Book of Red Gate 2010 - Red Gate Software

the girls aren’t standing around us.
Neil and I had a fairly solid idea right then that we wouldn’t mind
going into business together. And the reason why I had that feeling
was simple. I’d set up my first business when I was thirteen that
involved delivering newspapers to the people in my village.
The newspaper shop only delivered newspapers six days a week so
there was a hole in the market. I’d knocked on a whole load of doors
and after a few weeks I had a “round” – 30-40 houses who paid me
between 15 – 30p per Sunday. Usually I earned more delivering just
on Sundays as the other kids did working six days a week but sometimes
for weeks on end I’d be out of pocket when people didn’t pay
– a 13 year old learning the difference between cash-flow and profit
first hand. A friend expressed an interest in having a round – so I
knocked on another load of doors and set him up with a round too.
There was something exhilarating about it being something I’d set
up for myself and it was nice having an income but the day-to-day
running of it didn’t need a team and that’s what was missing.
Neil’s business was a hell of a lot better than that. He was writing
software from the age of twelve and subsequently selling it. By the
time I got to know Neil, he had assembled a small team of talented
guys (story designer, author, others as needed and him) and was
working on a game called Bounce (which later “inspired” Nokia to
do a mobile version and put it on 40% of the world’s mobile phones).
Neil worked on a business that scaled, that made the most of a
talented team and that produced products that people were inspired
by. Meanwhile I was saving someone from getting up a few minutes
early and driving to the paper shop; all on my lonesome, in the rain.
So I knew way back then that Neil was a guy to go into business
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