Secret Leaders

Founders dream of being early to market, garnering flattering press, watching their product fly off the shelves and IPOing in record time. For Kuba Wieczorek, Co-Founder and former Chief Marketing Officer of Eve Sleep, the dream became a reality. And then the wheels came off. Kuba founded DTC mattress company Eve Sleep in 2015 with his cousin Jas, and they quickly started experiencing explosive growth. Within just two years they’d raised £35 million and were valued at £140 million. To top it off, they IPOd in record breaking time. It was the stuff of fairytales. But the fairytale wasn’t to last. “About six months after Jas left I hit rock bottom as well. You know, really rock bottom, I realised that it was either my health and my family, or staying at Eve, so I made the right choice. I resigned.” In today’s episode, Kuba shares his journey with Eve, the effect it had on him and his mental health, and what he will do differently in the future. “I’ll be stronger with myself and not be seduced by crazy growth and money and promises of IPO and riches and all of that stuff. Authenticity, be authentic. If you know who you are, and you know the brand you're building, just stick to that.” We chat about: The meteoric rise of eve Sleep The fastest ever British retail float The toll of eve on his mental health Know what you’re building -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

Markus Villig was 19 when he decided to spend the $5,000 his parents had saved up for university on starting a business instead. His initial goal for Bolt, then called Taxify, was to solve Tallinn’s (Estonia) taxi problem. By 25 he was the youngest unicorn founder in Europe and had shown that Uber wasn’t going to win everywhere. “Today, Bolt is the fastest growing mobility company in the world. We have more than 50 million customers on the platform. We operate in more than 40 countries. And we’ve raised more than $600 million of funding with a team of about 2000 people.” Markus knew from an early age he wanted to start a company and build a product. “The only things that were really, really clear for me were that it needed to be in technology, I really wanted it to be a consumer product. And it needed in some ways to make the world a better place. But other than that, I was pretty agnostic of which space to get into.” He chose transportation, not only because he can’t drive, but because hundreds of billions of dollars are spent on transportation globally by consumers each year, and what they get in return isn’t good. From the problems caused by private cars, to taking on Uber, their unusual funding routes, making big mistakes in his early hires, and why his strategy to focus on Africa paid off. “The last straw for me was when I was in Serbia, in Belgrade, meeting one of the local taxi companies. And halfway through the meeting, I realised that these guys are essentially mafia, the guy had a revolver on the table and a big safe in the corner of his office.” This is a tale of tenacity and grit, and a CEO’s unwavering belief in his vision. Don’t miss it. It’s a good one. We chat about: Building his first company at 17 Taking on Uber The hardest challenges he faced as CEO Scaling and fundraising when no VC will touch you Not diluting the company’s focus too much Links: Eat Sleep Work Repeat - Perspectives on the work to come -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

You might not have heard of today’s guest or his company, but if you’ve had a Covid jab in the UK (or are going to) there’s a good chance you’ve used their tech. Laurence Bargery is co-founder of accuRx, a healthtech supplier trusted by 99% of GPs, and with ⅓ of all vaccine bookings in the UK now taking place through their systems. “Within about four or six weeks of us releasing this suite of Covid tools we'd gone up from that 50% point to about 99% of GPs using us.” Laurence and co-founder Jacob Haddad built a tool to allow GPs and other healthcare providers to communicate more effectively with their patients. To date, their software is used by 7,000+ GP surgeries and has messaged 30m+ patients. But they didn’t start out down this avenue. In fact, they started off looking at antibiotic resistance, but the market wasn't there, so they pivoted. They knew they wanted to create something that added value to healthcare, but not knowing enough about the industry and its sticking points, they immersed themselves in a GP practice. “And that's where this idea came from, of something super simple we can do that's going to be really powerful when applicable to so many of the problems in general practice and healthcare and ultimately, that was communication.” From getting traction with GPs, to building individual Wix websites, Laurence shares how they grew accuRx pre-Covid, to how they've dealt with the explosive growth during and post the pandemic. If you’re a founder and you’ve had to pivot your business, or you’re thinking about pivoting, don’t miss this latest episode of Secret Leaders. We chat about: Pivoting the business to accuRx Dealing with explosive growth Strategically handling 99% market share Monitoring employee engagement Links: Jacob Haddad -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

We’ve been making the UK’s startup podcast since 2017 and this is our 100th episode. To celebrate, we’re doing something a little different and bringing you a bunch of the most powerful stories and insights from some of the amazing guests we’ve had the honour of talking to over the years. In celebration of this milestone, we’re also giving away a pair of Apple Airpod Pros to a lucky Secret Leaders subscriber/follower. Entering is super simple and takes just a few seconds - go to www.secretleaders.com/competition to win. We’ve divided this episode into three sections. In the first, you’ll hear war stories from the founders of some of the world’s biggest unicorns; in the second we share tales of mental health and adversity; and in the third we bring you big ideas. “What I want them to learn from me is to find that thing that really makes you happy, and where you're really creative, because that's what will bring you fulfilment in your life.” From Daniel Schreiber, co-founder of insurance disruptor Lemonade, on how he formulated the product, to Jo Malone talking about growth, to Will Shu, founder of Deliveroo, talking about those early scrappy days when everyone had to roll up their sleeves and get stuck in: “We would do stuff like just hand out flyers in the street. I wore a kangaroo costume too many times. I didn't enjoy wearing the kangaroo costume.” You’ll hear Cal Henderson, co-founder of Slack, talking about his company's reaction to the pandemic, former Chief Business Officer for Google X, Mo Gawdat, sharing how even the worst times in our lives can be gateways into something beautiful, and Jason Calcanis, the self-proclaimed ‘greatest angel investor of all time’: “A lot of founders and people have early success. The things that made them successful in that first phase of their career will actually work against them in the second phase.” For all you entrepreneurs out there, don’t miss this ultimate episode, jam packed full of 12 insightful, key takeaways. Download and listen now. We chat about: How to be a disruptor Lay the foundations for success The value of happiness, resilience and a culture of openness Develop atomic habits Support women in business Be humble Links: Daniel Schreiber Will Shu Jo Malone Cal Henderson Nicola Kilner Mo Gawdat Martha Lane Fox Damien Bradfield James Clear Debbie Wosskow Alain De Botton Jason Calcanis www.secretleaders.com/competition -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

