I personally have a lot of respect for what Lee has accomplished and I tip my hat to you sir!
I really get involved with his posts as his business model is way above my head. He has showed me what I could never do or would have the guts to do, even in my younger days. I appreciate that he risked everything to build his business, something very few men with family responsibilities would dare to do.
Some might argue that he didn't sacrifice everything because he had Mom and Dad to support him in growing his business. He was fortunate but also made the best of his circumstances.
Would I like to manage a team of window cleaners and vans? No, because not only does Lee have to manage, organise, motivate and monitor them, he also has to spent time on the marketing side of his business. These are all skills I don't have. He also has to keep abreast of new legislation with regard to his business administration.
As sole traders, we have little idea of how goverment (and EU) legislators are stiffling larger business with paper trails to prove this, that and the other.
From a selfish point of view, I'm sorry that he isn't participating on the forum because we will now not have his experience and input on their new water heater that they were/are pioneering. So if it proves successful, we all loose out.
I can see why Simple Joe Window Shining might be concerned if Lee was flooding his customers with target mailers, but if he was doing his job properly his customers wouldn't consider changing service providers. I haven't heard one windie on here complaining that he has lost custom to Lee.
In fact, often large scale advertising by one large business in an area stirs up the 'enquiry' pot for everyone else working the same area.
I'm sorry you have chosen to do this and hope you do come back on here from time to time.