Hindsight is a beautiful thing, especially in business. We start out green and slowly work out how to strategise, optimise and build the business we'd dreamed of.
Five years in now, with the trials and errors, the wins and losses and a fair few harsh learnings behind me, there are a lot of things I'd approach differently if I were starting Forme all over again.
When I began, I was spread far too thin trying to develop every aspect of Forme at once. Design skills, client processes, networking, marketing, financial systems, the list went on.
It's not the worst approach, but it misses the anchor point. The whole business rests on the quality of what you sell. Marketing an average product just tells more people it's average, and no amount of process design compensates for work that isn't good enough yet.
If anything this matters more now than it did when I started. Everything surrounding the product has become cheaper and faster to produce, which means the surrounding stuff differentiates you less and less. The work itself is what's left.
Get the thing you sell genuinely excellent first. Everything else gets easier from there, and nothing else works properly until you have.
Getting carried away with optimisations and additions to your systems is remarkably easy. Canned emails and automated next steps are a lifesaver, right up until there are too many steps, too many forms and too many things you're asking people to do.
I wanted more reviews for my website, so I put the review link everywhere. I needed better client feedback, so I built an enormous form for clients to fill out. What I eventually worked out was that clean and simple wins every time, because clients don't follow through when a process is confusing, and honestly, neither do I.
The principle underneath it is this. Every step you add, a percentage of people fall away. So the question for any new step isn't whether it would be useful if everyone completed it. It's whether it's worth what it costs you in the people who now won't.
Fewer steps, better completed, beats a thorough system nobody finishes.
Spending money to make money makes sense in principle, but it takes a leap of faith and some sound research to know it's worthwhile.
I came into business with a strong I can do it all myself mindset. That worked for the first few months. Very quickly though I found that if I wanted to make real money, I needed to be professional and competitive in my industry, and the only way there was to stop doing everything myself. That's what genuinely took the business to the next level.
The nuance I'd add now is about timing. Investing properly in your brand too early, before you know what you sell or who you sell it to, means paying to make permanent something that isn't settled yet. Do it when you have traction and can feel that how you present yourself has fallen behind what you're actually capable of. That's the moment it pays.
It took far too many Saturday client calls, 11pm emails and sleepless nights over small things before I realised that boundaries create space for success.
A clear mind, proper rest, and treating the business like a business rather than like my best friend became absolutely necessary. Clear boundaries are what let me bring my best self to Forme, within business hours, and have a full life outside of it.
What I'd tell my earlier self is that boundaries aren't something you earn once you're successful enough to afford them. They're part of what makes the work good. Nobody makes their sharpest decisions at 11pm on a Saturday, and clients don't actually want a designer who is running on empty. They want one who is thinking clearly.
Joining a networking group was one of the best decisions I made for my business. Putting myself out there, going to events and conferences, and fiercely protecting my girls in business fortnightly drinks has single handedly transformed my mindset and motivation.
Feeling constantly supported and encouraged today is a long way from my earlier days of feeling lost and completely alone in it.
The thing nobody warns you about is how isolating running a business is, and how much that isolation distorts your judgement. Problems look enormous when you're the only person looking at them. Half of what a good network gives you isn't advice at all, it's perspective.
Looking back at these together, they're all the same lesson wearing different clothes.
Do fewer things, properly. One excellent product instead of five developing ones. A simple process instead of a thorough one. Real investment in the few things that move the business instead of thin effort across everything. Protected time instead of constant availability. People around you instead of doing it alone.
Almost everything I got wrong in the early years came from believing that more was the answer. It usually wasn't.
Design as Strategy
Design as art
