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‘Why we quit our high paying corporate jobs’ – by Phil Bolton author of ‘How to Find Work You Love’

Team Esc — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 00:50:16 +0000

Have you ever done something that makes everyone you know shake their heads in disbelief?

For me the first one that springs to mind was when I put the kettle on the stove and lit the gas.

I only remembered it was an electic kettle made of plastic when it set on fire. Shake shake.

This is closely followed by my decision to quit my job as a senior manager at Deloitte to start my coaching business.

“What on earth are you thinking about, leaving behind all that security?”

“You’re mad, completely bonkers”

“I know you don’t like it, but really?”

One friend simply burst into tears.

If you’re thinking about leaving behind your safe job that makes you miserable you’ll be worried about the same reaction.

It’s a massive brave step to set off on a new path.

The team that wrote the How to Find Work You Love Guide all took this massive leap.

Why we did it…

We all had objectively successful jobs at Deloitte, E&Y, E&Y, Yahoo and the LSE.

Yet we all had something in common – we felt there was more to life than work that didn’t feel fulfilling.

In my case I was a forensic accountant, yet I don’t like numbers and really dislike details. Conversely I love people and helping them to make the most of their potential.

I felt an urge to do work I felt passionate about, that I enjoyed and that served my drive to help others make the most of their lives.

Before I took the leap I spent a lot of time to figure out how to make that happen. I did a lot of self-reflection, made a long term plan and figured out my first steps.

Having this in place helped me overcome my fear, the incredulity of the people around me and take my bold step with confidence.

I was lucky to have a coach to help me structure my thinking, without that guidance I’d probably still be stuck where I was.

Why we wrote How to Find Work You Love

From experience, everyone makes changes their own way.

If you’re contemplating a new career direction, starting your own business or a new direction, you’ll want to do it your way.

How to Find Work You Love is designed to put the power in your hands to make this change. It provides you with the tools and structure to successfully make your change.

We’ve boiled down the important steps you might take into a series of powerful exercises and inspiring ideas.

The guide will:

Support you in figuring out what work will make you tick
Enable you to create a powerful vision of the life and work you want
Embolden you to take your first steps (regardless of what anyone else thinks)
Inspire you by sharing the wisdom of Escapees who have already trodden the path

We’ve all taken this journey and wish that this Guide had existed when we started out. It might have saved us from a lot of head shaking.

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To join the waiting list for the How to Find Work You Love e-book (and get a discount) – please click here.

Please come to our January Meetup on Tue 24th (share your Escape Plan & get help from like-minded people).

Team Esc — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 11:12:08 +0000

Please come to our next Escape Meetup at the Adam Street Entrepreneurs Club in central London after work on Tuesday 24th January.

To attend please click here.

The first Escape meetup of 2012

If you are reading this the chances are that you’re a professional of some sort. The fact that you’re on Esc means that you are probably interesting in exploring exciting options and alternatives outside of the corporate mainstream. Or you might already have made the leap and you keen to meet like-minded people doing entrepreneurial and adventurous things.

Either way – you’re in the right place! Our last meetup in 2011 was a massive success with almost 200 people cramming into the main bar at Adam Street to discuss escaping the city to start-up, to move to a different industry / job / country, or to go on a big adventure.

There is no set structure to this evening but if you are interested in starting a business, changing career, or going on a big adventure and would like to network, mingle and chat with a bunch of people in a similar boat, please come along.

There are always a wide variety of people at Esc events (career changers, entrepreneurs, wannabe entrepreneurs, and adventurers) and the conversations will be about anything related to living life on your own terms.

Don’t be shy… come along!

To attend please click here.

How do these evenings work?

STRUCTURE: Informal friendly gathering based the concept that there is more to life than doing work that doesn’t matter to you. Escaping the rut is easier and more fun if you can get help, advice and encouragement from people in the same boat.

DATE & TIMINGS: Tuesday 24th January. From 7 pm onwards (bar open till late).

HOST: Rob will be hosting the evening (@escroberto) and various other members of The Esc Team will be there too. We’ll be wearing Esc stash – come and say hi.

LOCATION: Adam Street, 9 Adam Street, The Strand, Charing Cross, London, WC2N 6AA. Nearest Tube/Rail: Charing Cross. Food is available to order from the restaurant menu. Drinks aplenty too.

RSVP: Adam Street is a private members club. To get your name on the list please RSVP via our Meetup page (click here) please drop Rob (rob@escapethecity.org) an email if there is something specific you would like to let us know about.

Other things you can do in advance of attending: On our Meetups page you can add a comment explaining who you are and what you’re looking to get out of the evening - this will enable us to help you make better connections before, during and after the Meetup.

What is an Esc Meetup?

Escape the City Meetups are your opportunity to meet likeminded people in an informal environment - be they corporate professionals looking to do something different or escapees who have already made the big leap away from the corporate world.

Whether you are looking for an exciting job, starting your own business, or going on a big adventure – at our Meetups you’ll meet people in the Esc community who share your enthusiasm for building a career outside the corporate mainstream and who will hopefully be able to help you on your way.

Click here for the global list of all Esc Meetups.

PS. Our Meetups are different from our Esc Wednesdays because they a) are free and b) don’t have a formal speaker. They are your opportunity to meet fellow Esc members in your city in a friendly and relaxed environment.

It is impossible, obviously, to believe that anyone’s life is pre-destined…

Team Esc — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 05:25:15 +0000

“It is impossible, obviously, to believe that anyone’s life is pre-destined – but who knows what is programmed into an individual’s chromosomes, into their DNA? Perhaps each of us, irrespective of class and other variables, is born with a propensity towards a certain kind of living. Each of us has a code which, in the right conditions, will be able to make itself utterly apparent; if an individual’s circumstances are far removed or totally at odds with that initial biological programming, it may hardly be able to make itself felt circumstantially – but all life long that individual will feel the undertow, the tug of a destiny rooted in biology, urging him, only slightly perhaps, away from the life he has. The dissatisfaction and pointlessness that a rich a successful man feels on contemplating all that he has achieved in life is perhaps the faint echo of an initial code that he has thwarted, evaded, but can never quite silence. But a certain way of life will enable you to get closer to that initial blurred blueprint. Perhaps this is what it means to live in truth, even a disappointed truth.”

“Going back to live in England: it was difficult to think of four words more redolent of defeat because what they actually meant was going back to living so deeply within his limitations he would not even be aware that they were limitations: they would pass themselves off as contentment.”

