Stop Dreaming, Start Planning

Tell us what your business does

Rob — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:20:50 +0000

We were excited to be asked to share our story with startups.co.uk in their Just started column. Feels like we’ve been doing this for ages but I suppose in the big scheme of things we have only just started (and are still building) Esc. You can check out the original interview here. What would you like to know about Escape the City? Bounce us a question in the comments at the bottom.

Tell us what your business does

We lead a community of ‘city’ professionals working in high-flying but ultimately unfulfilling corporate jobs. Our platform connects people for exciting career changes, innovative start-ups and epic adventures, for those who want to ‘do something different’. Our philosophy is based on the belief that there is more to life than doing work that doesn’t matter to you.

Dom being photographed in Esc HQ

Where did the idea for your business come from?

Like lots of start-ups, our business idea came from us living through an experience, thinking ‘hang on, I wish the world didn’t work like this’ and then setting out to do something about it. We both worked as management consultants in the city and bonded over a shared feeling of ‘there must be more to life than this’.

We realised that there were many other people that felt the same as us but that there wasn’t anything out there that genuinely helped people make the leap from mainstream corporate jobs to something more unconventional and exciting. From that point the decision to do something about it was relatively straightforward.

How did you know there was a market for it?

We have built the exact concept that we wished existed a year ago. We know there is a market because we built it for the thousands of young corporate professionals who feel exactly the same way as we do.

Countless evenings spent moaning in the pub and lunch-breaks plotting escape plans convinced us that people would flock to our platform if we solved the problem in the right way.

Borrowed from NomadicNation.org

What’s your USP (unique selling point)?

There’s no one doing what we’re doing in the way that we’re doing it! If you’re four years into a banking, law, or accountancy career and you want to go and do something different it makes perfect sense to join us because you won’t find most of the opportunities on our site anywhere else.

Our USP to our clients is that we offer exciting organisations access to a talented and experienced community of ambitious professionals. These people aren’t in the job market looking for jobs. They’re working in blue-chip firms and they’re looking to keep their options open. It is very hard for organisations to reach them.

Have you always wanted to run your own business?

We have both always thought that starting a business would be a very rewarding experience. The most appealing things about being your own boss are having independence and control, and the exposure to a huge variety of areas.

What planning did you do before you started up?

We did lots of research online. Being ex-management consultants we made lots of PowerPoint decks outlining our plans. I would call them project plans rather than business plans. We believe that there’s no better way to develop a business plan than to begin building. Before you have started it’s all just conjecture. Start, start small, but start, then figure out the business plan. Granted this might not work for all businesses – but it has worked for us because ours is a community and a movement first, and a business second.

How did you raise the money?

We haven’t raised any money. We’ve bootstrapped from the beginning.

What challenges have you faced and how have you overcome them?

Learning about website development has been a big, but enjoyable, challenge. Other than that, the confidence to keep going through the early stages when everyone thought we were mad.

How have you promoted your business?

We emailed 100 friends when we launched our blog (which was online for a few months before our website). Amazingly the word has really spread from there. We now have more than 15,000 members, which goes to show that word-of-mouth is incredibly effective.

Good PR is also a great promotional tool and is the only other means we have used to promote our business. We’ve been written up in the Evening Standard, the Financial Times, Time.com, and the Sunday Times Style Magazine.

How much do you charge? How did you decide this?

Our site is free to join for individuals, but we’re still working out what our pricing model is for organisations. It’s trial-and-error really. We offer organisations two ways of listing opportunities on our site. We’re working out what works best and the implications of each option (pay-up-front or pay-on-success). We might continue to offer both.

What has your growth been like?

Growth in terms of members has been really exciting. We’ve got 15,000 members and it’s increasing at the rate of about 1,000 new members a month. We’re ahead of target with the membership and should have 20,000 by the end of the year, which is double what we hoped to have.

We’re profitable enough to pay our living expenses. We have really limited costs other than our time and a little bit of website development work. Anything from this point onwards is pure upside which is nice.

What’s the impact on your home life been like?

Very positive. We’re way happier than we ever were when working for someone else. Obviously curtailing your spending for a while till you can support yourself is a consideration. However, it is more than compensated by building something that you’re passionate about.

What would you say the greatest difficulty has been in starting up?

Persuading other people that it would work before we had actually built it. For a variety of reasons people are risk averse, cynical, or pessimistic. Sometimes it is for really good reasons, and sometimes they’re just grinches. Proving people wrong is fun!

What was your first big breakthrough?

Perhaps it was having a half-page spread in the Evening Standard a couple of weeks after launching our site.. That and getting a call from Innocent Smoothies asking whether they could list opportunities on our site. Oh, and most importantly, successfully helping dozens of people escape unfulfilling city jobs in order to find work that makes them tick (Mayfair hedge-funder to Mozambique beach lodge manager is a great example, as is the bloke now clearing mines in Cambodia with the Halo Trust).

What would you do differently and what have you learnt?

We have learnt absolutely masses. We’ve learnt that you should just start, and tweak as you go. We’ve learnt that if you focus on solving a real world problem and do it effectively that the rest of the business will often fall into place.

We write a blog which tracks what we’re learning: http://blog.escapethecity.org/

What advice would you give to budding entrepreneurs?

Start. Start Small. But Start. (that’s stolen from Innocent’s book – but it’s great advice!) Listen to everyone. Incorporate all inputs into your idea and then be brave and determined enough to execute your vision.

Where do you want to be in five years’ time? Do you have an exit plan?

We’re not growing this for sale. We want to solve a problem. As long as Escape the City continues to do that we’re happy. In due course we’ll look to step away from the day-to-day running of the business and perhaps get some young corporate escapees to come in and manage it for us.

We want to be the place for corporate professionals in their 20s and 30s to plan exciting, unconventional paths through life.

