In a surprise turn of events, I was approached by a headhunter and have accepted a new job! The new position is Head of Design for Royal Selangor.

I will run the design department which consists of 4 sub-teams each of about 5 people – so 20 managing people and overseeing the design of 150 products a year!

Royal Selangor is a very established luxury brand in Malaysia and this position comes with a lot of responsibility. They did not expect to give it to someone as young as me. Having this as my next stepping stone justifies my ‘wild-card’ career in the startup scene and should leave me in a very powerful position when I want to move on. I am excited and honoured to be valued for this high position.

Building on my experience and knowledge from my previous company and combining that with the unique opportunities in Malaysia I have started another business! Introducing The Delancey Company:

The Delancey Company is a product design consultancy and a manufacturing agency. DELCO offer two primary services which provide a one-stop-shop to go from idea to factory floor.

British product design at affordable pricing.
High quality product design solutions. Industrial design, 3D CAD models, and manufacturing engineering. Prototyping and 3D Printing.
There is a real shortage of product designers in Malaysia, which presents a fantastic opportunity to me.

Making Far-Eastern manufacturing accessible for Western SMEs.
Utilising a network of trusted manufacturers with assurances on IP, quality, and ethical practices. In-house experts on production line set-up and quality control.
Malaysia offers many advantages for manufacturing over Europe or China. It is a perfect place to base your first low-cost production line, so I can sell access to this and ensure hands on successful implementation of Western companies’ products.

I am moving to Malaysia!

After spending the first 4 years after graduating in my home town I want to get out and live abroad for a while. This is a personal goal I have held for many years.

Most people would try and line a job up beforehand, but I like to chance things so I am going to move out there and see how things play out – I have a rough plan but who knows which directions this will go in. This attitude worked spectacularly well for me in Canada when I was 18.

I want to move to Asia to be closer to the manufacturing action, I want to be in an English speaking country, and I can’t afford to roll the dice like this in the super developed economies of Hong Kong or Singapore. I spent June out in Malaysia and found everyone to be really welcoming to me. There is a lot of untapped opportunity in this part of the world, so let’s see what this next chapter brings!

This was the hardest decision I’ve had to make to date.

I had given three and a half years of my life to this company in exchange for opportunity, hype, experience and next to no financial return. In a startup, when you have momentum the monetary compensation is less important than achieving what you set out to do. But when momentum slows, and it seems to have been a long time since you last had a ‘win’ then it becomes more important.

For me, nu desine was not a company I set out to create. I was swept along from the start due to circumstance, and as we grew and got more publicity, momentum and money I stepped up as a cofounder. However, the product was not my baby, and when things went south I did not have the extra passion to fight til the death.

At nu desine I had achieved a personal dream of getting a product I had designed into production and onto a shop floor. I had been involved and influential in all aspects of company decision making, and I had learned more than I would have at any regular graduate job. It had been an incredible 3.5 years.

But momentum slowed, times got tough, and eventually I was spending my days unpaid doing the parts of the job I didn’t enjoy doing. I had never quit anything before in my life, but I knew it was time to move on.

I could have handled it better, I definitely could have handled it worse. Leaving as a cofounder of a startup is comparable to a break up. You and your business partners have seen each other all day everyday for the last few years, you’ve had ups and downs together and the whole ride in between. It was tough, it sucked, and I genuinely wish the company all the success in future.

Before nu desine I had a diverse selection of occupations.

These include:

• A Used Furniture Shop – Needing cash as a recent graduate to cover my travel needs I worked at a furniture shop delivering and assembling furniture.
• Painter/Decorator – My first business! I won contracts from landlords and I employed friends to help me paint student houses over the summer holidays.
• A Flour Mill – Here I was continually sweeping and dusting grain and flour on every floor of the silo. It was mind numbing but paid well if I worked inconvenient hours.
• Ski Resort Cleaner – Snowboarding around a mountain in Canada ensuring the bins/toilets etc of the various restaurants and cafes were in check. I loved this job, I got to snowboard for around 4 hours a day.
• A Steel Works – I was a manual labourer in a steel works, hammering, spot-welding, and polishing steel. My arms got really strong and I got good at assembling on production lines.
• An IT Department – I temped in an IT department for a large PLC. It was boring as hell.