As the captain of the Harvard squash team, Will Ahmed trained and prepared as best he could. But, whatever he tried, his body kept breaking down. He didn't know why so he started researching the human body, devouring medical papers. Now, several years later, those personal frustrations have grown into Whoop, a wearable tech startup you can see on the wrists of NFL players, pro golfers and Navy Seals - despite being consistently told his strategy was wrong. “The vision for Whoop has always been the same, which is that we're going to build this wearable platform that's going to help you improve your health. And it's going to start with the best athletes in the world. And then it's going to be on everyone.” So he was proved right. Whoop counted professional athletes LeBron James and Michael Phelps among their first 100 users, and just got valued at $1.2 billion. “I object to the quote, ‘it's a marathon, not a sprint’, because it's actually both. If you truly are trying to create a company from scratch, and have it be this enormous success, you have to go at an incredibly high pace for an incredibly long time.” We chat about: How overtraining led him to found Whoop How do you actually create a resilient mindset Why the first fundraise was the toughest How to build epic brand partnerships What happens when Amazon try to rip you off -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

Most people recognise Trinny Woodall for being one half of Trinny and Susannah from their breakout TV show: What Not To Wear, but not many people know this side of her story. Trinny is a serial entrepreneur. She was a founder in the dotcom bubble back in the day, and is the founder of soaring makeup startup, Trinny London, which booked £42m of revenue in the last year. What happened? How did she get here? In today’s episode of Secret Leaders, Trinny shares her really surprising entrepreneurial journey that doesn’t get told. “Susannah and I started the idea [their first entrepreneurial venture], it was a very lucky break. And I did that for eight years. And then from that television came and then I started writing books and that whole part of my career, when I look back now, brought me to being the CEO of Trinny London.” It doesn’t matter if you’re a budding founder or a seasoned entrepreneur, this episode with Trinny is not to be missed. From hiring interns with a twinkle in their eye, to having to sell her clothes to fund her startup, to understanding the need for personalisation in a brand, Trinny has a wealth of experience every founder needs to hear. “Through building Trinny London, advice I always give to other entrepreneurs, younger entrepreneurs, is stay in your own lane. Because if you look too much at the competition, you dilute the uniqueness of your offering.” We chat about: Her partnership with Susannah The genesis of Trinny London Financing Trinny London How she handled fame Creating a community on social media -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

How big can a flower company really be? Well, the industry processes over a billion transactions every year and Bloom & Wild is leading the charge to become the dominant player. In today’s show we talk to Co-Founder and CEO Aron Gelbard about how it all nearly failed before it had even begun, and how much of that market they can really take. “We're doing a few million of those. So we've made meaningful headway. But there's a huge way to go around the world.” That’s not bad for a company that set up shop in 2013 and quickly became best known for making it possible to send flowers in under a minute on a smartphone, and for those flowers to be delivered through your letterbox. “We got 1,000 orders in the week of [our first] Mother's Day. And I remember this because I had to process them all individually in the spreadsheet, and it took me all day to do whereas normally the order processing took an hour.” From their first piece of accidental marketing by the Daily Mail (after being told to move on by Wholefoods on High St. Ken), to understanding the value of a great customer review: “We very rapidly realised that it was going to be really important to get good customer reviews and build trust, because people need to trust you in order to let you be the conveyor of their emotions. And so we focused on getting good review scores.” Don’t miss Aron sharing the challenges of international growth, the problem with building a website on the cheap, their success with replantable Christmas trees through the post, and raising their recent £75m seed funding round. “It's super important for me to be kind to everybody that I interact with. I think it connects to my desire to please people, it's really innate in the business that we're in, that you have to do it kindly. And I think I've tried to be kind to consumers and those that we work with, and to our team.” We chat about: Tracking sender and recipient Net Promoter Score Embracing sustainability Fundraising for international expansion Building and nurturing culture while WFH The importance of kindness -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

To mark Women’s History Month, we’re serving you the secret sauce of four incredible female founders: Alice Bentinck, co-founder of Entrepreneur First; Debbie Wosskow, co-founder of AllBright; Saasha Celestial-One, co-founder of Olio; and Tamara Lohan, co-founder of Mr and Mrs Smith. Although the numbers for female-founded businesses are improving, it still remains that of the 6 million businesses in the UK, only 1/5 are run by women. There are twice as many male entrepreneurs as female ones. And only 1% of startup funding goes to female-founded businesses. “When I started, there was not a whiff of any kind of VC money specifically for female businesses, there were no female networking clubs, there were no female support groups, there was nothing.” In this one-off episode, recorded at our live event for International Women’s Day 2020, these founders share some of the toughest moments they’ve had in their careers, they discuss access to funding, and why there has never been a better time to become an entrepreneur, if you’re female. “I suppose my coping mechanism is to try and ignore [imposter syndrome] and just focus on solving the problems that will make my business better and more valuable, rather than constantly worrying about my own performance.” We chat about: Their toughest moments as entrepreneurs Funding as female entrepreneurs The shifting gender balance Tackling imposter syndrome Links: https://www.secretleaders.com/alice-bentinck https://www.secretleaders.com/allbright-debbie-woskow https://www.secretleaders.com/saasha-celestial-one https://www.secretleaders.com/tamara-lohan -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

You can’t take your ears off our guest today. Born and raised in Canada, Michele Romanow has been building startups since university (a cafe which still operates today) followed by a venture in an industry she knew nothing about - caviar - right when the 2008 financial crisis struck. “There I am, 21 years old, selling the world's most unnecessary luxury product. I realised the world owes you absolutely nothing, that everything can fall apart in a second, that it can be your fault. It can be the market's fault, it doesn't matter. But I was gonna have to pivot if I wanted it to be successful.” And pivot she did. From Buytopia, to SnapSaves (acquired by Groupon), to Dragons’ Den Canada (‘I was the youngest Dragon ever’), to co-founding Clearbanc - Michele has done so much in such a short space of time. She co-founded Clearbanc having seen dozens of similar pitches on Dragons’ Den. The idea is that ecommerce founders no longer have to give up equity in exchange for capital. Instead Clearbanc invests and gets paid back from revenues with a 6% - 12% fee on top. “We have now invested more than $1.6 billion into 4,000 different founders around the world. We have backed eight times more women than the venture capital industry average.” What a story. We hope you enjoy it. If you like what we’re doing please subscribe or follow Secret Leaders. We chat about: Starting her career in cafes and caviar From Dragons’ Den to Clearbanc The struggle of financing Clearbanc The hardest part of being an entrepreneur Never be comfortable -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

