Hi, I’m Max. I’d love to understand how you really run things.

My wife and I are a small team. I’m a software developer, she’s a designer, and we’re happiest outdoors. Most weekends that means hiking, camping, cycling or getting in the sea for a surf, and on holiday we’ll try just about any adventure sport going.

I’ll be up front about why I’m writing. We’d love to build a business of our own in the outdoor industry. It’s where we’re happiest, and we’d like to put our working skills to use somewhere that genuinely matters to us. But we don’t want to make just another forgettable tool. We want to build something properly useful.

The question we keep coming back to is a simple one. How do we make it easier to run a small outdoor business, so that more people get outside? To answer it properly, we’re talking to the people already doing it across England and Wales: coasteering and climbing guides, surf and kayak schools, expedition leaders, and the fishing and charter skippers working out of our harbours. We want to understand the day-to-day. Where does the real time go? What’s the hassle that never quite goes away? Which bits genuinely cost you money, or a good night’s sleep?

So I’ll be straight with you. We haven’t built anything yet, and we’re early. We’d rather understand a real, painful problem properly than guess at one from a desk. Right now we just want to listen and learn.