Jeremy Weil steps down from The Economist to focus on his coloring book start-up – Paul Grover for The Telegraph
I’ve wanted to run my own business for as long as I can remember. Even when I was five years old, I used to print out little imaginary business cards with the word “consultant” on them. But while I’ve spent the last 15 years or so either investing in startups or trying to build them myself, with varying degrees of success, I’ve always had to juggle my passion for entrepreneurship with the demands of a full-time job. job.
And so far. I have It called time for life in the office to commit myself fully to Color Your Streets, the startup I founded with my wife, broadcaster Emma Barnett, a year ago. To do this, I’m giving up a six-figure job in the Intelligence Unit at The Economist, where I was head of product. Before that, she worked for companies such as Reed Business Information and Deloitte.
People say The UK is not a great place for entrepreneurship anymoreBut that wasn’t my experience – although there were certain things I didn’t try to do, like raising money. What I can say is that there have been very few barriers to moving forward, and there are a lot of great tools available.
I had to quit my job because what started as a spark of an idea became a full-time job in itself.
In 2023, Emma and I were on shared maternity and paternity leave. Our five-year-old had developed a taste in coloring books, and to keep him entertained, we wanted to find a book that would allow him to color pictures of the local area – Herne Hill in south London. We were surprised to find that there was no such thing, so We set out to make one ourselves.
Jeremy Weil started Coloring Your Streets so his five-year-old could color pictures of his local area – Color Your Streets
At the time, there was no expectation that this idea would eventually take over our lives. I started by taking some photos of the neighborhood on my phone, then used AI to create book templates. I had my first attempt at printing a book, but I knew nothing at the time about paper quality or anything like that.
It was exciting, however, to see the idea brought to life for just over a few hundred pounds.
We don’t use AI anymore – these days we work with a group of designers – but it was initially a wonderful and powerful tool. You can ask him to suggest a color palette for a kid-focused brand, and he will give you great suggestions. This was especially helpful considering I’m color blind.
I was convinced we were onto something special. We created a second set of books, expanded the areas we covered, and began offering them to friends and their children. There was an immediate positive reaction, especially among children. When you show something to a five or six-year-old, you’ll know immediately whether they’ll like it or not. They don’t hide their reactions, they are brutal. It was interesting to see how instantly they connected with their areas, buildings and landmarks, even simple and humble things like the bench they sat on outside the station. It meant much more to them than just something generic.
After that, we started thinking about stocking them in stores. Our local gift shop loved it and received it immediately – there’s nothing more exciting than a first sale. But that was just the beginning of the avalanche. Everywhere we went, people said yes, because they loved their areas.
Remarkably, we have found that all age groups are now using and buying our products, after we initially thought they would be very suitable for five, six and seven year olds. In fact, we have a lot of adults who really enjoy it. People often buy books because of nostalgia. For example, a woman from New Zealand contacted me about a book by Clapham and Battersea. She had lived in the area for 35 years and wanted to see the buildings there again. This was all early in the trip. We can feel it accelerating.
Parting with my corporate job wasn’t a big, dramatic departure, nor was it giving up the salary I was offered. Quite simply, I realized I almost couldn’t survive, because the demands of the coloring book business had become too great. In a very short period of time, we went from being a kitchen counter business, where we did all the order fulfillment, printing shipping labels, and taking books to the post office, to using a warehouse and outsourcing customer support.
We are now on track to achieve between £2m and £4m next year, which I think is reasonably achievable. We’ve created around 150 books for neighborhoods across the UK, and have also launched some international books for cities such as New York, Paris and Barcelona.
Starting a business always carries some risks. But I think the way we did it — while still having a job while we got it going — de-risked the whole project from a financial perspective. It’s one thing if you go from a stable monthly job to a company that’s not generating revenue or growing.
This does not mean that we have not faced challenges. When it comes to your own business, there is always more work to do. You never want to say that something can wait until tomorrow – it is endless. You have to learn how to focus on the strategic things that will make a real difference, rather than spending your time buried in a mountain of emails.
Because Emma and I work together, we also have to make sure it doesn’t consume our entire lives, and remember that we are husband and wife first, not just business partners. There have been times in the last year where we’ve veered too far towards that, but that’s because we’re both very passionate about it. Our skills complement each other: she’s great at anything related to PR, branding, and visual design of products, while I focus more on business operations, creating new books, building the website and improving our metrics.
The lack of bureaucracy is amazing. While working in a company, you have to think in terms of communications, stakeholders and all these things. Now we make decisions very quickly.
For anyone thinking about taking the plunge and starting their own business, I would say just go for it. The thing I find that usually separates entrepreneurs from others is that they make the leap from idea to reality, no matter how small. You can test a lot of ideas with almost no money – it just takes time and dedication.
Jeremy Weil is the founder of Color Your Streets. As told to Daniel Wolfson.
