I didn't set out to build a group of technology companies.

Before any of this, I worked for Burdens, a multinational civils supply company.

I'd originally joined as a lorry driver and somehow worked my way into becoming a Commercial Systems Developer, sitting between the commercial and IT departments.

I wasn't formally trained as a developer. I'd taught myself Excel VBA and started building things that made internal processes quicker and easier. Someone noticed. One thing led to another, and eventually I'd found a job doing something I hadn't really known I could do.

That pattern has repeated itself quite a few times since.

Following the 2008 financial crisis, the company began struggling. Branches closed, people were made redundant and, in April 2013, it was my turn.

Suddenly I needed to work out what came next.

At the time, one of my hobbies was theatre technology — lighting, sound, projection and all the other things that happen behind the scenes.

I'd been freelancing for a couple of local theatre companies, and one of the owners suggested I should go out on my own providing technical services.

He told me I'd need a name.

So I came up with ARK Technical Services.

There is no sophisticated branding story behind the initials.

My name is Rob King.

And apparently, in 2013 at least, I decided I was Awesome Rob King.

So: ARK.

It was slightly ridiculous. It stuck.

The business initially did quite well. I worked from an office in a friend's theatre and thought perhaps I'd found my thing.

By Christmas, I'd run out of work.

My redundancy money was disappearing and I really wasn't sure what I was going to do.

Then another friend gave me one of those nudges.

My friend Craig, who runs Webedee, suggested I go back to computers.

He thought I was good at them.

In January 2014, with a website Craig built for me and a lot of help from friends, Fareham Computer Repair began.

My first business customer had suffered a computer failure and lost a lot of important data.

I said I'd help.

There was one slight problem: I'd never actually done the recovery they needed before.

So I spent the night researching the software, learning how to do it and working on their machine.

By morning, I'd recovered their data.

I hadn't slept, but I can still remember the feeling when I realised I'd managed it.

That experience probably says quite a lot about how I built the company in those early years.

For the first six months, I worked from the front of the theatre. Eventually they needed the space back and I had to find somewhere of my own.

I found a little industrial unit in Segensworth.

My parents lent me the money to get started. Friends helped build some fairly crude desks. Another friend who was an electrician helped wire everything up. A company was throwing away some office furniture, so we had that too.

It wasn't exactly a Silicon Valley startup.

And it wasn't busy.

There were days when hardly anybody came through the door. I spent considerably more working time than I should probably admit playing World of Warcraft while waiting for the next customer.

Slowly, though, people started coming.

Then some came back.

Then they told other people.

By 2016, I'd found my feet enough to employ somebody for three mornings a week. It helped us repair things more quickly and took some of the administrative pressure away from me.

We'd also started picking up businesses that wanted ongoing IT support.

One of them was N McKechnie & Co.

Neil had recently moved into the area and was setting up his business. He came into the shop and asked whether I could provide their IT support.

Naturally, I said yes.

Then I went back into my office and worked out what I could provide and what I should charge for it.

That was in 2014.

Over the years we've provided their computers, infrastructure, phone systems, Microsoft 365 and plenty of advice along the way. Neil has since retired.

ARK still looks after the business today.

I couldn't tell this story properly without talking about my dad, Paul King.

My parents never seemed entirely convinced that I was going to make a particularly good businessman.

To be fair to them, there probably wasn't a huge amount of evidence for it at the beginning. But Dad backed me anyway.

He helped financially when I needed to get the first shop off the ground. He helped me think about how the business looked and what we offered. When I needed to go out to a customer, he'd sometimes come in and cover the shop.

As things gradually started working, he would tell me how surprised he was by what I'd built — and how proud he was of the person I'd become.

After Dad died, I had to work out what I was going to do with myself.

A chance encounter eventually led me into another business, initially running its IT operation and later becoming much more involved in operations across a wider group of companies.

This was another moment when somebody else spotted something in me before I really recognised it myself.

I discovered that I was good at processes.

I liked taking something complicated, understanding how all the pieces fitted together and finding a better way of doing it.

The little VBA tools I'd built years earlier at Burdens suddenly made rather more sense.

Eventually I became Operations Director of a substantial group of businesses.

And for a while, I thought I'd made it.

I thought that was what the rest of my career was going to look like.

Meanwhile, computer repairs had somehow found their way back in.

We reopened the repair operation under a familiar name: ARK Systems.

Partly because ARK already had a following.

Partly because I still had all the branding.

And, if I'm completely truthful, partly because I'd already spent money on it.

ARK Systems grew. The IT support side grew with it.

Katie, who had worked with me previously, returned and eventually took responsibility for the repair operation. She's still here today and remains fundamental to ARK Computer Repair. A huge part of what that business has become is down to her.

Things were moving quickly.

Then it was March 2020.

COVID stopped almost everything overnight.

We closed for about a week while everybody tried to work out what on earth was happening.

Then the Government said that essential businesses could continue operating.

That raised an interesting question: who decides what's essential?

