smallbusiness.co.uk: Helping your business think big

Daniel Mitchell made the move from working for someone else to running his own show when he set up computer support company Lifeline IT. The success of his business has proved that the move wasn’t a byte more than he could chew.

Where did you get the idea?

At the time of starting up there was a gap in the market for companies offering IT services – particularly for the fashion sector, which is not seen as a traditionally high-tech industry.

What makes you different?

A lot of companies use call centres to provide IT support. But for us the key to our business’ success has been building up strong relationships with clients.

How have you marketed the business?

We are sponsoring graduate fashion week for the third year running, which is a great way to raise our profile. We also actively seek referrals by asking our clients to recommend us if they were happy with the service.

Where did you get the funding?

We’ve always been self-financing, from the time it was just me, to now when we have 17 people working for the business. Over the last two years we’ve seen rapid growth.

Where next?

Of course we want to keep growing. But we don’t have plans for international expansion, we’re happy to stay focused on the UK and in particular on the South East.

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