Going it alone ...

I love what I do but I've always done it for someone else, now I'm going to do it for me - I've decided to go it alone, freelance, self employed, a consultant. Call it what you will it means one thing, I'll be out there on my own. Now that's a scary thought, at least it is when you haven't done it before. So, a deep breath and here I go.

I always intended that I'd run my own business one day but starting in PR in my 20s I got caught up in corporate life and put that ambition aside. And a wise decision too as nothing could have better prepared me than the years I spent at the heart of the corporate machine. But now here I am, ready to go out on my own at last.

You'd think it would be difficult and complicated to set up a company - but no. With the help of Google and a few randomly selected words like 'business' and 'start up' I landed on a page of links longer than a very long arm. If you've got a few moments, give it a try - not only is it amazing to see how easy it is but the number of ways to go about it. For example, you can do all the leg work yourself or, like me, take the lazy option: a third party makes it very easy, just fill in the boxes, enter your credit card details, choose a name and hit send. It was almost too simple. Within two hours I had confirmation that my chosen name was available and registered with official documentation to follow. All of a sudden I was ready to go - for just £125 and a few clicks of a mouse.

No doubt that was just the easy bit.