All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, as the saying goes, and it also makes Pete a dull boy. But that is the price to pay for doing the job properly if you are an entrepreneur and, if you’re not doing the job properly, then you won’t be an entrepreneur for long.

In the early days at BestVPN.com I was working at maximum capacity to get as much of the content and product ready as quickly as possible. I was getting very little sleep, I had no social life and my nourishment came from what I could chuck in a microwave.

But here’s the thing: I never suffered from a lack of motivation. The knowledge that competitors were hot on my heels was more than enough to keep me fired up, even if I grew to hate that microwave, with its familiar smell of second-rate snacks.

"When quality slips in one part of your business, it devalues all the good work you are doing elsewhere"

Although the quality of my food wasn’t so good, it was vital that the quality of my work was never compromised. This business would be all I had to show for the efforts I was making and so, no matter how quickly something needed to be done, no matter how difficult the challenges, no matter what others might think, I could not cut corners.

Having a strong brand is crucial to businesses of all sizes and you’ll never build a strong brand without enforcing quality. In business, brand strength and quality go hand in hand and, if you let standards slip, you are cheating yourself.

And never forget that, when quality slips in one part of your business, it devalues all the good work that you are doing elsewhere. It also devalues you as a professional in the eyes of anyone who is supporting you.

From my early days working in the gaming industry, Fubra Ltd have been my investors. It’s a lot easier impressing people with whom you’ve worked successfully before – and you’ll also work even harder to make sure you don’t let them down.

It has become obvious to me that it is such an advantage to have investors who have experience in your field. Their genuine interest ensures they’ll always be there to help you, and they’ll have real-world experience to help you with.

Fubra’s support has always filled me with confidence but even more confidence comes from seeing my websites grow. Those traffic figures are the proof that I must be doing something right!

BestVPN.com now receives more than 400,000 visitors every month and that figure is growing. Another of my companies, PetrolPrices.com, has become the go-to site for anyone wanting to compare fuel prices, and I still get a buzz when it is quoted as a must-use source by the media. Again, this sort of feedback is a reward for making sure that standards are kept super-high throughout my businesses.

You can't do it all on your own, so learn to appreciate good employees, says Peter Zaborszky

One of the things that changed about how I did business was how I learned to appreciate good staff. No matter how good you think you are, your company will never achieve its potential without a top team. When I was younger, I used a lot of remote staff. Because they were remote, I did not pay as much attention to the work they were doing as I should have.

It took months for me to spot the error of my ways. There was one team member producing very poor work, but they were producing a lot of it. Although there is a balance to be struck, volume of work is not a substitute for quality of work and I learnt this the hard way.

Inevitably, I had to re-do all of this person’s work, which took a lot of money and energy. In the short-term, it had been a waste of time and resources but, in the longer term it taught me valuable lessons.

I learned the value of regular face-to-face meetings, I learned the importance of paying attention to what my team was doing, and not assuming everything was being done the way I’d wanted it.

While this meant I was looking over people’s shoulders more, here’s what happened: not only did standards improve, but we became closer as a team. We now meet at least once a week, and this keeps standards up and encourages the team to look after one another.

I now have nine members of staff, some full-time and some part-time. I have the most fun when I’m learning something new, so I’ve hired some very talented people to show me the path to further growth.

It is amazing exploring the different perspectives that people can bring to the table. That’s what I really love – applying something new to the business that could help it grow. That’s when I’m in flow mode.

Building a team I trust and keeping quality at the core of everything we do has helped both BestVPN.com and PetrolPrices.com perform better and better. That’s good news for our customers, for our companies and, of course, for our team.

So, do I have more time to relax, eat properly and live life differently? I’ll get back to you on that; I just heard the microwave go ding.