Why I finally took the leap

For most of my career I've had a quiet ambition to run my own business one day. But after more than 15 years in big organisations, I could never picture what that business would be, or what would finally make me jump.

It turns out I needed to stare out of a car window for a few months to find out.

Ideas at 100 km/h

In 2024, my husband Matt and I set off on a lap of Australia. We weren't campers, we had never towed a caravan, and we had a four-month-old and a two-year-old in the back seat.

Travel days were long. In between passing snacks over my shoulder and keeping my two tiny taskmasters happy, I spent hours just looking out the window. It was the first time in years I'd had real space to think. At home, life is one task after the next, with no time to step back. On the road, it was like the old line about having your best ideas in the shower, except the shower lasted thousands of kilometres.

I had no shortage of ideas on that trip. But the one I kept coming back to was how hard it was to work out where to stay.

The hardest part of the trip

The most dramatic day was when we broke down in remote WA, waited 24 hours on the side of the road for a tow truck, then spent five hours being towed to the nearest service centre. (CampGenie can't fix that one, sorry.)

But the hardest part, week in and week out, was planning. Which route should we take? Which towns are worth stopping in? Which campsites would fit our 9-metre van and two little kids? I pieced it together from guidebooks, directory apps, Facebook forums and a spreadsheet with hundreds of rows.

And I still had constant FOMO. Sometimes I'd hear from other travellers about an amazing spot, only to learn it had been booked out months ago. I lost more evenings than I'd like to admit refreshing booking pages, hoping for a cancellation.

The real problem wasn't booking

My first idea was a booking marketplace. There's no Booking.com or Expedia for camping, because camping is complicated. You might be in a caravan, a campervan, a camper trailer or a swag. Your van might be 5 metres or 10. You might be towing a boat. Big travel sites aren't built for that.

And it isn't a small niche. Australians took 17.3 million caravan and camping trips last year, spending $12.6 billion, and there are now about 937,000 registered RVs on our roads.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realised booking wasn't my biggest pain. Deciding was. That's the moment every camping trip is really made, and right now nobody owns it.

So CampGenie focuses on the step before booking. You tell it in plain English where you want to go, what you're travelling in and who's coming. It plans your route, tells you which places are worth stopping at and why, and suggests campsites that suit your setup. And because it isn't a booking site, it isn't limited to the places it sells. It can look across national parks, caravan parks, free camps and booking platforms to find the best fit for you.

I want CampGenie to be where every trip starts, with the right booking just a click away. There's plenty more I want it to do, and I'll share more as it comes to life.

Trying to do it on the side

When we got home, I went back to work and kept chipping away at the idea. I documented my thinking, built a prototype (with help from some very kind friends and old colleagues: you know who you are) and worked through a business case.

But if you have young kids and both parents in demanding jobs, you'll know there is nothing left at the end of the day. Any spare moment I had, I needed to collapse in a heap. Building a business on the side at this stage of life just wasn't going to happen.

Why now

Two things tipped me over.

The window. AI has made it far easier to build products like this. If I could see the opportunity, so could others. Since I started, a wave of new planning and booking apps has arrived. That tells me the problem is real, and that the window to solve it won't stay open forever.

My family. Honestly, the juggle had become hard to sustain. Even with a flexible employer, a big job is a big job, and two small people depend on you for everything. I wanted a proper crack at something I love, and more time with my kids while they're little. Starting a business is no walk in the park (more on that in my next post), but I get to do it on my own terms and timelines.

Stepping away

Stepping away was the hard part. I was leaving a job I'd worked hard for and was good at, with exciting work and a team that was just building momentum. There's never a good time. Telling people felt like letting them down. But everyone was so supportive of me doing something brave and following my passion, and I'm incredibly grateful for that.

The cost

Not everyone can do this, and I don't take it for granted. We have a big Sydney mortgage, two kids in daycare, and life isn't cheap right now. It puts more pressure on Matt as the main earner, and I couldn't do this without his support. He's backed me every step of the way.

But we decided that if I didn't do this, I'd regret it forever. Going backwards financially for a while felt like a small price for the chance to learn, grow and try.

What I brought with me

Leaving a big organisation doesn't mean starting from zero. My corporate career taught me how to find out what customers really need, build products, think through a business case, weigh up risks and build partnerships. I use every one of those skills every day, and I'm grateful to the people who taught them to me.

If you're thinking about a similar leap

• Pick a problem you can't stop thinking about. Caring about the problem carries you when the work gets hard.
• Do the thinking before you jump. Test the idea, write the business case and know how long you can go without an income.
• Be honest about your capacity. If "on the side" isn't working, it may be your stage of life, not you.
• Look after your relationships. Your network is one of the most valuable things you take with you.
• Ask the regret question. Will you be more disappointed by trying and failing, or by never trying?

Where CampGenie is now

CampGenie is still in its early days. It's live now as a beta, an early version I'm improving based on what travellers tell me, and I'm building the full vision step by step. If you camp or caravan, I'd love you to plan a trip at campgenie.ai, tell me what works and what doesn't, and share it with your camping friends.

Next up: what I've learnt so far from starting a business.