We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kevin Davidson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Kevin thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Looking back, do you think you started your business at the right time? Do you wish you had started sooner or later

If I could go back in time, would I start my business sooner or later?

It’s a question I’ve asked myself many times, especially because the biggest push toward finally going all-in came from one of the hardest chapters of my life.

I started my business in May 2024, but the seeds of it were planted decades earlier. My father passed away unexpectedly in early 2023, and that loss hit me harder than I can explain. We were extremely close. He was someone I looked up to all my life, steady, encouraging, and always the first to believe in me.

He’d been telling me for years that I should run my own business. In fact, we even tried it together once. Back in the late 1990s, we set up a limited partnership selling package holidays to Goa, India. But I resigned as a director because I didn’t want to leave my sales job at the time. The salary wasn’t incredible, but I had a new company car, decent bonuses, and at that age, I wasn’t prepared to let those comforts go.

Looking back, that was the first time I chose security over stepping into something bigger, which became a pattern that would repeat itself.

Fast forward to 2023, just 6 months after losing my father, I was made redundant from my City of London sales role. That period forced me to confront who I was without the titles, the job security, or the identity I’d built.

But something had changed in me since before. I was willing to do whatever it took to keep moving, so I took jobs working in a kitchen and also as a postman for the best part of 12 months. It was humbling, grounding, and oddly clarifying.

And that’s where something shifted.

I realised I’d spent nearly 15 years running my own business as a side-hustle, always keeping it in the background, never fully committing. I had the skills. I had the passion. What I didn’t have was the willingness to go all-in.

Losing my father, who always pushed me to back myself, made me finally ask: “If not now, when?”
So in May 2024, I did it. I stepped into my business fully for the first time in my life.

I can honestly say that I love my current business. It gives me freedom, satisfaction, and reward in a way no salary or company car ever could.

Do I wish I’d started sooner? Absolutely. I wish I’d had the courage 15 years ago to take it seriously and build it into what it could have been.

But would the ”earlier me” have been ready? Maybe not.

Every twist, the jobs, the redundancy, the pride-swallowing moments, the grief have pushed me to a point where starting wasn’t just a choice, it was the only direction that made sense.

So yes, I wish I’d begun sooner. But I also know that the version of me who finally started in 2024 was the one who was prepared to do it properly.

And that has made all the difference.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

For those who may not have come across me before, my name is Kevin Davidson, the founder of Kevin A Davidson SEO, dedicated to helping start-ups and small businesses become more visible, more credible, and easier to find online.

I previously built a coaching practice, but like many small businesses, I struggled with visibility and consistent lead generation. When I began learning SEO to solve my own problem, everything changed. I transformed my website and social media into a unified, SEO-driven system, and soon other business owners began asking me to help them do the same.

Today, I provide practical SEO services designed specifically for start-ups and small business owners that include SEO audits, social media SEO reviews, and ongoing SEO consultancy. I focus on making SEO simple, transparent, and actionable. No jargon, no inflated promises, just clear strategies that boost visibility and support long-term growth.

What sets me apart is my blend of real business experience and both a holistic and practical approach to SEO. My philosophy is grounded in the fact that every search online is made by a human being seeking help and not to satisfy a machine algorithm. I understand how businesses work, the pressures owners face, and how important it is to get results without wasting time or money.

I also treat your website and social media as a unified ecosystem where your website is the “virtual head office,” and your social platforms are “field reps” driving traffic back to it.

I’m most proud of helping business owners finally feel seen online. I want potential clients to know that SEO doesn’t need to be complicated. It just needs to be done properly, with clarity, honesty, and a strategy built around real people and real businesses.

SEO is about being Consistent, Clear, and Customer-Focused.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson I had to unlearn?

That a “stable job” is the safest path.

For years, I held tightly to the idea that a salary, a company car, and a predictable routine meant security. It’s even why I stepped away from a business my late father and I started in the late ’90s, because I didn’t want to leave my sales job or the comfort that came with it.

The bereavement and redundancy in 2023 shook that belief.

In a short space of time, everything I thought was secure disappeared. I undertook temporary work for the next 12 months, and during that period, I realised something powerful:

Security doesn’t come from a job. It comes from skills, resilience, and backing yourself.

Unlearning that belief is what finally pushed me to go all-in and start my business properly in May 2024, which is something I now wish I’d done years earlier.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

A moment that defined my resilience?

Looking in the mirror after being hit by two serious events in my life in 2023, and making a solemn promise to the guy that looked right back at me!

Grief on one side, uncertainty on the other and for the first time in decades, I had no title, no plan, no safety net.

So I did the only thing I could, which is that I worked doing what was necessary to fulfil my dream.

I went from managing major accounts to sweating in a kitchen and walking miles delivering post every day in the cold and rain.

Those busy mornings being soaked, freezing, and exhausted built resilience in me.
I showed up when life gave me every reason not to.

Reflecting now, that period stripped everything back. With nothing left to lose, I fully backed myself and launched my business properly in May 2024.

Looking to the future, it gives me great self-confidence knowing that if I can rebuild from that, I can build anything!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.kevinadavidson.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thekevinadavidson
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheKevinADavidson
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-davidson-b5993444/