“I was a young kid with a family on government benefits living off £600 a month. I was surrounded by people that could afford private school. And from a naive child's perspective, they seemed to have everything that I didn't have when I went home to my reality. But I think that was the formation of Harry Hurst, the hungry, ambitious, immigrant entrepreneur.” Today’s Secret Leader, Harry Hurst, has been hustling ever since he was kid - and he’s had to. He credits his poor upbringing for his entrepreneurial spirit - and with two hugely successful startups to his name (Skurt and Pipe), he’s not only someone who’s risked everything - he knows what it takes to build a special company. With co-founder Josh Mangel, he founded Skurt, an on-demand car rental service, later acquired by fair.com in 2014. They subsequently co-founded Pipe, a trading platform for a new asset class - recurring revenue - in 2019. “You've obviously seen the press announcement how we ended up raising $50 million from all of these strategic [partnerships], it's Shopify, Slack, HubSpot.” But it’s not all been plain sailing for Harry. He’s had his back to the wall on many occasions but in 2016 he experienced one of the toughest moments of his life when he was hit with severe anxiety. From his humble beginnings, to starting and selling Skurt, to founding Pipe, dealing with mental health and the importance of sharing ideas, Harry is open, frank and honest about his crazy journey. “Don't hold back on discussing the ideas that you have, if you want to be a founder. It pains me when people say to me, ‘I've got this amazing idea, but I can't talk about it’. I think that's gonna hold you back.” Download and listen to this truly fascinating, rags to riches story. We chat about: The origins of Harry Hurst, entrepreneur Founding Skurt and Pipe Harry the leader at Skurt v Harry the leader at Pipe Experiencing anxiety Don’t hold back on your ideas Links: www.fair.com www.pipe.com -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

Get you own unique referral link: https://www.secretleaders.com/hype Tom Blomfield, the former CEO and Co-Founder of Monzo, and Co-Founder of GoCardless, knows a thing or two about the fintech industry. “We wanted to create something different than existing banks. We believed that the banks weren't serving customers particularly well at that moment. Customer expectations had been raised dramatically by things like Spotify, Uber and Airbnb, in terms of the user experience and functionality.” Which is why his announcement in January 2021 that he was leaving Monzo, 6 years after founding the challenger bank, came as a shock to many. “When you get to that size, it's about people management. You spend almost no time on product or customers really. It's about process, a lot of process, extraordinary amount of regulation.” But it takes an outstanding leader to know when to step aside. And in today’s inaugural episode of Season 7, Tom talks about the mounting pressure when you’re at the top and ultimately its impact on your mental health and identity. “I've talked about suffering that kind of stress, a build up of stress, it starts impacting your sleep, or at least it impacted my sleep, it became this vicious cycle where not sleeping makes your work worse, make worse decisions.” From raising £1m from crowdfunding in 96 seconds, to how he scaled personally alongside the bank, to building a culture from the very outset, to what made him leave Monzo - Tom is exceedingly candid in this interview, which was recorded just a few weeks after his departure. Don’t miss this hugely insightful episode from one of Europe’s top founders and CEOs - it’s something all entrepreneurs need to hear. We chat about: Crowdfunding Monzo Building a culture from the start Entrepreneurship and mental health His decision process to leave Monzo Links: Monzo GoCardless -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

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“There's no birth control method that is 100% effective and Natural Cycles is as similarly effective as the pill. So it's 93% effective with typical use, and 98% effective with perfect use, meaning that you use protection on the days that the app says.” Before becoming CEO and co-founder of Natural Cycles, the world’s first and only app to be certified as a contraception both in Europe and in the US, today’s Secret Leader, Dr Elina Berglund, was part of the team that discovered the Higgs boson at CERN, which led to the Nobel Prize in physics in 2013. “I felt like with my understanding of data from particle physics, I can actually develop an algorithm that also learns cycle to cycle and applies more advanced statistical methods to say like, well, I'm definitely not fertile today.” Elina was looking for an effective natural contraceptive and applied her skills from particle physics to create an algorithm that could accurately pinpoint when a woman is fertile. Elina is now on a mission to pioneer women’s health with research and passion, empowering women with the knowledge they need to take charge of their health. From how to found an app and work with your husband, to building the algorithm without being in beta mode, dealing with unwanted pregnancies while using the app, to her biggest mistakes in the early days. Don’t miss Elina sharing her journey of how she created a product that fundamentally changed the way we choose to live our lives. “Now I'm looking back at it, I should have listened to my gut more, because my gut was telling me, this doesn't feel right, something feels difficult, this feels heavy. Now when things are actually going well, it feels easy, it doesn't feel hard anymore. So I think I should have listened to my gut and changed things faster.” We chat about: The transition from CERN to contraception How to build trust with the first users Funding and financing Natural Cycles Dealing with unwanted pregnancies Bringing wearable contraception to market -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

“Both my businesses have really strong values. And those have evolved pretty naturally from my growth coming into those interests of sustainability, of ethics, and saying, well, if I'm consuming something, that's one thing, but if I'm selling it, that's a whole other thing.” Today’s guest on Secret Leaders is not your average 23 year old. Grace Beverley is a Natwest GBEA Young Entrepreneur of the Year and founder of two brands, Tala and Shreddy. A successful female entrepreneur, Grace is shaking up the archaic business world. With a global reach of over 1.5 million, she’s been named first in Forbes 30 under 30’s retail and e-commerce list, at just twenty-three. At The University of Oxford she set up her first company, B_ND, a vegan friendly resistance band company which has since come under the Shreddy umbrella, an app that gives you workout plans you’ll actually like. And Tala, a sustainable activewear brand that is flying off shelves. But that’s not all, she’s also written a book due out in April called, Working Hard and Hardly Working. “Everything that we produce is going to be vegan. And that's what we set from the offset. And that was part of our purpose and our pillars and our values. And yet, obviously, that evolved to be so much more than that.” From influencer, to founding B_ND at The University of Oxford, to becoming CEO of two companies. Today’s episode charts Grace’s entrepreneurial journey, how her personal growth perspective has shaped her businesses, and how she’s learned to be a better leader by saying ‘I don’t know’. “I made this commitment a few years ago when I realised that, okay, I have this opportunity here to travel the world and take pictures for a living. And I don't enjoy that.” We chat about: The genesis of Tala and Shreddy Being an influencer How her two companies overlap Working Hard, Hardly Working The gender divide on social media Why you need to define success for yourself Links: Book - Working Hard, Hardly Working -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

If you’re in need of inspiration and ideas for how to succeed in the eSports world, then don’t miss this insightful episode with the co-founder and CEO of Fnatic, Sam Mathews. “I'm probably more like the Glazers than I am Alex Ferguson, because I'm kind of running the whole business.” Fnatic is one of the leading eSports teams in the world, and currently, the eSports industry is blowing up, not just because of Sam, but he has definitely contributed towards its success. But what is eSports and why are over 1.5 billion people around the world so into it? “[The] games we play on the computer are super engaging, and they're much more engaging in some ways than some of these physical sports, and tactical. And they're also unlimited in terms of imagination.” Not to mention watching people who are exceptionally good at eSports is thrilling in itself, and the top competitors engage with spectators in real time. From launching Fnatic at uni, to aiming to become a billion dollar company, in today’s episode of Secret Leaders, Sam shares his entrepreneurial journey to date. Including the transition from Neverland to becoming the CEO of Fnatic, how he bought his mum out of the company, fundraising on a $130 million valuation and most recently, creating an eSports partnership with Gucci. We chat about: What eSports are and why 1.5 billion people worldwide play them How he got his Mum working for Fnatic… and how he bought her out Why eSports tournaments are held IRL Creating an eSports partnership with Gucci Fundraising for Fnatic and becoming CEO -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

