This was an interview given by Trade Radiators founders, Nic and James Auckland, explaining the beginnings of the company. The interview was originally published on RealBusiness.co.uk in September 2013.
For us, wanting to break out and start our own business pretty much ran in our blood.
Our granddads and great granddads all started their business ventures from lowly beginnings and ranged from mining companies through to plumbing and even bingo halls! I guess the spark was ignited at an early age when hearing the stories of how our Great Granddad, Herbert, succeeded from being a pit worker. He ended up buying out and running a number of mines within the West Yorkshire area.
Filled with these stories, and our combined experience of graphics and sales, we’d always talked about starting up a business venture together.
In early 2004, we hit on the idea of retailing online the products which I spec’d for a mill development in Yorkshire. We managed to open an account and organise transport, and set about pushing these and lots of other products out onto the web. As we both had other full time work commitments, this meant a lot of late nights and early mornings.
After a couple of years we decided to quit our other jobs and focus entirely on this venture. It was a big risk and over the years we’ve had to teach ourselves Ecommerce, Search Engine Optimisation, logistics and a whole host of other things. It’s been a hard slog but very much worth it!
Being able to look back with satisfaction on the business we’ve created is a good feeling; however, we are very conscious that you can’t take your foot off the gas for a moment. The web is such a competitive retail space and only the best will survive.
For all you budding entrepreneurs just be prepared to work, work, work. Keep focused on what your core business is, re-reinvest and go for it: life’s too short to look back and ‘what if I had just...'
