Every Build Ends: Closing House Hack
We’re Closing House Hack (8.2 min read)
Today’s the day that we share the news; it’s the final part of an 18-month long journey with my Co-Founder, Charlie, our clients, Team Leaders, and partners. House Hack is done…the business, the community, the events - we’re closing up shop.
Closing Up Shop
Here’s the why, the how, and what’s next for me.
The Story
House Hack started in April 2020 at Loughborough University in the first COVID lockdown. I was in the midst of my final assessments and we decided to launch a project to support local businesses (and keep ourselves busy!). That project morphed quickly into House Hack.
The business was started out of a place of purpose. Of support. Of impact. Helping businesses to innovate and problem-solve, and helping young people to get real-world experience on live projects.
This impact drove every decision we made throughout the process of growing and selling work. Leading to our ‘why’.
We settled on: "To empower 18-25-year-olds with meaningful work opportunities to develop their confidence, skills and experience in a supportive environment where ambition is normal”
This became our guiding light as we created a model that allowed young people to develop their skills to become ‘Graduate Ready’ by consulting on real business challenges. This project-based learning became the platform to shift ourselves from solely innovation consulting work towards recruitment services for our start-up clients.
This also allowed us to take a stake as a recruiter and career partner for our community of students and recent graduates. Supporting them on every stage of their journey: at university, during the graduation transition and whilst in-job.
Over our 18 month journey, we delivered 25 virtual innovation hackathons for 405 participants from 65 universities to consult for 60 start-ups to an average rating of 8.9/10.
We hosted 3 virtual talent assessment days for 77 candidates for 2 scaling start-ups to an average rating of 9/10 from which 6 have become full-time employees.
We supported a community of 39 team leaders with mentoring, project-based learning and networking to become 'Graduate Ready' for the world of knowledge-based work.
The Closing
So, we’ve honed in on our ‘why’, we’ve been delivering work we enjoy and that our clients love, and we’ve been getting results and done it all profitably…so why are we closing now? There are a few reasons…
1 - The Business Model
The business model for House Hack was always a challenge to nail.
The complexities of the model meant that the number of stakeholders was large. Each relationship to the business is unique, and each relationship to the development of young peoples’ skills is different.
Agency models naturally will bottleneck around time. The difficulty with us is that a lot of time wasn’t ours as Founders, it was our communities. That project-based learning approach was one of our greatest strengths. It allowed for us to test effectively pre-scaling our services, (be them pay-as-you-feel, or fully billed), but it did mean that within students’ competing priorities - other priorities would often win.
We set out to create a complex, multi-sided business model that was purpose-driven and served the skillsets, confidence and experience of young people as much as it served the talent budgets and hiring outcomes of clients. But it’s a complex model to scale (not impossible, though).
2 - Going Too Far From Our Purpose
You might have heard Founders describe their businesses as like their babies. You treat it incredibly well and you put all of your energy, love and care into it. This is an amazing thing to do and feel but it can also be a challenge because it means Founders find it hard to step back, and so threats come to bite them in the bum.
We always did a good job at balancing working IN the business, as well as ON it. But this is where deciding to close becomes clear. In order to scale what we built effectively and to do our vision justice, too much would have to change. We would have to sacrifice the purpose, the mission of why we started back in lockdown in the first place. That wasn’t going to happen.
3- The Timing
There’s never a right time to close a business but there are certain signals. From Founders’ energy to mission, to resources and runway as well as market trends and your ability to align yourself with the right ones.
When stepping back and being as objective as possible, the timing variable points me towards closure.
In business, I’ve learned that you have to know when to step back as well as to start.
Once the decision was made, it was full steam ahead to having a lot of conversations - mostly emotionally difficult ones about us closing up.
Everyone has been really supportive throughout and for that I’m grateful. The main phrase has been “If it’s right for you two, it’s the right thing”. There’s power in that.
So What’s Next For Me?
In short, I’m recalibrating and then going again.
It comes back to timing. I feel like COVID impacting the end of my university life meant that I didn’t get proper closure or a proper break. I’m using the end of 2021 to rest, spend much needed time with family and then transition to assessing what’s next.
I’m looking forward to listening to my head, my heart and then diving straight into designing the portfolio career and life I want. House Hack was just the start.
Thank You & See You Soon
I can’t write this wrap up without sending personal thanks to everyone who has been involved in our business. From our clients to our Team Leaders, our University partners - everyone that’s followed along online or ever been to one of our events, or been on the podcast - and of course to my Co-Founder, Charlie.
Thank you to Jimmy and Sean for being our first believers, our first advocates and our first clients. Your wisdom, time, investment and energy have meant the world. I hope that I can pass on 1% of that belief and culture to everyone I work with in the future.
Thank you to Mike for being you. For your mentorship, guidance, counsel, and no bullshit. From the start, you’ve been generous with your time, resources and experience and I’m grateful to have shared my first business with you. Your insights have helped me see pitfalls before they happen, and to build myself as much as my business.
Thank you to Toby for your guidance, and inspiration in what the world can look like - and how we can bridge that to make it a reality. Your visionary focus, insight, network and faith have been a powerful reminder to never stop striving. We need more of this pragmatic optimism to truly solve the problems of our day.
Thank you to our 39 Team Leaders for their time, love and energy invested in this community. It has been a true pleasure to get to know each and every one of you - whether you joined us more recently or have been with us since the beginning. If I have one message for you, it’s this: “Why not?”. Whenever you question the early stages of your career, your degree challenges, your relationships, your faith in yourself or any one of 100 - ask yourself why not. You can do it. You can do more with less. You can do it now. I’m so excited for you to continue on your journey and see where you are in the years to come. House Hack will undoubtedly live on in the friendships we’ve made - I’m grateful for you to have shared House Hack with me.
Thank you to Charlie for being my partner on this bridge between university and early career for the last 18 months. Building House Hack together has been amazing and I’m excited to see the impact we’ve had, especially on the Team Leaders, play out. Your meticulous focus and uncompromising discipline and drive have inspired me to build a strong foundation for myself in every arena. Your capabilities, confidence, and skill have all grown whilst building House Hack and I couldn’t have asked for a better Co-Founder. Good luck with your next steps - I know they’re going to be exciting.
Finally, thank you to House Hack. As a business, this has been one of the most illuminating, exciting, challenging and rewarding times of my life and I’m so proud of what we’ve built.
Onwards 🚀