Clock Off is an affordable micro-campervan conversion business, encouraging people to reclaim the five to nine. “We launched in the summer of 2020 after realising that affording a campervan was almost as difficult as getting on the housing ladder,” says founder Elle Upshall. “As a result, we began converting micro-campervans for a micro budget, offering an affordable solution to getting outdoors.”

Having launched during the UK’s first coronavirus lockdown, Clock Off is yet to experience business as ‘normal’ – but the past two years have taught Elle to stay on her toes. “With the ever-changing restrictions on travel and the continuous impact on people’s finances, we have constantly had to adapt to fit our customers’ needs,” she says. 

As a result, in April 2021 they launched their first hire campervan to enable people to experience the joy of travelling in a campervan without being restricted to purchasing one. Elle says getting this off the ground has been her proudest moment in business to date. 

“Compared to our usual operations of converting and selling a campervan, launching a hire vehicle required a lot more work behind the scenes and we were determined to launch ahead of restrictions lifting. Despite having a few setbacks with suppliers and the continued uncertainty of when people were able to go camping again, we were able to launch on time and were fully booked for the entire 2021 summer season.”

As she’s built the business, a key learning for Elle has been to stay aware of the changing behaviours of consumers. “In the past couple of years, Britons have had a chance to take a moment of pause and appreciate what they have around them,” she says. “Whereas before, we felt we needed to present the dream of travelling across the world in a van, now our consumers want simplicity and ease, right on their doorstep.”

After a successful year in 2021 both hiring out and converting micro-campervans, the team are now focusing their efforts for 2022 on transforming their customers’ own vehicles into micro-campervans, with conversions already booked up four months in advance. 

Elle’s advice to other women thinking of launching a business is: “Do something you love, and do it at your own pace.”

She explains: “Starting Clock Off came with lots of risks, fears and expense. It was also quite labour intensive in the beginning. 

“There is a lot of content out there that suggests you should quit your job and start a business and life will all work out fine. But really, your top priority is finding something you’d even enjoy doing five (if not more) days a week and validating that there is a market for it. 

“I continued to work in a separate job for the first six months of Clock Off. I made the decision that I could afford to go part-time and, through growing a community on social media, I was able to validate that I’d also have customers to keep me busy for half the week. 

“Once I had done six months of part-time and our customer base had grown, I was able to fully validate my business model and justify leaving my job fully to go full-time into the business.”

Elle says that being featured in the bank and Getty Images’ Female Focus #BeTheRoleModel initiative means “an incredible amount” to her and the business. “Being recognised through this initiative has given me immense confidence and pride in the hard work I have put into setting up and running Clock Off.

“The campervan industry is traditionally very male-dominated and the imposter syndrome rarely leaves you as a result. As a business we have been very vocal about the lack of representation of female entrepreneurs in the marketing of certain trades, and this initiative will give us a fantastic opportunity to start changing that.”