Jonathan Barrett, managing director, Purelabs Ltd.

Started life as a commercial fisherman which teaches you what real work is. Then, I discovered 'design' while walking past a design exhibition at college and immediately realised what I wanted to devote my life to. Then, a design magazine was looking for an editor: became an editor and fell in love with publishing. Then, I won innovation writer of the year. The, I supported the launch of 20-titles over 20 years. Then, I combined my love of design and publishing by designing software for the publishing industry.

All the lessons were learned on the almost vertical learning curve of developing and marketing a completely new software product from scratch.