In 2001 when I was thrown out of left RTE, I decided to set up a little business doing web design.

The intention was to run it as a paid hobby, doing little sites for local businesses and the like.

It didn’t work out that way.

For reasons that I still can’t quite understand, the business took off in a big way, and within a year, I had major contracts with Lily O’Brien’s Chocolates to rebuild their small brochure site into a major e-commerce site, and with a subsidiary of O2 to build a major virtual private network linking all mobile phone shops to head office.  There were also numerous smaller sites and the business rapidly got out of hand.

I expanded the business to include hosting simply because it made sense to be able to provide an all in one package and to have complete control over the servers.

In the years since, I have never been short of work.  On the contrary, I frequently found myself juggling contracts to keep all the clients happy.

Over the last couple of years however, the CFS has taken hold, and I have found the design and development side to be more and more of a strain.  As this was supposed to be a hobby, not a chore, I decided to quit that side of the business and to just continue with the hosting.

Over the last couple of months, I have been doing the figures.  I have decided that the income from hosting alone does not warrant the hassle and responsibility of looking after fifty or so websites, and I made the final decision.

I am quitting.

Ending a lucrative business is not a light decision.  I have responsibilities to my clients, and they all have to be taken care of.  I have arranged that in such a way that no one should be inconvenienced in any way, and they will maybe even find life to be a bit cheaper!  From my own perspective, I will have a lot more time to concentrate on enjoying life.  I will have a lot more time for writing, both online and off.

I’ll miss the money though.