Iain Lees applied for hundreds of jobs before he decided to launch his own company after losing his job in the oil and gas industry.
The father-of-one will mark a year since he was made redundant from his previous role having survived one round of job losses.
The 38-year-old found his experience in oil and gas put prospective employers in other industries off, while the roles he looked for still within the sector he was over-qualified for.
But after some deliberation he decided earlier this year it was time to set-up shop on his own.
He said: “I couldn’t even get an interview for a handy man at a care home. It was stressful and frustrating. There were a lot of people like me thinking maybe I will get out of the oil industry and do something different and that road is closed to you because you’ve been part of the oil industry, it’s assumed as soon as it picks up you’ll disappear again.
“With that feeling, I thought to myself, why don’t I do my own thing? I just thought about the things I like doing, I tend to get bored easily and I was thinking what would my ideal job be? I thought why don’t I try and make a new business the best job I’ve ever had?”
The 15-year industry veteran is now a director of his own company Resolute Energy Solutions.
Mr Lees said: “The stuff I always like doing is the creative side of things, solving problems, using new emerging technologies, creating new ideas and that’s basically what I decided to focus on.
“The oil industry is going to keep going, it’s going to change and have to adapt, but I thought why not focus on something within it? It’s about creating new ideas and solving problems.
“Doing my own work, I am free of all the politics which is hugely important. You can actually come up with something quite big and deliver it without other people holding you back. It’s just myself.”
One of his first projects has been tackling wells.
Mr Lees said: “One of the first things I’ve come up with is a different method for well abandonment and that looks like it has huge possibilities and huge potential, so I’ve kind of kept working with that and we’ve putting patent applications together, lots of different inventions, and the next stage is a university testing qualification.
“A number of the operators are very keen on what I’ve come up with as well.”
As he looked to develop his business, the oil and gas worker completed the Elevator Accelerator programme, which helps start-ups.
He said: “I had applied for their accelerator programme and what they do is take a lot of businesses close to start-up stage and give them lots of encouragement and training on how to structure the business, really plan at how they’re going to get to where they want to get to.
“The marketing side of things, how you approach people, how you do a sales pitch. We would often practice public speaking.
“The environment was fantastic. It was really, really open and varied and a lot of people’s ideas and businesses transformed over the period.”
Job losses in the industry across Aberdeen and the UK as a whole is not the “shock story it once was” but instead the “new norm”, according to Mr Lees.
His journey has afforded him thicker skin, according to the budding entrepreneur.
However, Mr Lees has remained upbeat despite the challenges.
He has relished his “real eureka” moments in developing new technology.
Mr Lees said: “It’s a one man band trying to come up with something that can save between 40 and 50% of well abandonment costs.
“It’s quite difficult to do that without money, so you have to be creative with that, but we’re getting there.”
But most of all the last year has taught him that “life goes on”.
“It’s as simple as that,” he said.
This series is in association with Elevator – Scotland’s social enterprise dedicated to supporting entrepreneurship, enterprise and employability – works across Grampian and Tayside to help facilitate the start-up and growth of new and existing businesses.
Delivering Business Gateway, Elevator currently engages with 2,500 start-up businesses and assists around 1,000 organisations to grow annually with advice and support. It aims to help an additional 200 start-ups a year through initiatives such as its hugely successful Accelerator Programme, which aims to fast-track businesses to the next level. Find out more here.
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