We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sophie Princeton. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sophie below.

Sophie, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What was the most important lesson/experience you had in a job that has helped you as a business owner?

I’d say the last job I had before “quitting my career” to become self-employed was the one that taught me the most lessons that I’ve brought with me to my business now. I spent seven years there and while it was an international firm, the team I joined back in 2016 was very small – it was just me and my boss!

We were a team of two that were given pretty ambitious revenue targets, and so we had to mix that commercial gut instinct with a lot of creativity and “thinking outside the box”. Because we were a small team in a very large company, we had tonnes of freedom in the beginning to test ideas quickly and fully believed in “failing fast” – we’d give something a go and if worked, amazing! If it didn’t, we scrapped it quickly and got on with our next idea.

This freedom certainly fuelled our growth, and as we expanded, so did our visibility within the company. Eventually, with more recognition came more layers of approval, compliance and that good old red tape. Our “let’s just try it and see!” approach was gradually more often than not met with a “no”, and we realised that we couldn’t just try things out anymore!

However, these constant “no”s became possibly the best thing to happen, as they taught me how often there’s a way around every “no” or “we can’t do that”.

I had to learn how to get creative, how to work within boundaries but still achieve the core of what we set out to do. Each roadblock became a puzzle (I do love a good puzzle, but some of these were <i>hard…</i>), where the challenge was to deliver something that was compliant, revenue generating and enjoyable for our audience. It certainly wasn’t an easy feat! But, over time, we got <i>really</i> good at finding ways around obstacles.

I vividly remember an early moment in that job when I approached my boss, frustrated, saying “X-person said we can’t do this thing that we want to do”. Instead of accepting it as a dead end, he looked at me and said, “I want you to come back, not with the problem, but with a few ideas on how we might get around it. Then we’ll talk through them together”.

That moment shifted my perspective completely – it wasn’t about avoiding obstacles, but about finding ways to turn them into opportunities.

When I look back, I do think this whole experience became my superpower as a business owner. Now, if a client asks for something that I’m not immediately sure how to deliver, I don’t respond with “no” or “I can’t”. Instead, I look for ways to make it happen, even if it means adapting or learning something new along the way.

Every obstacle I encounter as a business owner (and as we all know, there are lots!), I now know how to utilise my network and research to get around it successfully. When I collaborate with a third party and they hit a limit, I work with them to find creative workarounds that deliver the results my client wants.

This resilience – this refusal to take “no” for an answer – is a mindset I hope to bring to every client and project – I believe there’s almost always a way forward, and that’s the lesson I hope to pass on through the work I do.

Sophie, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Of course! Hi, I’m Sophie Princeton (just Soph, to most people), I turned 30 earlier this year, am an aspiring Golden Retriever parent, drink far too much coffee and am the owner of Align & Bloom.

Professionally, I’m a website designer, with a passion for beautiful, timeless design and helping business owners, founders and creators build websites that help them grow with confidence, embrace what’s possible for their brand and that feel unmistakably them.

By understanding my clients’ goals and values, I design with purpose, focusing on solutions that add value and connect meaningfully with their audience.

I also offer a digital content design service, where I work with clients to create bespoke, branded presentations, documents or social asset templates.

My journey to this point has been anything but linear. I started my career as an accountant at 18, before pivoting into a job in radio at 22. I spent 11 years in this corporate world working across everything from finance, to operations, to project management.

I’ve always had a creative “side hustle” of some kind, starting my very first fashion and lifestyle blog (that is now well and truly retired to the depths of the internet!) in 2014, and then launching a platform called Girls in Work in 2018, where we aimed to empower young women in the workplace with everything you don’t get taught in school.

At the end of 2021, I started to realise that I wanted to do something more creative, and for myself, full time, And so in 2022, I self-funded my UX/UI design certification, spending over a year studying website and app design to arm myself with as much knowledge as I could.

I actually launched Align & Bloom in 2023 as a career coaching business, as that’s what I thought I wanted to do, until a fellow coach reached out to me after seeing my UX certification on my website, and asked if I could build a website for her.

Unknowingly to both of us, she became my first web design client and the rest is history, as they say! I realised just how much I loved web design and bringing that vision to life, and so at the beginning of this year, I pivoted Align & Bloom to be solely the design business it is now.