Most job descriptions are boring

Rob — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 12:29:05 +0000

I have just spent two hours cruising the internet looking for jobs. I’ve been on the Guardian’s job site, I’ve been on Charityjobs, I’ve been on Third Sector jobs, I’ve been on the Times job section. And I’ve come to the conclusion…

Most job descriptions are SO boring.

Even what could end up being relatively interesting positions are killed by boring, functional job titles and mind-numbing descriptions:

Account Management, Business Development, Project Manager…

WHAT DO THESE WORDS MEAN?!

What would the job actually entail? Sell it to me. If you want my attention and you want me to apply… sell the opportunity to me. No wonder people searching for their dream job online end up pulling their hair out in frustration.

A couple of other things spring to based on my frustrating morning:

don’t cruise job boards looking for an amazing job – you won’t find it
work out who you would like to work for an approach them directly
don’t worry if they’re not hiring
explain why you would like to work for them and why
ask for a ‘meeting’, an interview, whatever…

Check out another post we wrote called: How to get an interview when your dream company isn’t hiring

Oh, and keep an eye on Esc’s Opportunities Zone – we filter for quality and interesting jobs so you don’t have to! Which sees me spending my morning searching for exciting opportunities and often finding none!

—————————————————————————

And here’s a Wordle that I made of the messages on Esc’s front page:

I also think this ad is damn funny:

“Sardine Profitable”

Rob — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 13:27:25 +0000

Dom always bangs on about how he looks forward to the day when he can stop eating sardines out of a tin. This blog post is dedicated to that aspiration! Oh, and that’s me eating my tuna sandwich lunch today on Dom’s balcony.

A Leap of Faith

Quitting your job to start a business is scary at the best of times. Starting something that you want to build as a movement, a philosophy and a community first, and a sustainable business venture second is very scary indeed.

It’s not like going into business selling widgets (which obviously comes with its own challenges). By this I mean, it doesn’t conform to a traditional business model. With a traditional business you have a product and you have costs, if you price your product right and you sell enough units you’ll be making money straightaway (or at least you’ll have revenue).

In a roundabout way our business model does now conform to traditional business laws as well. However, the leap of faith that we took was particularly worrisome because it involved committing to something that we would only know whether it would work if we committed 100% (i.e. if we quit our jobs to do it) and executed on our vision. There could be no half measures.

We needed a community before we even had the option of making the concept sustainable. And to assemble a community around our concept we had to work. HARD. With no immediate promise of cashflow.

Chicken and Egg

We started with the problem we wanted to solve: namely that there are 1000′s of talented corporate professionals out there who want to do something different (we were two of them a year ago).

There are so many people searching for work that makes them tick and so little that actually helps them. We always knew there would be huge value if we managed to build something that people actually wanted to use to help them transition away from corporate jobs that they didn’t like.

But we also knew that we could only have a fully functioning concept if we actually had members! Without a strong member base to back us up we would have been selling an empty promise.

Imagine going to Spotify and saying “I represent a website that helps talented people escape the city and join cool companies like yours, do you want to list your opportunities with us?” Them saying: “Sounds interesting, how many users do you have?” And us saying: “Hmmm, 34 at the moment, but we’re getting there!”. Not cool.

For the bulk of 2010 so far our challenge has been: ‘How to attract members to our concept before actively approaching exciting organisations to list their cool opportunities on our site?’ Hence the chicken and egg scenario.

This isn’t intended to be smug (we’ll tell you about the Smug-O-Meter [TM] in another blog post) and is more of a ‘phew’ moment of relief. At the time of writing this post we are 6 members short of 15,000 aspiring escapees. 12 months ago there were 2 of us!

Creating Some Gravity

We needed to get to a point where opportunities began coming to us. We wanted to build a reputation. In a year of big challenges that has been the biggest. Without a flow of opportunities we wouldn’t be able to get sustainable and there would soon be no Esc.

It’s early days but we are now at that “Sardine Profitable” stage (see below for a definition). Every week lots of interesting opportunities come through and the best make it onto the site. We’re lucky that we have an amazing community full of corporate prisoners who are actively using the site to find their next move. Organisations recognise this and that’s how we are able to keep it all sustainable.

So 12 months after starting a blog, 10 months after being on Esc full-time and 6 months after our main site going live we can now afford Tuna sandwiches!

It Can Be Done

I suppose one of the really exciting things about what we’ve done over the past 12 months is to prove that it is possible. Neither Dom nor I had any experience of building communities, structuring complete websites (well Dom had a bit), running job boards, marketing, sales, PR, etc… the list is sadly rather long!

But, reflecting on what we’ve built, if we can do it – then lots of other people can too.

The other thing is that by resigning from jobs that weren’t fulfilling us and taking a leap into the unknown we have exposed ourselves to situations that we never would have otherwise encountered. And here’s the really satisfying part: we are both agreed that even if Esc never made us a bean and we had to go and find another job the whole experience will still have been worth it.

Although happily, current indications suggest that we might not have to do that for the time-being… Thanks for reading and thanks for helping us get here.

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PS. Original term and definition from Paul Graham: ‘Ramen Profitable’:

“Ramen profitable means a startup makes just enough to pay the founders’ living expenses. This is a different form of profitability than startups have traditionally aimed for. Traditional profitability means a big bet is finally paying off, whereas the main importance of ramen profitability is that it buys you time.”

http://www.paulgraham.com/ramenprofitable.html

Welcome to the new blog – Stop Dreaming, Start Planning

Dom — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 07:22:53 +0000

Less than 12 months ago EsctheCity.com was launched with no more than a rather basic blue blog. A straight-out-of-the-wrapper type blog. The type you look back on and think ‘what were we thinking?!’