“Paris Trance” by Geoff Dyer

http://www.amazon.com/Paris-Trance-Geoff-Dyer/dp/0374229813

Where do you spend your days working? My Beautiful Cubicle.

Team Esc — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 13:12:08 +0000

Mikey and I went to an awesome talk at General Assemb.ly in New York this week.

Called ‘Building Something People Love’ and given by a hugely impressive, enthusiastic and genuine Alexis Ohanian one of the Reddit founders.

We left buzzing with ideas for how to do things differently, do things that interest people, do things that engage people. A lot of the messages were around having fun with your brand and making the most of the fact that when you’re building a start-up (unlike the big corporate incumbents in your space) you can do whatever the hell you like with your marketing.

So that same evening we came home and Mikey built: My Beautiful Cubicle: http://mybeautifulcubicle.tumblr.com

We want to see where you spend the majority of your waking hours. We want to celebrate (and commiserate) different peoples’ cubicles. And we wanted to see if a random project with no specific motive other than a bit of fun would fly.

So please take 2 minutes to snap a photo of where you’re sitting right now and upload it to My Beautiful Cubicle!

You can do this here: http://mybeautifulcubicle.tumblr.com/submit
Or by emailing the image directly to this address (clever eh?): 21kocer@tumblr.com
Or send it to us and we’ll put it up for you: team@escapethecity.org

Oh and if you like the idea please spread the word!

Thanks. Esc love.

How to use Escape the City

Team Esc — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 15:29:39 +0000

Hello and thanks for clicking through to this post. If you’re reading this you’ve probably just joined Escape the City and registered a basic account.

A basic account gives you access to our Opportunities section and (if you subscribed) will also mean that you receive our weekly ‘Top 10 Opportunities’ email newsletter.

You are currently on our blog (where we share ‘our story and some things we’re learning’). Don’t be confused however, the main site looks rather different and is over here: http://escapethecity.org/feed_items

The objective of this post is to introduce you to Escape the City – our concept and our website – in order for you to get as much benefit as possible.

The top few paragraphs provide you with some background and some reasons why we’re doing this. If you want to move straight to the specifics just scroll down to “An introduction to our main stuff”.

And a final introductory word – if you don’t live in the UK you might not be familiar with the term ‘The City’. This is London’s financial centre and where a lot of our UK members work. So our name represents ‘escaping unfulfilling corporate jobs’ (as opposed to ‘escape the physical city itself and fleeing to the countryside’!).

Our concept and our mission

We believe that life is too short to do work that doesn’t matter to you. We started Escape the City when we were looking to transition away from our corporate management consulting jobs. We wanted to do something different but didn’t know where to start. We also knew we wanted to do something entrepreneurial but we didn’t have a good business idea.

And then, eureka!, we realised that the frustrations and challenges we were experiencing were shared by absolutely masses of our friends, colleagues and peers. Most of these people had done the sensible thing after university and got a safe corporate job (promising ‘I’ll do this for a few years and then go and do something else’) – however the principle is true for all working people: we all want to do work that matters to us.

http://gapingvoid.com/

If you’re anything like these people you’re ambitious, qualified, and hard-working. You don’t want to drop-out. You just want to spend your working hours doing something exciting, something that fulfils you more than your current corporate job. But it’s hard, the eternal challenge…

If not this then what?

We know what this feels like… and we’re building Escape the City to help you.

How do we want to help you?

Well if you’re anything like us we reckon you might be looking for:

Tangible opportunities, like-minded people, and genuinely useful information. As well as support and inspiration. Some people know exactly what they’re looking for and are just using us to hunt for it. But other people don’t have a clue and are really at the beginning of their ‘escape my corporate job’ journey. Fortunately we’re building stuff to help both types (and hopefully everyone in between).

What could you do instead of your corporate job? Well we reckon you could find an exciting new job, you could start your own business or you could go on a big adventure. You could take a course, retrain in your spare time, volunteer, build up new skills, network, attend events, read relevant books, expose yourself to new ideas and environments. You could discover organisations, websites, and resources you never knew existed.

And we want you to use the combination of all of this information (that we’re seeking to provide) to make good your corporate escape…

An introduction to our main stuff

Opportunities: For professionals, for graduates and for volunteers. Globally. Browse here: http://escapethecity.org/opportunities

Escape Heroes: Inspirational stories shared by people who have escaped to new jobs, start-ups and adventures: http://escapethecity.org/heroes

Events: Talks, gatherings and events to help you explore new avenues and learn new things: http://escapethecity.org/events

Resources: We’re building up a database of the most relevant and useful information we’ve found: http://escapethecity.org/resources

Connections: This is a kind of classifieds for our community. Offer support and ask for help: http://escapethecity.org/connections

Coaching: For people looking for hands-on support with their escape. One-on-one coaching: http://escapethecity.org/coaching/index

Esc Wednesdays: These are monthly talks in London and New York. Keep an eye on Events for 2012′s schedule: http://escapethecity.org/events

Meetups: We have bases in London and New York but the concept is truly global. We are introducing new countries soon. To meet like-minded Escapees near you please join your nearest Esc Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/EscapetheCity/ (An invitation to start a meetup: http://bit.ly/pvGGWX).

You can also use Escape the City to:

Post exciting and challenging job opportunities: http://escapethecity.org/pages/employer_zone
Ask the community for help / offer your support: http://escapethecity.org/connections/new
Recommend an inspirational escapee story: http://www.escapethecity.org/heroes/new

If you’re an organisation looking to hire great people or promote your brand, products, services, events or events please just ping us an email – we’d be happy to help: team@escapethecity.org

Coming soon

Currently the site requires you to do a lot of the searching yourself. We’re working on ways of asking you the right questions in order that you can set your preferences and not have to keep returning in order to be exposed to the opportunities, people and information that you’re looking for.

This is a work in progress but we’ve got some really exciting plans so please stick around!

Oh and if you happen to be an awesome Ruby developer drop us a line – team@escapethecity.org

Need a helping hand?

If you have any questions just drop us an email at team@escapethecity.org and you can return to the main site by clicking here: www.escapethecity.org.

Who are we?

You can say hi to the Esc Team in the following places: http://escapethecity.org/pages/team

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/EscapetheCity
Twitter: http://twitter.com/escthecity

Rob Symington: http://twitter.com/escroberto
Dom Jackman: http://twitter.com/domjackman
Mikey Howe: http://twitter.com/escmikey

Our Manifesto: http://escapethecity.org/pages/manifesto
Esc Love: http://escapethecity.org/pages/esc_love

Introducing Esc Tel Aviv!

