When Murray Clark started up his shutter company, he was so convinced that
people would want to buy them only in the summer that he also started work
on a computer-games exchange business to provide an income in the winter. He
had spent £14,000 on building a website for it before he realised there was
year-round demand for his shutters. The computer-games idea was quickly
shelved.
The younger of two brothers, Clark was born and brought up in Glasgow, where
his father was an engineer and his mother a nurse. He started earning money
from a young age, doing paper rounds and selling copies of computer games
and music tapes in the school playground. On Saturdays he worked in a shoe
shop.
Clark went to university to study quantity surveying, but hated it and left
after a year. He spent the next 12 months working in shoe shops and then,
because he had no idea what to do next, did an English degree at Glasgow
University. His heart was not really in it, however, and Clark chose
subjects that had lectures at 9am so he could spend the rest of the day
working in a video-games store.
On graduating he still had no idea what he wanted to do so he went travelling
around the world for a year and then returned home to work for first Virgin
Atlantic and then American Airlines.
In 2003 Clark decided he wanted to start his own business. He initially
thought about opening a restaurant or bar but rejected these as being too
high risk.
He got the idea for starting up a shutters business while trying to buy some
for his house. “I looked around and realised there weren’t that many
companies in Britain that did shutters at the time, and the firms I
contacted were pretty snooty,” he said.
“I did find a company to provide shutters for me and from start to finish its
service was terrible. I wasn’t happy with the way the shutters were
installed, but the company kept telling me how busy it was. I thought, well,
if you are doing things this badly but are still doing well then I can do
better.”
So Clark contacted several shutter companies in Canada and flew out to see
them using the cheap flight concessions he had because he worked for an
airline. He found a manufacturer he liked and learnt everything he could
about shutters and how they worked.
Then he quit his job, put aside enough money to live on and pay the mortgage
for six months and spent £1,500 getting a website made and a phone line
installed. From the beginning he decided to sell his shutters solely online
and get customers to install them themselves.
“I wanted to be a company that could serve the whole of Britain,” he said. “I
didn’t want to be offering an installation service or have installers. I
felt the product could be sold in a way that was simple for people to put
up. The company was completely geared towards the DIY market.”
Clark called his business The California Shutter Company partly because
shutters are often called California shutters in America and also because he
felt it was more glamorous than calling it the Brighton shutter company,
after the town where his business was based.
Orders started coming in but Clark quickly realised that shutters alone would
not be enough to sustain the business so he started selling blinds, too.
Now called simply The California Company, it has gone into partnership with
the DIY chain B&Q to sell plantation shutters Rachel Bridge and is
expected to turn over £3.2m this year.
Clark thinks the secret of his success has been his energy and enthusiasm.
“My mother used to say that I would bea jack of all trades and master of none.
I was never comfortable when she said that when I was younger, but as I got
older I thought actually that is a great way to be... that it is fantastic
to do all these different things.”
Now aged 35, he has this advice to other would-be entrepreneurs: “Don’t
underestimate your abilities. Be prepared to work exceptionally hard, and
deliver what you say you are going to deliver.”
Clark also advises people to think twice about whether it really makes sense
for them to go to university. “When I was growing up there was never a
question that I wouldn’t go to university. But I think there is a danger
that you can overeducate yourself. As I went through that process I became a
bit scared about starting my own business. I thought it was so complicated
and so difficult. Hard work and determination are what make it happen.”
Although the financial rewards were nice, Clark said he was primarily
motivated by the sense of freedom that being an entrepreneur gave him.
“I love the freedom that my life has,” he said. “I have the freedom to make my
own decisions and if I see that something is not working in the company I
can go in a different direction.”
