Running "Jonco IT & Security Ltd" so far - part 3
I recommend starting with part one and part two. As before, be aware that this post does not constitute legal or financial advice - I'm merely sharing my experience.
As I publish part three I've been trading eleven months, and it's been a hard slog!
LinkedIn - a necessary cess pit?
Running my own business has changed how I use LinkedIn. Originally, my view was that I'd only connect with someone if I'd worked with them and could vouch for them in some way. Now, when I'm after "reach" in order to find customers, I'm connecting with people that I think can assist me in finding work. Either they're the decision maker, and see my posts, or they're in an organisation that I'd like to work with and I'm hoping they remember me.
From an operational security standpoint, that's a bit of a risk. LinkedIn shows my employment and education history, so someone has enough information to have a good go at impersonating me. I used to only allow profile visibility when I was looking for a new job, locking it down at other times, but that's a thing of the past.
What I will say is that LinkedIn is a cess pit. The signal to noise ratio is very low, with so much AI generated slop. You can spot those posts a mile off - single sentence paragraphs, emojis (I used them too in fairness), really regular posting schedule, AI generated "motivational banner", and a claim of being a "thought leader".
So given the slop that now dominates my feed, I genuinely wonder if there's a benefit to being on LinkedIn at all. Assuming that everyone else sees similar posts, are they actually seeing my hand written, considered, posts? LinkedIn tells me I get a reasonable number of impressions, and sometimes my company gains a follower, but I wonder how impactful that really is.
I have had some work because of LinkedIn, but that's more because someone that I'd worked with before saw I was now running my own company and reached out.
Target markets
When it comes to target markets and my "ideal client", I'm reasonably flexible. I've worked in the private, public (local government), education (schools and universities), and charity sectors so that doesn't phase me. I've also done work for home clients over the years too.
Each sector has an amount that it considers acceptable to pay for services. The public sector typically pays less than private, as tax payers' money, rightly, has to be well managed and get good value for money. Charities generally have reduced funds to start with, but I'm also keen to support charities that do good work. I give charities a discount, as that feels like the right thing to do.
Home customers are a bit of a sticking point. Private individuals generally want "home IT help", and often have older computers. Older computers, that haven't been maintained, mean that jobs can take longer. Home users often don't have backups either, so any hardware failure or mistake could destroy years of precious family photos. Sure, I can help encourage good digital practices (like having backups), but I can't monitor that per se. Home users won't want to pay the higher costs charged to organisations, and by the time you've factored in travel time (and cost), the financial value of a home visit can reduce massively. Longer time spent on a job may mean the cost grows to a point that the customer isn't prepared to pay, and it's not like I can re-break something! Plus, home users are definitely hit by the cost of living crisis.
That said, I generally won't turn down work from home users. Doing support for home users has been beneficial in the past, when acting as a sole trader was a sideline / second income.
I'll work with an organisation if I don't feel they'll make me compromise / undermine my principles - that's my main rule. I think ideally I'd like to work with organisations of up to 500 people, for the moment anyway.
Diversification
A few months in to running the company, with work not having particularly arrived, my wife suggested I needed to diversify. Diversification means doing different things, the aim being that you appeal to more customers and pick up more work. Some friends have suggested that I do this too.
My passion is cyber security, but my background means I can do IT work (infrastructure, design, implementation) and software development. Ultimately, I'd be foolish not to take on work just because it's not cyber security.
But, there's a risk with diversification. Take for example network infrastructure work, which I have done for a couple of clients. Cyber security work pays better, meaning I need to work fewer days for the company to be profitable and to pay myself a wage. I could take on a large networking project, only to then have to turn town a higher paying security contract. I appreciate that's the balance and challenge of consulting, but I certainly don't want to get pigeon-holed into being "the IT guy" - I need the security work too.
Similarly I could diversify on my target customers. I offer discounted rates to charities, but if all the work I do in a year is discounted then that has an impact on company growth and my family's income.
Offering ongoing support services
I've worked in IT support. There are good days and bad days. Currently my company consists of just me, so I really don't want to be providing support contracts. My concern is that I'd never be able to take time off, as a support call could come in at any time. That also means I could get a support call while on another customer engagement.
For the moment, offering ongoing support services is simply not something my company can do.
Requests from places I volunteer
I provide voluntary support to at least one organisation that I'm involved with, and have done for years working with other volunteers. I need to be mindful that expectant requests during the working day impact my company. While I don't mind doing some stuff "on company time", so to speak, I need to make sure these organisations don't feel they can put in a call and I'll be there instantly.
What I have found interesting is comments like "we don't want to abuse your volunteer work, so if we need to get a company in to do X, let us know". That's interesting because they don't offer to contract me to do the work, which would almost certainly be cheaper than a third party...
Training and support
One of my local universities hosted a networking breakfast to foster academia and business connections. I learned about some of the support available from government backed schemes, that partnered with the university. Bottom line: I needed to have been trading at least a year, and have 5 - 250 employees in order to take advantage of these.
I don't currently have a mentor, and am not enrolled in any "run your own company" training schemes. I do talk to a number of people that run their own companies, but struggle sometimes to see how applying their suggestions would work for my company (and sometimes it's pretty clear it won't).
I have definitely appreciated the time people have taken to give me advice though, and I've implemented things where I think it helps. I recently expanded my company website to include some blog posts (often copied from Jonsdocs), and also added pages highlighting services I'd recommend per sector. Those were tips from a few people.
Perhaps I need to look more into training and support in 2026.
IR35
Ah IR35, a pain in the backside that I'm not convinced solved any problems. This is quite a complicated topic, but the basic summary is that if HMRC decide that you're essentially acting as an employee of the client, then you have to be on their payroll. You'd be taxed through payroll, rather than receiving your full fee.
HMRC did this, in theory, because people were creating one person limited companies, then only paying themselves dividends. Dividends have lower tax implications. As a result, HMRC lost out on tax revenue and workers stayed with the same firms for years.
I'm mindful of each client engagement and how I need to ensure it's treated appropriately in relation to IR35. Ideally I want to be outside IR35, as that's most tax efficient for me and my company.
Could I do more?
Absolutely. I've steered away from cold-calling potential customers as I don't feel it would work. It never worked on me, but I've not tried it to see what happens. I could post daily on LinkedIn, but as discussed that may not help at all.
I need to go to some more networking events in 2026, ideally free ones, in order to hopefully pick up some contacts and some work.
I can always do more, but I try very hard to make sure my effort has a positive impact for the company without impacting my family life too much.
Conclusion - terrifying but exciting
I wasn't expecting this to be a three post series, but hopefully this has been interesting. I'll finish by covering how running my own company is both terrifying and exciting.
Impostor syndrome is definitely a problem I suffer with, and I think it's why I sometimes spend so long on proposals. "Have I got this right?" and "what if I've got that wrong?" are common worries, despite there being demonstrable proof that I know what I'm doing. I need to get better at writing proposals in good time.
Sometimes people assume that because I work for my own company I don't have a job. I find that a weird response, given I'm at my laptop, working, most weekdays. In terms of billable days those are currently the minority of my days, but my company is still new and growing.
Loss of routine is something I've struggled with, and something I'm reimplementing. I still try to go for a walk before work each day, same as when I was employed elsewhere. I keep mostly the same hours too. Not having constant interaction with other people has meant I lose track of time, and often have to check what day it is. I didn't expect that.
"Year end" soon for the company, and I'm expecting to learn more about that process very soon 😄.
Banner image: Screenshot from my website, with my company logo overlaid.