We also had a load of PowerPoint slides outlining our vague aim to build a “community of like-minded people who believed there was more to life than working in the City”. Rob and I agreed we’d ‘soft launch’ the blog by sending it out to 30 people. (It later transpired that he had actually sent it to everyone he’d ever got an email from!) –

Early interest

At first the blog was a bit of a catch-all for anything we found interesting and relevant (well almost) in terms of escaping the “City”. There was my escape diary, Rob’s brilliant ‘How to’s’ and the comical rants from our very own ‘City Boy’. We also somehow managed to get a piece on Forbes.com!

Despite its shortcomings it served us very well and we quickly grew a following. By December 2009 we had our first 1,000 fans and it was at this stage we realised we’d better have a proper crack at it.

The next phase

So, with a tiny bit of cash saved we packed in our jobs and decided to give it a go. We worked full time and developed a brand new site. With a little help from our friend Chris Buckle the new site went live in March 2010.

The new direction

So nearly 1 year after the first blog was written here is the new blog. Rather than a catch-all career change / advice blog we’ve decided we’re going to use it as our opportunity to narrate the story behind the building of Escape the City.org. It will contain all the latest news along with it the highs, the lows, the things we learn and the things we fail to learn!

We hope that it may inspire others to also take the leap, show others that it is possible, share our learnings and of course entertain those who remain sceptical!

If you too are interested, join us on our journey.

Welcome to our new blog!

20 practical ways to plan your start-up while you’re in your job

Rob — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 18:49:02 +0000

Here is an incomplete list of some things that that we have learnt over the past 10 months of getting Esc off the ground. There’s a lot more to it than this list and lots of these points deserve further explanation. What do you reckon?

1. Evolve the idea – sit on it, think about it in the shower, on the tube, on your weekends because it will undoubtedly change A LOT while you do.

2. Speak to people who know more than you

3. Listen politely to the people who don’t ‘get’ what you’re trying to achieve – even if they’re completely off the mark with their advice – there is a lesson there – probably in terms of how you are communicating your concept…

4. Find a partner – someone who you work really well with – you can’t underestimate how much easier (and more fun) this is than going it alone

5. Search the internet – really search it (we’re still finding sites that we wish we had seen ages ago)

6. Save money for when you really need it (even if it is just £10 per week or all the way up to your entire salary bar the essentials)

7. Check 123 reg for the domain name and register it. Even if you’re not set on the name – it’s a few pounds and you’ll regret it if it gets take

8. Read these essays by Paul Graham: 1) What start-ups are really like, 2) The 18 mistakes the kill start-ups, and 3) How to start a start-up

9. Go to Companies House and buy the company name (you don’t have to do any tax stuff or accounts until you properly start trading)

10. Start a blog about your concept and develop your ideas in public (uncomfortable at times but worth it in terms of how it develops your thinking)

11. Use the blog, Twitter, Facebook, etc to reach out to people in the same space – share ideas and information with them – you’ll be surprised at how willing people are to help.

12. Write a pretend business plan just to test some of the concepts – does it feel doable? Realistic? Would you be comfortable showing it to someone?

13. Read absolutely masses. Buy lots of books (go to the library / use the internet if you’re on a budget). When you read something relevant (or not even that relevant) and you’ve got your idea in the back of your mind – great things can happen

14. Arrange meetings with friends of friends who might be able to help you – there’s a certain point beyond which you’ve got to stop taking advice and start executing. But at the beginning this is really valuable

15. Realise that no one can give you permission but yourself – this is really important – so many of us want approval from others before we start. It’s better to ask forgiveness than to beg for permission.

16. Seth Godin. For some empowering inspiration read Seth’s blog (with your idea in the back of your head)

17. Don’t worry about your lack of experience – naivety and passion is not to be underestimated – you won’t be limited by the dogma and limitations of other peoples’ thinking

18. Start with the problem you’re trying to solve – understand it – then work out the solution – the best businesses do it this way round (rather than having an amazing product and being convinced that there is a need for it)

19. Don’t worry if your idea doesn’t conform to an established product or service – invent your own (ok, I stole this one from gapingvoid.com but it’s great advice)… with the technologies we have access to today there is NO SET WAY of doing things

20. Finally – keep the business model simple…. this is slightly contradictory to the previous point… innovate the hell out of your product or service but, when it comes to getting paid for what you’re doing, stick to tried and tested means. There are a lot of business models out there. Pretty much everything has been tried before. Don’t go way out on a limb with a new way of getting cash out of your prospective clients’ pockets!

What else? We’re still learning – will let you know how it goes…

Are You Indispensable?

Rob — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 11:26:06 +0000

Don’t pick a job that likes cogs.
Don’t pick a job that insists on advanced degrees.
Don’t look for safety.
Fail often.
Fail in public.
Try to find things people will criticize.
Learn from your mistakes, with eagerness.
Do difficult emotional labor that others fear.
Be generous.
Connect.

Have fun!

Essential Tips for Surviving a Bad Boss While Planning Your Escape

Rob — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 12:13:52 +0000

Work nightmare. Your boss is crazy person. We can’t say it any other way.

Some of the most successful careers I’ve witnessed have been born of women who are able to overcome one of the scariest situations – the very bad boss. It’s not an easy process – it requires focusing more time and attention on on a very frustrating situation, and hardest of all, taking yourself out of the vortex of victimhood.

Yes. Victimhood. I would make the case that bad bosses can be a choice. They will ruin your life ONLY if you let them. To prevent that happening, you can start by answering these 4 questions:

1. Who’s the bad one – really? This question requires some brutal honesty. Bad bosses do exist but most managers aren’t critical, bullying, withholding etc with people they like. If your boss is being a thorn in your side, the first thing you need to do is ask yourself if there is something about your performance or attitude is engendering that behaviour.

2. What’s the future for your boss? – In other words, how much do you trust your company? If they’re any good, they know about your bad boss and are working on an exit strategy. This process is likely to take longer than you want it to, so focus your energy on keeping your head down and doing a good job. It’s a different situation if your company tolerates bad behaviour…read on.

