I document the work, the mistakes, and what it actually takes to build things.

During my A-Levels, I spent evenings & weekends working as a bike builder at Smyths Toys, usually tucked away in the back corner of the warehouse, until I got more confident and also helped on the shop floor in the 'Outdoor' department.

When university application season came around, I told my teachers: "I don't know what I want to do, other than I don't want to go to university."

Once I said that, they pretty much stopped helping me. All they cared about was personal statements.

I can be quite stubborn, so being ignored just lit a fire in me to back myself and look elsewhere.

I secured a Chartered Manager Degree Apprenticeship (CMDA) in Operations & Logistics. (Unfortunately, I still had an element of university)

But, while others were sitting in lecture halls, I was thrown straight into high-pressure supply chain and operations environments. I had the opportunity to go round ALL the different departments in the warehouse and learn from the "ground-up" how they worked, then be put in charge of them.

That’s where I realised that half of corporate efficiency is just fixing bad manual habits: eliminating endless copy-pasting, cleaning up messy tab hoarding, and turning slow spreadsheet chaos into automated workflows that people can use.

This got noticed by Senior Management, and I was put on additional projects alongside my normal placements to improve our systems - all based in Excel.

Then came redundancy.

It didn't just take my job—it took my degree with it. All the effort of balancing full-time work and university studies was wiped out in one morning announcement.

Other companies said they didn't want an apprentice halfway through a course, and on-paper I was as qualified as I was 2.5 years ago.

With no immediate open doors, I decided to back myself. On March 30th, 2024, Office Mango was born—purely out of necessity rather than some grand plan.

The first year was brutal. Lots of prospect calls, lots of "we'll think about it," and living off whatever little savings I had left (you don't save much on an Apprentices Salary).

There was one night in March sitting in a petrol station with £65 left in my account, needing to fill the car. I'd turned down a Team Manager role at DHL during this time to commit to the business... But I sat there wondering if the whole thing had been a mistake and if I’d let myself & everyone down.

Until, a couple days later, I signed 2 clients - the bespoke projects turned into contracts, referrals came through, and 15 months after starting I paid myself my first £1,000 salary!