Abi Carter

Both my parents are incredibly entrepreneurial and have worked in a number of fields whilst also working in their main professional industries, so I saw from a young age how to diversify and expand ideas in alternative ways. I listened and learnt a lot from my mentors in and out of business as well. 

I set up the business not by ambition but by circumstance. The company I was working for were likely to go into administration and so I was offered some career options by my mentor and setting up my own business was one of them! I had the opportunity to be mentored and advised by 3 very impressive people, including my father, and so I took the leap of faith and tried to run my own business….and nearly two decades later I am still going!

The best thing about being my own boss is that I can work from home when I need to and I am available to visit my family (who live abroad) when I want to. I now enjoy a good work/life balance, but I didn’t at the start – so I would recommend prioritising this from the off. I can also steer the company in the direction I want it to go, not how someone else wants it to go – that is very empowering and it’s great when we reach a goal that we set ourselves. 

Being a young woman (I set up when I was 23) in a very male dominated industry was not easy but I just had to show that I knew my stuff and I realised that actually a lot of my preconceptions of how I thought I was being treated, was in fact ‘imposter syndrome’ so when I took stock of that, I was far more confident and content in my business.