Team Esc — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 04:44:20 +0000

When we started Escape the City we envisaged creating a community whereby people could self-organise and (without needing our involvement) use the platform to meet each other and do great things together.

So you can imagine our excitement when we heard about the Tel Aviv Meetup last week. This is what it’s all about!! Read on for a summary from Jo – one of the organisers. See the bottom for how to start your own Esc Meetup.

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Israel has the highest number of start-up companies in the world, despite it’s small size of only 7 million people, and at this start-up nation’s centre is Tel Aviv, a vibrant young city full of young people keen to dive into this entrepreneurial culture. But the start-ups around here are usually technology-based, so there is a demand for a more general Escape the City-type group.

On a Tuesday evening, twenty 20-30-something Tel Avivians met at a cafe to discuss escaping the corporate world.

We each shared our stories of the desire to escape: some are feeling trapped in unfulfilling corporate jobs; one guy had just quit his job and was wanting to get more meaning out of his life; a couple who had just returned from travelling the world are trying to start something exciting; and a photographer, Amit, talked about his small photography business that he is trying to grow (www.flyonthewall.co.il). I shared my story of escaping the corporate world to freelancing as a science communicator.

A networking session followed. There was a great, excited buzz in the room- it appeared that all these people were dealing with the same fears and hopes and just were waiting for the opportunity to share and get inspired.

The next day, one attendee Jessica Taylor launched a facebook page for her rock climbing fashion business, 3rd Rock www.facebook.com/my3rdrock. She decided to launch it following advice from the Escape group to just go for it.

We’ve started a facebook group for our members www.facebook.com/groups/273143229390840/, which is very active, and we plan to hold monthly meetings. The next meeting will feature entrepreneur role models who will tell their stories and answer questions. Then in the 3rd meeting we plan to workshop escape plans.

Here is the Meetup Group: http://www.meetup.com/EscapetheCity/Tel-Aviv-Yafo-IL/

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Massive thanks to Jo Savill for taking the initiative and helping organise the first Tel Aviv Esc Meetup. Hopefully the first of many! You can contact Jo here - www.peoplerinteresting.wordpress.com - @jobolobo - jo.savill@gmail.com

Our Invitation: Please start an Esc community in your city or town - full details here.

Please come to November’s Esc Wednesday – ‘How we built our careers around our passions’

Team Esc — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 23:42:39 +0000

We’ve got a really exciting evening planned for November’s Esc Wednesday.

Our special guests are Ben Keene and Dave Cornthwaite.

Both are Esc Heroes, both have spoken at previous Esc events and both single-mindedly live their lives on their own terms.

The title of the evening’s talk is: ‘How we built our careers around our passions’

WEDNESDAY 30TH NOVEMBER - ADAM STREET CLUB
Bar opens: 6.30 pm | Talk starts: 7.30 pm
There are 80 tickets up for grabs – please buy one here.

NB: We run two types of events: Esc Wednesdays (talks) and Esc Meetups (informal gatherings). This is an Esc Wednesday!

Introducing our Speakers:

Ben Keene is the founder of Tribewanted (Fiji and Sierra Leone). Their mission? To build sustainable communities in amazing places that benefit locals and visiting members; inspiring positive change within and far beyond the village.

Read more about Ben here: http://benkeene.com/ and here: http://escapethecity.org/heroes/387-ben-keene

Dave Cornthwaite is a world record-breaking adventurer, author, and motivational speaker. He is four journeys into his £1,000,000 Expedition1000 project: 25 x 1000+ mile journeys, each using a different form of non-motorised transport

Read more about Dave here: http://davecornthwaite.com/ and here: http://escapethecity.org/heroes/353-dave-cornthwaite

‘How we built our careers around our passions.’

Together they will be reflecting on what they have learnt from their single-minded determination to build their careers around things they care passionately about.

Without giving too much away, the topics they will to discuss include finding your passion, getting over the start-line, taking-off, learning how to survive, adapting to changes along the way, picking up new opportunities, telling your story and saying yes.

If you are interested, please buy a ticket and come along.

6 good reasons to come…

You would like to know how to rent a tropical island with no budget
You want to know what living on the beach in blood diamond country is like
You want to know why solving the world’s big issues starts in a village
You want some Insight, inspiration and ideas to help you chase a career you’re passionate about
You want to learn how to think positively and understand exactly what makes the ‘working you’ tick
You want to find out how to plan an adventurous expedition and also make it worthwhile for others too

In any case, if two gingers can inspire, anyone can!

Details, details, details

We will be meeting at the Adam Street Club – the private members club for entrepreneurs just off the Strand on the evening of Wednesday 30th November.
Ben and Dave will be giving a talk before we open it up to the room for a Q&A.
The bar opens 6 pm. Please come for a drink and a chat. The talk will start between 7.30 and 7.45 pm.
RSVP: www.eventbrite.com (buy ticket, etc).

About Adam Street:

London is our HQ (the city where Escape the City was born) and we are thrilled that our London events take place at the Adam Street Entrepreneurs Club. Adam Street is a home and support network read more about Adam Street here.

Evening Membership: Adam Street now offers a really exciting evening membership scheme. Adam Street will be very extremely generously offering ongoing incentives to Esc members who want to become evening members.

Watch this space for further details.

6 things Adele learnt about the Esc community at Wednesday’s Meetup

Team Esc — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 17:45:28 +0000

On Wednesday night Adele Barlow really kindly hosted our first of a new type of Esc event in London – a Meetup at Adam Street.

Over 240 people RSVP’d and by all accounts it was a really useful, inspirational and fun evening.

Our Meetups are different from our Esc Wednesdays in that they don’t have a speaker, are free, and are specifically designed for you to connect with people in a similar boat as you – explanation here.

Quick question: What regularity would you like to see these events take place in London (bearing in mind that we run an Esc Wednesday once a month as well)? Please comment below. Thanks!

So without further ado, 6 things Adele learnt…

1. This is an incredible community and tribe…

This is straight from Adele’s email update to Dom, Mikey and me in New York:

Awesome things: SUCH friendliness. Holy crap. Have never seen anything like it at a networking event. EVERYONE was talking to EVERYONE; people randomly going up to each other and being like, “Hey, I’m X. I do X. What do you do?”

The shy people, confident people, quiet people, EVERYONE – was just randomly introducing themselves, interrupting other conversations… everyone I talked to had met at least 4 or 5 interesting and cool connections.

I’ve honestly never seen a love-in like that without alcohol or drugs involved.

So much mind sex going on in the room – it was like a mind-sex orgy. Everyone was buzzing out on ideas, exchanging cards, arranging to meet up and have coffee at a later date.