Suddenly millions of people were working from home. Children needed computers for school. Families were relying on video calls. Businesses that had barely considered remote working needed to function entirely online.

Computers felt fairly essential to us.

So Katie and I kept going.

She handled the workshop. I handled collections and deliveries.

Every computer was sanitised. Every box was cleaned. We offered free collection and return so people didn't need to come to us.

We were incredibly busy.

One of the stranger memories I have of that period is actually enjoying the driving. The roads were almost completely empty.

It was a long slog, but it also reinforced something that has stayed with me: technology matters because people depend on it.

Not because the latest device is exciting.

Because somewhere, somebody needs the thing to work.

The years that followed were complicated.

Businesses grew. Partnerships changed. Some ventures succeeded and others didn't.

There were periods where I was involved in building and operating businesses far beyond IT, and I learned an enormous amount doing it.

I also learned some lessons the expensive way.

Eventually, the wider group we'd built came apart.

We tried again.

Not everything survived.

By 2024, another business I was involved with had become unsustainable and I found myself looking at ARK wondering whether this might finally be the end of it too.

For a while, I was convinced we'd be shutting down.

Instead, I made a decision.

After years of running different businesses, building systems, managing operations and trying to keep an enormous number of plates spinning, I'd come full circle.

I'm good at IT.

I probably should have concentrated on it all along.

ARK Computer Repair continued, I formally established ARK Assist & Support, moved us into new premises in Fareham and concentrated on getting the businesses right.

Better systems. Better processes. The right people. More consistency.

Better support for the people who work here and the customers who rely on us.

Not everything suddenly became easy. It still isn't.

But for the first time in years, all that experience was being pointed in one direction.

And ARK started growing again.

The funny thing is that my original ambition was to build a chain of computer shops.

The world had other ideas.

Technology changed. Customers changed.

The way businesses use technology changed beyond recognition.

In 2013, I certainly wasn't imagining that one day I'd be explaining to customers in their eighties that their computer could use artificial intelligence to help them write a letter.

So ARK changed too.

Computer repair became ARK Computer Repair.

Business IT became ARK Assist.

Communications became ARK Connect.

Backup became ARK Backup.

The support we'd spent years thinking about for people who wanted somebody to look after their technology became ARK Care.

And our experience with networks, Wi-Fi, CCTV and connected technology eventually became ARK Home.

In 2026, we created ARK Business Holdings to bring the businesses together properly and start thinking about what the next chapter might look like.

Hence this website.

We Are ARK.

I definitely didn't plan any of this in 2013.

Running a business has taught me plenty about what I don't want ARK to become. I don't believe a company's only purpose should be making as much money as possible for its shareholders. Obviously ARK needs to make money. People need paying. Suppliers inexplicably keep sending us invoices. Buildings, vans and technology aren't free. But money keeps the thing working.

It isn't the reason for the thing to exist.

For me, ARK exists to help people navigate a technology industry that can be incredibly difficult to navigate on your own. Sometimes the bad actors are criminals trying to steal from people. Sometimes they're perfectly legitimate companies whose incentives simply aren't particularly well aligned with the person buying from them. I want ARK to be on the customer's side of that equation. And that starts with our staff.

That might sound backwards. I don't think it is. If we look after the people who work here, give them the right tools, pay and support them properly, listen to them and allow them to have a life outside work, they can do a much better job of looking after the people who depend on us. I want ARK to be a good company to buy from. But I also want it to be a good company to work for.

I'm finally starting to think beyond the next problem. I'd like ARK to reach more people. Perhaps that original idea of having branches in different places wasn't completely wrong after all. I'd like to bring other people into the business who share our outlook — not simply investors bringing money, but people bringing experience, ideas and time who can help us build something better.

I'd like to create enough redundancy that ARK doesn't depend upon me being here.

And, ultimately, I'd like the people who work at ARK to share in what they helped build.

My ambition is eventually for ARK to become an employee-owned business.

I'd like there to be great teams of well-looked-after people, across different businesses and different locations, helping customers who would otherwise struggle to navigate technology on their own.

That's a much bigger ambition than the little repair shop in Segensworth.

But perhaps not such a different one.

I sometimes struggle to recognise my own abilities.

Other people have often had to point them out to me first.

Even now, there's a part of me that finds it strange that I run multiple companies and that other people apparently think I know what I'm doing.

The truth is that building ARK has involved getting plenty wrong.

I've started things that didn't work.

I've been part of businesses that failed.

I've walked away.

I've started again.

I've worked through nights, made decisions I wish I'd made differently and spent more time worrying about businesses than is probably healthy.

The 2013 version of me thought starting a business sounded fun.

It turns out it's often stressful, time-consuming and occasionally nausea-inducing.

But I'm proud of what we've built.

More importantly, I'm proud of the people around me and of the person I've become while building it.

I couldn't have started any of this without Dad.

He never got to see what ARK eventually became.

But he did get to see enough to tell me he was proud of me.

And thirteen years later, looking at everything that grew out of that little shop he helped me build, I think I'm a man my dad could be proud of.

Rob King