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To his surprise, though, the forum of admirers from around the world became a kind of development team. They gleefully test-drive new versions, hunt down bugs and make suggestions for improvements to future versions — all free. Tracktion is now quite unlike conventional commercial software, which moves from version to version once or twice a year. Storer updates the application continually, and conducts a daily conversation through the forum with his myriad followers.

“They are amazing,” Storer said. “They pick up problems really quickly. Sometimes I can fix them in five minutes, so why not? It’s nice to be told you’re a genius every day, too, though it’s a bit odd after a while. I’m not making a fortune, but I do cover my time.”

Like Webb, he is tied to a home-based office for much of the time. But he happily goes online all hours of the day, seven days a week, to see what is happening on the forum, and will occasionally post new versions for download on a Sunday afternoon.

“My girlfriend’s there to tell me when it’s time to go out,” he admitted. “When we have a holiday, I have to make sure I tell the forum I’m not dead, or they all start to panic.”

Webb is less sanguine. “I can find it really hard, sitting waiting for the phone to ring. I’m a people person. I need to get out sometimes. Voice-overs are what I do when I’m not acting, and acting is my real passion.”

Storer has a remarkably similar goal: “I wrote Tracktion so I could record my guitar, but I don’t have time to do that any more because I’m always working on the software. I don’t want to be developing it for ever. One day, I’d like to use it for making music, too.”

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Seeds of a profitable idea

Paolo Arrigo began his online business five years ago at his parents’ Italian delicatessen in Hendon, north London. Within a year, he had laid claim to the title of Britain’s biggest retailer of foreign seeds — today, a quarter of his entire sales come from a website that is a growing source of culinary inspiration for Britain’s gardening foodies.

“When you think Italy, you think stomach,” Arrigo said. “We take the view that a domestic seed company is flogging you a packet of basil. We sell you pesto.” In his case, the real thing — straight from Genoa — offers good value too, as Italian seed packets can contain up to five times as many seeds as a UK equivalent.

Arrigo happily admits that Seeds of Italy (www.seedsofitaly.co.uk) began by accident. A keen gardener, he arranged for a small display of vegetable seeds from one of the world’s oldest seed firms, Franchi of Italy, to go up in his parents’ shop. When customers saw the varieties on offer — tomatoes, courgettes and Italian beans — Arrigo began to market the seeds to other delis and garden centres. Then he started an online shop using the ready-made web-store service run by the accounting-software firm Sage, and he has never looked back.

The virtual seed store is home to more than 4,000 varieties that you would be hard pressed to find at your local garden centre and is crammed with advice and recipes from celebrity-chef admirers, including Rose Gray, of London’s River Cafe, and Antony Worrall Thompson. Arrigo also conducts a lively correspondence with customers wondering whether black Tuscan cabbage, Venetian beans and 17 varieties of exotic tomato really will grow in Britain, the answer usually being yes — if you know what you are doing.

Trading tips

1 Put technology in second place. Primary skills — programming, acting, seed expertise — are what make a business work.

2 Focus on essentials. Clare Jane Webb spent her money on a good website and equipment, not bricks and mortar. Julian Storer puts out his web-hosting requirements to a company in California that charges less than £20 a month, and spends his time improving software. Paolo Arrigo hired an off-the-shelf online store from a British accounting giant for his web mall, and spent his own time selecting the right seeds.

3 Deliver the goods. It is easy to take orders, but difficult to fulfil them. Traditional virtues apply to good business practice — customer service, reliability and giving people what they want at the right price.

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