So you want to start a small business?

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The clock-radio bleets loudly, and you close your eyes and try not to think about going to work.

Despite every assurance that a particular machine contained no valuable information whatsoever, and did not need to be on the backup schedule, it's now dead; and it's your job to recover the only copy of the now vital reports contained therein.

You've been working unpaid overtime for months, and management have been ignoring your pleas for extra technical staff. There seems to be an increasing trend for your boss to hand you poorly defined projects, with impossible deadlines and insufficient resources. To top it all off, the so-called coffee at work is undrinkable.

Don't you just wish that you could quit that lousy job and start your own business, working on the things that you actually enjoy doing?

A dose of reality for anyone thinking of striking out on their own in the world of computer consultancy.

Stream: Business

Paper: So you want to start a small business?

Paul Fenwick has always had an entrepreneurial bent. At the age of six he went into retail, setting up a street-side stall to sell four-leaf clovers from a mutant plant in the family garden. Two years later Paul's attempts to market mutant funnel-webs failed disastrously, and after returning from hospital he discovered that his all his Spiderman comics had been burnt. This was Paul's first lesson that the world of small business is not always an easy one.

In late 2001 Paul started his now-flourishing business: Perl Training Australia. Through it he has learned much about dealing with clients, vendors, networking and advertising. Unusually for a small business, Perl Training Australia turned a profit in its first quarter and has enjoyed a growing revenue and reputation ever since. Paul's primary work involves teaching Perl throughout the Australia-Pacific region.