Teen OCD sufferer launches his own business

A teen from Wilmslow has teamed up business partners to form a digital web and marketing agency.

William Hale endured a battle with Severe OCD during his high school education in 2014 which led to an increasing difficulty to go about daily life including just leaving the house due to the constant OCD rituals and intrusive thoughts.

It was during this time that William discovered coding and how it can be used to make any web application, and more importantly, he could code from the comfort of his own home.

William's knowledge of web applications grew until the point where he was able to launch a plane spotting community website in 2014 that grew to a monthly unique page view count of more than 60,000 nationwide plane spotters by the end of 2016.

As the OCD became more manageable for William, he was able to leave the house with less worry and started providing his services to local companies as a contractor.

Earlier this year William was one of 8 people that appeared in Channel 5's hit two-part documentary 'My Extreme OCD Life', shedding light on the commonly misunderstood mental health condition.

This December William has co-launched Rocket Online, a web and marketing agency, from his office in Manchester.

William said "I'm really excited to be working on this new project having spent the last 5 years developing websites. Forming an agency has been a big challenge and I'm really proud to see it's launch after months of hard work."