From Corporate Escapee to Business Owner - What it Takes

January 2021

When I made the switch from my comfortable career in international banking, to starting my own business, I had absolutely no idea what a profound change it would be, or how many challenges lay ahead.

My family and friends were mostly employed in professional jobs, so I had no business role models or mentors to learn from. When I made the transition from corporate life, I had to fundamentally rewire my brain to think in a different way, as there were so many things which I simply took for granted.

Regular paid holidays, a fixed salary, business trips, having access to abundant resources, all became things of the past. 

Although there were loads of information out there about starting a business, a lot of that information was hyped up, mostly one-sided, hero stories that just didn’t provide a realistic or balanced view of what it would be like.

An Idea for a Project

When the pandemic and subsequently the first lockdown hit the UK in March 2020, the number of new companies registered with the Office of National Statistics (ONS) took a plunge. This has since picked up substantially, as seen in the chart below.

Taking a snapshot in June 2020, there were more than 77,000 new company formations compared to less than 53,000 in June 2019, an astonishing 47% growth (according to Enterprise Nation). This trend is set to continue as unemployment rises, and many will be coming out of furlough in the coming months.

With all these new UK startups sprouting up on a daily basis, I realised that they, like myself when I first started, might need a little (or a lot of) help along the way. The idea of interviewing business owners who’ve been there and done it, then compiling their insights to provide interesting learning not just for myself but for future startups, was hatched.

As we were in the midst of a pandemic and a lockdown, I had time to kill. At the time, my local University was seeking businesses to take on graduates for a short term funded project.

I submitted my project idea to the University and somewhat to my surprise, three graduate interns and some funding landed on my lap.

Finding 100 Corporate Escapees who became Business Owners

With just an idea in my head to interview 100 of these business owners and drawing on my marketing experience, we started running campaigns on LinkedIn and Instagram. We even connected with businesses on Tik Tok and interviewed them. The campaign took off easily enough as we had overwhelming support from the business community.

In fact, more than 100 UK business owners from a wide range of sectors and sizes (from 1-150 employees) came forward with their time, their enthusiasm and shared their pains and victories. We captured them all on our surveys, our recordings and transcripts of our interviews.

For our research methodology, we consulted with experienced business researchers to come up with a method of capturing both data, and importantly, the valuable anecdotes and pearls of wisdom which would add real value to the research.

Rich Diversity of Businesses

Even with a relatively small sample of just 100 companies. we found an incredibly diverse range of sectors and businesses, as shown below:

Respondents range from the more traditional such as an accountancy practice, a recruitment firm or a cafe, to niche businesses such as a women’s walking group, or a tour business that organises tours to swim with dolphins.

It is fair to say this is a 2020 snapshot of UK-based business owners, particularly business owners who've made the switch from the 9-to-5 to running their own businesses

Why they made the Switch from the 9 to 5

Our interviews with the business owners told us there is no stereotypical profile of a corporate escapee turned business owner, they really come in all shapes and sizes, as the chart below shows.

It’s all too easy to assume these people started businesses because they’ve been made redundant, but that’s just one motive. It's a mixture of internally and externally driven factors that made them switch.

These motives would range from: wanting to carry on the family tradition, desiring a better life balance, being unhappy with their jobs or simply being self-aware of their own needs and aspirations.

In some cases, motives such as a management buyout facilitated the switch. Or they simply researched, realised a gap in the market and went for it. Some realised they could make more money doing what they do on a self-employed basis, rather than as an employee.

What's interesting is that the largest proportion, or close to 26% of those interviewed indicated some self awareness of their own personality traits and aspirations Frequently mentioned personally traits included: a dislike for authority and being told what to do, wanting more control over their own lives, or feeling they deserved more and can achieve more from their working lives.

Advice to Startups

During our interviews, two of the key questions we asked each business owner were:

1) What lesson or lessons did you learn from starting and running your own business?

2) What advice would you give to future startups, in particular to those who come from the corporate sector or have been in professional jobs, who've been pushed or pulled to the idea of running their own business?

We asked business owners about the lessons they'd learnt, and realised there were overlaps between what they shared in 1) and the advice they chose to give future startups in 2).

