Hi, I’m Paul and I’m guessing you are here because you want to know more about me?

Well, here is a brief summary:

  • I’m a 30-something (the less said of that the better!)
  • UK Born and Bred
  • Online business owner since 2012

Short and sweet right but I will give a bit more background on myself below.

My Background

One thing I most definitely don’t have is a fancy background as:

  • I don’t have a degree
  • Spent most of my working career in customer service/retail

I also had dead-end jobs working in an office and a car auction (that was a fun job though!) and before I embarked on a journey as a solopreneur, I was working in a pawnbrokers after I’d spent a couple of years on a business course, which I passed with distinction.

And it was my love of business and working in the pawnbrokers that gave me the skills and belief that I could go and do my own thing, which I embarked on in 2012.

Ecommerce 2012 – 2019

This wasn’t my first venture as prior to this I had tried a couple of different things, including:

  • A car detailing business
  • Buying, fixing and selling iPods
  • Buying and selling games

The iPods were by far the most successful and I made a good for £’s as a bit of a side hustle but in 2012, I started my first ‘proper’ business, which was an online jewellery retailer and the first 4 years were incredibly successful, seeing a 100% year on year growth every year.

But things kind of derailed in 2016 due to a change in the political and economic landscape in the UK, which really affected the business and sales fell off a cliff!

Things did recover to a degree but due to increased competition, higher day-to-day running costs and a general lack of enjoyment on my part, by the time 2019 rolled around, I was ready to move on to something new and a life-changing event made me realise that life is too short.

This business still exists but not as an ecommerce business anymore, although that may come back in the future!

Content Creation 2019 – Present

Towards the end 2019, I decided to move in a completely new direction as I wanted something to get me excited about business again and after watching lots of YouTube videos and reading lots of blog posts, I decided to start a blog and YouTube channel around Ecommerce.

This has been my full-time business since December 2019 and has been more successful than my ecommerce business was, which is nice but I started to feel like things were getting a bit stagnant and I was getting a little bit bored.

Which has lead me on to the next stage in my business journey…

My Personal Site 2023 – Present

Even though I have been running online businesses since 2012, the one thing that I never had was a personal website, they were always business related and that is why I decided to buy the paulhaywood.me domain in 2023 (the .com wasn’t available) that would allow me to talk about:

  • Personal Finance
  • Making Money Online

These are two things that I am passionate about and being able to expand beyond ecommerce is very exciting as it allows me to try lots of different things to see if they work or not.