Lucy Cokes
It was a simple choice for me to start a business. I was basically running the small company I worked for before I set up Neutralize. My previous employer became my first client, so we were profitable from day one.

All the challenges of starting up a business never really happened. Teddie and I were living together and ran the business from home, we were good at setting it all up; we've never owed any money because we've never had to raise funds. This year we're managing rapid growth: we have 16 full-time staff and some larger clients under our belt.

When we started, the market hadn't matured—it wasn't quite ready for us. Now, businesses understand search engine marketing. We could have grown more aggressively if we'd remained in London [the business moved to Cornwall in June 2000] but that would have meant raising finance. And Cornwall gained access to broadband quite early on. Our main competitors aren't based in London, either.

We're quite different in our approach to work, in what we're responsible for and in what we excel at. As technical director, Teddie keeps up with the technical developments and what's happening in the industry—he keeps us cutting edge. He doesn't like getting involved in the day-to-day "managing".

He likes to keep things moving really fast whereas I'm more likely to say, "hold on, let's get this finished first". Teddie's quite a perfectionist, I'll try and get things done on time. He expects high standards of people. We're not similar, although we do share lively personalities and a youthful outlook to life.

We haven't had too many disagreements about the way the business will move forward. We come at a problem or make a decision together. I try hard to keep a distance between home and work. I assign a time to talk about it.

I admire Teddie's huge enthusiasm for everything he does and his knowledge of the industry. Our clients buy into his passion and that's worked really well for us. He's the driving force behind our success and is respected in the industry. He's good at networking and gets on well with his peers. He often changes his mind about things, which can be a little irritating, and he's not quite as organised as I'd like, but you can't have everything.

The business is very different now that we've got a team of staff. We have to keep up with growth, keep on top of things. At the start we were just finding our feet, figuring out who we were, But we found our niche before the industry developed. We always had a sense of self.

Edward Cowell
We both had strong backgrounds in internet-based stuff. I worked for MSN during the launch of Internet Explorer 3 and then BNP-Paribas, where I knew more about the internet than anybody there. I had a front row seat for the dotcom boom and then bust. I knew what was working and what was not.

We spotted search engine marketing as a niche. We were really clear, after a brainstorming session, that we weren't about creative or design, but about search.

We knew exactly where we were going, but had the same kind of issues that any growing small business would have. Recruitment was quite hard, especially because we needed specific skills and were based in Cornwall. But it's a good place to grow a family, and it's now the most [technologically] enabled county in the UK. There are no restrictions, technically, being there.

We've always been clear about our targets. We ask ourselves: "How do we grow from here?" We make sure we have long-term as well as short-term goals. I love the industry we're in. Somebody told me, "we're at the bleeding edge of a bloody life", which I like. We're at the cutting edge of what's happening.

Lucy and I are quite different. I'm a creative thinker, while Lucy is a savvy business manager. It's a good balance. As the MD she keeps the business ticking over and runs a really tight ship. I think our strongest point has always been knowing what we're good at—we've never divided our roles, it's happened fairly naturally and has worked well. I can be disorganised sometimes, but my job is such a different part of the business. I do the R&D bit, I'm like the inventor at the front and she steers the ship.
Lucy's more controlled in her decision-making than I am. She's level headed. That's what you need in business. I'm very enthusiastic. _