3. Do you want to work for a company that tolerates bad bosses? – The simple answer should be no. I don’t know of anyone who likes the idea of giving half her waking hours, if not more, to an organisation she doesn’t respect. But, if the company you’re working at is really the only gig in town for time being, there’s just one question left to ask yourself…

4. What is your password? – If you decide to stay working for a bad boss, you can come up with a password that lets you into an emotional place where you do not ride your bad boss experience like a roller coaster. It might be something like “This too will pass” or “I cannot have it all, all at the same time”. With a password you’ll still have bad days but you’ll take yourself out of the vortex of victimhood.

No one can take your happiness or your success away.

Tamarisk Saunders-Davies is the founder of Two Chairs Counselling, a niche therapy practice that helps women whose lives look great on paper but suck in real life figure out how to have happier, more fulfilling lives.

How To Find A Job You Love

Rob — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 10:37:36 +0000

We all know what the perfect job is. It’s highly-paid, well-respected, high-profile, intellectually stimulating and emotionally rewarding. We also know that isn’t our job.

We read the career biographies of famous musicians, actors, sportsstars, charity crusaders, politicians, celebrities and all-conqueringentrepreneur CEOs. We watch people fight for a dream job on TheApprentice. We see people energetically and passionately overcoming obstacles and achieving their ambitions and dreams. And yet we never seem to get to do any of this.

This class is designed to help you think about what you really want from your working life and what you want to do for a living. We start by looking at the factors that shape our career choices – from family background to personality tests – and whether these help or hinder our search for new opportunities.

We’ll explore what a meaningful job would really look like – one that does more than just pay the bills and instead expands our personal horizons. Should we be pursuing money or status? How important is it to have a job that embodies your personal values or that uses your talents? Is it better to be a generalist or a specialist – a wide achiever or a high achiever? Will your dream job really be as satisfying as you make it out to be?

http://www.theschooloflife.com/Classes/How-to-Find-a-Job-You-Love

How to land your dream job

Rob — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 18:09:59 +0000

With the downturn in the market, not only are job seekers aiming to escape the city they are seeking alternative careers. Any career change has a risk element, but it also presents you with an opportunity to reinvent yourself and focus on skill sets you may not have used, or don’t realise you actually have.

How To Land Your Dream Job

One key advantage the market now has is that companies are being more adventurous in looking at the transferrable skills prospective employees possess. For example, they know they have a bigger pool of candidates, but in tough economic times there is an indication that they want much more for their money and are looking at people with a wider skill set, who can work across a number of areas.

This is a key advantage for the job seekers who are looking at changing careers. Everyone has transferrable skills of great use to employers in different industry sectors.

Alex, a recent client at The Successful CV Company, came to us for career coaching. She had worked in the competitive and highly pressured arena of corporate consulting, for blue chip multinationals and was feeling pretty burnt out after 25 years focusing on for-profit companies. Alex was now ready to do more in the direction of ‘giving something back’.

Together we focused on her areas of personal interest, the life/work balance she was now aiming for and fulfilling her need of doing something for the greater good. We then packaged together her transferrable skills, which included:

Professional & Personal skill set

Her ability to meet ever changing needs
Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
A well honed resilience working within time- critical environments
Proven team player
Having a persuasive and confident nature
Extensive knowledge and business contacts within blue chip organisations
A can do attitude, with an ability to communicate at all levels
Solution focused, adept at problem solving
Energetic and enthusiastic
Key skills in supporting and motivating a team

Whilst there were many other facets to Alex’s skills set, we focused on common denominators which would package well to prospective employers, in particular the charity sector which Alex was now sure she wanted to move into.

In Alex’s case, these key skills were perfect in marketing herself to charities for corporate fundraising roles. Through assignments I gave her, she was able to target the charities she most wanted to work for, and cold prospected her wish list. Within 9 weeks Alex had had 2 face to face interviews, 3 telephone conversations with senior individuals within 3 different charities, and then was offered what she describes as her ‘dream job’ for one of the UK’s leading charities.

An important aspect of Alex’s experience is that these were job opportunities not even advertised. A great example of someone creating their own desired outcome!

Alex made a decision to change; planned a step-by-step route to that change – incorporating specific goals and a time plan, and then executed all of these to reach a successful outcome.

She illustrated the need for making and sticking to a decision, having a well thought out plan and committing to making it happen. It’s interesting to note that Alex fed back to me that initially she thought that it was going to be really hard, but as the plan was forming she realised that it was entirely possible, which only added to her enthusiasm and excitement to her future.

If you are now at a place ready to create change; a simple way to start, is to list items in key areas:

The things you love to do
The aspects you are good at
Your personal qualities
Your specific work experience
The dream organisations you would want to work for

Then write down how 1+ 2 + 3 + 4 are transferrable to 5.

If you are having difficulties in identifying what you think you are good at and what you think your personal qualities are, then a great exercise is to ask 3-5 friends to write down their opinions of (2) and (3). It’s really interesting the feedback friends can give, and they of course can sometimes know you better than you know yourself.

You are ready to start targeting the dream organisations you want to work for. You now have all the tools to maximise your successful career development campaign!

Elizabeth Bacchus is a Career Coach, Change Management Consultant and Founder of The Successful CV Company www.thesuccessfulcv.com

10 things we believe #1

Rob — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 14:45:18 +0000

Escape the City provides exciting options for young professionals who want to do something different.

Escape the City is not about leaving your job and cruising off around the world on a permanent holiday. It is about taking the skills you have learnt in the corporate sector and using them to do worthwhile things elsewhere.

When we decided to start Esc we sat down and made a list of 100 things that we believe. The 100 things that have led us to start this website.

