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The end of nightmare builders?
By Jenny Hirschkorn (Telegraph.co.uk)
After 13 years working in New York as a high-flying business consultant, it seemed a logical step for Andrea Ogunkoya to capitalise on her expertise by setting up her own firm.
Ms Ogunkoya, whose client list included an impressive clutch of blue-chip companies, was already flirting with the idea of returning from the US to her home in Manchester when she met her partner - in life as well as in business - Piotrek Mosczarski.
"I was working part of the year back in the UK and had bought a house here and it didn't take much for me to make the decision to come back full-time," she recalls.
The couple, who now have a baby boy, Jack, met when Ms Ogunkoya needed some repairs done to her house after an attempted break-in. A friend who was having a loft converted recommended his Polish joiner, Mr Mosczarski, and he and Ms Ogunkoya found they had a lot of ideas in common.
At the time, Mr Mosczarski was struggling to hold down two jobs and could not even afford to run a car, and Ms Ogunkoya realised that a lot of skilled workers were being exploited.
"I had spent years building businesses for other people - small family businesses as well as the more high-profile names - and it seemed to us that there was an excellent opportunity here to combine my experience with Piotrek's knowledge of the building trade.
"You don't seem to be able to go a day in the UK without hearing someone's story about nightmare builders, so we thought that there would be a big demand for a quality service that people can rely on." At the same time, they would ensure that the tradesmen were paid a fair rate for the job.
They had managed to arrive at these conclusions even though Mr Mosczarski had only been in England for a few months and his knowledge of English was, as Ms Ogunkoya puts it, "horrendous".
"I remember thinking," she now jokes, "that this is never going to work. We had to look up every word in the dictionary."
Somehow, though, they muddled through and Trade Man's World, an agency which supplies reliable plasterers, electricians, joiners and builders is now in its third year, with more than 200 tradesmen on its books.
The first task the couple got down to was printing fliers on Ms Ogunkoya's home computer. They distributed these outside leading DIY stores and were instantly overwhelmed with demand. A second leaflet was targeted at workers and put up in areas where they knew there was a concentration of immigrants from Eastern Europe.
"Very quickly we learned that we would have to skill check our workers or we would be in the same position as builders that people complain about all the time. People claim to have all sorts of experience that turns out to be non-existent."
The company guarantees that their workers will do a 10-hour day and will tackle anything from putting up a shelf to building a two-storey extension. "I know from experience that the small jobs often lead to larger ones, and that has been borne out by so much of our work coming through personal recommendation."
Ms Ogunkoya admits there are challenges in running a business with your other half, but says that they have managed to build in a balanced life style. "At Christmas we close completely for two weeks so that our workers can go home and we do get away on some good holidays."
As for the future, Ms Ogunkoya is confident that demand would be equally strong in other parts of the country and so hopes to franchise what she believes is a strong business model.
"The strength of our brand is in our organisation and efficiency," she says. "There's no writing estimates on the back of an envelope. We make sure that appointments are kept and clear written estimates detail precisely what a job entails.
"What we are doing is professionalising the building trade."
Don't
Waste time and money on fancy stationery, office furniture and other peripherals. Get out there and test the business to ensure it will generate income.
Do
Bite the bullet. It is always going to be scary starting your own business but go for it.
PROFILE
Name: Andrea Ogunkoya and Piotrek Mosczarski
Company: Trade Man's World
Founded: 2005
Staff: 2 admin staff plus over 200 self-employed tradesmen
Start-up funds: "our home computer and our own tools"
Turnover: £400,000
www.trademansworld.com
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