How I Built The Self Employed Club

Every business starts with a problem. This one started with a spreadsheet.

As an employee I’d had access to Perkbox — a platform full of perks and discounts that made working for someone else feel a little more rewarding. When I went self-employed, that disappeared overnight. No employer to negotiate deals on my behalf, no platform pulling them together, no one looking out for my costs. I kept thinking: sole traders need this more than anyone, and nobody’s built it for them.

That was the beginning of The Self Employed Club — a free, members-only platform giving UK sole traders access to handpicked deals and discounts on the things they already pay for. This is the story of how it got built, what the early days actually looked like, and why I’m still doing it.

Who I Am and Why This Made Sense for Me

I’m Anita — a Chartered Accountant who’s been self-employed for most of my working life.

Being an accountant means I’ve always understood the numbers side of self-employment better than most. I know what sole traders should be claiming. I know what they’re overpaying. I know the anxiety that comes with the first January tax bill, and I know the quiet frustration of working hard and feeling like you’ve got less to show for it than you should.

What I kept noticing — with clients, in conversations, in my own experience — was that the problem often wasn’t income. It was costs. Specifically: the cost of running a business in the UK as a sole trader is higher than it needs to be, and most of the deals that could reduce it are scattered across the internet with no one curating them for the people who need them most.

That’s a solvable problem.

There’s also a more personal reason. Self-employment, especially when you’re juggling work and family, can feel quite lonely. You’re making every decision yourself, absorbing every setback yourself, and quietly carrying the mental load of running everything while the rest of life continues around you. The costs are part of it — but so is the isolation. I wanted to build something that felt like a small perk in that reality. A little something that said: you’re not on your own in this.

The Idea

The concept was straightforward from the start: a free platform, built specifically for UK sole traders, with handpicked deals on the tools and services they actually use. Not a cashback site. Not a comparison engine. Something more curated — the deals worth having, in one place, free to access.

The model made sense commercially too. Affiliate partnerships mean the platform earns when members use deals — which only works if the deals are genuinely good. There’s no incentive to recommend something that isn’t worth recommending.

What I wanted to avoid was what I’d seen on a lot of “deals” platforms: mediocre offers, unclear terms, things that felt like deals but weren’t. The bar for anything in the Club is simple — would I use this myself? If not, it doesn’t go in.

The concept stayed simple throughout. The more I looked at what existed for sole traders, the more confident I was that a curated, free, membership-based platform was the right answer — not another comparison site, not a cashback aggregator, but something that felt personal and considered. A brilliant friend who’d already done the research.

Building It

I built The Self Employed Club independently. No investors, no team, no agency. Just a Chartered Accountant with a clear idea of what sole traders actually need and enough determination to figure out the technical side.

The tech stack is WordPress with the Astra theme and Kadence Blocks — solid, flexible, and something I could build and maintain myself without being a developer. The design brief was simple: warm, professional, and nothing like the corporate financial services aesthetic that makes most money-related content feel impersonal and slightly intimidating.

For day-to-day running of the business — email, calendar, file storage — I use Google Workspace. The domain email was one of the first things I set up and the calendar booking feature has saved more time than almost any other tool I use.

The brand — the pink, the navy, the cream, the fonts — was chosen deliberately. Friendly but credible. Approachable but not frivolous. The kind of place that feels like it was built by someone who gets it, because it was.

The whole thing — from idea to launch — took around three months. It wasn’t always smooth. A web developer I’d brought in let me down badly early on, which forced a decision: wait and find someone else, or learn to build it myself. I built it myself. In hindsight, I’m glad it happened that way. I understand every part of the platform because I built every part of it.

Building the deal pipeline was the other major piece of work. Approaching brands and partners, negotiating terms, writing the editorial content that sits alongside each deal — all of it done in parallel with building the platform itself.

Finding partners turned out to be the hardest part — and it’s the classic chicken and egg problem that anyone who’s ever launched a platform will recognise. You can’t attract a big following without strong deals. You can’t negotiate strong deals without a following. Every new partnership makes the next one easier, but those first conversations require a lot of conviction and a clear vision of what you’re building. That’s still ongoing work — and it’s one of the most satisfying parts when it comes together.

Launch Week

Launch week was social media and email — telling people directly, sharing the story, explaining what it was and why it existed. There’s something both exciting and terrifying about putting something you’ve built entirely yourself in front of people for the first time.

The members who joined in those first days were the ones who got it immediately — sole traders who recognised the gap the Club was filling because they’d felt it themselves. That early response, however modest the numbers, confirmed that the problem was real and the solution was right.

What I can say about any launch week for something you’ve built yourself: it’s a strange combination of exhausting and electric. You’ve been working toward a single moment for months, and then it arrives, and then it’s just… the beginning.

The goal was never to launch and be done. The Self Employed Club is a platform that gets more valuable as it grows — more members means more negotiating power with partners, which means better deals, which means more members. The launch was the start of that flywheel, not the end of the build.

What It’s Become

The Club is growing — members joining, deals being added, partnerships coming together. It’s still early, and there’s a lot more to build. But the foundation is solid and the direction is clear.

What I’m most proud of isn’t a number. It’s the feedback from members who found a deal, saved money, or felt less alone in the reality of running a business by themselves.

Self-employment can feel isolating. The decisions, the costs, the uncertainty — there’s no HR department, no manager, no colleague to check with. The Self Employed Club was always meant to be the thing that helps with that: a practical resource that treats sole traders like the intelligent adults they are, gives them the tools to keep more of what they earn, and doesn’t talk down to them.

That’s still what it is.

Join the Club — it’s completely free

Members get handpicked deals and discounts on the tools, services and everyday essentials UK sole traders actually use. Free to join, no catch.

Join for Free How it Works

What’s Next

The blog — which you’re reading now — is a core part of what the Club is becoming. Not just a deals platform, but a genuine resource: honest, practical content written by a Chartered Accountant who’s self-employed herself, for sole traders who want straight answers rather than vague advice.

The immediate focus is two things: growing the deal categories available to members, and building out the blog into a genuine resource for UK sole traders. More partners across more of the everyday costs of self-employment — banking, insurance, software, wellbeing — and more honest, practical content written from the perspective of someone who lives the sole trader reality herself.

The goal has always been simple: make self-employment a little less expensive and a little less lonely. Everything that’s coming is in service of that.

If you’ve read this far and you haven’t joined yet — it takes about two minutes and it’s free. No catch, no upsell, no spam. Just a platform built by a sole trader, for sole traders.

Join The Self Employed Club free →

FAQs

Who built The Self Employed Club?

Anita — a Chartered Accountant who’s been self-employed for most of her working life. She built it independently to give UK sole traders access to handpicked deals on the tools and services they already pay for.

Is The Self Employed Club free to join?

Yes — completely free. There’s no subscription, no upsell, and no catch. Join here →

How does The Self Employed Club make money?

Through affiliate partnerships with the brands featured in the deals. The platform earns a commission when members use a deal — which means there’s only an incentive to feature deals that members actually use.

Who is The Self Employed Club for?

UK sole traders — freelancers, consultants, tradespeople, creatives, and anyone running their own business as a sole trader. The deals, content, and tools are all built around the specific needs and costs of self-employment in the UK.

How do I join?

Head to the registration page — it takes about two minutes.

About the Author

Join the Club — it's completely free

Members get handpicked deals and discounts on the tools, services and everyday essentials UK sole traders actually use. Free to join, no catch.

Join for Free How it Works