Here are 10 of them (the others will follow over the coming weeks):

We believe that…

1. We believe that life is too short to spend the middle chunk of it doing something that doesn’t really matter to you.

2. We believe that it is a crying shame that so many young people are spending the best years of their lives doing things that don’t make them happy

3. We believe that your twenties are when you have the freedom to try different things, to work in different jobs, to explore, and to take risks

4. We believe that you don’t have to live your life the way other people tell you to

5. We believe that you’re not mad if you’ve got what seems like ‘a perfectly good job’ and you realise that you no longer want to be doing it.

6. We believe that lots of young professionals want to change their lives and jobs but they’re not sure how

7. We believe that large professional corporations, institutions and companies are increasingly struggling to satisfy the aspirations of the 20 something generation currently at the beginning of their careers

8. We believe that many corporate workplaces are filled with outdated working practices developed in a previous business era

9. We believe that work is changing (for the better)

10. We believe that careers are changing (for the better)

What do you think about this list?

What do you believe?

What does escaping the city mean to you?

Rob — Tue, 25 May 2010 11:47:59 +0000

“We are defined by the jobs we choose. Escape the City have successfully diagnosed that, for a host of reasons (parental pressure, status anxiety, the feeling of time at one’s back), many people choose jobs that leave them dramatically under-fulfilled and under-stimulated. “The City” is thus defined not in geographical or occupational terms – but as a state-of-mind; and Rob and Dom are keen to argue that the symptoms of this state-of-mind (powerlessness, a sense of entrapment) can haunt the rock-star as easily as it can the shipbroker. Their posted Opportunities; their invitations to connect with like-minded people; more than that, the whole camaraderie of perceiving that there are others who feel as you do all help to facilitate and lubricate City escape routes. I think it’s absolutely fantastic.”

Will Orr-Ewing - Keystone Tutors.

Thanks Will! What does escape the city mean to you? To me it means:

“Surely there is more to life than doing work that doesn’t matter to you?”

It’s all about the money

Rob — Fri, 21 May 2010 13:36:24 +0000

Ultimately, your escape plan is doomed unless you have a proper ‘money plan’ in place. Dom and I have experienced this through our own escapes. We both have plans in place to help us survive the period between quitting our jobs and Esc paying for itself. I save on rent by living at home and I make ends meet by tutoring. Dom stayed in his job for longer, saving up a parachute fund to keep him going until we begin making money. He is also sub-letting his room in Wimbledon to Venus Williams’ hitting partner – but that’s another story.

The point is – money has the potential to derail plans in a big way

I was reminded of this lesson this week when 5 mates and I almost became the proud owners of a Bristol VR double decker bus. Those of you who have been following Esc from the beginning might remember our very first blog post:

Why everyone should have a ‘Double Decker Bus Savings Account’

Basically, the six of us having been saving £10 per week into a joint account. We recently got to the stage where we thought we had enough money to invest our hard-saved cash and buy our dream vehicle.

We do almost have enough money to buy a bus. Sadly, we didn’t have enough money to buy this bus (the ideal bus for us). In any case, the situation was that we were each going to have to stump up a fair amount of cash on top of what we have in our savings account to buy this beauty. Obviously everyone has to be on board for us to go ahead with the purchase. Due to a recent fire in one guy’s house and the fact that another might be moving to Brazil shortly (both very good reasons), we were unable to stump up the cash. The Bus Fund (TM) lives to fight another day (watch this space for a potentially prettier purchase!).

What this experience showed me was that it’s all about the money.

Make a proper money plan

One of the main excuses people use for not leaving jobs they hate is money. “I can’t leave this job because I need my salary”. Duh. Of course you need your salary, everyone needs some form of income. What some people don’t realise is that there are options other than staying in a job you hate simply because of the money question:

Save some of your salary to provide you with a parachute fund (a float) until you have an income again (like Dom)
Work out how to cut out your rent (most peoples’ biggest expense) – sub-let, stay with friends, move home (like Rob)
Take on part-time work, consultancy work, freelance work, or contractual work while you transition to your new plan
Line up another job while you’re in your current one – jump from one salary to another
Work on your business while you’re in your current job – only leave when the revenue streams are clear / working

What we’ve learnt from building Escape the City and talking to masses of people who have transitioned to a new business or career or adventure: You can have the best idea in the world, but if the money side of things isn’t water-tight your plan will fail. So don’t confuse the Escape the City philosophy with a ‘quit-your-job-and-sail-off-into-the-sunset-without-worrying-about-money’ mentality.

We say worry about money but act on it too.

Beach Life, Eco-Tourism: “So where next?”

Rob — Thu, 20 May 2010 10:50:58 +0000

“So where next?”

It was September 1st 2006. We’d just welcomed the ‘first footers’ onto Vorovoro’s golden sands and Tui Mali had accepted our offer of the tabua (whales tooth) as our social contract with his community. We had begun.

I’m not sure who had asked the question but it stuck in the back of my mind.

Finding Vorovoro has changed a lot of things. And I know I’m not the only one.

But finding another Vorovoro wasn’t a priority on that perfect day in September. Our job was to build Vorovoro and we committed ourselves to a minimum of three years.

It worked. Not easily, but it did work. The project is ongoing and, although some months are slower – even in Fiji – than others, it’s a way of life now. Hopefully for a long time yet. Claire’s recent Vorovoro report sums up why it was worth it.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guf4a8p5IE8

But how did I go from an island in Fiji to a beach in Sierra Leone?

As we celebrated our three year birthday on Vorovoro last year I finally started to look seriously where we might go next. It wasn’t for lack of offers.

I’ve kept a special file in my inbox marked Tribewanted II. It’s where I procrastinate.

People still find it difficult to describe what Tribewanted is. Here’s where I think we’re at: “Our mission is to build and sustain cross-cultural communities in beautiful places that benefit locals and visitors; inspiring positive change within and far beyond the village.”

