Curia’s 10th birthday

10 years ago today was the day I left a fulltime job at Parliament to become self-employed and set up Curia Market Research.

While I was fortunate to have one significant initial client, it was still a leap into the dark to go from a fixed income to a variable income. And like many self-employed people my earnings in the first couple of years was significantly less than what I was earning as an employee.

Curia has been very fortunate to have some incredibly talented staff who have actually run much of the business for me, allowing me to focus on the stuff I enjoy – the polling. From the early days of Ross, Anna, Yvette and Katrina to my current managers and supervisors of Basma and Rebecca – and many in-between. One of the nice things about being a business owner is you are forced to get good at delegating, as there is too much to do, to do it all yourself.

During the last decade, Curia has (approximately):

• Worked for 92 clients
• Conducted around 1,100 polls
• Employed over 500 staff
• Paid several million dollars of tax

It’s enjoyable running a business where clients choose you entirely on your reputation, quality and price. We’ve never done advertising or soliciting of business. It’s all pretty much been word of mouth. Market research is a competitive industry and there are many other very good firms out there. I’m just pleased we’ve managed to grow the market, and find a useful niche for ourselves.

I enjoy the fact that as a business owner I’m playing a small contribution to economic growth and providing employment to a lot of students (and a few others), to help finance their studies.

The decade has gone by quickly. I became a business owner at age 36 and am now 46. I guess the good thing is I hopefully have two or three more decades of self-employment to go – if things continue to go well. There’s no guarantee of that, but I’m optimistic.