I was forced to sell my car for just £1k to fund my business… now I make millions every year and drive a Lamborghini
AN ENTREPRENEUR sold his clapped-out Renault to kickstart a business which is now worth millions of pounds – and he drives a new Lamborghini.
Rob Dance, 40, quit school after GCSEs where he got Bs, Cs and Ds in ten subjects, to pursue a career in technology – because he had a “thirst for problem solving”.
But he needed to sell his first car – a 1990 Renault 5 GT Turbo – for just £1,000 to launch his own firm, which he ran from his parents’ garage.
Fifteen years later the dad-of-two from Cowbridge in South Wales is CEO of a major IT consultancy firm with more than 100 employees.
Accounts filed with Companies House for the year ending May 31 2022 show current assets worth almost £5m and Rob claims they hope to turn over £10m this year.
ROCK has recently been included in Business Leader’s “Top 32 scale-ups to watch” list and Consultancy.uk named them among the top 40 technology consulting firms in the UK.
Rob has also been shortlisted in the Great British Entrepreneur Awards for the category “Technology entrepreneur of the year”.
And last month he celebrated his company’s 15th anniversary by buying himself a gift, a top-of-the-range Lamborghini.
Rob, who lives with his partner, said: “At school I didn’t really excel, but I was always quite innovative.
“I loved taking apart radios and computers, then putting them back together again – I loved out how things worked.
“When I founded the business, it was just me and one other person who did the admin and accounts.
“In six months we generated our first business and it grew from there – in 18 months we had 30 employees.
“Covid really helped us because when we worked from home, lots of clients didn’t have the tech in place so we had all these queries coming in about it.
“We really relied on the team to pull it out the bag then – and we actually grew during the pandemic and have continued to grow since then.
“Now we’re on the trajectory to turn over £10m in a year and have been shortlisted for multiple awards.
“I got my Lamborghini a month ago – I never felt like I deserved to treat myself, but 15 years is a huge milestone so the time is right.”
Rob left school at 16 and got a job working with computers, before going travelling in Australia two years later then deciding to go to the University of Glamorgan, now known as the University of South Wales.
He said: “Straight after graduating, I spent six months writing a 200-page business plan.
“During my research, I came across the revelation that there was a different way of delivering IT support.”
His approach was to offer unlimited IT support to firms for a flat monthly fee, rather than per day.
He said: “At the start I was doing four or five jobs every day then doing follow-up calls to check they were happy with the work.
“The clients really liked this so I was getting work coming in through referrals.”
Rob realised every time three more clients signed up, he could afford to hire a new staff member.
After 18 months he had 30 employees, then during the pandemic his company gained 45 new projects and clients.
Rob expects ROCK to turn over £10m this year, the highest annual amount yet, and they have plans to launch globally in 2024.
Rob said: “It was a gamble back then when we first started, especially during the credit crunch of 2008.
“But we had this amazing idea and I thought ‘I’ve just got to go for it’ – and the rest was history.”
Other recent business success stories include a driving instructor from Bracknell in Berkshire who had dropped out of university yet not expects to pocket almost £58,000 this year.
A letting agency branch partner in Sheffield has told of earning £60,000 doing something she loves.
And two brothers from Bromsgrove in Worcestershire became millionaires after starting out by setting up an internet advertising company then selling watches.