So with this clearly in mind I clicked through the ‘Tribewanted II’ file….Sierra Leone wasn’t there. But soon I was.

Last year a good friend invited me to visit his football academy and school in Ghana. There he told me about a similar project he was managing in Sierra Leone. I made the short journey with him to Freetown and quickly fell for this chaotic, charming, beautiful country.

Later in the year I was introduced to an Italian living in New York who worked in Sierra Leone. I know, I know. But this is how these things work. Filippo Bozotti made a film called ‘Bling’ – blood diamonds and hip-hop – and had been fundraising and supporting mircrofinance, education and computer literacy through the Shine on Sierra Leone foundation. Filippo was keen to bring a new kind of tourist to Sierra Leone and was looking for the right model.

A natural partnership formed and in Janaury this year Filippo, myself and a local partner – Dr.Michel Sho Sawyer – met in Freetown to see what might be possible.

Three months later we had secured a long-term agreement for a few acres of land at my favourite beach – John Obey – on the awesome Freetown peninsula and burgeoning relationship with the local community.

Right now – as we share this opportunity for the first time with our members and beyond – I’m as excited as I was when we first found Vorovoro.

Four years later, ‘where we went next’ has finally arrived. http://sierraleone.tribewanted.com/

Get Involved – Stand Up Paddle from Bath to London…

Rob — Thu, 20 May 2010 09:30:02 +0000

Esc is proud to strongly recommend that you join a couple of British Adventurers “on the Water for a 150 Mile Charity Challenge Between Bath and London.” If ever there was a photo that encapsulates Esc in an image this would be it… love the look on the kayaker’s face!

Between June 2^nd and June 8^th 2010 British Adventurers Dave Cornthwaite and Sarah Outen will take to the water and Stand Up Paddle between Bath and London, a distance of 150 miles. The two are not strangers to this sort of journey, last year Sarah rowed over 4000 miles across the Indian Ocean, and in April 2011 will begin a global circumnavigation from London to London, Via the World! Dave had paddled the length of Australia’s longest river and in 2006 he broke the world record for skateboarding further than anyone else, ever! He’s also planning a world distance record on a Stand Up Paddleboard in 2011.

The pair’s journey will start at Bath’s Top Lock at 10am on Wednesday 2^nd June, following the length of the Kennet & Avon canal via Devizes, Pewsey, Hungerford and Reading, before paddling onto the Thames and making their way to London. They will finish at lunchtime by paddling underneath Tower Bridge.

We’d like to invite members of your club to join Sarah and Dave for a stretch of their journey as we pass through your neighbourhood. You could paddle in canoes, kayaks or on Stand Up Paddleboards, or even walk, run or cycle alongside. We’d like everyone joining us to help us raise some funds for our charities.

Dave and Sarah are big supporters of The Blue Mile project. A Blue Mile is a mile travelled on or by the water. If each paddler aims to raise £10 per Blue Mile paddled with Dave and Sarah this would be absolutely wonderful. We are aiming for a total of 1000 Blue Miles and if we achieve our target, this will mean we’ve raised at least £7000 for our charities, which would be amazing!

All donations and sponsorships should be donated online at www.justgiving.com/greatbigpaddle

Finally, Dave and Sarah will be supported by a small and very fun team who will be making a documentary and taking photos of the event. We’d love to hold fundraising events each evening and if you’d be interested in organising one, please take a look at the schedule on www.thegreatbigpaddle.com and get in touch. We’re also organising where can stay each evening, so any help with this would be greatly appreciated!

This event is all about getting people on the water and promoting exercise, water sports and a passion for the environment, so the more people who take part, the better!

We hope you can be involved, and look forward to hearing back from you.

Best wishes

The Bath2London 2010 Team

Email: hello@thegreatbigpaddle.com
Tel: 07872 986084
For full details of the event, please visit www.thegreatbigpaddle.com
To find out more about Sarah, visit www.sarahouten.co.uk
And to learn more about Dave, visit www.davecornthwaite.co.uk

Our Charities

The AV Foundation boosts the quality of school education in several African countries. Funds raised through The Great Big Paddle will be used to install solar and drinking water projects into these schools and their communities.

CoppaFeel works hard to ensure that breast cancer is detected sooner, rather than later. The disease knows no age and has no discrimination, and CoppaFeel encourages healthy conversation and awareness about breast cancer and surrounding issues.

In the footsteps of Captain Scott

Rob — Fri, 14 May 2010 14:21:16 +0000

“I saw you on the telly” screeched the voice from two checkouts over. Everyone looked up. “yeah, you were towing tyres or something training to walk to the North Pole”. My cheeks flushed deep scarlet; unless Ben Saunders was standing at the next checkout, she’d picked the wrong end of the globe, but her comments were directed at me.

She waited until my shopping was being scanned and I was packing, and then came over to chat. I have to admit that initially I was quite chuffed really, that is until she said “Yeah, you’ve got a right cushy life. You go on holiday and do stuff you want to do and talk other people into paying for it all” Not so chuffed.

“Right cushy life”? Is that what the public at large really think? I have to admit, it bothered me.

A big thank you to Justin Miles from LastGreatChallenge.com for this article talking about his experiences of fund-raising and planning for a HUGE adventure. Please do get in touch with them if you know of any way in which you could help their project. They are going after Captain Scott’s prize (the first unsupported journey to and from the South Pole) and deserve our support for a monumental effort thus far.

Doing something different

Becoming a full time ‘adventurer’, for me, has been my dream for a little over ten years. A good career in the fitness industry came to a very abrupt halt when I had a car accident in 1999. The resulting brain injuries left me unable to walk or talk properly and the prognosis was for a very long and probably incomplete recovery. As I sat for hour after agonizing hour with nothing to distract me from the boredom and frustration I had nothing to assist my escape but my own imagination and I started to daydream; I dreamt of one day becoming a full time adventurer, seeing everything that the world has to offer and helping a few good causes along the way. Then I realised that if other people could do it, the likes of Ranulph Fiennes, then so could I. I turned my dream into a tangible objective, set goals along the way, then set about turning my dream into a reality.

