Day 1

It’s the first day of the rest of my life. Sounds terrifying. The first day when the big £££ no longer arrives in my bank account (for a micro second before being spirited away with mortgage payments, insurances, utilities, Netflix, Spotify, Disney plus and another gazillion direct debits that have glued me to the rat race. Corporate life has been good for me – really good. and I’ve enjoyed it. Mostly.

But now it’s time to escape. Unfortunately only from the salary side of the equation. The direct debits go on…

But on to brighter topics.  I’ve decided to start my own business.  Two in fact. And who knows? Maybe more. I’ve decided to experiment with my life – for the first time in twenty years, since I was at university.  Except this time with all those direct debits, three kids and a wife who didn’t sign up for an unsalaried husband, though is very supportive (crucial). And full disclosure, I have a redundancy cushion and an understanding wife to enable me to experiment for a year.

So I thought I’d share my #corporateescapologist journey in the hope it inspires more of you to take a chance on yourself. I know I’m going to learn a lot from becoming a founder, an entrepreneur, a writer, a mentor, a mentee. I have surrounded myself with a bunch of super-helpful people who I know will help me fail fast, learn faster and really push myself to give this year a fighting chance. A chance to stay corporate-free.

Me

A bit about me and my corporate life.  I’m Adam but most people call me Forbes.  I’m married to Megan – nearly 15 years – and have three smart kids (Matilda 13, Ella 12, Bertie 8) – and we live in Farnham, an hour from London. I spent sixteen years at bp in a bunch of marketing and commercial roles, and I fitted really well despite being a pretty niche player. I ducked and weaved when opportunity and threats emerged. And I think I could probably have played the game for another sixteen years until I retired.  Before that I was a strategy & marketing consultant (in another corporate).

I have more than twenty years’ experience perfecting things ready for bosses to perfect some more, planning what doesn’t really need planning, cutting budgets and then spending as fast as possible, being a specialist or a generalist depending on the direction of the wind. In short, playing it safe, changing myself to fit with others, defending irrational behaviour, working ridiculously hard on things that didn’t deserve anyone’s time and tolerating average.

Don’t get me wrong. It was actually quite good fun – especially when working with other cynics of the life we were leading.  And it suited my time of life with a young family. It bought me time to work out who I wanted to be.  But I have escaped, intact – and incredibly excited about my new future.

Who I’m writing for

There are loads of great bloggers who write about starting up. But I’m going to help the ones thinking about making the leap from corporate life to startup life.  Who just want a bit of vicarious hand-holding. Who want to watch some sucker make the dumb mistakes first. Who want to build a bit of confidence in what’s possible.

Who want to become #corporateescapologists.

I promise to deal it to you straight – and talk about the days I want to go back to the comfy slippers, when I can hide behind a bunch of support functions, take a couple of weeks holiday, push things back til next year, cash in the paycheck even when I’ve had a quiet month.

And the highs I hear you can only get when you win your first customer, when you meet someone who is excited as you about your mission, when someone wants to stump up their own money because they believe in you.

I’m going to tackle a bunch of topics that I’m sure I’ll be wrestling with, like The Idea, Working alone, Ownership, Perfection, Funding, Mentors, Risk, PMF, Validation, Customer discovery, Co-founder, Growth hacking, Pivoting, Budgeting, Legal stuff, Experimentation, PR, Brand, Revenue, Partnering, First customer, Lean, Early adopters, Helping others, Accelerators, Building team, Culture.

I want you to tell me what you want to know more about. And drop me a line if you want a chat about any of this. My goal is to (hopefully) show you this is a life worth trading for all those corporate nicetohaves.

A life when you can become a #corporateescapologist too.