I was deeply unhappy in my job as a web developer. My co-workers were great but our department (attached to an IT support company) was treated as an afterthough

I was deeply unhappy in my job as a web developer. My co-workers were great but our department (attached to an IT support company) was treated as an afterthought. Our manager had no development experience and had bounced around from department to department. He was basically one step away from the door but the owner of the business didn't have the heart due to personal reasons. A friend who owns an ecommerce business said that he would create enough work for me full time for my first 12 months if I set up on my own, as well as paying me the same as I was earning at my previous employer. My first job was to build him a new website which involved not only building the site but migrating all of his product and order data, which kept me occupied for the first few months. I jumped at the chance, splitting my time between home and his office at first. This was 8 years ago and while growth hasn't been explosive, I've been consistently employed since then and now have 2 full time employees to help me out, with revenue slowly increasing year-on-year. I still have the original contract (he started another ecommerce business in the meantime which has grown to be the biggest in their sector) and have picked up a couple of others along the way, expanding into industrial software and interactive marketing. It's a mixed bag, and a lot of fun getting to pick and choose which projects we want to take on. I honestly couldn't be happier with the way things went. My life is relatively stress free and I (and my employees) earn good money off the back of a very small number of stable long-term contracts. We have a nice office and nice working conditions. Everything I ever wanted and never got in my old job. As far as what would have happened had I stayed? The company was acquired and the web department was eventually dismantled after years of sitting around with nothing to do. I hear the redundancy packages were half decent, at least.