“Once you see it, you can't unsee it. [Insurance] is something that is 11% of GDP, $5 trillion worldwide, 100% household penetration. And you're like, wow, this has been hiding in plain sight. It’s such a dull industry that nobody's noticed it. Nobody's thought to tackle it.” Until Daniel Schreiber. That is. So what made a law graduate with no prior knowledge of the insurance industry decide to co-found an insurtech startup in 2016, which floated on the New York Stock Exchange just 4 short years later, more than doubling in valuation on the first day of trading? “It has been a pretty rapid growth, we're talking from standstill to about $200 million in just over four years and doubling every year.” Lemonade isn’t like any insurance platform you’ve ever come across before. Daniel (former president of Powermat) and co-founder Shai Wininger, (Fiverr co-founder) didn’t want to simply follow in the footsteps of what had gone before. They wanted to create a new kind of insurance company, something that improved the user experience for everyone. “We built [it] from scratch, we were vertically integrated, we built every piece of technology. We're not fronting for some old insurance company, we built every element of the user experience, down to the insurance dimensions, as well as the technological ones.” From lawyer to SanDisk to Power Mat to Lemonade, Daniel has had a portfolio career like no other. His is a truly fascinating journey where the phrase ‘peer to peer insurance’ sparked an idea that rapidly grew into a multi million dollar business. We chat about: The multigenerational Schreiber entrepreneurial mindset Building Lemonade from scratch The spark of peer to peer insurance High speed execution and financing Lemonade The insurance industry is politics Links: Fiverr Powermat -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

If you’re a budding entrepreneur, you can’t learn to swim by doing exercises on the beach, says Sir Ronald Cohen. “You can't keep preparing yourself for an entrepreneurial career. You learn by doing. And by your mid to late 20s, you're ready to do that. You don't have to prepare beyond that.” Sir Ronald is Chairman of the Global Steering Group for Impact Investment and The Portland Trust. He is a co-founder director of Social Finance UK, USA, and Israel, and co-founder Chair of Bridges Fund Management and Big Society Capital. But before all of this, he co-founded and was Executive Chairman of Apax Partners from 1972-2005. From immigrant, to grammar school, to Harvard Business School where he discovered Venture Capital, to setting up Apax Partners, to impact investing. Sir Ronald has had quite a life, his story is one of humanity and people. A 45-50 year overnight success story. “Venture capital was a way for me to do good and to do well, and at the same time create jobs and make money.” After becoming financially independent and at the age of 53, he informed his partners at Apax that he was leaving to deal with more important things. He wanted to help tackle social issues and try to contribute to achieving peace between Palestinians and Israelis. So, if you’re looking to create a social impact, Sir Ronald has a lot of sage advice for you - this is one episode not to be missed. “Principles have a cost, but they're always a bargain in the end. Don't try to take shortcuts. Live by your principles, you will attract the best talent, and you will be proud of your achievements.” We chat about: Founding Apax Partners Funding Dolly the sheep Social investment task force Impact investing Social investment bank The B Corp movement Links: https://www.onimpactnow.org/ Impact: Reshaping capitalism to drive real change -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

How do you get sober when AA isn’t working for you? Well, if you’re Samantha Moyo, you found the global sober raving movement, Morning Gloryville. A business designed to get people to wake up at 6am and go dancing, sober, to famous DJs such as Fatboy Slim, Basement Jaxx and Carl Cox. She sold just 26 tickets to their first event, but such is Sam’s desire to challenge the status quo, she grew the business to a community of 200,000 within 18 months, across 23 cities. Morning Gloryville was born from her life as Captain Hello Titties, an unsustainable, creative, money-making idea that involved putting on parties on the River Thames. But it wasn’t all plain sailing. “When you have co-founders, and things aren't well, one of the things that helped us was getting a mediator. We kept doing some practices together just to keep the energy flowing, so that we wouldn't affect the business.” Not only did she part ways with her co-founder, they had too little money for the growing company, and she wasn’t being kind to herself or those at work. “I wanted to bring conscious clubbing to the world stage and spread love, peace and joy through dancing. And after five years of doing that, and waking up at 6am so many times, I think my spirit was done.” Sam is no longer with Morning Gloryville, today she’s a wellness entrepreneur, with a difference. Now, known as Mystic Moyo, Sam has undergone her own transformation, from burnt out business leader, to activist, to mystic secret leader. So what can you do to be a more conscious leader inside your organisation? What can you do to keep on the path of curiousness? How can you take a more spiritual path, a more spiritual journey with your leadership? To find out, don’t miss this incredibly insightful episode. We chat about: Captain Hello Titties Building Morning Gloryville The notion of kindness Racial and economic injustice is real in business The birth of Mystic Moyo Links: www.msysticmoyo.com www.samanthamoyo.co.uk -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

The massive beauty disruptor, DECIEM, was founded in 2013 by “the beauty world’s most exciting disruptor”, Brandon Truaxe, and co-CEO Nicola Kilner. From the beginning, they weren't like any other cosmetic company, they acted more like a startup incubator launching 10 brands in rapid succession. They were hugely successful, did everything in house, outstripped the competition and grew wildly popular brands like The Ordinary. What Nicola wasn’t prepared for, however, was Brandon’s very public struggles with his mental health in 2018, his death in 2019, and the devastating impact it all had on the company. “Ultimately, you can't help someone who doesn't want help.” In this heartfelt, honest, emotionally raw episode of Secret Leaders, Nicola shares her incredible entrepreneurial journey to date. “It was always just trying to get the balance between keeping DECIEM going and trying to be there for Brandon. And people tell you all the time, you just have to wait for the person to want help. It's such a difficult situation to be in, you just have to wait for them to reach rock bottom. But what if they never do or, in Brandon's case, it ultimately ended in the worst possible way.” From founding DECIEM with Brandon, to seeking investment, scaling the business up, and then what happened when Brandon’s mental health took a turn for the worse. After being fired by Brandon, to assuming control of the company once more, Nicola tells the DECIEM story, warts and all, ensuring that Brandon’s legacy lives on. “Brandon would want, you know, he taught us so much about family and being there for each other. So it was kind of, let's just put that back into practice now.” We chat about: Starting DECIEM with Brandon Funding DECIEM with Estee Lauder Working with Brandon before and during 2018 Being fired and then regaining control of the company Communicating through a crisis Links: Brandon Truaxe Avestan -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

