After leaping into the unknown exactly a year ago it feels appropriate to offer some reflections below.
For a specialist used to working in large organisations, leaving a firm like Grant Thornton last February to start afresh was, by any measure, a risky career move.
I was working at a relatively senior level, managing teams remotely and travelling throughout the UK (mostly London) to meet work commitments. Not quite a Willie (works in London lives in Edinburgh – in my case Stirling) but close.
I had an idea for a secure web application to help improve productivity and support business growth based on my 20yrs+ experience in capital allowances, property and real estate tax. I was ready for a change so, after some independent research and expert input, decided to leave and develop the concept in conjunction with ongoing consultancy work.
Whether you are individual or large business, if you have ever spent money on a property for use in your business there is a high chance you will be entitled to tax relief. Legitimate non-contentious relief that is very often missed or claimed incorrectly.
Tax can be complex and intimidating to even the most experienced professional and the application is designed to make claims for capital allowances and related tax relief more transparent and accessible. Instead of hiding knowledge, it employs a user-friendly interface with tailored guidance on what qualifies and allows teams to record costs, upload data and share project information securely on a real time basis.
The system calculates your claim and provides you with a detailed report which you can download any time. If you wish, you can also keep everything stored on the system for as long as you need it (e.g. to meet self-assessment record requirements). Expert review, training and support is provided whenever you need it. It is called FurastaHUB and a beta version of the web application successfully launched last year. Ongoing testing and user feedback has now helped us refine the platform which is now in use for several live projects.
Setting up a new business is exciting, but it can also be hard, humbling and lonely. Working on unusual or complex projects is something I still really enjoy, and I feel very privileged to have worked with some great organisations and people in the last year. Aside more strategic alliances, making the business attractive for recruitment is important to me; after all what is a business without people.
The journey continues with a little more mindfulness and to steal a quote from someone a lot smarter than me… “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek” – Barack Obama.
If you’ve got this far I feel honoured and duty bound to say thank you for reading and of course, if anything has triggered your interest in FurastaHub or anything else, I will be delighted to hear from you.
Thanks, and best wishes,
Bryan