You know how buzzing the Meetup board was? Just imagine THAT translated into actual, real-life people situation – such friendliness. Blew my mind.

[Rob: Apart from being disturbed by the mind-sex comment - what an incredible email for us to receive!!]

2. Good networks/tribes are built around a belief or concept

Rob and Dom and Mikey weren’t even in the room, but everyone was self-organising – because meaning was there.

[Rob: From our perspective Esc is all about the tribe / and the belief that we all share. I've said this about 30 times on this blog but read Tribes. Check out our thoughts on making meaning and having a mission.]

3. Your network is what you make it

All about being proactive, introducing yourself to people, making the first move.

4. When building your own network, need to have a mission

… or idea to build that network around.

This also gives you an actual excuse to talk to people – people in room who came with clear ‘mission’ were easy to talk to / connect with others because they knew who they needed / wanted to talk to, what they were trying to build.

5. Having a ‘place’ where people can meet makes a difference

Adam Street Club is a great venue – lots of spin-offs to come, hopefully.

And great to have an off-line ‘home’ for aspiring London-based corporate escapees.

6. You can’t find inspiration in a room, you find it through people

But with right people in the room, you will find it through them!

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Massive thank you Adele. If anyone has a missed connection from the Meetup please comment below or on the Meetup thread and we’ll try and get you in touch with the relevant people. Thanks to everyone who attended and helped make it such a fun event.

Watch this space for the next meetups and talks in London – announcing them next week - http://www.meetup.com/EscapetheCity/London-GB/

How to grow your startup using social media – Adele Barlow

Team Esc — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 18:04:27 +0000

My name’s Adele and I run Step One (we make websites for startups), and help organisations with their social media. We blog here.

I’ll be at the Escape the City London Meetup tonight, along with Alex O’Byrne and Chris Mooney – Alex is fantastic to talk to about development, apps, and escaping the city, and Chris is great to talk to about strategy and financing.

I’d love to talk to you about social media and taking an idea to prototype stage using the web (WordPress, Facebook, etc) – below are some things I often find myself talking with clients about.

You want to grow your business, increase your Facebook fans, etc?

Join the club.

When people think about ‘improving how they do social media’, they jump straight to thinking – methods.

Pay per click? SEO? What techniques will lead to growing the fan base?

This is like a high school student asking, “How do I become popular?” Or a guy asking, “How do I get that girl to become my girlfriend?”

The answer is not: wear this, say that, do that – it’s not about changing behavioural techniques.

When you question how to get more blog subscribers or ‘Likes’ on Facebook, what you’re really asking is: how do you change the power dynamic to be more in your favour?

You’re wondering how you get more Net Promoters.

“Promoters” are loyal enthusiasts who keep buying from a company and urge their friends to do the same – the key metric when it comes to gauging the efficiency of a company’s growth engine, as Fred Reichheld talks about in his bestseller published by the Harvard Business School Press.

Improving social media means growing Net Promoters; growing Net Promoters means making your customer’s lives better; making it easy for them to tell their friends about it.

1. Start with Why: ‘the Golden Circle’

Everyone knows what they do. Some know how they do it. Few people know WHY.

Know why you exist as a product or service. You do X.

So, who cares? Why? How are you making peoples’ lives better?

It’s hard to articulate in ten words or less. Simon Sinek’s TED talk on the topic is here.

2. Use that to clarify the brand.

The Brand Gap

Click the link to view the presentation – or here.
View more presentations from coolstuff

3. Translate that into a ladder of engagement.

This means that you segment user interest levels down different engagement pathways (e.g. you might have a Vimeo video that the ‘kinda-interested’ can watch.

This leads to people ‘liking’ it on Facebook if they’re really keen. The super-keen can join your email list or drop you a line).

All the touch points need to be integrated.

4. Underpin every interaction with authenticity…

Underpin every interaction with authenticity, transparency, and a narrative that people want to buy into.

Here are 5 social media disasters – here are some Facebook success stories.

Spot the difference.

It’s not about the tools, it’s about how the tools are being used, according to the culture and leadership of the organisation.

5. Do what you can, outsource what you can’t.

Some entrepreneurs think that they’re saving money by trying to build their own website or social media campaign – this depends on your tech skills, but I think opportunity cost in terms of your time is worth considering.

In summary:

Building a Facebook page or website is a fantastic way to gauge whether your business idea has traction.

I’m a big supporter of the Lean Startup movement – which talks about building a Minimum Viable Product.

Your Facebook page or website can be a pre-prototype to gauge early customer interest.

This quote sums it up: “Marketing in the 80s was all about the product, and then it moved into the “new marketing” era which was about “you deserve this car because you are amazing” and now we are in the era of “us marketing”. It’s not enough to just build a community – it’s like organising a party and you don’t have a plan.”

“Successful companies in social media act more like party planners, aggregators, and content providers than traditional advertiser.”

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If you want ‘better social media’ – throw a better online party. If you don’t know how, brainstorm with friends. If that doesn’t work, consider asking an expert – if you can’t afford to hire them, try approaching them with a revenue-share agreement of some kind.

Most of all, just keep experimenting until you find the results you’re looking for.

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[Thanks for a fantastic blog post Adele and for all your work in helping make tonight's Meetup at Adam Street be such a success. Sorry we can't be there but looking forward to many more! Rob, Dom and Mikey in New York]

An Invitation: Please start an Esc community in your city or town.

Team Esc — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 22:43:59 +0000

Hello everyone,

As you will know if you have spent any time on the Escape the City website…

… or watched our video…

… or read our manifesto…

… or read our About Us…

Esc’s concept is simple:

1. We believe that there is more to life than doing work that doesn’t matter to you in a big corporation

2. We know that finding exciting alternatives is really hard (we’ve been there).

3. We want to help solve this problem by building a global community of like-minded people who want to ‘do something different’.

Escaping the City is a metaphor for rejecting boring corporate jobs in order to do interesting things with your career.

We launched at the beginning of 2010 and we already have a community of +45,000 corporate professionals worldwide who are using Esc to search for the information, people and opportunities that they should all know about but don’t.

And now we are using this blog post to ask for your help and involvement.

Join (or start) your local Esc community - Here

International expansion

Escape the City has bases in London and New York but (as you know if you live somewhere else) the concept is completely global.

Our vision is to build an international community of professionals who want to ‘do something different’ and we would love it if you wanted to be a part of this.

Please help join / start your local community

If you are working in the corporate world and looking to do something different what better way to kick-start your escape!?

