Why entrepreneur and not employee?
I realized that there was a need in the market to serve the developer community better than it was being served, and I understood that there was a way I could help them through my access to hardware manufacturers. My aim was to alleviate some of the financial burdens that affect the work of those hardware manufacturers.
To be an entrepreneur means …
I think we’re now getting things up to a level in which we have the right operation and processes to smoothly serve the needs of our customers. We aim at turning this business into the biggest device lab in UK. As a result, the prospect of expanding that out across Europe where we can actually serve the needs of a larger community is really exciting. Somehow it feels like we’re just on the tipping point of building something that’s going to be really useful to a lot of people.
Your advice for potential young entrepreneurs ….
Do not expect that all your ideas are going to flourish. Being an entrepreneur is a hard job. I’ve never worked so hard, slept as little or made such little money in my entire career. But there is nothing more gratifying than getting this sense of achievement when you actually go from a start-up phase to a period of profitability. Being aware that you are building something that is genuinely useful and being out there to map and chart your own course is a great experience and something I would thoroughly recommend.
The interview was held on the occasion of the StartUp Europe Roadshow closing event, organised on the second day of UNCONVENTION 2014. For more interviews of this kind and the video summarising the interviews check HERE.
Calypso Harland is Founder of DevLab (UK), an open device lab providing developers access devices and intelligent testing solutions –
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