So what lessons have we learned along the way?
Lesson 1: In fact, you can make a difference, you can begin something from nothing and grow it without authority or permission. Passionate people on a mission make change happen.
Lesson 2: You must be prepared to stick at it, to push yourself, to last longer than you ever expected and to care so much it actually hurts you.
It's so easy to be disappointed that you are not a huge success. But what does huge success truly mean? In market research I suppose it means being known beyond the sector, having a swanky office in London (with a viewing studio attached!), maybe even multiple offices across the globe. All we've done is bring new staff into the sector, consistently deliver top class fieldwork and recruitment for our clients, and offer members of the public amazing once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to take part in cutting edge market research that makes the world better for everyone. There will always be someone telling you that you're not cool enough, clever enough, business minded enough or whatever enough. That's their agenda. But what's yours? Always shun the non-believers.
It's all about efficient internal operations, true fieldwork knowledge, a positive attitude, creative problem solving skills, fast response times, a highly personalised service, full support to whatever level you need, a focus on wider trends so we can add value for clients over time, and above all else absolute ownership of the fieldwork.
I suppose what this really means is that the things that have the most value or quality cost nothing - in other words the price of something does not always properly indicate its value. The extra care, the extra love, the extra attention. It doesn't cost anything at all really.
I once heard a joke about how Hallmark Cards invented various occasions simply to sell more cards so when I heard about World Back Up Day I immediately thought that the people at Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud are having a joke on us. But it's true, it exists and let's face it, if you care about it, you probably should back it up.
You learn a lot about yourself (and others) during a slow news day. You know the sort of days I am talking about. The days when there's no big problem to solve, fewer than normal new business enquiries, no dramatics on the business front.
So what do you do? Do you get to grips with all that "should have/could have" admin that's built up? Do you check over those long term ventures you are working on (the ones that could potentially expose you to failure but you're prepared to take the risk)? Do you start calling around those clients you promised yourself you'd chase up? Or do you do nothing?
Obviously I love my phone - who doesn't? That's my life right there in my pocket. But everyone knows that if you want to do the proper work you need to be sat at your desk in front of your screen (if you're like me in front of your two screens), trawling through the project details and dotting the I's and crossing the T's. Phones are obviously great, and we couldn't like without them, but we don't do our best work on them.
It's not the same as stealing and you will probably find that you and everyone around you benefits.
If something doesn't have a limit then the answer is infinity but in reality it probably means that the limit has not been defined. So the question is, who is defining the limit and are they mathematically capable of doing so? Maybe the limiter has good intentions for us i.e. trying to save us from doing something stupid, or maybe we ourselves are the limiter because we believe we can never be good enough. No matter what the limit appears to say, the mathematical problem should be frequently revisited and the approach continually revised.
Isn't this the ultimate in everything?
Stronger than those around you - so you can protect and serve and deliver what you said you would.
Faster than the rest - fast to do things, to respond, to get up and go, to succeed.
And more - more options (but not too many, because too many is confusing), more care, more love, more everything.