How?

Join (or start) your local Esc community – Here
Help organise (or RSVP to) the next Meetup – Here (same link!)

[See below for ‘What is an Esc Meetup?’ - You can also check out London’s upcoming Meetup as an example of what we are inviting you to organise.]

There are already +30 cities registered on our Meetup.com hub and more are being added each day.

Don’t be put off if there aren’t any Escapees yet in your city/country. Get the group started and we’ll make sure we promote it to the right people. They’ll fill up soon enough!

Every month over 2000 people join Escape the City. These people, like you, are based all over the world and we are now in a position to connect them with each other.

Amazing things happen when you get like-minded people together.

Get Involved…

If you would like to organise a Meetup in your area just start the community in Meetup and (if you want some inputs, support or guidance) just email Rob at team@escapethecity.org - he will be happy to help.

We must stress that this isn’t a job opportunity and there is no financial incentive on offer here. It is just an opportunity to organise local gatherings of like-minded people near you – just like all these meetups – there are plenty of non-£$€ based benefits. Trust us!

Thanks so much for your support and we look forward to meeting you (online and hopefully offline!) in due course.

Rob & Dom

Escape the City Co-founders

Find your nearest Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/EscapetheCity/

What is an Esc Meetup?

Esc Meetups are free, they are informal (the antidote to corporate networking events), there is no set structure and no speaker (although there is sometimes a loose theme), they are after work – traditionally on a Wednesday but it doesn’t matter – and they are held in a relaxed environment (bar, museum, cafe) where you can chill out, have a drink, meet new people and generally have exciting conversations about doing something different.

They are democratic, non-hierarchical, and strictly non-judgemental. Anyone can organise one and anyone can attend one.

Escape the City Meetups are your opportunity to meet likeminded people in an informal environment – be they corporate professionals looking to do something different or escapees who have already made the big leap away from the corporate world.

You can check out London’s upcoming Meetup as an example of what we are inviting you to organise – Here.

New country editions on the website

Our website currently has three editions: UK, US, and International.

The number of new members from different countries is growing really quickly (over half of new members are not UK or US based) and we will be adding new editions as soon as we can.

A quick word on jobs / partnerships

We’re really flattered by the amount of people who are interested in working for Escape the City itself and who want to be Esc’s woman/man-on-the-ground in Hamburg / Paris / Hong Kong / Sydney / Insert big city here. We are a small team and we are planing to keep it that way for now. Sorry!

Your Monday Newsletter: Top 10 Opportunities

Team Esc — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 18:31:44 +0000

Hello everyone. Here is the UK and International version of your Monday newsletter. Below are the Top 10 Opportunities. You can view the full newsletter in your browser by clicking here.

Escape of the Week – Coral Lodge 15.41, Moçambique

SENIOR MANAGEMENT COUPLE - Ilha de Moçambique

Work in paradise: develop a 5-star beach lodge and establish community development projects. We’re particularly looking for Portuguese speakers.
Click here for details.

Top 10 Opportunities to ‘Do Something Different’…

1. Experienced professionals. Sales, commercial & comms skills. Empathy for charities - Here - Partnerships Account Development Manager - JustGiving - London, UK

2. Revolutionize financial services for micro and small business across Latin America - Here - Account Manager, Latin America - Entrepreneurial Finance Lab - Miraflores, Peru

3. Join Our Vibrant Startup & Build A Solid International Proj Mgt & Finance Department - Here - Business Controller - Yacht Week - London, UK

4. Have you worked in Cambodia / Thailand / Vietnam? Seeking Finance Professionals - Here - Finance & Accounting Manager - Central Asia Development Group - Siem Reap, Cambodia

5. All Consultants. Join the world’s leading environmental & social consulting company - Here - Principal Consultant (& other roles) - Environmental Resources Management - London, UK

6. Lively couple to spend 45 weeks of the year living in a private hillside villa in Ibiza - Here - Caretaker Couple - Private Villa - just outside of Santa Eulalia, Ibiza, Spain

7. Work with an Exec who cares! Empower young ppl with Finance & Enterprise Education - Here - Executive Assistant (2.5 days per week) - MyBnK - London, UK

8. Investment Officer for debt in Microfinance, Fair Trade & Sustinable Agiculture Finance - Here - Investment Officer - ResponsAbility Social Investments - Mumbai, India

9. Could you help a football team become financially stable? Seeking volunteers - Here - Football Team Business Consultant - The Collective: Sierra Leone - Makeni, Sierra Leone

10. Entrepreneurial 2nd / final year undergrads/grads with an interest in social change - Here - Paid Summer Internship - Social Finance - London, UK

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ARE YOU HIRING? GOT A JOB FOR OUR TOP 10? Visit the Employer Zone or Post A Job.
Did you know it is free to post volunteer opportunities on Escape the City!? Click Here.

“Be different. Think different. Better to be a pirate than to join the navy.”

Steve Jobs

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You can view the full newsletter in your browser by clicking here.

Please come to our October London Meetup (Theme: Start-ups & the Internet)

Team Esc — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 23:01:38 +0000

Please come to our next evening Meetup at the Adam Street Entrepreneurs Club in central London after work on Wednesday 26th October.

All Esc members who attend this Meetup on Wed 26^th October will receive a complimentary year’s free evening membership at Adam Street Club. See below.

To attend please click here.

This month’s theme: Start-ups & the Internet

Many people dreaming of leaving the corporate world are considering starting their own businesses, and many of these businesses will be online.

Getting your business idea started online (even if it’s not a web startup) allows you to develop your concept, test your strategy and collect important information about potential customers before leaving the safety of your corporate job.

There is no set structure to this conversation but if you are interested in starting something online and would like to network, mingle and chat with a bunch of people in a similar boat, please come along.

NB: The theme is just a starting point, if you are interested in other Esc areas we actively encourage you to come along. There are always a wide variety of people at Esc events (career changers, entrepreneurs, wannabe entrepreneurs, and adventurers) and the conversations will be about anything Esc-related.

Don’t be shy… come along!

RSVP

Adam Street is a private members club. To get your name on the guest list please RSVP via our Meetup page (click here) and please drop Adele (adele.barlow@gmail.com) an email if there is something specific you would like to let us know about in advance.

Logistics: How do these evenings work?

STRUCTURE: Informal friendly gathering loosely based around a particular topic (but open to all Esc members regardless of interest).

DATE & TIMINGS: Wednesday 26th October. From 6.30 pm onwards (bar open till late).