This wasn't a surprise as the business owners had tapped into some of those painful, heartwarming, and sometimes poignant lessons they had learnt in real life and distilled this into gems of advice for anyone who's planning to start a business.

Although we recorded hundreds of valuable comments, and thousands of words, I've tried to summarise these gems of advice into a pie-chart. Unless you were, like the interviewer, taking in all these wonderful real life stories, this pie chart is very much the tip of the iceberg with a vast array of wisdom beneath the surface:

The advice business owners gave is a combination of skillsets and attributes they had or wish they had acquired from the beginning.

• 51.6% mentioned skillsets that were valuable to have in the business, at the startup stage. Specific skills regularly mentioned included: planning, research, marketing, sales and cultivating a business network, amongst others.
• 36.4% mentioned highly valued attributes such as perseverance, resilience, discipline, being organised, awareness of their skills and their strengths.
• 12% mentioned the importance of investing in themselves and taking advice from others.

By investing in themselves and taking advice, we can assume these helped some business owners or their team members make up for shortfalls in attributes or skills. The attributes or skills, such as those mentioned in the chart, are what these business owners believe contribute to the success of a business.

But what comes first, attributes or skills? And can having only one of these be compromised if the business owner doesn't have the other? Unfortunately these questions weren't discussed in our research, but what's clear is that having the above attributes (or mindset) and skillsets are helpful to a startup.

Quotable Quotes

Here are a handful of my favourite quotes gleaned from our interviewees (there were many more memorable ones which sadly, I can't fit in here).

Do any of these resonate with you?

"Starting a business is akin to a series of structured and controlled experiments in different aspects of the business"

"In my first year, I turned over a million…..and then in my second year I hired four or five more people and guess what, Joyce, I turned over the same amount. And then in my third year I doubled the amount of people that I hired. And guess what? I still turned over the same amount of money. You know why? Because I was literally trying to build a business in the way that I’d done to make the first million, it wasn't going to work." 

"You might have 100 people who say, that's a great idea. But until someone actually says, that's a great idea, I will put so much money into it. To make it happen, then, you know, you're wasting your time, I'm afraid."

"Society, government in particular and also universities..… tend to try to encourage entrepreneurship from a young age. I think an awful lot of those youngsters …. need to get some experience under the belt before they go and try to set up their own businesses. They need to build core skills before they do that. Because I see a higher rate of failure in those startups than I see in startups with empty nesters, But unfortunately, it's the kids that get all the financial support and a lot of the opportunities and the empty nesters don't so much."

"When taking advice from people around your idea, if they've not got experience in your arena, and they're not your ideal client .....any advice they will give you will reflect their limitations"

"And now I know, you've got to really be very open to change, and be very keen to change and learn"

"The Hubris of Corporate Life”

Insights from the Survey

Interviewing the business owners was a carthartic process both for me, and for some of the business owners. Business owners often have their highs and their lows, put up a brave front to the team, their families and to friends most of the time.

It was liberating for some of the interviewees to be able to talk about their personal journeys during the interviews. For me, it was priceless simply to listen to them or read their feedback. This process validated a few of my own beliefs, particularly about having the right mindset when running my own business.

It was also a great opportunity, during the lockdown, to reconnect with previous contacts who came forward to be interviewed.

My Advice, from one Corporate Escapee to Another

Apart from the mindset and skillsets we discussed earlier, if you have an idea, research it first and test it with the audience you are planning on selling to.

Be careful not to rely your research on friends, ex-colleagues and family, especially if they’re not your intended audience.

And if you’re reasonably confident, not 100% confident as that rarely happens, just start. That way, you can tweak it and refine it as you go along, even if that means changing your business model halfway through.

And if things don’t work out and you realise this isn't for you, there's always the option of going back to your day job!

Entrepreneurial skills and mindsets you would have picked up when running a business are likely to be useful in your next job. After all, you had to lead yourself, your own team and call the shots in your own business.

One more thing: you might find it helpful to leave that ego at the corporate door as this won’t help you prepare for all the ups and downs, very much a hands-on business of running a startup. 

And finally, seat belts on, enjoy the ride and best of luck!

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