Wondering what to give as an unusual gift this year? How about donating in someone’s name to a social enterprise solving homelessness? Simply purchase a gift card for someone from Beam, and help a homeless person get back on their feet. “There's billions of pounds being spent on homelessness. More than 1,000 organisations are tackling homelessness. There are millions of people in London who care about this issue. And yet still, despite all of this, people are literally dying outside of tube stations.” But how does your donation help someone find a home? Well, it does more than that - through crowdfunding, you donate to people Beam are working with and the money goes directly towards training them in their chosen vocation so they can get back into employment. On the flip-side, Beam is giving scale-ups and corporates access to overlooked talent. “The greatest economic opportunity you can give to people is a sense of self worth and an opportunity to contribute back to society because really, they don't want donations. They want the ability to be in control of their own destiny.” Alex shares the story of the first homeless person he helped, Tony, and how he was the inspiration to scale up Beam. “I thought, well, if we can do that for one person, then what if we can do that for 100,000, or millions of people? What if we can use technology and operational processes to create this same life-changing intervention for other people at scale?” So, if you’re interested in learning how to solve huge societal problems with tech and new business models while making some money in the process, don’t miss this incredible episode. We chat about: Founding Beam and its business model Tony’s story Frustrations when running Beam Making money while doing social good Scaling up Beam with tech How to support Beam Links: beam.org -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

“I think today, if I look at the companies that are doing really well and kind of came out of nowhere, it's when their customer experience is 10 times better than the competition.” If you run a b2b, there’s a high possibility that you’re already a customer of today’s Secret Leader, CEO and founder of HubSpot, Brian Halligan. Founded in 2006, HubSpot has grown to annual revenues of over half a billion dollars, 3000 employees, 70,000+ customers across 100 countries. Brian is also an author of several fantastic books and has been named as one of the best CEOs for diversity and best CEOs for women, before it was trendy in tech. “Part of my mission in HubSpot isn't just to build a big successful company, but to build a company, my kid, and hopefully someday my grandkids, will be proud of and brag about.” In the early days of HubSpot, Brian found culture an uninspiring topic and famously said, ‘Please, can we never have a chief people officer?’ But even successful startup leopards can change their spots. Brian is now a keen advocate for culture, firmly believing, ‘culture is how people make decisions when you're not in the room. Culture is how you scale.’ So to hear from the inbound marketing legend himself on topics ranging from customer experience to company culture, imposter syndrome to CEO support groups, don’t miss this incredible episode of Secret Leaders. We chat about: The what and why of HubSpot Never making the same mistake twice Wartime mode vs peacetime mode How to nail customer experience HubSpot culture code How to look after your mental health Links: Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs Marketing Lessons From The Grateful Dead -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

If you’re concerned about AI and how it could affect your future, then don’t miss Tabitha Goldstaub on this week’s episode of Secret Leaders. Tabitha is a serial tech entrepreneur, an artificial intelligence industry expert who is chair of the UK government's AI Council, and co founder of CognitionX, which was before COVID, the biggest AI conference in the world, but has understandably had to pivot to an expert advice platform. “It was really clear that there were so many better experts to advise the government, but there wasn't anybody who could be the glue to hold them together. And they needed somebody to do a lot of the legwork. And also, I think they were looking for someone as optimistic as me.” Before that, she co-founded Rightster (now Brave Bison) a global b2b video network for distribution, content-sourcing, audience engagement and monetisation, and now she’s just written a book - How To Talk To Robots, something we could all do with learning. “I felt like I was at this sort of epicentre where I got to witness the future unfolding in front of my eyes. And I was selfish if I didn't explain it to my mates.” From explaining why she’s written a book about AI for women, to worrying that we won’t use AI to fight climate change, Tabitha is frank, open and incredibly honest about the future of AI. So, if you’re interested in the future of the world and the way that artificial intelligence will impact it, don’t miss this incredibly insightful episode. We chat about: Chairing the UK government’s AI council at 31 The fear that led her to write How To Talk To Robots The risks and rewards of AI Her biggest fear in AI The issue of trust Pivoting CogX from physical to virtual Links: How To Talk To Robots Cathy O'Neil - Weapons Of Math Destruction -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

“Bill [Lazier] would always remind our students, the most important thing is to do work you love, with people you love. And if you do work you love, with people you love, you win.” Jim Collins is an entrepreneurial researcher, however he’s most well known for being a best selling author of multiple books that frankly, if you're listening to this podcast and you haven't read, you've definitely got your priorities all wrong. We celebrate all things entrepreneur on Secret Leaders, having been in the game for almost 10 years ourselves. And one of the first books we ever read, as every budding, new or even seasoned entrepreneur should, was Good To Great. The timeless, classic, entrepreneurial handbook written by two experts. Jim’s latest book, Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0, a revamped and updated version of the original, is an homage to his co-author and late mentor, the inimitable Bob Lazier. “I asked Bill one day, I said, ‘So what makes a great relationship?’ He says, ‘oh, if you ask each person in the relationship, who benefits more from the relationship, they each independently would say, I do’.” Jim, by his own definition, is not normal. But then, we argue, what exceptional leader of industry is? That's why we invite people like him onto this show, so listeners can learn all about them. And this episode is one of the best. Jam packed full of tasty tidbits and inspiration, you should have your pen ready, because this is bound to fire up your neurons and get your thinking juices flowing. “Leadership is a responsibility not an entitlement, or decision, not an accident, a matter of willful action, not genetics, whether you learn to lead greatly in the end, is a choice.” We chat about: Bill Lazier Writing Good to Great in the spirit of relationships Level five leaders The myth of the entrepreneurial temperament His encounters with Steve Jobs The Stockdale paradox Why Patagonia is such a great company Links: Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos and Luck - Why Some Thrive Despite Them All Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0 Turning the Flywheel: A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great Turning Goals into Results: The Power of Catalytic Mechanisms Good To Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

If you've not read Atomic Habits by James Clear, we urge you to stop what you’re doing and go and get it. It's one of those books that once you've read it, you start to think about how those ideas can change your reality. “The book’s been out almost two years now and has sold over two million copies. And for me, the most gratifying thing is that the ideas are useful. The best thing is to see people using them to build better habits in their own life or to break habits that they've been struggling with for a while.” While James is not the father of thinking about habits, he is an expert on the subject, having built up a newsletter around the topic years before launching his bestselling book. “I'm not the smartest person, I'm not the fastest person, I’m not the first person to talk about this stuff. But I want to do it in a way that's useful.” By doing this, he's simply a master of demonstrating what best practice looks like and how that impact can impact your future, which above anything else, makes him a person you might want to listen to. “A habit is a behaviour that's tied to a particular context. And what you start to realise is that you cannot have a behaviour outside of an environment. They all happen within a certain context. Any time the environment changes in a big way, behaviour changes in a big way.” So for everything you need to know about habits and how they can help you be the best version of yourself, don’t miss out on this truly insightful and illuminating episode. We chat about: Why habits are universally timeless How Uber was founded on users’ habits What a habit is How COVID has changed our habits Bad habits that leaders should avoid Important habits for startups to avoid Links: Atomic Habits 3-2-1 newsletter The Outsiders - William Thorndyke -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