Ten years passed quite quickly, and when I met John Wilton-Davies in an Exeter coffee shop we hit it off straight away. By the end of our ninety minute meeting we’d decided to embark on a polar expedition together, to be the first people to walk unsupported from the coast of Antarctica to the Pole and back. The expedition, which will also become the longest unsupported polar journey in history, has been named the ‘Last Great Challenge’.

Making a plan

The first meeting was the easiest day that John and I have had ever since. From that day on, we really found out about the amount of dedication, perseverance, hard work, long hours, heartbreak and joy that pulling off an expedition like this involves.

Many expeditions get involved with raising funds for a charity, but we wanted to do much more than present our chosen charity, the British Heart Foundation, with a chunky cheque.

We chose to work with the BHF because as well as their endless work to research and treat cardiac disease, they’re also heavily involved with programmes focusing on disease prevention through encouraging people to adopt healthy diet and exercise habits – something that resonates with our own beliefs and the work that I’ve been involved with since the age of 14.

A massive amount of thought, planning and a humongous amount of work has gone into developing the ‘Great Heart Challenge’, a national schools health and fitness initiative which is promoted to c38,000 schools across the UK and encompasses a sponsored event (for the BHF), healthy lifestyle promotion, and activity or exercise based around an ‘adventure’ theme.

On top of the GHC we also have an education programme which uses activity based learning exercises to support curriculum subjects. This learning programme is visible to a growing number of schools across the UK which currently stands at around 9,000.

The hardest part

When we get to the Antarctic, all we have to do is walk. The journey is a long one, and it’s cold, and the load is heavy, and I’m really not underestimating the enormity of the task ahead, but all we have to do is walk. My current eighteen hour days (all seven in every week) usually consist of working on the Great Heart Challenge, working on the education initiative, loads of work trying to generate publicity opportunities and sponsor hunting.

Hunting down sponsors isn’t easy in this economic climate and takes a massive amount of work. Many companies have stopped allocating budgets for sponsorship, and more still have cut back on their spending in the area dramatically.

Then we get a plethora of responses to our sponsorship enquires: “How visible is a polar expedition likely to be?” type of response from some as they look down their noses, preferring instead to sponsor a local club level sportsman, or a Formula One racing car. Then sometimes, we introduce the fact that our Great Heart Challenge will be visible to 38,000UK schools, followed by press and media including the BBC, and there’s an adult version currently running through the national chain of Spirit Health Clubs, and the education programme – then we get the response “Far too big for us to be involved with”. How do you win?!

“Lateral thinking’ is a daily exercise for me and John as we attempt to find the companies whose businesses or models for growth are aligned with the image that we’re trying so hard to portray through the expedition and the projects surrounding it, and then convince them that investing in us and our projects would be a very worthwhile business decision.

Then, if that wasn’t enough to keep us busy, we have to remember to work for the sponsors and supporters who are already with us. John and I are very conscious that without the support of our sponsors all of our projects would, without doubt, grind to a halt so we work very hard to make sure that all of our supporters get an extremely good return on their investment.

When it works, when our ‘pitch’ hits home and we hot the sweet spot, it does work well. Every company that’s become involved with us in one way or another has been delighted with the way that we’ve worked with them. So much so, in fact, that many have increased their investments with us which is a good reflection on how they value their association with our projects.

Doing it full-time

The Last Great Challenge expedition and the projects that we’ve built around it have been a full time job for both of us since March 2009. To make sure that the expedition and everything else is a success, we have both given up our businesses and invested everything we can to make it all work. Now, just a few months away from the starting pistol, things are getting really busy and exciting. You’re just as likely o find John and I talking on Skype at 2am as you are at 2pm. The Great Heart Challenge fitness initiative is in launch phase, the media is waking up to what we’re trying to achieve (in all respects), we’re running around all over the UK doing promotional work for the Great Heart Challenge and the expedition, we’re working for the sponsors already supporting us, we’re still working extremely hard to find more sponsors – and we still have to find the time to train!

Five months to go, knackered, exhausted even, but this sure is one hell of a ride!

Details of the Last Great Challenge and the Great Heart Challenge can be found on www.lastgreatchallenge.com

Footnote:

Justin and John are still looking for help with the Last Great Challenge and Great Heart Challenge, from sponsors to media coverage and promoters. If you, your company, your boss, your friends, your friends friends, your second cousin six times removed, or the lady who works in the shop around the corner want to help out in any way then please take a look around the website and contact Justin or John.

Footnote Part Deux…

Justin and John would really appreciate introductions to sponsors. If you think the company that you work for could benefit from being associated with the expedition or the amazing projects surrounding it then please contact Justin at justin@lastgreatchallenge.com

Conduct a Personal Audit

Rob — Mon, 10 May 2010 07:48:50 +0000

GUEST POST: There are so many exciting opportunities on Escape the City; how do you begin to work out what’s right for you and reflect on who you are, the experiences you have gained to date and where you want to be in the future? Here are ten really important questions for you to consider – it would be great to have some feedback and comments – I’m going to expand on each of these questions later in my blog….

My name is Susie Lawrence. I run my own career consultancy, Runway – and specialise in working with young professionals – assisting in the self reflection process and reviewing options for the future.

Conduct Your Own Personal Audit

What are the ten most important questions that you need to ask yourself?

