Why I Quit My Job to Launch a Startup

This is the true story of how losing a new pair of glasses on a flight to Italy led me to quit my job and launch a startup.

We’ve all been there. You step off a flight and go through passport control. Suddenly you realise that you’ve left something on the plane.

Ever the optimist, I fire up Google in the hope of finding a way to retrieve the pair of glasses I had lost just moments earlier. After a few minutes of highly-priced data roaming to browse the airline’s FAQ page, I discover the contact details of their lost-property partner. I’m informed that I would have to wait 5 days from the time of my flight before reaching out. This definitely wasn’t speedy boarding.

At this point, I should have run back on to the plane, but not wanting to risk certain arrest, I decide to wait. I load up the lost property company’s website. Built in 2007 and *proudly* supporting Internet Explorer 6.0, I submit my details through an arduous online form. It would be a minimum of 30 days before I hear back.

By now, I’m convinced that my glasses have ended up on the scrap heap or on the face of a visually impaired Italian — so after hearing nothing for 30 days, I turn to my trusty travel insurance company. Surely, they wouldn’t let me down.

After being stuck waiting on hold for over 30 minutes (listening to Coldplay’s ‘Fix You’, obviously) I finally get through to a real-life human. But it was what came next — 35 days after losing my glasses — that forced me to the end of my tether.

“Unfortunately, you will need to send us a written letter.”

A letter? A handwritten letter than I only receive occasionally from elderly relatives and credit card companies. Where would I even buy a stamp?

And then came the eureka moment.

What if interacting with a business could be as easy as messaging a friend?

30 days later I quit my job.

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I had spent the prior 4 years as part of the founding team at Grapple, Europe’s largest mobile innovation studio. As Chief Strategy Officer I had consulted to the some of the world’s largest organisations and our team had launched some of the most pioneering apps — always with the aim to use technology to make life easier.

So why as a consumer was I still waiting on hold, filling in long forms and being asked to write letters? First World problems they may be, but the experience just didn’t feel conducive to the mobile-age we all live in today.

Messaging has fast become our preferred method of communication; we exchange more than 30bn messages with each other every day, but not with businesses.

Armed with the basis of an idea, I did as most newly unemployed people do and sat on the beaches of South America, writing a business plan for ‘Hero’ — a service that would literally rescue us from life’s complexity.

I flew back to London (closely guarding my newly acquired glasses), raised a small round of seed investment from a stellar set of investors and started to build a team that would help bring Hero to life.

And here we are.

It’s been 12 weeks since we released the app to our first few thousand members in London. Since then, they’ve experienced first hand how easy it is to get things done via messaging — from booking restaurants to locating hard-to-find items in store. And we’re just getting started.

Just like how people ‘Uber a taxi’, we want ‘Hero-ing’ a business to become the norm. The next step in our mission is for everyone to have their first ‘Hero moment’ — and for as many forward-thinking businesses to claim their official channel on Hero whereby they can provide effortless customer experience. We’redelighted to announce MADE.COM as one of our first partners.

As for the glasses, well, they were never found but their vision lives on through Hero.

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Want to try Hero? Download it free from the App Store and use the code ‘BLOG3’ to join.