With host Dan Murray laid up in hospital, this special live episode is hosted by none other than the feisty, joyous force of nature, Resi founder, Alex Depledge. “We have a foundation at Resi that does pro bono work for architecture. People look at me a little bit sceptical, like, what's the motivation? You can't really earn a profit and do good at the same time. So why is building a for profit company better for society than building a charity?” Alex, alongside special guests Anne-Marie Huby of Just Giving and Alain de Botton of School of Life, discuss social enterprise, building for profit companies for good, and the question of whether this does or doesn't make more of an impact on society than charities. “When you think of the size of the charity sector, which in this country is commendably big, but you look at the wider overall economy, it stands to reason that if we want to live in a more fulfilling, equal, decent society, we're going to have to attend to what companies do.” Both of our guests, Anne-Marie and Alain, share their motivations for why they chose to create their businesses as for profits, rather than as charities, and spoiler alert, it’s not all about financial gain. “A business that wants to achieve good and make money has a double role, a business that merely wants to make money has a single mission. It's much harder to be a so-called good capitalist, because you're trying to hit two targets. You’ve got to work doubly hard.” Inspirational and insightful, this is another cracking, not-to-be-missed live episode. We chat about: Churches don't have the monopoly on doing good Good capitalism v bad capitalism Maslow’s hierarchy of needs The core issues with building charities How can we make capitalism work The effective altruism movement Links: https://www.secretleaders.com/alex-depledge https://www.secretleaders.com/alain-de-botton https://www.secretleaders.com/anne-marie-huby -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

We are all for throwing two fingers up at the establishment, and who better to do that than an LGBTQ, black, woman investor? Meet Arlan Hamilton, Founder and Managing Partner of Backstage Capital. Backstage Capital is a fund that invests in under-estimated founders that are defined as women, people of colour and members of the LGBTQ community, who together represent the biggest economic opportunity for investment. Arlan’s latest book, It’s About Damn Time has been received with critical acclaim, because given the state of play in the world right now, it really is about damn time. She’s an inspiring hustler who’s come to venture capital from a completely adjacent industry. Just a few short years ago Arlan was homeless and now, 5 years on, her $10m boutique venture fund has invested in over 130 startups. She takes capital from an increasing list of big name investors, such as Mark Cuban, who trust her decision making to back the next generation of founders. “I didn't believe when they said things like, ‘you're not networked enough’, or ‘you're not connected enough’. I thought that was BS. But I did respect the ones who said, ‘you've got to really get your chops figured out’ and thankfully, no one could be more sure of that than myself, like, no one could be harder on me than I could be on myself.” We chat about: Becoming a venture capitalist Fair feedback during fundraising The ignorant assumptions VC make about underrepresented founders Preparing founders for investment The power of saying no How she maintains her mental health Links: Book - It’s About Damn Time -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

Mental health disorders are the global epidemic of our times and according to WHO, the instances of anxiety, depression and suicide rates are climbing, globally. On this special live episode of Secret Leaders, two amazing guests, Damian Bradfield and Mills, open up about their personal experiences with mental health. “I've come to realise now that everyone has some form of mental health without a doubt. And actually, the more I talk openly about it, the more I realise that many people are in a similar situation. I'm not special in that respect, dealing with life, dealing with being married, having kids, growing up, companies, losing money is hard.” In the words of the iconic Steve Jobs, the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who actually do. But that comes at a price. “Startup founders are estimated to be twice as likely to suffer from depression, six times more likely to suffer from ADHD, three times more likely to suffer from substance abuse, ten times more likely to suffer from bipolar disorder, twice as likely to have a psychiatric hospitalisation and twice as likely to have suicidal thoughts than the general public.” Join us as we do our best to shine a light on the seriousness and severity of mental health without losing touch with the lighter things, and learn the tips, tricks and hacks to dealing with mental health issues from two incredibly successful entrepreneurs. We chat about: Why the image of success sets us up for failure How their mental health disorders manifest Growing a company and living with ADHD Their reasons for going to a therapist Company culture and mental health The link between depression, anxiety and control Links: WePresent App - Collect App - Paper Presentation tool - Paste Book - They fuck you up Book - Johann Hari - Lost Connections -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

As an entrepreneur, creativity is the name of your game. And who better to hear from than the king of creativity himself, Mr John Cleese. Yes, that’s right. John. Cleese. You’re welcome. Where do we begin? John’s (Mr Cleese?) talents are boundless - actor, comedian, screenwriter, producer and author. The co-founder of the infamous Monty Python’s Flying Circus, the creator and star of Fawlty Towers has taken the time to look back on his writing processes and accomplishments as a series of creative experiences to share and inspire. And he’s distilled his thoughts into a short (an hour long read), beautiful guide he’s cunningly entitled ‘Creativity’. Even if you have no desire to break into screenwriting, John has lived a lifetime of creativity and there is so much that we mere business folk can learn from him, including his secret process. “You have to create a space where people don't come in and interrupt. And you have to have a sufficiently long period of time for your initial agitated thoughts to settle, so that you can then play, and play in a very relaxed way, not cudgelling your brains and furrowing your brow, just thinking, I wonder if, what would happen if, and why did I suddenly think of a hippopotamus? That sort of thing.” So grab a cuppa and let John’s wisdom guide you. This one really is a corker to kick the season off with. We chat about: What we can learn from children about creativity Our emotional facilities aren’t helped by modern living John Cleese’s secret process There’s no such thing as a mistake The importance of rehearsal Resting for creativity Links: Creativity - John Cleese Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind - Guy Claxton -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

