Who are you, and where did you come from?
Brian Gruber, Managing Director of Roomwise Ltd. I’m originally from a small rural town outside of Chicago called Barrington, IL.
I came over to Edinburgh to do an MBA in International Business and after graduating, decided Scotland was the best place to pursue this idea for a new approach to free time planning & travel accommodation.
What is the business book you recommend that everyone should read?
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
This book explores the dimensions of happiness, presents research which counter-intuitively suggests people are happier at work, and outlines a compelling theory for why people aren’t happier in their free time.
It serves as a useful tool for any manager looking to understand/improve employee satisfaction, but more importantly – for my team’s purposes – this book really pinpoints the pervasive problem we’re trying to solve with Roomwise, which is encapsulated by Csikszentmihalyi pretty well in the following quote:- “One of the most ironic paradoxes of our time is this great availability of leisure time that somehow fails to be translated into enjoyment.”
What do you think are your business strengths and weaknesses?
Success in business requires a certain measure of cynicism that I’ve had to cultivate. But in general, I count the fact that this doesn’t come naturally to me as one of my strengths: I believe it’s important to imagine new things, and save the cynicism for planning around specific hurdles.
What was the defining moment on your career path that has got you where you are now?
Taking a break from my career was what ultimately got me interested in the unpredictable, shifting value of free time. I spent a long time travelling through numerous countries, and found – like everyone does – that simply being somewhere was not enough to infuse the experience with lasting meaning. As Csikszentmihalyi points out, happiness occurs when skill meets challenge.
And this doesn’t have to involve massive amounts of either one (why do you think people enjoy knitting in front of the television… it adds a dimension of skill meeting challenge, and becomes a tangible achievement). Anything that challenges us to engage with unfamiliar territory (or that demonstrates back to us our increasing skill within now familiar territory) makes us happier. People experience this every day at work (hopefully!) but for some reason don’t bother to apply the same concepts to their free time.
In other words, most people don’t pursue very much in their free time at all. This approach may seem relaxing at first – but for most people it becomes a form of mild depression. Even having an interesting conversation with an intelligent person can be conceptualized as skill meeting challenge, and yet millions of hours are spent every day intentionally avoiding these tiny challenges. With Roomwise we’re trying to get people engaging with the world around them more by presenting to them everything they could be doing instead of doing nothing… and in this way, we plan to make our users happier!
How do you spend your spare time?
Finding things to do and properties through which to do them on Roomwise!
For example, I recently visited one of our clients and stayed in the top floor of their listed manor and we took horses for a swim in the North Sea. Riding a horse as he charged into the water and then finally lifted his hooves to swim was absolutely incredible; definitely a challenge, and definitely a more valuable experience than what I might have done: watch TV online all weekend and nap on the couch.
Do you think you achieve a good work/life balance?
Hard to say; I like working, so the meaning of “good” becomes somewhat obscured. But I do make time to try new things and visit as many festivals/events as I possibly can.
What makes Edinburgh the best location for you to live and/or work?
I think Edinburgh is an uncommonly active city. The city’s dedication to promoting free personal enrichment opportunities is unlike any other city I’ve ever lived in, followed somewhat distantly by Austin, TX. It is really a perfect place from which to set out on various adventures, every weekend!
What is your special area of Edinburgh, or special place in Edinburgh and why?
No need to deviate from what will surely be the most common answer you receive: The Meadows. On a hot, sunny day, there is nothing quite like sitting in the grass, seeing the entire city gathered together in grateful relief for the heat. At least a few days every summer are like this, and they are my favourite days of the year.
What would you consider the pinnacle of your career?
Probably getting Roomwise launched and getting our first satisfied customers.
Which networking groups in Edinburgh have you found particularly useful?
The tech meet-ups at Skyscanner’s offices are great.
Who are your business heroes?
I’m really inspired by people who are able to manage creative projects on a massive scale and get 100s of people aligned around a vision – people who then go on to collectively produce something absolutely amazing. Jim Henson comes to mind.
What are your business goals for the next year?
We want to become the online destination for free-time planning in the UK. We want to provide higher occupancy rates for every property owner on our platform. We want our users to lead more memorable, enriching lives.
Describe your typical day for us.
Essentially, the focus of all my days is evangelising to property owners and event coordinators about the free services we want to provide for them.
Best job advice you ever received?
Build a functioning path to reliable revenue as quickly as possible. Then constantly improve.
Your plan of attack for the next 12 months?
We’re going to build a network of new demand for accommodation providers by increasing the amount of domestic travel in Scotland through free distribution of event information & property promotion. Essentially, owners can have their B&B, country estate, or private residence added to our 100s of promotional pages for free and we take care of the rest. I’m particularly eager to explain to event coordinators how Roomwise can help them increase their event attendance.
12 months from now I’d like to be partnered with every event in Scotland – from the big ones like the Fringe, to the small ones like the Killin Scarecrow Competition I visited recently – so that every weekend our users have 100+ ideas for things they could attend, and all our event partners have higher attendance rates.
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
