I started out in mixed practice and moved to a busy small animal practice to increase my caseload while studying towards a Certificate in Small Animal Medicine. I struggled with my energy levels and was completely wiped out on my days off. It felt like everyone else was managing, why was I unable to cope? After having kids the extra workload intensified this issue and I felt very stuck and unable to figure out a solution.

During Covid I had time to dig deep and figure out what my strengths were. I realised that I needed to do more with my natural creativity and that I wanted to start my own business.

In 2021 I was under huge pressure with an increase in demand from our clients who all got new pets during Covid. Then due to Brexit, the pet travel scheme changed and clients who wanted to travel with their pets needed a 12 page form filled in by their vet. These forms were taking me over an hour and heaven forbid I make a mistake leading to border dramas. OVForm was born because I found filling in the forms very stressful and difficult and it was taking time away from other important jobs. I mentally broke the form down into it’s simplest components and asked my husband if he could create software to edit the pdf documents. We tested the concept and it worked. I now had a solution I could use but we needed a website so that other vets could use it. The website was created by my brother and so OVForm was born and is still run by the 3 of us.

Starting a business is easy, you can learn from other entrepreneurs through courses and mentorship. I had about 50 ideas but picked the one that was easy, profitable and had potential to scale. It was important to me that the people I work with can work in their “flow” and knowing what my strengths and weaknesses were made it easier to choose partners who could fill in the gaps and add technical expertise.

My business model and role are very intentional. I work in practice 2 days a week, I keep bees, I have 2 young children. The business has to fit into about 10 hours a week. If I spent more time on it it would probably get results faster but I pick the one or two tasks that move us forward each week. I ditch, delegate and automate tasks where possible and try not get stuck in the weeds of working in the business itself.

Neurodiversity is the secret sauce that is both the reason why OVForm exists and why it is so good. When we all work in our flow it generates results that exceed expectations, that is for me the best bit!

I usually work 10am – 3pm Monday – Wednesday. I do an “overview” look at all areas then pick a couple of tasks for the week based on what I feel is going to be the most impact. Right now that would be getting 2 more people on board to do customer services and marketing and setting up onboarding emails and videos for a corporate that has just joined.

Someone creative, a problem solver, with genuine desire to serve the people they are selling to.

I am a massive introvert and it took a lot of “inner” work to reprogram mental barriers and limiting beliefs that were holding me back particularly when it came to telling people about my idea. I used Neuro Linguistic Programming for this and it worked very quickly.

1. Network with others on the same path
2. Find out what you are really good at and make it a part of your business
3. Find out who you want to help and find out what they are struggling with

Solopreneurism is overrated, find people with the right skills to work with and your life will be much easier