I’m Ian Pullen, originally from the UK, but resident in Spain for over a decade. As a qualified graphic designer, I worked for a number of publishing, design and marketing businesses, managing three design studios during that time.
I’m Ian Pullen, originally from the UK, but resident in Spain for over a decade. As a qualified graphic designer, I worked for a number of publishing, design and marketing businesses, managing three design studios during that time.
In 2000, I met my now wife, Kate, and stole her away from the circus.
Ok, she was actually running a multi-million dollar company with offices in three continents, but what can I say? The tash and goatee really suits her.
The day after Christmas 2005, we got in a van and drove across France and most of Spain to our new home, about an hour north of Seville. It’s the kind of house known as a traditional palacio.
I had dreams of wearing a crown and ermine and the peasants would address me as the prince formerly known as Ian.
Instead we somehow turned it into a quasi animal sanctuary full of cats and dogs, most of them a bit wonky. The best laid plans and all that.
That’s 37.5% of the current household.
In between working as a full time dog and cat butler (voted Best in House, 2009 and 2011), I launched into my freelance career. I worked on print and web jobs for solopreneurs and on projects for huge multinationals like Unilever, Lenovo and HSBC.
I also branched into copywriting, creating copy for billion dollar companies, had a year contracted by The New York Times company and also wrote for smaller websites on photography.
Throughout this time, I held a dream of building my own business.
So first came Luxury Dog Sofas. Great creative, dreadful product concept. It turns out that in this part of rural Spain, dogs sleep outside.
I almost bankrupted us developing the weatherproof version, only to discover that in this part of rural Spain, dogs that sleep outside don’t sleep on sofas.
A big lesson in doing your product research nailed right there!
So first came Luxury Dog Sofas. Great creative, dreadful product concept. It turns out that in this part of rural Spain, dogs sleep outside.
I almost bankrupted us developing the weatherproof version, only to discover that in this part of rural Spain, dogs that sleep outside don’t sleep on sofas.
A big lesson in product research nailed right there!
Next up was the Wopp-Off™ Picture Hanging System. Not a lot to say about that other than it took 6 months of intensive therapy to get over that humiliating Shark Tank experience.
Next up was the Wopp-Off™ Picture Hanging System. Not a lot to say about that other than it took 6 months of intensive therapy to get over that humiliating Shark Tank experience.
I really don’t want to tell you about the other failures and the truth is I was just about ready to give up on my dream.
That was when “Bad Ass” Bobbins, my indispensable mentor, got me back on track. Incidentally, the “Bad Ass” name isn’t anything to do with her being some kind of hard ball business dog. It’s more in a “uuuurrgghhh, her bottom needs wiping!” kind of a way.
It was her who made me realize that down the years, from working with owner-operators and being involved in projects for global corporations, I’d made an utterly obvious discovery.
People want, no, need, things to be easy. So having been working on another oh so broad project, I niched down to one key aspect of running an online business.
Funnels and landing pages.
Funnel Blocks Pro is a FREE WordPress plugin that leverages the power of the Gutenberg editor to make building sales and opt in funnels just about as easy as they can be.
If you’re growing an online business with a WordPress website, why wouldn’t you give it go?
Incidentally, if you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find her, maybe you can hire…”Bad Ass” Bobbins and change your life (perhaps even for the better) with The Bad Ass Mentoring ProgramTM.