HOST: Adele Barlow – read her Esc Hero interview here. If you’re nervous about coming alone just ping her an email – adele.barlow@gmail.com – to introduce yourself. She’s incredibly friendly and helpful!

SPECIAL GUESTS:

Alex O’Byrne - ex-Merrill Lynch, co-founder of We Make Websites. Esc Hero interview, LinkedIN profile
Chris Mooney - Ex-Citigroup & IBM. Chris left the corporate world to join one of the UK’s fastest growing technology startups and has never looked back. Senior Business Analyst at QuBit Group. LinkedIN profile.
ADD YOUR NAME – If you know about start-ups and the web and you are in a position to attend and genuinely help Esc members around this topic please drop team@escapethecity.org an email and we’ll happily add you to the list of Special Guests!

LOCATION: Adam Street, 9 Adam Street, The Strand, Charing Cross, London, WC2N 6AA. Nearest Tube/Rail: Charing Cross. Food is available to order from the restaurant menu. Drinks aplenty too.

RSVP: Adam Street is a private members club. To get your name on the guest list please RSVP via our Meetup page (click here) and please drop Adele (adele.barlow@gmail.com) an email if there is something specific you would like to let us know about in advance.

Other things you can do in advance of attending: On our Meetups page you can add a comment explaining who you are and what you’re looking to get out of the evening – this will enable us to help you make better connections before, during and after the Meetup.

Claim a year’s free evening membership at Adam Street

Kick-start your escape by getting a year’s free evening membership at London’s legendary entrepreneurs club: Adam Street.

All Esc members who attend this Meetup on Wed 26^th October will receive a complimentary year’s free evening membership at Adam Street Club. To claim your free membership please just RSVP via Meetup and request your evening membership pack from Adam Street reception on Wednesday 26th October.

NB: This offer is only open for Esc members who have RSVP’d via Meetup and who actually attend the event. It is also only open for the evening of Wed 26th Oct.

About Adam Street:

Evening Membership: Adam Street now offers a really exciting evening membership scheme. Aside from the free offer above, Adam Street will be very extremely generously offering ongoing incentives to Esc members who want to become evening members.

Watch this space for further details.

What is an Esc Meetup?

Click here for the global list of all Esc Meetups.

Photo credit: www.gapingvoid.com

Join the Discussion: Big Corporates & Fulfilling Work

Team Esc — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 10:15:29 +0000

As those of you who follow Esc will know, we want to explore the ideas around the phenomenon of people ‘escaping the city’ with the aim of helping more corporate professionals to make brave and exciting transitions.

There is certainly no single way of understanding all the various strands related to our concept (jobs, money, career, meaning, work, entrepreneurialism, life, fulfilment, etc, etc!) and we want to encourage as much discussion as possible with the aim of learning more and pushing Esc onwards to greater heights.

So, every week from now on, we are planning on introducing a particular idea / concept / thought with the objective of having a discussion in the comments. If you’ve got something to share, please do get involved!

Oh, and if you’ve got an idea for Escape the City please let us know about it via this form.

Introducing this week’s discussion

We resigned from our corporate jobs because of some really strong ‘pull’ factors (i.e. the prospect of starting a business and working for ourselves doing something we love) but we also left because of some pretty persuasive ‘push’ factors as well.

We want to explore the reasons why people find working for big corporates in professional and financial services unfulfilling. We want to understand what it is that people are looking for but not getting in their corporate jobs (i.e. what important ingredients are missing?).

We’ve always been really keen not to knock the corporate world. For starters the skills that we learnt in ‘The City’ have really helped us start Escape the City – we wouldn’t have been able to get this off the ground without them. Additionally, there are masses of people who really enjoy their corporate jobs.

However, for every person who is clear on why they are in their company and what they’re getting out of the experience, there are masses of others who are thinking ‘I’m not sure this is for me, but what on earth do I do instead?’

Esc is for these people.

So why are jobs in big corporates so often unfulfilling?

Lack of control, freedom & independence
Bureaucracy
Office Politics
Hierarchy
Feeling of being institutionalised
Small cog in a big machine
Lack of creativity
Work for work’s sake – too much process!
Lack of positive social impact
Hard to be yourself in the corporate environment
Boring work

We started Esc to help solve a problem. What problem? The fact that thousands of ambitious, passionate, talented graduates and professionals end up feeling frustrated doing work that doesn’t really matter to them. Why? Because the alternative is tough. It is hard to find a really exciting job and even harder to start your own business.

If Escape the City is going to meaningfully contribute to understanding what’s going wrong for so many people… then understanding those ‘push’ factors is really important.

Please share your experiences of working in the corporate world… we would love to have a discussion aimed at getting to the heart of why working in big corporate organisations is often unfulfilling.

Go on, get it off your chest!

Guest Post: What to do when your idea’s too big

Team Esc — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 13:06:24 +0000

You’ve got an idea you want to put into action – an idea for a business, a mission to change the world, or a vision of making a living doing something you love.

But… it’s BIG. Too big.

It requires you to quit your job. Or it needs a lot of money. Or a whole team of people. Or premises. Or a huge technical build. Or it simply requires masses of time and energy (which you don’t have).

So what do you do?

Has your answer ’til now been to put your idea back in a drawer for another week (or month)? Then you have just got to start doing something different. There are far too many people who have good ideas fading away somewhere at the back at their mind (while someone else has the same idea and goes and makes a success of it).

There’s nothing wrong with having big ideas – a million dollar business, a best-selling book, a national movement, or simply making a full-time living from something you love. It’s a useful skill to be able to take an idea and envision exactly how huge it could become. But… you also need be to able to do the opposite and chunk it down into manageable projects, starting with one you can begin right now.

Sure, you can go ‘big bang’ on your idea; go hell for leather and enlist all the people you need, write a business plan and go search for funding. Or quit your job and bank everything on your first book being a hit. If that’s a style of operating that’s worked for you successfully in the past, and you’re comfortable with the risk involved, it may be right for you.

For the rest of us, the thought of biting it all off in one chunk is overwhelming. And that’s not helpful if it means we end up doing nothing.

Honey, I shrunk my idea

You don’t have to give up on your grand vision of a big business, national fame, or the most common desire – finding a way of making a full time income from something you love doing. You can start small, test it out, improve it, then grow it and scale it towards your original vision.

