Rob Symington, entrepreneur at Innovatrs and the founder of  Escape The City, talks about his latest venture and how the project has taught him that just because things are usually done in a certain way, it doesn’t necessarily mean it is the best way to do them.

Escape The City provides exciting options for young professionals who want to “do something different” . Their Web platform helps their members find meaningful & fulfilling occupations outside of the corporate mainstream.

It’s  a philosophy, a movement, and a community…

Innovatrs: What made you do it? Why did you take the plunge, give up that cosy corporate job and become an entrepreneur?

Rob: Although I’ve always been attracted by the idea of working for myself, I didn’t set out to become an entrepreneur. It followed a 2 year experience working for someone else and seeing little or no actual change as a result of my work. This was the catalyst. It made me re-think my options and got me wondering about how to spend my time doing work that matters.

Reading ‘Tribes’ by Seth Godin showed me that I could do something different if I wanted. I realised that I had it within my power to build a working life around work that I was passionate and made the leap (in a matter of weeks!).

Innovatrs: What was the original @ha Idea and how has it evolved?

Rob: The original idea came from our experience in dead end corporate jobs while trying to research exciting alternatives. There was nothing that catered to people of our profile (a few years out of university, promoted off their graduate training programmes, and looking for challenges outside of the corporate mainstream). The idea evolved via a blog. We were online with a blog at least 6 months before we launched our main site. This allowed us to explore different ideas and get a good picture of what our target audience wanted from us. Once we knew that we wanted to build something that helped talented young professionals work out what to do next (i.e. the ‘what’) it was relatively straightforward figuring the specifics of our platform (i.e. the ‘how’). Afterall, we were stereotypes of our target audience!

Innovatrs: What were your first steps after you fleshed out your @ha idea ? What was your first crisis or hurdle?

Rob: Our first steps were to research and read anything and everything that seemed relevant. Once we had ascertained that no one was doing what we wanted to do we just went for it (got online and started blogging, opened up PowerPoint and designed our website). Innocent Drinks have a great book called ‘Our story and some things that we have learned’. Our favourite bit of advice from this book was their encouragement to ‘just start’ (start small, but start).

Our main hurdle initially was to work out how to introduce a viable business model without ‘selling out’. We knew that there was value in the idea because so many people were clamouring for tangible options to their corporate jobs but we weren’t immediately clear on the best way to monetise. This is why it can be good (if you can afford to wait) to evolve your idea without committing to a certain path too early. In our case this involved starting the blog and evolving the idea in public (scary but worthwhile). Another great bit of advice is: «Innovate the hell out of your product or service, your concept, and your unique proposition. However, when it comes to business models – keep it simple. Use tried and tested ways of getting money in the door. They work for a reason.»

Innovatrs: Is this your first business? Did any past experiences or good advice help you navigate the entrepreneur’s road to masochism?

Rob: Yes this is our first business. The best advice we received can be distilled to: – just start (start small, but start) – don’t listen to pessimists – tweak, evolve, test, improve, etc – don’t try to please everyone (work out who your product/service is for and concentrate solely on pleasing them) – make a stand, be remarkable.

Innovatrs: Have you experienced any great failures in the past and if so, how have they helped you get to where you are today?

Rob: I have been fortunate enough not to experience any ‘great failures’ so far in my life. Of course I have had times when things haven’t gone to plan, when work is frustrating and unfulfilling, and when you wish things had gone differently. In my experience, you learn a lot more from the rough times than you do from the party times. You learn about what you’re not good at and situations you don’t enjoy. This is valuable even just from the perspective of helping you find the life and work that you want.