The Escapee Collective
The home for Gen Xers working out their next chapter. Still in corporate, just got walked out, or already building something. Everybody in here is somewhere on that road.
Come for the education. Stay for the people.
Free. No credit card, no trial, no pitch waiting at the end.
What's inside
You show up for the first one. You stay for the other two. That's been true of every good room I've ever been in.
Monthly sessions on one practical thing. How to find your first customer. What to charge. What's actually working right now, from people doing it this month.
Rooms for wherever you happen to be, so you're never explaining your situation to people who don't share it.
The part nobody expects. Members hire each other, refer each other, and team up on work that's too big for one person.
Where you are right now
Wherever you're standing, somebody in here was standing there last year and would be glad to tell you what they'd do differently.
Thinking about it, planning it, or just worn out and not sure yet. Honestly the best time to be asking questions, because right now a paycheck is covering the mistakes.
Nobody is going to tell you to quit. Still In Corporate
It's taking everybody longer than it should, and that's the market, not you. There's a room full of people who have been exactly here and came out the other side.
Land here first. Laid Off and Looking
Six months in or six years in. Pricing, positioning, the quiet quarter, the client who went dark. All of it gets easier when you have people to ask.
Find your people. Local Chapters
Why it's free
Free communities don't work, they said. People don't value what they don't pay for. You're giving away the thing you should be charging for.
I ran the paid version for a couple of years. Good room, good people, and I'm proud of it.
Here's what I kept noticing. The people who needed it most were the ones who stopped at the checkout. Still in corporate and not sure. Just laid off and watching every dollar. Exactly the people I built it for.
So I took the wall down.
I'd rather help a thousand people work out their next chapter than charge a hundred for the privilege.
What it actually sounds like in here
That's the whole thing. The questions you'd ask a friend who already went through it, except there's a roomful of them and somebody is always around.
Join
Takes about a minute
Already a member? Nothing changes for you. You keep everything you had.
Fair questions
There isn't one. No credit card, no trial, no call you have to sit through. I make a living other ways and this isn't one of them. If that ever changes you'll hear it from me first.
It was, for a couple of years. The people who needed it most kept stopping at the checkout, so I took the wall down. Everybody who paid keeps everything they had.
It might be the best time. Every question you answer now is one you're not scrambling on the week after you leave, and right now a paycheck is covering the mistakes. Plenty of people in here are employed and building quietly.
Right thing to worry about. The difference is that things here are scheduled and small. Monthly sessions with a start and an end, rooms sorted by where you actually are, and members running a lot of it. You end up knowing eight people well instead of skimming four hundred.
No. Some people are in here every day and some surface twice a year with one question. Both are fine and nobody is keeping track.
No, in either direction. People in here range from still-in-corporate to seven figures with nobody on payroll. If you're Gen X and thinking about what's next, you're in the right place.
Maybe. We add cities as people raise their hand to host one. Join, look at Local Chapters, and if yours isn't there say so. That's usually how a new one starts.
Say hello, then find the room that matches where you are. That's it. You'll have the hang of it in ten minutes.
Gen Xers at every stage of the same road, somewhere to ask the question you've been sitting on, and a reason to get out of the house once in a while.
Takes about a minute. Leave whenever you want.