It just requires you to be willing to think like a player, not a worker. It means being willing to play it out one step at a time – even if you don’t know exactly where it will take you and you can’t yet see how it can make you a full-time income. You’d be surprised how many successful ideas and businesses started out like this! (It’s a lot of fun too)

Here’s how to do it:

Design a 30 day ‘Play Project’ that immerses you in making your idea happen (or at least some part of it).
Since you’re not trying to create your whole vision yet but just a part of it, choose the project to be centred on the bit that’s most exciting to you. If you want to be a public speaker, go speak, don’t spend the first 30 days building a website for your future speaking career.
Make sure the project produces something you can share – some tangible result, not just 30 days of sitting and googling!
Set a deadline in 30 days’ time to share your result with others – show it to your friends, put it on your blog, tweet or facebook it. Share photos, recordings, videos on youtube. Write about the experience on a blog.
Start doing it – do a little every day if you’re fitting it around your current work, don’t wait for hours of free time to magically open up in your diary
When you complete it, look at how you could build on it to take it further. If it didn’t work out the way you’d hoped, adjust your approach to give you more of the results you want and launch your next Play Project. Each one can build on the results of the last and at the end of every one, you’ll have something real to show for it – the kind of stuff that opens doors to even bigger opportunities.

What will you do?

What do you want to do? Here are some example play projects to help make it happen.

Want to write a book? Write the outline and one chapter. Or… start writing about your topic on a blog. If you want to be a novelist, you might start with a short story. Send it to some friendly readers.
Want to be a public speaker? Go to Toastmasters, learn some of the basics and set a deadline to give your first talk of 5-10 minutes at one of the meetings.
Got a business idea? Start blogging about the area or the problem you want to help with. Interview people, experiment with possible solutions. If you’re selling your own services, aim to get your first piece of work within 30 days, even if it’s at a reduced fee for a friend or colleague.
Got a grand website idea? If it’s based around content you’re creating, create the site first in WordPress. If it’s more interactive than that, see if there’s a commercial system you can use to test the idea out. (Eg if you want to create your own social network, use NING before you custom build a whole system)
Want to be a declutter consultant or a personal stylist or interior designer? Go and volunteer to do it for a friend first – either for free or for a reduced fee.
If you want to be a standup comic… don’t just go to see standup shows, do a course where you stand up and perform!
If you want to launch a national campaign or change the world, create a Facebook group for your cause and then create an event that people can take part in to build a buzz.

Scary stuff huh? Sure it is, so go get some support. Ask some supportive friends to help, or join up with others making ideas happen – like the 200 people in our 30 Day Challenge kicking off very soon.

From idea to reality in 30 days

Stop waiting: make your idea happen for real.

Learn more about the 30 Day Challenge

John Williams is author of best-selling book “Screw Work, Let’s Play (How to do what you love & get paid for it)”, described by The Sunday Times as “A compelling 10-step escape from corporate life that could spell a rash of resignation letters”.

Join the Discussion: An Esc Manifesto (in draft)

Team Esc — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 17:09:15 +0000

Oh, and if you’ve got an idea for Escape the City please let us know about it via this form.

Introducing this week’s discussion

Escape the City is a business built around an idea. What is our idea? The fact that we believe there is more to life than doing work that doesn’t matter to you in big corporate companies.

Any concept, movement, or philosophy that has ever achieved anything has a call to action, draws a line in the sand, or has a manifesto. We hope that Esc has a clear definition of what it stands for (our videos also attempt to do that).

But we wanted to take things to the next level with a clear statement of why we’re doing what we’re doing and what we think the solution could be…

Please let us know what you think in the comments. What’s missing? What do you really like about it? What don’t you like?

Escape the City – A Manifesto

All our life we jump through hoops.

Often without asking why.

It’s easy to feel stuck – a small cog in a big machine.

It doesn’t have to be like this.

Don’t waste your life living someone else’s.

Don’t wait for permission.

Life is too short to do work that doesn’t matter to you.

Want your memoirs to be worth reading?

Make your choices your own. Be brave. Be inquisitive.

Stop using lack of money or experience as an excuse.

You don’t have to risk it all to explore new options.

It is possible to find work that really makes you tick.

Our world is changing. Careers are changing.

Take advantage or keep your head down. You choose.

The winners are building lives on their own terms.

Take small leaps. Meet people. Ask for help. Save. Plan.

Change jobs. Build businesses. Go on BIG adventures.

Start something you love. Push. Sweat.

No one ever changed the world by toeing the line.

You are capable of more than you realise.

This is no dress rehearsal – make it count.

There will never be a perfect time.

And the first step is often the hardest.

So stop dreaming, start planning…

…and Do Something Different!

www.escapethecity.org

LONDON TALK: x3 start-up speakers – From Bathtub 2 Boardroom

Team Esc — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 16:25:52 +0000

As some of you will know, Dom and Rob are escaping to New York for the autumn to help launch the US edition of Escape the City.

Before we go we’re excited to be invited to speak at an upcoming TOMAX talk in central London and thought it would be a good opportunity to have a party and temporarily say goodbye to London.

We’re going to be pausing the Esc Wednesdays for a few months so if you’ve been following Esc over the past year and a half and you’re in town – please do come along for what should be a really fun evening.

Talk – “From Bathtub 2 Boardroom”

3 short talks about being an entrepreneur, followed by Q&A

7th September, 7.15-9.30pm
The Adam St. Club, 9 Adam St., off The Strand

Featuring:

Simon Woodroffe OBE, founder of YO! (http://www.yocompany.biz)
Rob Symington, co-founder of Escape the City (www.escapethecity.org/)
Sarah Hilleary, founder of b-tempted (www.b-tempted.co.uk/)

Tickets: £10 for under 26, £15 for over 25.

Online: £8 for under 26s, £12 for over 25s.

Book at: www.tomaxtalks.com

Contact: tom@tomaxtalks.com

Detail: Three great guests have twenty minutes each to talk about the title “From bathtub 2 boardroom”. The talks are followed by Q&A in an intimate, fun environment. Have a drink, meet some people and hear three impressive peoples’ stories, advice and observations. Rub shoulders with the speakers afterwards.

Great extract from Seth Godin’s Poke The Box

Team Esc — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 20:24:41 +0000

Seth Godin has been an incredible inspiration to us. This extract from Poke The Box is a great one for anyone who wants to start doing something they love, but needs a kick up the ass.

We’ve all been stuck in the situation where you coast along, unsure of what direction to take. Before EscapeTheCity I did two jobs that I didn’t really do by choice but stumbled into, and each position I moved to was less my own doing, and more of an influence of the environment around me.

I know its hard, not knowing what you should actually be looking for is probably the hardest part, or at least it was for me. But as Jack London famously said, “You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club!”

How did you end up with this job?

Almost any time I ask someone that question, they answer with, “well, it’s a funny story.” And it’s not usually a funny story.