Marcia Kilgore is a serial entrepreneur in the truest sense of the term. Not content with creating just one globally renowned brand, Marcia is responsible for Bliss Spa, Soap and Glory, FitFlop, Soaper Duper and now Beauty Pie. But how did she become Queen of Startups? Bliss Spa, her first startup in NYC, saw her give facials to Demi Moore, Courtney Love, Christy Turlington, Bette Midler and Calvin Klein to name drop but a few regulars. She sold this to world leader in luxury products LVMH, before turning her hand a couple of years later to Soap and Glory. From there she founded FitFlop, Soaper Duper and now Beauty Pie, an exclusive buyers club for luxury beauty products, without the luxury beauty bullshit. “I love the part of a business where you're really struggling to figure something out and it's really hard and you're solving real problems and really moving that dial every day and able to create new things. But when it sort of gets masked out and it's not about creating new things for customers anymore and you get too far away from it and it's charts and spreadsheets, that's not really my thing.” Rather than discuss just one of these behemoths, Marcia is incredibly candid about all of them, talking about the genesis of each, her entrepreneurial journey and the mistakes she’s made along the way. “There usually comes a time in my businesses where people say, ‘Oh, you've got to stop doing customer interface, you've got to stop doing the copywriting, you’ve got to stop doing the naming of the products’. And actually, that's what I do better than other people. So I shouldn't stop doing the part that I love doing. That was, I suppose the mistake that I've made in the past.” We chat about: What set her on her entrepreneurial path That urban legend about Jean-Claude Van Damme How LVMH wooed her Stopping your brand getting watered down Learning to deal with the big companies Lifting the lid on the beauty industry -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

If you created one of the world’s most popular programming frameworks, a framework on which hundreds of thousands of programmers rely to build applications such as Github, Shopify, Airbnb, Kickstarter, to name but a few, would you make it open source? Because that’s what David Heinemeier Hansson decided to do. DHH (to his friends and everyone on Twitter) is the creator of Ruby on Rails. But that’s not all he’s done. He’s also the cofounder and CTO at Basecamp. Oh, and he’s a best-selling author and a Le Mans class-winning racing driver. When he’s not busy doing those things you can find him spouting off on Twitter (and only Twitter - he’s not on FB, LinkedIn or Insta). Basecamp is an all in one toolkit for working remotely. Founded in 1999 as a small company of 4 it has since, 21 years later, grown into an international organisation with over 50 employees, spread around the world. Everyone who works at Basecamp is free to live and work wherever they want. In fact, DHH and co-founder Jason Fried are such huge advocates of remote working, they wrote a book on it. And in these trying times, where the whole world has been forced to work from home for the last four months, David isn’t smug, he’s not said ‘I told you so’ while pedaling Basecamp. What he wants is to save the smug tea and just enjoy the liberation, and welcome as many people as possible to remote working. “I would like more people to enjoy the spoils of a remote work life. That's the camp I'm in because that's what I live. And I look at people who don't have access to that - there are people who commute for an hour or two to get to their office to sit in front of a computer all day. It makes no sense, neither economically, ecologically, or humanly, it just doesn't make any sense.” We chat about: How Ruby on Rails came about Why he trod the entrepreneur path The inspiration behind Basecamp (or 37 Signals) Working remotely with Basecamp The impact of the pandemic on our attitudes to remote working The drawbacks of remote working Links: Basecamp guide to internal communication www.basecamp.com/shapeup -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

Pleo is a fundamentally new way to manage company expenses (not to mention being one of the sponsors of this illustrious podcast). Founded in early 2015 by fintech veterans Jeppe Rindom and Niccolo Perra, core listeners may have a good understanding of who Pleo are, but how much do you know about their actual journey? “It was all about the product in the beginning. And we were just figuring out what are the tangible pain points out there? And how can we bring a solution? We didn't think too much about purpose and all that until later.” Having raised over €70m in 5 years, Pleo has become one of the biggest card payment companies in Europe. But to take Pleo from idea to reality, keeping payments in companies simple, transparent and manageable for all, requires some incredible leadership. Which is why we're talking to Jeppe, co founder and CEO of Pleo, to find out more about their rocket ship journey. “The way I think about organisation is a little bit like I think about our products. Your organisation fit constantly needs to be nurtured and changed. The way we communicate, the way we organise, the way we make decisions, the way we come together as a company - it needs to change all the time, because what worked a year ago no longer works. You need to nurture it as a product and you need to invest into it.” We chat about: The trials of naming your company The inspiration and motivation for starting Pleo The purpose, values and vision for Pleo Raising money before having an Alpha or Beta in the market Going through leadership development process as a leadership team Find what makes you happy in life - don’t settle -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

Do you want to cut your carbon emissions to zero and save money on your energy bills? Introducing Bulb, a green energy company founded in 2015 by Hayden Wood and co-founder, Amit Gudka. Together they wanted to change the energy industry, to make it better, by making energy simpler, cheaper and greener. “We saw all the new technology from solar panels and batteries and smart meters changing the relationship that homes have with the grid. The home of the future [has] solar panels on the roof, there's an electric vehicle in the driveway, and that home needs an energy supplier that it could trust, because its energy needs need to be managed.” Today Bulb has grown their members to 1.7 million, adding more to their ranks each day. And with a team of over 700 people spread across London, France, Spain and the US, running a company that aims to use technology to reduce costs, improve efficiency and provide outstanding customer service hasn’t been an easy journey. “A lot of the feedback we got in the early days was: ‘sounds too good to be true’, ‘where's the catch?’ ‘It doesn't make sense, you know? Why are you doing this?’ ‘Why hasn't somebody else done it before?’” So what does it take to build and lead Britain's fastest growing company? “This is where I think I have really struggled to be honest, I found this job very difficult. And I feel like I'm really just at the early stages of my learning on how to do it. I think I do have tendencies to be a perfectionist. And I think it's helpful sometimes, but generally unhelpful. You have to not let perfectionism get in the way of excellence.” We chat about: The genesis of the idea for Bulb Angel investors and EIS Struggling to get customer sign ups Developing as a leader and giving employees autonomy Handling the pandemic and pivoting on a sixpence The importance of company mission in recruiting -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

If you’ve ever wondered how entrepreneurs without a specific idea go on to found a unicorn startup from their bedrooms, then this episode of Secret Leaders is for you. “One of the things that really strikes me that's changed over the course of the last 10 years is the level of awareness of what's possible. When we decided to start GoCardless, most of our friends just thought we were unemployed and couldn't get a job.” Today’s guest is one third of the British equivalent of the PayPal mafia, Hiroki Takeuchi, co-founder and CEO of payment giant GoCardless. GoCardless is a global payment network taking the pain out of getting paid for more than 50,000 businesses worldwide from multinationals to SMB, processing over $15 billion of payments annually across more than 30 countries. Hiroki and his fellow co-founders Matt Robinson (who now runs successful property tech startup Nested) and Tom Bloomfield (who has recently stepped aside as CEO of challenger bank giant Monzo) have raised over $120 million across 7 rounds of funding, securing $75 million in their latest series E. But it’s not been an easy ride. “The first round of investment that we raised was definitely the hardest. I think we had something like 64 ‘no’s’ before we got our first ‘yes’.” Hiroki has been on a real journey, not just professionally, but personally too, having to physically rebuild his body after a horrific cycling accident in 2016 that left him paralysed from the waist down, drastically altering how he manages himself and the business day to day. We chat about: The hardest part of starting a business The hockey stick growth curve How to mentally prepare to fundraise When co-founders leave the business Choosing a CEO and building a leadership team The future vision for GoCardless Links: Nested Monzo -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

