So that hobby of yours, scribbling on note pads, doodling with a pen, designing as many things as flood into your mind . . . means that you now feel ready to take this further and start a real career. If you are already good at animation, art, design, graphics all the seriously arty stuff, then a qualification such as an MA Entrepreneurship For the Creative Industries.

So having decided to start a design business, instead of spending weeks making the logo, choosing a business and website name, setting up a system to check how much time you spend on clients’ projects; creating posh invoice templates, etc. etc. note, these are important jobs but the most important is to actually get your first customers – yes, ensure you have something to sell before going to all that trouble! Others who are well experienced in the field and in that of start ups, say the same thing. Newbies are too focused on getting the peripheries all in place but forget to concentrate on the actual product that is going to need those, but only when you sell a project to a customer and get started on it. Enthusiastic newbies spend far too long on dreamily sketching out their checklist of must haves and must dos but forget the main one – get your product/service sales ready for the market you are going to tap.