A bit of background

Earlier this year I was asked to share my professional journey as part of Digital Plymouth’s September meetup. I haven’t spent too much time thinking through where I’ve been and how I’ve gotten to where I am today so to do so was a really fun exercise and I thought it would make for a good first ‘proper’ article on my new blog.

As a note, in the talk, I also shared various lessons & principles I’ve learned along the way and I was originally planning on writing one article sharing a bit of background and these lessons but it ended up being too long so I’ve decided to break each lesson into a single article so stay tuned for those.

I’m hoping by sharing my background there are two outcomes for you as a reader. Firstly, those reading who don’t know me personally will become more familiar with who I am. Secondly, it’ll continue my personal objective of being more open in my writing.

So let’s get started. I struggled at school, many of the subjects just became a blur and it started to feel like I was just learning how to pass a test. The only subject where I found a deep fascination with Technology. Thanks to a bit of a push by a teacher, I started to spend more and more time reading and building things in my spare time. By the time I attended college, I knew my future was going to revolve around technology.

After finishing at Truro College, I started a web-focused software development course at the University of Plymouth. However, after spending the first year playing around with databases, Java and C# I started to learn that my main passion came from creating software that was fun to use and gave users new ways to enjoy themselves. This realization led me to change course after my first year and start a new course, Digital Arts & Technology. Looking back, I think this was the smartest decision I’ve ever made as the new course allowed me to experiment with new technology, create interactive content, and took me outside of my comfort zone.

Not only did the new course allow me to flex my creative muscles, but it also had an industry year included and I was fortunate enough to land myself an internship with a leading Digital Agency in South West London that specialized in building interactive content for children. This move meant I had to move to the capital for work and for a country lad who had barely spent any time in the capital, and who knew nobody for about 100 miles, this next step was massive for me.

I remember my first week there, working on some very basic ActionScript 3 (R.I.P Flash) projects. With a solid background in software development & the ability to think on my feet, I thought I was well prepared to start working on real-life projects. I could not have been more wrong. That first week was an eye-opener and I remember going to work over the weekend to just try and keep up.

After graduation, I returned back to work for the same agency, and over the years, I progressed from intern to interactive developer to lead developer, helping run a team of 12 developers with a diverse set of skills and personalities. Looking back at that time, I’m immensely proud of the projects we delivered for the likes of the BBC and Disney, as well as how we were able to deal with the death of Flash and build one of the countries leading HTML5 teams.

Even though I loved my time working in South West London, I could feel myself being pulled back down to the West Country, and after some soul-searching in 2014, I realized that it was time to move back home and set up my own company. Luckily, one of my family members stumbled upon the Launchpad incubator within Falmouth University and after a year in incubation, Hertzian was born.

5 years on, and after so many ups and downs, we’ve just had our best year yet, have an amazing set of clients and even though the pandemic continues to impact everyone, we’re expecting to grow considerably over the next 12 months.

So that’s my story of how I progressed from a failing school kid through to owning an exciting tech start-up. I’ll be sharing some of the lessons I learned during this journey in the future. Thanks for indulging me :)