Jeremy Weil to leave role in The Economist to focus on color book launch – Paul Grover for The Telegraph
I have wanted to run my own business for as long as I can remember. Even when I was five, I printed funny little business cards with “Advisor” on them. But having spent the last 15 or so years either investing in startups or trying to create myself, with varying degrees of success, I’ve always had to balance my passion for entrepreneurship with full-time demands. Work.
It is until now. i have Life in the office called for me to give myself up completely. To Paint Your Street, a startup I founded a year ago with my wife, broadcaster Emma Barnett. To do this, I left a six-figure job at The Economist’s Intelligence Unit, where I was Head of Product. Before that I worked for the likes of Reed Business Information and Deloitte.
People say The UK is no longer good for entrepreneurship.But that hasn’t been my experience – although some things I haven’t tried to do, such as fundraising. All I can say is that there were very few obstacles to go through, and there are so many wonderful tools.
What started as a spark of an idea turned into a full-time job in itself, so I had to quit my job.
In 2023, Emma and I were on shared maternity and paternity leave. Our five year old has developed a taste for coloring books and to please him, we wanted to find one that would allow him to color in local pictures – Herne Hill in South London. We were surprised to see that there was nothing like this, so We set out to do it ourselves.
Jeremy Weil started Color Your Streets so that his five-year-old son could paint on the pictures of his neighborhood
At that time, there was no expectation that this idea would take over our lives. I started by taking some photos of the area on my phone, then used AI to create book templates. I made a first attempt at a printed book, but at the time I didn’t know anything about paper quality or anything like that.
Nevertheless, it was exciting to see the idea come to life for less than a couple of hundred kilos.
We don’t use AI anymore – these days we work with a few designers – but it was a brilliant and effective tool in its early days. You can ask him to recommend the color palette of a kid-oriented brand and he will give you good suggestions. This was especially helpful considering I am color blind.
I was sure we were onto something special. We created a second book business, expanded our coverage and started showing it to friends and their children. There was an immediate positive response, especially among children. When you show something to a five- or six-year-old, they know immediately whether they like it or not. They don’t hide their reaction – they are fierce. It was interesting to immediately see how even simple and invisible things like a bench placed outside the site connected with their surroundings and the buildings and landmarks. It meant more to them than anything in general.
Next, we started to think about stocking them in stores. Our local gift shop loved them and took them right away – there’s nothing more exciting than your first sale. But that was the beginning of the rain. Everywhere we went, people said yes, because they love their environment.
Amazingly, we have found that all age groups are using and buying our products, initially thinking it would be for five, six and seven year olds. In fact, we find many adults who are very happy. Most of the time, people buy the books out of nostalgia. For example, I had a woman from New Zealand contact me about a book about Clapham and Battersea. She lived in the area 35 years ago and wanted to see the buildings there again. And this was all at the beginning of the journey. We can feel it gathering momentum.
Parting with my corporate job wasn’t a big, dramatic exit or giving up a paycheck. I realized that I simply could not stay, because the demands of the coloring book business became too great. In no time we went from a kitchen table business, doing all the fulfillment, printing shipping labels and taking books to the post office, using a warehouse and outsourcing our customer support.
But now we are on course to turn £2m to £4m next year, which I think is quite achievable. We’ve created around 150 books for neighborhoods across the UK and launched some international books for cities like New York, Paris and Barcelona.
Starting a business always involves some risk. But the way we did it – that I continued to have a job when we got off the ground – I think it jeopardized the whole project from a financial point of view. It’s different if you go from a stable monthly job to a business that isn’t generating income or growing.
That’s not to say we haven’t faced challenges. There is always more work to do when it comes to your own business. You never want to say that something can wait until tomorrow – it’s endless. Instead of spending your time buried in a mountain of emails, you need to learn how to focus on the strategic things that make a difference.
Since Emma and I are working together, we have to remember that it doesn’t completely consume our lives and that we are more than just business partners, we are husband and wife. There have definitely been times in the past year where we’ve gone too far there but that’s because we both enjoy it so much. Our skills complement each other: she is good at everything related to PR and branding and the visual design of the products, while I focus more on the business, creating new books, building and improving the website. Our measurements.
The lack of bureaucracy is amazing. Doing corporate work, you have to think about communications and stakeholders and all those things. Now we make decisions quickly.
To anyone thinking of starting their own business, I say just do it. Typically, what separates entrepreneurs from others is that they take the leap from idea to reality, no matter how small. You can try many ideas for no money – it just takes time and dedication.
Jeremy Weil is the founder of Color Your Streets. As told to Daniel Wolfson.
