you’re not careful this feeling of freedom can leave you with a lack of purpose or direction. It’s hard to stay motivated and excited about what you do, especially when you’re sitting at home, often working on your own. I’m actually very lucky being part of a 2 person team, as we manage to keep each other organised and occupied with work. When one is feeling unmotivated there is always the other to take up the slack, or that’s the theory anyway. It’s not actually been put into practise yet, as we’re both so excited about starting 18a!

But anyway, the point I’m trying to make is how important it is to give yourself some structure and focus to your working day. Being new at this myself, I thought it would be a good idea to think of the best ways of doing this, here are a few of my suggestions.

1. Make a list - Lists are great, start every day by making a list of all the things you want to achieve, complete, work on or just think about. The more items you can tick off the better you’ll feel! I love ticking items off lists, and the time taken to focus your mind on what you want to do that day, is without doubt worth it. I find myself much more productive this way.

2. Turn off the radio - One thing I personally find incredibly distracting when trying to work, is the radio or TV bleating away in the background. Before you know it, you’ve spent the past 20 minutes just sitting listening to the radio! If you’re working, then work! Otherwise you may as well just go and watch TV, because you’re really wasting your time and not achieving nearly as much as you should be. Get all your work done early and go down the pub! I’m not against music full stop, but find something that doesn’t distract you, but helps you focus. Classical music is well known for it’s intelligence effect. It’s all down to taste at the end of the day.

3. Start every day with some fresh air - I’m terrible at this, I often just get up, grab some breakfast and head straight for the computer, but it’s definitely worth taking at least 10 minutes to have a walk/run/cycle or some kind of exercise in the morning.

4. Take breaks - Working hard doesn’t mean not blinking for 8 hours and working solidly. That’s just not productive! Take breaks, make a cup of tea, do the washing up, anything to get some time away from the screen every couple of hours.

5. Develop a points system - This is an idea I read about a little while ago, I don’t remember where exactly… I have a feeling it might have been on pro blogger, but I think it’s a great idea. A points system can help to start your day off in a productive way. Basically it works like this:

i) You come up with a list of the jobs that you feel you ’should’ do every day, but really can’t be bothered to. As I develop and promote a lot of my own websites, for me this includes writing blog articles, commenting on other people’s blog articles, commenting on forums, contacting other website owners to see if they want to swap links… That type of thing. All the kind of monotonous jobs that you could spend your whole life doing, but probably never get round to.

ii) Once you have your list of boring/daily chores you then need to assign each job a certain number of points. I.e. Writing a good blog article takes some time, maybe 30-45 mins, so that’s worth 8 points. Whereas commenting on a forum is pretty quick and easy, so that’s just 1 point for each comment (don’t forget your signature!)

iii) Every day your objective is to get 10 points, your points can be gained by any combination of chores and must not take more than 1 hour, preferably just 30-45 mins to achieve. The great thing about this plan is that you can mix it up, if you don’t feel in the creative writing mood there’s no point in forcing yourself to write something dull and uninspiring, just write on someone else’s blog instead! Comment on a forum or contact a possible business partner.

Starting every day this way gives you structure and helps you make the most of your time online, organised, focussed and effective!

It occured to me, whilst writing my ‘It all starts here’ post, that it infact didn’t start there at all. Launching our site came after quite a few things, probably the most difficult of which was choosing our name… 18a, has a ring to it I think. Although it does conjure up the possibility of ‘adult content’ to some people which isn’t ideal… Or maybe it just keep people interested…

Before 18a there were a couple of other suggestions, the main one being ‘With Our Powers Combined’ which I’m sure she won’t mind me saying was Lisa’s idea. While I think it’s a very cute name and comes complete with a super hero style action (I can’t explain this in writing but it makes me laugh! :), after asking around a few people we just didn’t think it was ’snappy’ enough. I’d welcome any comments though!

So 18a it is, and for anyone interested it’s my house number here on Gloucester Road, hehe exciting story, but at least we didn’t choose the stereotypical animal+colour name!

Well 18a is up and we’re ready to rock and roll! It’s very exciting, after almost 12 solid hours of code crunching and iStock searching we finally managed to get a pretty slick (if I do say so myself) website online!

Having just installed a brand spanking new copy of Wordpress I thought it might be a good opportunity to share with the world our experiences launching a new web development company. I hope it will be a story with a happy ending, but only time (and any clients we manage to find) will tell.

To give a bit of background information to the bazillions of people reading this brand new blog, I’ve been building websites for many many years now and it’s been a longtime dream to run my own company. I’ve always been held back though by my fears, and the well meaning comments of those who care about me living on the street I guess! Hehe well I hope it won’t come to that, but leaving the security of full time employment is not to be taken lightly. Especially when you have a mortgage… But anyway enough ranting on.

In this blog I hope to document the progress we’re making, how we’re finding work (if we’re finding work) and any tips we can share to all the billions of other web developers and designers out there yet to take the plunge into the unknown.

Luckily for me I’ve found another brave sole willing to risk all in pursuit of their dream (ok a little melodramatic but I have to keep your attention somehow or this will just be another boring blog), my lovely girlfriend Lisa who happens to be excellent at all things PR and graphic design as well as many other things to numerous to mention.

It all starts here…