A Socially Conscious Company

When she was a student at Dartmouth, Maia Josebachvili wanted to go skydiving but couldn't afford it. It occurred to her, however, that if she organized a whole group of paying customers for a skydiving excursion, she could go along for free. Thus was born the idea for Urban Escapes, which Josebachvili started in 2008 to offer excursions for New Yorkers looking for a weekend of white-water rafting, mountain climbing, or perhaps just apple picking. In looking around for a career, says Josebachvili in our video show, "I was most drawn to creating my own thing," and as she adds elsewhere, Urban Escapes "started as a passion product. I mean, this is who I am. I spend my weekend's mountain biking, rock climbing, and skydiving and then drinking beers at a brewery." The fun factor is what also attracted Josebachvili's eventual co-owner: "I was motivated to join Urban Escapes," says Bram Levy, "purely because it seemed like something fun to do. I was really lucky to have the opportunity to try something new and fun and exciting, and if it didn't work out," he admits, "...I could always come back to the safe world" (which, for Levy, was "the consulting world").

About four months after starting out, 25-year-old Josebachvili had sought out 29-year-old Levy to help her expand the business, and by mid-2010, Urban Escapes had outlets in Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. The company soon added offices in San Francisco, Chicago, and Austin, Texas, bringing the workforce to a grand total of nine full-time employees (New York also required a full-time manager) and 50 part-timers to run weekend events. Levy admits that he was surprised by the eagerness of people to buy into the Urban Escapes concept. It wasn't the money: "If someone is working for us solely to get rich," he advises, "I'm guessing they made a poor choice." From the beginning, however, "we had employees across the country working for us for virtually no income and no stability, merely because they enjoyed what we had to offer. And," Levy hastens to point out, "they were having fun." Since joining Urban Escapes, Levy has come to the conclusion that "when people are excited about something, they'll do virtually anything." Josebachvili agrees that it's a matter of "passion," but she's also convinced that people gravitate toward Urban Escapes because it offers them an opportunity for satisfaction in their work lives: "It sounds so cheesy," she says, "but I think it was really the passion and everyone's belief that this was going to work" that allowed Urban Escapes to take off.

Urban Escapes, he tells us, was "an idea that I truly believed in [and] thought could work," and it offered him "a chance to run my own business again without a tremendous amount of financial or personal risk." In fact, the most important decision that Josebachvili and Levy have made during their company's brief existence was a major business decision. In 2010 (its last year as a stand-alone business), Urban Escapes attracted about 12,000 customers and took in $1 million in revenue. Living Social, which now has 60 million members worldwide and 4,900 employees, had revenues of $100 million in 2010 and $224 million in 2011.

1-In your opinion, what causes job satisfaction among employees of Urban Escapes?

2-What type of values apply to Josebachvili and Levy?

3-In your opinion, is Urban Escapes a risky idea for the post-pandemic COVID-19?