Something radical - quitting jobs to go into this industry

[costa-brava]

It's interesting to read of other people doing this. But I find it strange that you should ask the question Paul. There are thousands who have upped sticks for a new life.
In 1986 I was manager of a Bejam store (now Iceland) in Scotland and my wife was a primary teacher. We sold our council house at a profit thanks to Maggie, bought a piece of land and built a house of the timber frame concept.
One freezing cold February night as the night-store heaters cooled down we thought of sunnier climes. Kids were 10, 8 and 6.
We put the house up for sale and bought a beat-up old motorhome then went down to Manchester for an intensive course on teaching English as a foreign language. It took a year to sell the house at the price we wanted then off we went.
We got as far as Warrington when the guy behind bumped us in the bum and tumbled us across three lanes of the motorway. A really helpful bobby helped us shovel our possessions into blankets and took us to a B&B in Ashton in Makerfield.
We bought a dozen big bags, packed what we could salvage and took the Costa Brava plane, as the song says.
We bummed around the first summer then bought a town house in Sant Antoni de Calonge. By way of furnishings we had a set of six plastic handled cutlery!!!
Our entry into holiday lettings came through the purchase of a building for our language school.
The rest of the story takes 30 years. I might write the book some time.
But my frank and honest answer Paul is that simply by asking the question you may have shown that you're not ready to take the leap. We have no regrets but it sure wasn't easy. You have to burn your boats and take the plunge. Nowadays you have Ryanair and internet etc. etc. etc.
When we started our school we didn't have any books and nobody in the town sold them.
When we started renting flats we put a notice on the railings of the balcony.
Nowadays it's a piece of pie. So why are you asking? If you want to do it, just do it!!!!

[French Cricket]

I'm going to have to disagree with two things you've said, costabravarent. Sorry. The first one is this:

simply by asking the question you may have shown that you're not ready to take the leap. We have no regrets but it sure wasn't easy. You have to burn your boats and take the plunge.

In my book the opposite is true - it's when you start asking the questions that the process of being ready begins - or rather the process of discerning whether you're ready / want to do it or not. That's a hugely important process for anyone embarking on a major life change. Life isn't like 'A Place in the Sun' or other such - ahem - reality shows; there are real implications to making a major move that need to be thoroughly thought through (now there's a good phrase for a TEFL teacher ). I've encountered so many people, both personally and professionally, who've missed out that stage, often with upsetting consequences.

Nowadays it's a piece of pie. So why are you asking? If you want to do it, just do it!!!!

Actually, nowadays it's not a piece of pie! There's never been more competition, and you have to do and be something very special to stand out from it and make your particular business idea work.

And yes, I've done it - twice! - and have no regrets, at all. The first time was a real punt, not terribly well thought through: huge fun, but unsustainable in the long term, work-wise and income-wise, even though we were full a lot of the time. The second time was planned down to the last i and t; it was equally successful but the amount of work involved still took us by surprise. The second time - which was in the UK - morphed after 9 years into the third time, here in France, where I've lived happily for 9 years so far. And counting.

[costa-brava]

Of course you have to look at facts and figures, French Cricket, but Paul's question was "Has anyone on here done anything completely radical such as?" and he's talking about moving from Yorkshire to Scotland!!!
You here a lot of rubbish these days about marketing plans and business models, a lot of which comes out of Dragon's Den and Apprentice and things like that. You need a money plan and an exit plan and then go for it. Who dares wins!
Do you really think that Alan Sugar had more than a seat-of-the-pants guess when he bought up Sinclair?

[Essar]

Do you really think that Alan Sugar had more than a seat-of-the-pants guess when he bought up Sinclair?

He did actually have a very detailed plan of what he was going to do. Besides getting the Sinclair name and all world rights for ever, he also bought up all the surplus stock of Sinclair's computers. He paid £5M for everything and sold the surplus stock in 6-months for just short of £5.5M. His Finance Chief was the brother-in-law of a work colleague of mine, so I got the updates at the time. Although, a shrewd "barrowboy" with an eye for an opportunity he had learned to surround himself with "proper" finance people who knew a thing or two themselves.