Currently...

We love what we do! We still work very hard but it's a lot more fun, especially since we get to cook every single day and the product is so great! We have a great team of people working with us and we couldn't have done it without them.

One thing we really like is to be able to incorporate the things we believe in, like sustainable sourcing and getting only the very best ingredients. 

Before I escaped...

We both started our careers in investment banking at Rothschild in London and left roughly the same time to join hedge funds. We thought moving to the buy-side would get us closer to real businesses and given that you're the investor, your actions are accountable and the value added is more tangible than on the consulting/banking side.

For both of us, starting a business and pursuing our passion for food seemed to be the most logical step after working for hedge funds. We felt like this was the right thing to do to understand businesses even better and at the end of the day, we love food and cooking so http://www.gousto.co.uk/" rel="nofollow">Gousto was the right thing to do.

We aimed at solving the issue a lot of people have: no time but keen to eat well.

My moment of truth...

Even when we were young we wanted to start businesses. Timo set up a fund at university and his family is into organic wine and organic food retail. James tried to set up a golf web page at uni.

Our moment of truth was when we quit our jobs - it felt exciting and right! We have never regretted it so far!

Planning for it...

It was difficult to plan Gousto while working very long hours at our hedge funds. We did work on the concept at night and on weekends but we really just started after quitting our jobs.

Coming from financial backgrounds, we did of course do some number crunching before jumping into the cold.

The worst and best bits...

The best part is to do something you really enjoy! We still work very hard but it's so much better to that if you love the product! Gousto has a large selection of recipes so cooking never gets boring and we eat Gousto recipes every day!

The worst part is not knowing how people react to your product. If you work hard you can figure out most things but customers' likes and dislikes are difficult to foresee.

Best advice...

Be happy! Seriously, you have to enjoy your start-up’s product and feel passionate about it. Else there’s no sense in doing it.

Turning into an entrepreneur might not make you rich and you definitely work hard when it’s your own business, so you better enjoy what you do.

Useful resources and information...

Talking to other entrepreneurs is great - you always learn a lot and avoid making a few mistakes! We really recommend people thinking about escaping the city to spend time talking to entrepreneurs properly to fully understand the ins and outs.