Do I get my energy and inspiration from the people around me or from my inner world?
Do I want to be known for being an expert or do I want to be managing and leading others?
What does ‘success’ mean to me?
I want to ‘make a difference’ in the work that I do; what does this mean for me?
Do I want autonomy and independence in my working life?
How will my next plan fit into my long term strategy? Am I keeping enough options open if I change my mind?
Do I look working with factual and concrete information or am I orientated to patterns, meanings and attuned to seeing new possibilities?
Do I want a regulated, scheduled working life or do I want to be more flexible and spontaneous in planning my time?
Do I make my decisions using a logical analytical framework or am I guided more by personal values and the impact of my decisions on other people?
Am I always seeking new challenges? What are the implications of this preference?

I would really appreciate your thoughts on these questions – as I would like to expand further on each of these points for you…

Just Start

Rob — Wed, 05 May 2010 10:57:50 +0000

One of the first things we learnt when we decided to build Escape the City was that whatever idea, plan or project you are working on, the only way to work out whether it is actually going to work in practice is to start.

That doesn’t mean that you have to risk your shirt on a concept. It just means that you should get the ball rolling.

We’ve actually plagiarised this advice from Innocent’s book: ‘A Book About Innocent: our story and some things we’ve learned‘. It’s good advice.

Start, start small, but start.

We applied that advice at the end of August 2009 when we sat on the bench in the park in Wimbledon, drank a beer in the setting sun, and agreed to start our blog. 6 months later we have 12,000 members on our website, have been in the national press, and are busy turning our concept into a business.

Just Start.

PS. Was trying to think of a relevant way to incorporate this photo… but can’t. Caption competition anybody? “Moral of the story: quit your job, start your own business, and spend Tuesday mornings in a canoe…”

Benjamin Franklin’s 10 virtues

phoenix — Mon, 03 May 2010 13:13:56 +0000

I have just finished reading The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. “Blessed with enormous talents and the energy and ambition to go with them, Franklin was a statesman, author, inventor, printer, and scientist. He helped draft the Declaration of Independence and later was involved in negotiating the peace treaty that ended the Revolutionary War”. I share below a list of Franklin’s own virtues which he purported to live by and which appear throughout the book as foundations of his entrepreneurial and political success:

Benjamin Franklin’s 10 virtues for life

1. RESOLUTION

Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.

2. ORDER

Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.

3. FRUGALITY

Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e. waste nothing

4. INDUSTRY

Lose no time, be always employed in something useful; cut off unnecessary actions.

5. SINCERITY

Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and if you speak, speak accordingly.

6. JUSTICE

Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duties.

7. MODERATION

Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.

8. TRANQUILITY

Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.

9. SILENCE

Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself.

10. HUMILITY

Be humble.

Our greatest fear

Rob — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 17:30:03 +0000

From a friend in Nepal: “My project here really is genuinely interesting to a lot of people. I talk about it more confidently now, knowing that it catches people’s attention, and that it was my idea, and I’m making it happen (albeit with a lot of help) – what a confidence boost! And if I can turn this little idea into something real, what else will I be able to make happen next!?!”

This quote is a great example of someone who is overcoming the fears that I’m about to write about…

Scared of doing really well

It’s a funny feeling when you realise that you can be as daunted of doing really well as you are scared of doing badly. It’s nothing new that most of us are afraid of failure. If you follow Seth Godin you will know what he means when he talks about The Lizard Brain [the primeval instincts that keep us from danger]. In certain situations (granted not all) those very basic instincts that encourage us to fit in and to toe the line stop us from doing great things as well.

The process of building Escape the City (a platform built on a philosophy) has seen us have to regularly confront these emotions. Of course you’re going to do something of note of course you have to be prepared to fail… but you also have to be prepared to succeed (and to handle everything that comes with succeeding; challenge, attention, criticism, commitment, sacrifice). I think Marianne Williamson (thanks Kev) meant something similar when he said – far more eloquently than I have – these words:

Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate

Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate,
but that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.
It is not just in some; it is in everyone.

And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously give
other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

15 tips to get through exams that you really do not want to do!

BusinessBird.co.uk — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 20:58:30 +0000

A big thank you to BusinessBird for sharing some really useful hints and tips for how to get through some mind-numbingly boring exams whilst also juggling your day-job…

What is BusinessBird?

[The majority of the site was built and the content written at various Starbucks restaurants scattered throughout Hong Kong- The result of a ‘Big 4? accountant on holiday with too much free time.]

Passing those professional exams…

OK, you are sitting at a desk wondering how you will make it through this mess- let me tell you how I survived…

STEP 1 – PREPARATION

A) Start early - Consider taking some time off to cover any pre-course material or get a head start, this can really help reduce the pressure.
B) The list - Write down the factors that will help you and those that hinder you. You can now concentrate on boosting these ‘helping factors’ and removing the ‘hindering factors’.
C) Choose your environment - Find a quiet desk somewhere, this is where the action will happen! This is also a good time to delete your crazy-ex’s phone number and leave the Xbox at home.
D) Get kitted out - Stock up on pens, paper textbooks and anything else you may need.
E) Make a plan - Split the work up and add it to your calender.

STEP 2 – MOTIVATION

A) Give yourself a goal – Book that holiday or buy those Jimmy Choos.
B) Focus on the benefits – It’s good to know what you will get out of this crazyness.
C) Talk with others – They will be dealing with the same issues as you are and may have advice.
D) Try a different approach – If things are not working out, do something about it!
E) Be realistic - Don’t go OTT on your goals, they should still be challenging but obtainable. Getting through these realistic goals with help boost confidence.

STEP 3 – WORKING SMART

A) Look after yourself – Eat well, get some sleep, go easy on the caffeine and get some regular exercise.
B) Follow the plan, but don’t live by it – While following the plan is a must, don’t be afraid to tweak it if you are finding certain sections of the work difficult.
C) Ask questions – This can save so much time and effort.
D) Know what works for you – Some people learn by writing, others by listening or practical means. If you have an approach that works for you then stick with it.
E) Take time for yourself - You can’t work all the time, make sure you don’t push yourself too far.