Moving cities: An entrepreneur’s journey

Everyone is starting their own businesses it seems. Everyone. But what’s it like to take the plunge?

I’m 29. I’m on the no. 63 bus from Forest Hill Road to Peckham Rye. There, I will jump on the 08:18 to Victoria, stand in a queue for the tube, hop on the District Line and alight at Hammersmith, where I’ll make the short walk to Betfair’s offices. I have in my hand a half A6 sized brown leather notepad. For four months, three weeks and four days (almost the entire length of my extended notice period), it’s been my bible. It contains notes, branding ideas, product designs, thoughts, feelings, emotions and doodles a psychiatrist would have a field day with. It’s my last day at Betfair and, as people keep reminding me, my last day of paid employment for a long time.

But for me, it’s the first day of something truly exceptional.  I don’t yet know what is exceptional about it.  It might be an exceptional mistake. An exceptional success. An exceptional journey. But at this point in time, I’m prepared to accept any of those three.

Wind forward four months, and I’m sat in a different city. I’m in Bristol. In four months, we’ve finished our product build, relocated to Bristol, launched limber and taken our first ££’s in revenue. At this moment, it definitely isn’t the time for reflection – we’ve got our heads down and we’re focusing on growth and then investment.  

However, here are five observations some of which I knew before, some of which I’m just realising:

– Wave goodbye to structure. There isn’t any – unless of course you create it yourself.  I came from a city law firm, then a FTSE 100 company where you couldn’t move for structure or process. Now, I wake up everyday and what I do is up to me and Rich. On some days, that can be debilitating – asking the question “what do we do now” is a bit like trying to fill a 10ft canvas in a dark room. On some days, however, it’s incredibly freeing. One of the best things about starting your own business is the ability to be nimble and to take opportunity as it arises.

– Startups are not sexy. There is no champagne lifestyle. You may not have seen The Social Network, but Aaron Sorkin was lying to us. There’s a lot of graft; a lot of “dirty work”; and no one to drive that forward but you. You can be handing out flyers in the morning and then pitching to be the strategic partner to one of the area’s biggest venues in in the afternoon. The idiom for this bandied around the corporate world is ‘to wear many hats’. That’s all well and good, but it was certainly a different story to wear all hats from the comfort of the conference room with a latte in hand. You really have to be prepared to roll your sleeves up.

– We’re a tech business on the outside but a people business on the inside. There’s no great tech without a great tech team and no limber without its users. Most of the decisions we make touch tech in some way, but the consequences always have a human effect and that has to be at the core of everything we do.

– Bristol is awesome. The tech scene is buzzing, the people are welcoming and big egos are in short supply. There’s a warmth to discussions and an openness that isn’t as abundant in London; yet there’s no shortage in ambition or talent. In fact, I’d argue that there exists a greater realism and a better understanding that actions and people drive results not visions or concepts. I’ve been struck by the number of people we meet who are happy to lend advice, make introductions or suggest ideas to do their bit in driving the city forward. 

– To anyone who has managed to build a product, get it to market and grow a business, massive respect! It is not easy. Even if your product is revolutionary; better than anything out there; or 10 times cheaper, it’s still not a given. And that respect is important. It’s important to respect competition and to respect the challenge of launching a business – it won’t just happen you need to go out and make it happen.  

I believe in our business. I believe in our product. And I believe that our product will positively impact the businesses and lives of many people. But, even so, I can’t know for sure whether our business will be a long term success, there are too many factors at play. But then again, at the early stage of a business, success and failure probably don’t look very different (at least from the inside). Betfair’s first day of trading was 12 friends betting with each other at a race track. AirBnB’s first booking was a friend of a friend on a blow-up mattress (hence the name, AirBnB or “air bed and breakfast”). Neither of those two businesses bear any resemblance to those humble beginnings today. It’s what you do from that point onward which defines success and failure.

So, enough writing. We’ve got work to do.

Chris, and his business partner Richard, left their jobs as tech lawyers and technology strategists respectively, moved to Bristol and have launched their app, limber in Bristol.  Limber is a flexible employment app designed to help businesses in the hospitality and retail sectors staff more effectively and workers fit work around them.  

For more information, head to www.limber.work, follow them @limberhirer, or call 0117 251 0088. Workers can download the app in the App Store and Play Store by searching for limber.

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