An Introduction To Project 50

What is Project 50?

Project 50 is a personal project to experiment, learn and turn ideas into action through a multitude of different experiments- whilst hopefully meeting some cool and interesting people along the way!

I've tried to capture each project's story, key learnings and experiences both as a way to reflect on what I've learned, but also to inspire others to embark on their projects and take that first step into the unknown.

"Project Goal: "Eliminate inaction so new ideas can be explored - If not now, then when?"

How it started

The idea of Project 50 first came to me at the end of September 2022, I had just finished a great book called The $100 Startup and couldn't sleep due to all the business ideas that I kept on popping up in my head and all of the new business adventures to be explored.

Having always had a curious mind this wasn't a new phenomenon but I knew to sleep I'd need to add them to my seemingly never-ending list of crazy ideas. Including, but not limited to, a Nacho shop using different kinds of crisps such as Monstermunch; Chari-tea a tea or tee-shirt company that could provide brand awareness to different charities; or even a Diliveroo type service but for last-minute gifts, the list goes on! Many of these ideas, I'll confess, were pretty rubbish but fun to come up with 'just in case'.

Having kept this list for as long as I remember there were a few ideas that stuck but I could never settle on the perfect one. What I wanted was the adventure of starting something from scratch mixed with the creativity, confidence and knowledge of how to make it grow.

In my career, I had made steps towards my dream of becoming a business owner by joining an early-stage start-up called The Portfolio Collective, where I worked alongside a truly incredible team and was exposed to a variety of projects and people across all areas of business. It felt like an MBA on steroids, but I still wanted the autonomy of starting something myself. Armed with this foundational business knowledge I realised that there is no perfect moment to start, the best time to try to figure anything out was now.

"Things change so quickly it's more about your ability to adapt and learn than perfect timing."

I needed to embrace the unknown and tap into the mindset I'd had years before whilst travelling and remove myself from this perfectionism that had been holding me back. The true adventure is trying. I recognised I was shying away from putting myself out there and embracing new challenges. So Project 50 was born. Why 50? honestly, it sounded both outrageous but yet somehow, achievable. It was memorable so just kind of stuck.

A whole 10 months later, after I had first come up with Project 50, I made it "official". I'd saved up enough to support myself and had started speaking it into existence with friends, family, colleagues and a lot of Lunchclub members to keep myself accountable and become more comfortable being uncomfortable.

Before starting I gave myself 5 guiding values:

• Curiosity: push yourself to learn and ask for help more

• Experimentation: enjoy the process, if it's an experiment there are no failures

• Creativity: think outside of the box to create joy for others

• Independence: find innovative ways to build solutions for yourself

• Bravery: the unknown is scary so be bold in your attempt

This leads us to now, I am part way through this experiment and have been overwhelmed with people's generosity, kindness and willingness to help throughout the journey. I am learning so much throughout the process and have done things I couldn't ever have imagined. From co-founding a business and building this website, to snowboarding in Italy.

I would love to share this journey with you and hope that this will inspire you to start your next project. Be bold in your adventure and in the attempt.