What do you currently do?
I split my time between all three businesses, project managing as jobs go live and supporting teams at both Web-Translations and Crowdfunding. As the director of all the businesses I have a leadership role, making sure both staff and clients are happy and moving the businesses forward in a strategic direction.
A large amount of my time is customer facing – particularly with my software clients.
I like to look after my staff and have regular reviews with them, helping them to achieve their personal goals as well as business goals. It is important that employees have the right skills’ set so we need the correct recruitment process in place from the very beginning and only employ people who are willing to step out of their comfort zones.
Six people work for White Label Crowdfunding, we have six full-time members of staff and five part-timers working for rebuildingsociety.com and seven full time people working for Web-Translations. They are supported by a virtual team of freelancers from all over the world.
Our objective for rebuildingsociety.com is to help businesses looking for finance to borrow money from our group of investors. We have 450 active investors who put money into businesses across diverse sectors including IT and even a cake shop.
What is your inspiration in the business?
I am inspired by the passion that people have in the work they do. It’s fantastic in business to have the opportunity to do something new and I like see that in my teams. I get great satisfaction when I see my employees taking the initiative, succeeding at something they haven’t tried before and showing a real willingness to take control of their lives.
Who do you admire?
I really admire brave people like my brother Carl Nunn who runs a very successful software business called Aligned Assets in Surrey. I also respect Julian Assange.
Looking back are there things you would have done differently?
I would have been a bit more selective about following the advice I was given and also I wish I’d looked for more advice from a greater number of sources. If I hadn’t followed some of the advice I was given, I would have made more money – I’m frustrated at times that I don’t have more to show for the efforts I’ve put in. Money drives me because I have an expensive lifestyle!
What defines your way of doing business?
Working in partnership is key to the way I do business. I am keen on collaborating online as you can work with a whole host of different people with a variety of skills and talents, regardless of where they are based in the world. I use a number of freelance resources for translations and recruit additional talented team members by looking at online job boards and Graduates Yorkshire.
What advice would you give to someone just starting out?
It’s important initially to work on yourself rather than your business. You have to be prepared to defy the odds to succeed. Over the years, I’ve had many people tell me my plans are unachievable and it’s really important to believe in the impact that your determination and effort can make.
Talk to people, become an expert in your chosen field and make contacts. The business world can be enormous, but it becomes a lot more manageable when you have people you can rely on and who value your relationship.
I would also say it is really important to get a degree. I have used a lot of the management theory that I studied in my computer science degree at Leeds Business School throughout my career.
While in recent years it has been hard for graduates to get jobs, I would advise them to be persistent. If you can’t get into the job that you want, volunteer in the type of business that you would like to work for. Alternatively, look at doing commission-only work.
