Feature Friday: Laurence and Natalie Warriner, Brazen Brits

On exploring the backroads, staying authentic, and building a business that lets you do exactly what you want from anywhere.

Welcome to Feature Friday, where I’ll introduce you every week to someone who is building a business that lets them explore more often. Through these stories, you’ll gain sparks of inspiration that can be woven into your journey.

---

One of the biggest questions I get from people is, how can I take my family on the road? Although we’re not a full-time family, I’ve connected with many who are including this week’s guest couple, Laurence and Natalie Warriner.

What I love about their story is that they have taken a “yes, and” approach to business. Not only have they started their own venture through Brazen Brits, but they also still leave a lot of space for each person to explore their personal interests while on the road. It’s this combined approach to RV living and entrepreneurship that allows them to up the live life to the max and use their voice to encourage others to do the same!

Meet Laurence and Natalie!

What is your name and what do you do?

Laurence (Cyber Security Specialist) & Natalie Warriner (Social Media Marketing Manager, Dog Trainer, Aerial Silks Instructor)

How do you seek adventure on the open road?

We specifically like to explore more of the unknown attractions throughout the USA and Canada. We love the main things (National and State Parks), but we really enjoy finding the quirky little things. We both have very different interests, so Laurence likes cars, museums, history, and technology, whereas Natalie enjoys anything related to animals, fitness, and nature. It’s great to have such a wide range of interests between us, as it means wherever we go, one of us will be fascinated.

What inspired you to start this business?

Cyber security has always allowed Laurence to work remotely on the road as long as internet connectivity is reliable, and this is our main source of income. Laurence specifically sought a role that would allow him to work remotely, and it is working out really well. Natalie has owned multiple dog training companies both in the UK and the US, and that is her real passion. In recent years, she has also become an Aerial Silks instructor (Cirque de Soleil). She also manages our Social Media for Brazen Brits and a few other companies for additional income.

What do you like most about your business?

Laurence is naturally a nerd. He loves everything tech. Artificial Intelligence, Smarthome stuff, cool gadgets, etc. Although Natalie would never consider herself a nerd, she understands modern technology and knows all the tricks of the trade with social Media marketing (Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, etc). In recent years, Natalie has also specialized in fitness, especially Aerial Silks (Think Cirque Du Soleil Style), and is a fully qualified dog trainer. 

What’s going through your audience’s mind when they come to you for help?

Our Youtube channel isn’t really selling anything. Our goal is to cover our costs through views and our YouTube membership options. In addition, we sell branded Red Friday (Remember Everyone Deployed) t-shirts and hoodies, but all the profit from those go to veteran charities. We just really enjoy documenting our strange adventures, meeting other RVers, and finding the weirdest & quirky places we can on our travels. We love exploring the US, it has so many amazing places to see, both natural (like the Grand Canyon), and local (like the Temple of Tolerance).

How have you designed your business to run while you roam?

There are some aspects that run without us, but we are mostly always at the helm. We always make sure we are connected to the world, which does restrict our adventures somewhat, but we are like everybody else because we offer services that people need. To offer those services, we need to be connected to the internet, and we are happy to compromise certain things in order to do so. As an example, typically, state and national parks don’t work for us simply due to no internet, especially on the East Coast, where cell signal is bad and trees block our Starlink connection. Maybe in the future, we will be able totally disconnect and visit some really crazy places where we don’t need to be connected to the internet 90% of the time.

What challenges have you faced by running a business from the road?

Internet access for sure. Reliable, fast Internet access is our bread and butter. We have all the options to be connected to the internet. We have also customized our Travel Trailer and truck to allow us to have a good environment to work in. We have a bunch of lithium batteries and various internet options. We don’t have solar yet, but that will probably be our next investment. Ultimately, the internet and electricity are the top 2 things we don’t compromise on. 

If you had to start over again, what would you do differently? 

Everything has a learning curve and a level of risk. Income is of utmost importance and it’s what allows you the freedom of travel. When we started, we had regular jobs that we took for granted. Natalie had to adapt more than Laurence having to change from a reliable, loyal customer base who she would work with often, to having to help people on the road. Her social media marketing role only really developed as a hobby and to help other creators grow their community. We don’t think we would really do anything differently other than really understand the level of effort, attention, and focus that remote working really takes. All YouTubers put an incredible amount of time and effort into their brand, which is not very obvious when you watch YouTube videos. We include ourselves in that. It’s not that we want our viewers to think that we do less work and have more fun, but honestly….who wants to watch us sit in front of a laptop 5 days a week? We film our explorations on our weekends and work the same as everybody else during the week. The only difference is that one week, we’ll be working from the rim of Grand Canyon and the next on the beach in South Carolina.

What’s the biggest compliment you’ve ever received?

The one thing we often hear is, “I can’t believe you are exactly like you are in your videos!”. We aren’t sure if this is meant as a compliment, but we’ll take it. The only concern for us is that we wonder if other creators are NOT like they are in their videos. That sounds like a lot of effort to pretend to be somebody you’re not. It also means that our viewers and subscribers know exactly what they are getting when we meet in real life: Bad jokes, normally hungover, fascinated by everything we see and do.

What are you getting excited about right now?

We are currently planning our 2024 season. This is our hardest year to plan so far as we had a lot of personal life changes in 2023 that affects what we can do, where we can go and maybe what we will be traveling in. We’d love to give some hints as to what these are, but we honestly don’t know yet ourselves……I guess that’s why it’s so exciting!

Where can we connect with you?

Our primary platform is YouTube (YouTube.com/BrazenBrits), but we are on all the major social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, etc). Just search for Brazen Brits. You can also email Hello@BrazenBrits.com.