My goal with Align & Bloom isn’t just to create websites, but digital spaces that reflect the essence of each client’s brand and make it easier for them to connect with their ideal audience. This is why I always start with strategy. I sit down with my clients and talk about their business, goals and future plans, and how we can build a website that has the ability to scale with them.

I help them identify their ideal clients if they’re unsure, provide a branding essentials package if they need a logo or colour palette, and even help them come up with business names if they’re just starting out!

My goal with every client is to craft a website that they’re proud to share.

I believe what sets me apart is my combination of creative skill and practical business sense, as well as a dedication to truly understanding each client’s vision and delivering that little bit of extra value. I have a background in UX design and a passion for design that doesn’t just look beautiful, but works beautifully and serves a purpose.

I’m most proud of the results I’ve achieved with my clients – whether it’s helping a business double their investment in sales within weeks of launching or seeing a client’s website generate thousands of views in their first 30 days, these successes are what drive me.

I want my clients to feel seen, confident and inspired by their own potential, and that’s the experience I bring to every project.

As for what I want potential clients to know about me, it would be that I am a values driven business. Of course, creativity is a huge value of mine, but so is delivering unexpected value and going above and beyond where I can. I admire every single one of my clients, and it is such an honour to have clients trust me with this part of their business, and playing a small part in their journeys brings me such joy! Which is why I love giving back to them in small ways beyond delivering the initial scope of our project.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.

Yes! I specialise in building websites on Squarespace – it’s the platform I’ve known and loved for nearly nine years and so it’s the platform I’m most confident with when it comes to creating truly bespoke websites for both myself and my clients. I have sold my own digital products on my Squarespace site, and built out ecommerce sites for clients on the platform, too.

As a UX designer, the biggest pro for me for keeping ecommerce within Squarespace (or whatever website platform you use), is that user experience. Keeping your customers on your own site maintains brand consistency, keeps the buying journey smooth, and lets you control every detail of how products are presented and how buyers engage with your brand. There’s also the added benefit of extra fees that can come with platforms like Amazon and Etsy.

Another major pro is having access to all of your customer data in one place, which makes it easier to track buying patterns, offer promotions and follow up with customers directly. You’ll also be able to keep your checkout process aligned with your brand’s look and feel, which strengthens your brand’s impact.

That said, there’s a key advantage to selling on platforms like Amazon and Etsy: immediate access to a larger potential customer pool and increased visibility. For those just starting out, it can take time to build up SEO on your own website and rank well in search engine results, which means sales might be slower in the beginning. Established platforms provide that visibility boost right away, so you’re instantly exposed to a larger audience.

Overall, having full control over the ecommerce experience on my own site is invaluable, as it lets me create a cohesive, user-friendly, and branded shopping experience for my clients and myself. But for those who prioritise visibility from day one, established marketplaces can provide a helpful launch point.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

There are a couple of books that I always come back to that I read back in 2019: Black Box Thinking by Matthew Syed and The Discomfort Zone by Farrah Storr.

One thing some people may not know about me, is that I’m a bit of an aviation geek, so when I saw the title of Matthew Syed’s book, I knew I had to give it a go, and it’s probably the book I quote from the most! Black Box Thinking taught me the importance of reframing failure and setbacks, and how failing is such an integral part of business and entrepreneurship. It taught me how to see mistakes as incredible opportunities to learn and dig deeper into what happened, why it happened and how I can improve my processes, skills or knowledge to make sure it never happens again and move my business forward.

This concept of “failing forward” really resonated with me and has influenced how I approach both my own business and my clients’ projects, encouraging me to take calculated risks, try new things, and see value in every outcome, even if it doesn’t go exactly as planned!

The Discomfort Zone, on the other hand, shifted my mindset around growth and personal development, how “discomfort” is both temporary and super important to reach new levels of creativity and success. Farrah coaches you on how to embrace this discomfort and move through it to achieve what you set out to do, and this is another concept that I come back to a lot as a business owner.

Building a business inevitably means constantly navigating unchartered territory and sometimes challenging situations, and this book helped me to embrace those discomforts as a good and necessary part of the process!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.alignandbloom.co
• Instagram: @alignandbloom.co
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophieprinceton/