People always ask me about the shed. "You run a business from a garden shed?" Yes. Yes I do. It's not some romantic little potting hut either — it's properly kitted out, insulated, dual monitors, the lot. But it is, undeniably, at the bottom of my garden.
The question I get asked most is how I manage a team from here. Fair question. The answer is: remote working, decent tools, and building the tools that didn't exist yet.
Remote Working Works
I've been doing this long enough to remember when working from home was considered a bit dodgy. Like you were probably still in your pyjamas watching Homes Under the Hammer. These days it's completely normal, but back in 2016 it still raised eyebrows.
For me it was never really a debate. No commute, no office politics, no fluorescent lighting. I set my own hours, I'm more productive, and I get to make tea in my own kitchen. The shed is about thirty seconds from my back door. That's a commute I can live with.
The team works the same way. Everyone's remote, everyone's trusted to get on with it. And it works because of the tools.
The Tools Problem
When you're managing projects remotely, communication is everything. And there are loads of tools out there — Slack for chat, Trello for boards, Google Drive for files, Zoom for calls. We tried most of them.
The problem was they're all great at one thing but rubbish at talking to each other. I'd have project info in one place, client approvals in my email, time tracking in another app, and bug reports in yet another. It was a mess.
So, being a developer who can't leave well enough alone, I thought: why not just build something that does all of it?
Building Our Own Tools
That's exactly what I did. I built a project management tool that handles the stuff I actually needed — task management, client approvals, time tracking, bug reporting — all in one place. No more tab-switching between six different apps.
It started as an internal tool just for us, but it turned out other freelancers and small teams had the exact same problem. That tool eventually became Task Board, which I still develop and use every single day.
Turns out a shed at the bottom of the garden is a perfectly good place to run a business. You just need the right tools. And if the right tools don't exist, you build them.