Instead, it’s a story that juxtaposes a few unlikely breaks with unadorned initiative. People get good gigs because they stand up.

Annie Duke is a former World Series of Poker champion. She has won more than $4 million playing poker professionally.

The interesting question to ask someone in this line of work is: how?

How did you get into it? How did you get good at it?

Hint: you don’t get picked.

Annie was broke, living in Montana and trying to figure out how to make ends meet. Encouraged by her brother, she went to a poker game in Billings. No permit, no permission slip, no connection to the game. She won two thousand dollars.

At this point in most poker careers, the winner takes the money, goes home, and goes back to work. There isn’t a career because there isn’t persistence. There isn’t a career because as soon as there’s a big loss, it ends. That didn’t happen to Annie Duke. Annie set out to fail often enough to get good. She approached the challenge as a professional would. She studied, budgeted, and failed. Often.

Is there a better way? Probably not.

- Seth Godin, Poke The Box

Thoughts on Career Renegade by Jonathan Fields

Team Esc — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 17:43:46 +0000

Its not that often that you read a book that is more than just inspirational. We are constantly digesting books, and Jonathan Fields will not just inspire, but give you practical advice on turning your passion into a genuine living. He will open your mind, change your perspective, and give you the kick you need to get started.

So many people are apprehensive about starting their own business, or dramatically changing the direction of their career. We hear from them every single day. There are always excuses, especially for those with large responsibilities, like having a family. Jonathan proved that he could overcome those obstacles, and did so in dramatic fashion.

“I cannot conduct the balance of my life in a vacuum of inevitable regret. I cannot imagine the sorrow of leaving this Earth one day filled with visions of a life I dreamed of living, but never had the will to try. I cannot rest with the notion that, in my inaction, I might have taught my daughter to do the same.”

Jonathan guides you through the processes he followed to the eventual sale of a very successful business. He outlines the tools he used, and how he used them. He gives fascinating case studies of people who have created amazing things out of their passions and shows the secrets you could use to bring any idea to market and to tell the world about it in ways you never would have thought of.

Navigating the online world in its ever changing landscape is not as difficult as you might think, it just takes a little bit of direction and the tiniest seed of an idea in your mind will suddenly flourish with just the right combination of effort applied in the right places. As you read this book you will think differently about your own passions, see them in a new light, and maybe, just maybe you will take a leap of faith and change your life forever. We’ve done it, he did it, and you can do it.

You don’t need some incredible idea to start a business. You just need to take the time to understand what makes you tick, and then follow Jonathan’s steps for turning that passion into a lucrative living.

There are too many resources in this book for me to outline them all. I urge you to go out and get it. Remember also that the online world is changing all the time, so visit Jonathan’s website where he’ll keep you updated with all the secrets he’s using every day.

Hello USA!

Team Esc — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 13:18:55 +0000

Hello All!

If you’re reading this then you are one of the lucky ones. This is our first US Newsletter and I am extremely proud to be the one introducing it to you. From now on I’ll be here to help.

I did four years of banking before I decided I just couldn’t handle the corporate environment any more. I wanted to do something different, start something of my own and actually help people in some way. So my promise to you is that I will be here working non-stop trying to find the most useful and inspirational content and opportunities that I can to help all of you with your own escapes.

Life is too short to not spend it doing something you love. And if you don’t know what you love, then that is precisely why we’re here. Browse our hero stories, contact them, watch our videos, follow our links, find business partners, apply for amazing jobs around the world… We are trying to help everyone in as many ways as we can think of with the things that we know would have helped us when we were looking for that inspiration, so please always e-mail me with any feedback, suggestions or questions.

In fact I’d really like to get an e-mail right now. mike@escapethecity.org just say “hi”, just one word. Or even tell me your life story; I’d love to hear it.

EscapeTheCity loves you

All the best

Mikey

No related posts.

Key bits from Anything You Want by Derek Sivers

Team Esc — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 12:32:27 +0000

Last night I stayed up until 3am reading this book. It was fantastic, buy it and read it today. I liked it so much that I sent Derek an e-mail thanking him for writing it immediately after I finished it (at 3am). I actually got a very nice reply back. Its only a short one but it is packed full of really inspirational stuff about the creation of CDBaby the independent music company, and some amazing anecdotes which I can’t really capture here without rewriting the whole book. Here are some key extracts:

Inspirational

Business is not about money. It’s about making dreams come true for others and for yourself.
Making a company is a great way to improve the world while improving yourself.
Never do anything just for the money.
The real point of doing anything is to be happy, so do only what makes you happy.
When you make it a dream come true for yourself, it’ll be a dream come true for someone else too.
Please don’t think you need a huge vision. Just stay focused on helping people today.
I started this as a hobby to help my friends, and that’s the only reason it exists.
Never forget why you’re really doing what you’re doing.
Your company should be willing to die for your customers.
Please know that its often the tiny details that really thrill people enough to make them tell their friends about you.
If you find even the smallest way to make people smile, they’ll remember you more for that smile than for all your fancy business-model stuff. Check this out http://sivers.org/squid
Over ten years, it seemed like every time someone raved about how much they loved CD Baby, it was because of one of these little fun human touches.

Customers

Never forget that absolutely everything you do is for your customers
If you’re ever unsure what to prioritize, just ask your customers the open-ended question, “How can I best help you now?” Then focus on satisfying those requests.
Just thrill them (customers) and they’ll tell everyone.
If you set up your business like you don’t need the money, people are happier to pay you.
When someone’s doing something for love, being generous instead of stingy, trusting instead of fearful, it triggers this law: We want to give to those who give.

Funding

Starting with no money is an advantage. You don’t need money to start helping people.
Having no funding was a huge advantage for me.
I’m so glad I didn’t have investors. I didn’t have to please anybody but my customers and myself. No effort spent on anything but my customers.
I’d say, “No. I want my business to be smaller, not bigger.”
By not having money to waste, you never waste money.
Necessity is a great teacher.
Your idea doesn’t need funding to start. (You also don’t need an MBA, a particular big client, a certain person’s endorsement, a lucky break, or any other common excuse to start).
(On not getting funding) When you sign up to a marathon, you don’t want a taxi to take you to the finish line.
Business Plans
Your business plan is moot. You don’t know what people really want until you start doing it.
A business plan should never take more than a few hours of work. Hopefully not more than a few minutes.

Advertising

On having no advertising on CDBaby’s website – “No way. Out of the question. That would be like putting a coke machine in a monastery. I’m not doing this to make money.”