My name's David Skea, I'm 21 years of age, my business is Fisherman Direct supplying diver-caught shellfish to the end customer em, we, er, we've got divers out diving for shellfish, they bring the stuff back to our premises in Alness, package it and it's exported to, er, Spain, Hong Kong and Singapore.
We're in a remote part of Northern Scotland, Alness, this is where my business is based, I've grown up here for the last 21 years and my father was a diver for about ten to 15 years before I became a diver.
I grew up on boats and fishing so it's just part of my - part of my upbringing.
I'd grown up with my mother and father running a diving company, and I'd seen them doing invoices and all the things that are related to running a business and er it's just something I had a feel for and er I really enjoyed it when I started.
It's not rocket science, em, running a business, but when I started it was difficult to get it off the ground, to make contacts and to break into markets and get suppliers but em after you take the first step, it's just one step at a time.
I enjoy the freedom most about running my own business. Em, what you put into the business you get out and the harder you work the more return you see.
We er use scuba equipment, we dive with a cylinder on our backs. The shell fish are hand picked and they come back to our premises in Alness in a refrigerated van and we pack them into polystyrene boxes and they go out to the market live.
I got the Highers that I needed to get into University in fifth year, erm, so I started sixth year but I left to do something else before going to doing Marine Engineering at Strathclyde University.
I did a dive - a commercial diving course down in Fort William, but sadly the school went bankrupt and I only got my scuba certificate so for the rest of the year I was diving for shellfish and, em, it just kind of progressed into a business and I cancelled my place at the University and I'm still here four years later.
The first er step to starting Fisherman Direct was I went to London and went into a few restaurants and met a few dealers, made a few contacts down there and then we started transporting our catch down there in a refrigerated truck and then it just progressed into markets in Spain, trawling for contacts on the Internet and then Hong Kong and Singapore.
When I first started I got a grant from the Prince's Scottish Youth Business Trust, and also from Ross and Cromarty Enterprise which helped me buy a refrigerated container and the first few pieces of equipment I needed.
In the first year of trading exceeded what I thought we were going to do, we were really busy and we did quite well, em, as the business made profit we invested it back into the business and erm , we've just built a deputation and despatch centre in Alness to comply with Environmental Health regulations and allow us to expand more
I've got, er, loans outstanding, but the company's doing quite well and we're paying them off all the time, we had to get a loan to build the deputation and despatch centre but er I'm making money and being able to pay them off, whereas if I went to Uni I would have debt and I might not be guaranteed a job.
Er, I suppose the biggest fear about starting in business was it wasn't going to make any money, I was going to invest the money in the company and get nothing back from it, but er it all turned out okay in the end.
When I started I suppose em I was confident, but as the business has grown I've got a lot more confident and that's something you need a lot of to be self employed.
We've been trading just, er, coming up four years now, and hopefully in the future we'll grow the business and branch out into other species and just continue from there.
International business is a lot easier than it used to be, with the aid of the Internet nowadays. Erm, it's a lot easier to contact people abroad and it allows me to take a local product here in Scotland and market it on an international basis.
Your age isn't a barrier when you're starting a business, if you've got a business idea and you're passionate about it, you can succeed.
I'm quite happy with the choice I made, it was, er, the right route for me to become self-employed.
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