Everyone has a journey.Each one is unique.
When Eddie started his, he had thick, luscious hair, for example.
Now, not so much.
Growing up in the steel working town of Scunthorpe,
Eddie had a modest working class but stable start in life – being the youngest of three siblings and sharing a bedroom with older brother.
At just 18 years old, Eddie joined Humberside Police as a police officer – being the youngest trainee to join the force in 2004. Four years on the front lines, countless arrests, and more dead bodies than anyone should see, including holding someone in his arms after they’d been stabbed in the neck.
Heavy stuff.
Then one day, one of his inspectors tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Eddie, you look like a smackhead. Fancy going undercover as one?”. After his training as a Covert Human Intelligence Source, Eddie went undercover (mostly buying drugs) before moving to CID, where he investigated a range of serious crimes, latterly more involved in fraud and complex crime cases.
It was during a routine call with a Crown Prosecution Service lawyer that Eddie encountered his first ‘sliding doors’ moment.
“Do you enjoy the job?”, she enquired.
“Not really” Eddie replied, “but I’m not qualified to do anything else”.
Within minutes, the lawyer suggested a post graduate access course that Eddie might (with a little persuasive writing that his experience as a copper was as good as an undergrad degree) be able to enrol on.
And, within just a week of that phone call, Eddie was enrolled at university, taking on £20k in personal debt (he wasn’t eligible for a student loan) while still working 30 hours a week as a copper.
It was an intense period in his life, to say the least.
Following completion of his post-graduate course, Eddie went on to study the Legal Practice Course at BPP University – before eventually being offered a training contract at international law firm, Addleshaw Goddard via their diversity scheme – on the basis that Eddie was from a working class background and in the first generation of his family to attend university.
And then, in 2013, after 9 years in the police, Eddie’s time came to hang up his cuffs and his badge – swapping his life jumping over fences to go work in a glass-office building in the city centre of Manchester.
Only, there was one problem.
He sat down on his first day and his immediate thought was:
“I fucking hate this”.
So, Eddie did what any tight Northerner would do that has just spent £20k on something… he gritted his teeth and knuckled down. He stuck it out to qualify as a lawyer in 2015, specialising in corporate crime.
Until just a few months later when he decided enough was enough.
“Eddie’s decided he’s leaving, as he can’t hack it.”
Infamous words from Eddie’s then boss, a partner of an international law firm, as she announced to the team that he was leaving to start his own business. His original idea was simply: “I wanted to do something for myself, whatever that was“. He knew he’d be happier chasing his own dream, rather than building someone else’s and he knew there was really only one way of realising his potential.
In 2016, Eddie quit his law job on a Friday, started his first business the following Monday with just £10 in a bank account, a dodgy laptop, and a suit that screamed, “I know what I’m doing” (even though he didn’t).
That business, The Defence Works, grew into a multi-million-pound success, which he sold to a NASDAQ-listed company just four years later. Not bad for someone winging it from day one – without a co-founder or funding, too.
Since Eddie’s first business exit, he’s kept on building. He flipped a 19th-century chapel in Manchester into the Ministry of Work – the North’s first ever exclusive work club – and co-founded Rare Company, a private membership where established British business owners sit with founders who’ve already built and sold companies.
Eddie is well-connected in the UK startup scene and doesn’t sugarcoat the grind. He calls it as he sees it—delivering the hard truths about business with the kind of blunt honesty you’d expect from someone who was raised in Scunthorpe and became a self-made entrepreneur in Manchester.
2016 – 2020 · The Defence Works
A SaaS success
Bootstrapped, as a sole founder, to a multi-million exit in just 4 years. What started as a one-man fraud and crime prevention consultancy became a security awareness training platform – built from scratch, with no investment, no family pot of gold and no hidden savings.
After 1,488 days of hustling, building and refining, The Defence Works was acquired by Proofpoint, one of the world’s largest cybersecurity firms.
2020 – 2022 · Proofpoint
Joining a $1bn business
Following the successful acquisition, of which Eddie was the sole founder still owning 100% of his shares, Eddie took on the role of Director within Proofpoint. He had a front-row seat at the senior leadership table with the team for the 2 years he worked there, gaining hugely valuable insight and experience in the running of a billion-dollar NASDAQ-listed company.
Not too shabby for a guy who kicked this off on his own, right?
After the exit · Ministry of Work
The North’s first ever ‘work club’
Whilst building his first business, The Defence Works, Eddie had loosely thought that the idea of a workspace in the suburbs could work well.
Why? Simply because he was finding the lure into the city centre getting less and less – and especially since becoming a father, he wanted to spend less time commuting.
Fast forward a few months after selling his business, and there it was—a 19th-century chapel, for sale on Rightmove of all places.
“I think I’ve just bought an old church”, he hastily tried explaining to his wife over the phone.
Twenty months and a £1 million renovation later, that old chapel is now an A-rated EPC building, fully powered by solar and renewable energy, and is the North’s first ever exclusive ‘work club’. Think Soho House meeting coworking – now the home to some of Greater Manchester’s top entrepreneurs and business leaders.
Not a bad gamble on an old church, eh?
Today
Two rooms worth being in
These days, Eddie spends his time on two things built for founders – the kind of people he wishes he’d had around him when he started out.
Ministry of Work. The North’s first exclusive work club, in that converted chapel in Swinton. Eddie’s based there most days, a few desks away from the members.
Membership →
Rare Company. Co-founded by Eddie: a private membership for established British business owners, who meet monthly in small Circles chaired by founders who’ve built and sold companies.
Find out more →Lived experience:
- Bootstrapping from £0 to a multi-million exit in less than 4 years
- Strategic insight from a $1bn turnover, NASDAQ-listed business
- Management of a £1m property transformation
- Growing a network of over 50+ of Manchester’s best growing startups