Turning your hobby into your job is the impossible ideal for many people. But Gary Chambers did exactly that by working with an affordable outsourcing partner when he founded Soulboater.co.uk, an extreme sports clothing company for kayaking enthusiasts.

Gary, who has been canoeing for seven years, spotted a gap in the market for branded kayaking clothing. Realising that there were plenty of kayaking equipment manufacturers but no established brand with which kayakers could identify once they were out of the water, Gary set up Soulboater in July 2004. As his second business the amount of time and money Gary could invest in the venture were limited.

He explains, 'I wanted to set up a business that was also my hobby. Like all hobbies I had bags of enthusiasm for it but could not allocate as much time or money to it as I would have liked.' In order to get the business up and running within his allocated budget Gary opted to make the internet Soulboater's principle sales and marketing outlet. He realised that developing the right site would be key to Soulboater's success and that a good impression over the web would have to be supported with basic, yet reliable in-house IT.

'As the customer's first point of contact with Soulboater it was essential the website conveyed both the quality of our merchandise and our genuine love of kayaking. The general profile of a kayaker is a cash rich, tech savvy male in their late twenties. They can spot a poor quality website at 50 paces and will simply click away if it doesn't hold their attention. We knew we had to get the website right to retain their interest and create a buzz around the brand.'

Without the skills or time to develop and support an internet presence Gary contacted several companies before enlisting the help of Sitewizard.co.uk, a company that specialises in providing SMEs with an easy, affordable package of all the services they need to develop an internet presence including website design, domain name registration, content management and email.

'For a small company like Soulboater time and cost are major considerations I would have been mad not to give Sitewizard.co.uk a try. They agreed to set-up Soulboater with an internet presence within a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost I thought would be possible. But their value for money approach did not belie a lesser quality product. The competence of the Sitewizard staff and the ease with which they answered by queries and allayed my concerns immediately convinced me of that.'

Instead of opting to manage the website himself via Sitewizard's web based content management software Gary gave the Sitewizard.co.uk team a blank canvas on which to develop the site. In addition to working on the look and feel of the site the team also contributed some of the text. Adrian Reeves, Managing Director, Sitewizard.co.uk says, 'Like many of our customers Gary was keen to get his business on the web but didn't really have the time to invest in setting up IT and developing a professional looking website. Sitewizard.co.uk has developed over 5,000 websites so the team was able to offer Gary advice about how the Soulboater site should look and what he could do to promote it and attract the right customers.'

Within just 48 hours Soulboater had a fully functioning web presence and was ready to start trading. Gary explains, 'Outsourcing the headache of establishing the company with an internet presence and its principle sales and marketing outlet enabled me to start trading much quicker than would have other wise been possible. It is also much more cost effective than me struggling to do it myself and allowed me to concentrate on establishing the core Soulboater business.'

Soulboater now has a registered domain name, company email and a professional looking website. With Soulboater's internet presence firmly established Gary is concentrating on promoting the business. He has agreed to Sitewizard.co.uk's suggestion to register the company with key search engines on his behalf and the Soulboater website already has the endorsement of some of Britain?s brightest stars and emerging young talents on the kayaking scene.

'The site looks great and the speed in which it was up and running was a real bonus. What I was most impressed with was how helpful and interested in the site the Sitewizard staff were - even the receptionist! The sense that there was a team commitment to making soulboater.co.uk the best it possibly could be is something you can't really put a price on.'