AMA: Hana Sutch, co-founder of Go Jauntly

Did you know, spending time outdoors can improve your mood, reduce stress and lower blood pressure? Just 20 minutes of fresh air can do wonders.

After struggling to find new places to explore just outside the city, Hana Sutch co-founded Go Jauntly, an app to help other city dwellers get a well-needed breath of fresh air.

Hi Hana! Tell us a bit about your company.

Go Jauntly is a health and wellness company working to increase walking, mobility and outdoor adventures. We have an award-winning walking app that promotes walking for leisure, active travel and nature connection.

Using the Go Jauntly app you can find local walks created by people who love and know them, discover the greenest walking routes and connect with nature.  We partner with transport organisations such as Transport for London, consumer brands and various local authorities across the UK.

How did the idea for Go Jauntly come about?

We're nature-loving city dwellers who spend much of our time deskbound and yearn to be a bit more active. We're not really fans of the gym but love to get out, stretch our legs and explore our local areas, especially with our young families in tow.

We'd been getting frustrated by how hard it is to uncover new places to do just that – so we created Go Jauntly!

So is that what motivates you?

Across our cities, our daily contact with nature continues to diminish as a result of rapid urbanisation, resource exploitation and a growing desire for convenience over experience.

These changes do not come without a human cost, with recent studies pointing to a series of related negative effects on mental health, environmental awareness and social connection. 

Knowing that our work at Go Jauntly is helping to make walking a pastime again and that more people are enjoying the health and wellness benefits of spending active time outdoors and connecting with nature makes all the hard work and stress worthwhile.

And with more people working from home now, it's more important than ever to get outdoors. With that in mind, can you share any practical tips or processes to help people work remotely?

We were semi-remote before the pandemic so it was a relatively easy adjustment to full remote home working during the pandemic.

Making sure people have the right tools for the job is the main thing for remote-working and also not being afraid to try new tools or new ways of working.

So how do you keep everyone aligned while working from home?

We are a small team so it’s quite easy to stay aligned. We have quarterly strategy meetings, quarterly data and insights sharing, group weekly status meetings and one-on-one 15 min weekly catch-ups. This seems to be enough for us right now.

Do you have a share or option scheme in place? If so, what impact has it made?

Yes, we gave our early core team and some fantastic collaborators some micro-equity in the early stages of the business through Vestd. We’ve continued to do this as the business developed and our team grew.

That's great to hear! 

It was really important for us to do this from the get-go as it has meant everyone involved has a stake in the business. Hopefully, they’ll see a return on their hard work and dedication when the time comes.

 Absolutely. What would you say is the biggest mistake you've made as an entrepreneur?

Got distracted by trying to raise private investment when we actually didn’t need to. 

You're not the only one; lots of founders feel the same upon reflection. How would you best describe your business philosophy?

Work with others to do good and promote happiness outdoors. 

Love that! And finally, what does a Friday night look like to you?

Friday looks like every other night, to be honest as we’ve been in lockdown and following restrictions for so long.

I subscribe to the plastic-free Dabba-Drop so thankfully Friday is still curry night. Other than that, I do a lot of reading as it helps take my mind off the every day and provides some much-needed escapism.

A curry night is a Friday night well spent! Thanks for your time Hana, it's been a pleasure.