Before the Edinburgh Driveway Company grew to nearly £2 million in annual turnover, I had no van, no tools and no trade background.
I had £57 worth of leaflets and a reason to get moving.
I’d been suspended from my job at BSkyB. My partner, Claire, was heavily pregnant. There was pressure to bring money in, and I needed to figure out what came next.
In the first episode of Busy Is Bullshit, I share how the business started. It involves a cheap jumper, some self-raising flour and £15,000 worth of work sold before I had anyone lined up to install it.
There are parts I’m proud of and parts that make me cringe. But if you run a trade business, you’ll know the early days rarely look as tidy as the story you tell years later.
The first investment was £57
I spent £57 on 1,000 leaflets.
That was the starting point. I needed people to know about the business, and I needed to find out whether anyone would give me a chance.
The company almost ended up being called Dazzle Driveways. Thankfully, we landed on the Edinburgh Driveway Company.
Looking back, it’s easy to focus on the numbers the business eventually reached: nearly £2 million in turnover, 27 staff and four teams. At the time, none of that existed. The immediate challenge was getting someone to open the door and have a conversation.
So I went out and knocked.
A £7 jumper and a logo glued on
I wanted to look the part, but there wasn’t much money to spend.
I bought a £7 Slazenger jumper and a £4 logo patch, then glued the patch onto it.
I also put self-raising flour on myself to make it look as though I’d come from working on a job.
Yes, really.
It sounds ridiculous now. It was ridiculous then. I was trying to give people confidence in a business that barely existed, while knowing how much I still had to work out.
The flour isn’t a business tip. It’s an honest detail from a time when I was making things up as I went along.
What mattered was that I was getting in front of potential customers. Every conversation gave me a chance to understand what they wanted and whether I could win the work.
Winning the work created the next problem
The first job was worth £9,000.
Then a referral brought in another £6,000.
That meant £15,000 worth of work booked. For a business that had started with a small batch of leaflets, it was a huge step.
There was one fairly significant problem: I still needed people to install it.
I eventually found two brothers through Gumtree who could carry out the work.
Getting the jobs was one thing. Finding the people to deliver them was another. Both had to happen before I had a business that could keep going.
That’s a distinction plenty of trade business owners will recognise. A customer saying yes feels brilliant, but it also creates a commitment. You still have to organise the labour, deliver the job and make the numbers work.
Starting a business means getting comfortable with uncertainty
There was no polished launch behind the Edinburgh Driveway Company. I didn’t have every role filled or every process written down.
I had an opportunity, a lot of pressure and plenty of things I didn’t yet know.
I wouldn’t suggest copying every decision I made. Some of those early choices created problems I then had to solve. But they’re part of the story, and leaving them out would give a false impression of how straightforward it was.
When you hear that someone built a business turning over nearly £2 million, you don’t necessarily picture them gluing a badge onto a cheap jumper.
You also don’t see the gap between winning the first customer and knowing how to run a company.
That gap is where a lot of the learning happens.
The beginning was only the beginning
The business went on to employ 27 people across four teams. But the approach that helped me get those first jobs wasn’t enough to manage everything that came later.
As the company grew, I had to learn about pricing, people, delivery and my own role as the owner.
Those lessons are part of why I started Busy Is Bullshit. I wanted to talk honestly about building a trade business, including the decisions and mistakes behind the headline figures.
Episode 1 starts where it should: with the leaflets, the door knocking and the first customers who gave us a chance.
Listen to the full story
In Episode 1: Here’s What Nobody Tells You to Build a £2m Trade Business, I talk through those early days and how the Edinburgh Driveway Company got off the ground.
Put it on for your next drive or coffee break. And if you want to hear what happened as the business grew, follow the podcast on Spotify.
Listen to Episode 1 of Busy Is Bullshit on Spotify →
Daren
Founder of Tradecoach
