My career eventually took me into publishing, education, mentoring and research.

I published the Goldsmith Magazine, writing and commissioning articles about jewellery and silversmithing, makers, markets and businesses around the world.

I co-founded British Silver Week, an organisation created to promote contemporary silversmithing. Over its ten-year history, the organisation generated exhibitions and extensive television, radio, magazine and newspaper coverage across the UK, Europe and Asia.

I have also worked with organisations including the Goldsmiths’ Company, London Craft Week and the Goldsmiths’ Craft and Design Council.

Alongside my practical experience, I studied for an MBA, which gave me an understanding of how larger organisations operate. But it also highlighted something I believe is often overlooked:

A micro-business is not simply a smaller version of a large business.

Craft businesses have their own challenges, motivations and ways of working. Applying conventional big-business thinking to a one-person studio or small artisan business doesn’t always work.

That question became an important part of my later academic work.

In 2019, I completed my doctorate at the University of Edinburgh, researching the development of the 21st-century artisan silversmith. As part of that research, I conducted 60 interviews with craftspeople and colleagues.

Those conversations taught me something particularly important.

For many craftspeople, making a profit is not the only reason they want a business. Creativity, independence, craftsmanship, purpose and the satisfaction of making something well can be just as important.

The challenge is finding a way to make those things work commercially and sustainably.