Starting a football blog at uni got me a job

During university I began running what tongue-in-cheek called 'my business'! It was a fledgling online football blog network called OnYaHead.com and I used it to generate some spare cash while studying. It was pulling in somewhere in the region of £300 a month, which although not being a huge amount was perfectly sufficient to keep me ticking over till the end of my studies.

About nine months after I launched my blog network, I applied for my current job to manage a new upcoming football blog network called FootballUnited.com, which had external investment from two Swedish companies. This was in February 2009. By March I was working for them part-time and they had bought my original network off me. Three months working part-time while I took my finals (I graduated with a Sports Science Degree) and then straight into full-time employment with them, with only a three-day break!

I'm still here now working as general manager/chief editor and currently writing this from our offices in London. How times change!

Top tip

University taught me a lot and it's important to value your studies, even if you find it hard to enjoy them. The skills you pick up are invaluable if you take them on with a mindset that looks beyond the three or so years you're there. Find something you love doing and then put your all into it (without neglecting your education of course!).

Key lesson

Don't get put off by set-backs or ideas that don't work out, they're all part of the process. Look at them as a step forward rather than a step back. Although any money an idea may yield is great to have, I never found that making that my drive helped. What excited me, and still does, is seeing an idea come to fruition - that's always been behind what I do. There are so many more I'd love to share, but those are the ones I've written down to remind myself of in years to come.

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