“When have you actually been thirsty? We have water everywhere around us. There are taps, there are showers. It's this infinite resource for most people, yet for the marginalised 10% of the world, it's something that they've never known.” Scott Harrison is a former club promoter turned CEO of Charity: Water, a hyper transparent non profit organisation that in 13 years has raised over $500 million and brought clean drinking water to 11 million people. You’d think with these numbers under his belt Scott would be content to sit back on his laurels and congratulate his hard work. Far from it. “Did I ever think I could raise half a billion dollars for clean water? And the real answer is 13 years later, this is a fraction of what I'd hoped we could have done. I mean, yes, it's a lot of money, but it's water, for crying out loud. We should be able to rally the world, clean water for humans, clean water for children. When I go to bed at night, I'm not patting myself on the back. It doesn't feel like success. It feels like a fraction of the potential achieved.” This strong desire to help others hasn’t always driven Scott. For 10 long years he lived (in his own words) a truly ‘degenerate, hedonistic, sycophantic lifestyle’, filling up clubs with beautiful people, taking copious amounts of drugs, smoking like a chimney and drinking like a fish, with a gambling addiction and a pornography addiction. It all came to a head one day when he realised there was nothing redemptive about his life. So he stopped and asked himself what the opposite of his life would look like, and he thought, doing something for others. “What if I volunteered for a charity? What if I volunteered for some sort of humanitarian mission for one year and tried to give instead of take.” And so Scott: the second chapter began. This is an inspirational episode everyone needs to hear. We chat about: From nightclub promoter to charity founder Creating a hyper transparent charity The three pillars on which Charity: Water was founded How he’s innovating the charity sector Why apathy is his biggest challenge Don’t be afraid of hard work Links: The Spring - The charity: water story - YouTube Donate - Give The Gift Of Clean, Safe Water | charity: water Thirst - Scott Harrison -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

Have you seen your household food waste increase exponentially during the pandemic? You’re not alone. “Food waste in homes is more under scrutiny now than ever because people are not used to cooking at home, seven days a week. It's the perfect storm for trying to figure out your cooking schedule and using everything and that definitely produces food waste, at least initially until you've found your equilibrium.” Chatting all things food waste on this episode of Secret Leaders are two entrepreneurial power houses beating the same drum, but tackling the global issue of food waste from different angles. We have Saasha Celestial-One, COO and co-founder of food sharing platform Olio who has featured on the podcast before (her episode is in the links section) and Hjalmar Ståhlberg Nordegren, CEO and co-founder at Karma. Hjalmar is a Swedish medical doctor turned entrepreneur. Together they’re both seeking a solution to the $1.2 trillion food waste problem. Join us as we discuss what’s been happening with the food waste problem during the pandemic, as well as what we can all do within our own communities to help tackle this unsustainable issue (one third to 40% of all food is wasted globally), as well as how to create a business that both monetises food waste and builds communities. “Find a co-founder or co-founders who are 100% obsessed with your mission and recruit for mission. So we always recruit for mission first, you can train people and upskill people, but you can't train passion and mission alignment.” We chat about: Impact of COVID-19 on food waste Breakdown in food charitable chains The recession and the food waste issue Earth overshoot day Building communities through food waste Starting an impact company Links: https://www.secretleaders.com/saasha-celestial-one https://www.overshootday.org/ -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

With the world now confronting issues of race, and more specifically, Black Lives Matter, we felt it right to bring on an award winning science journalist, author and broadcaster and the first ever guest we've had that is not an entrepreneur of a wildly successful company. Angela Saini may not have the battle scars, nor learned the painful lessons that you, our audience, have become accustomed to hearing on Secret Leaders, but what she has to say might be even more pertinent for you. We felt it was time to bring in an expert speaker on the topic of racism, so that we and other leaders can think about racism more deeply. “When we're arguing with racists, these aren't just intellectual arguments we're having, these are about belief. White supremacy is not just a kind of scientific belief, as it is for some scientific racists out there. It's like a religion. It's a fundamental faith in the idea that some groups of people are naturally better than other groups of people.” Angela was destined to be an engineer until a chance encounter as an intern on the London Underground set her on her current path - as a journalist who covers science. “We might think of it [race] as a biological quantity. But the race categories we use are social categories, not genetic categories. They're not born out in genetics. They were defined very arbitrarily, around the Enlightenment period and onwards by Western philosophers and naturalists in very vague ways.” Which is why science around racism can get confusing, resulting in scientific misinformation. So if you’re wondering what you can do to bring about change in your company, real change, not just an expression of solidarity, this is one insightful episode you don’t want to miss. “When you're thinking about bias and prejudice, before you start pointing the finger at others, and we know that there are plenty of fingers that could be pointed, just start with yourself, try and recognise the bias within yourself.” We chat about: Why science is a murky world The grandmother hypothesis Debunking COVID related racial myths Why you shouldn’t argue with racists on Twitter Recognising the bias within yourself Links: Superior: The Return of Race Science Inferior: The true power of women and the science that shows it -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

If you think now’s not a great time to start up a business, take this advice from seasoned entrepreneur Sach Kukadia: “There is never a good time to start anything, particularly a startup. There's always a list of reasons as to why you shouldn't do it. And the older you get, the more that list grows. If you're going to start anything, whether it's a start up or do something, you need to just do it now. Because it'll only ever get harder.” Wise words from someone who’s never earned any money he hasn’t made himself. Behind Sach Kukadia’s glittering facade is a dogged determination to succeed, but his metric for success has changed considerably over the years. In this latest episode of Secret Leaders, Sach shares his journey with Secret Sales, from startup through to sale, to buying it back, to selling it again. And he is brutally honest. Because not every successful startup stays that way. Sach doesn’t hold back and shares some of the behind the scenes facts you never normally hear about in the complicated journey of building a personal empire. “There's a bunch of things in my journey that have caused me to lose sleep and become a bad human being. I was convinced for 10 years that I was going to be able to retire. And when that didn’t happen it took me a little while to realise that this is life and things happen to you, you just have to get over it and you've got to find a way to continue hustling, and it wasn't that we didn't make money, it’s just the quantities were significantly different.” And if you’re an entrepreneur, you need to hear Sach’s story. We chat about: The idea behind Secret Sales and the business model that inspired it The Secret Sales journey The impact of Brexit on the sale of Secret Sales How business deals happen in the real world Rebalancing his life post Secret Sales The lesson of greed for his future businesses Links: https://resident.ly/london/ -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

Learning to be happy is hard enough. Learning to be happy in the middle of a pandemic should be nigh on impossible. Not so, according to Mo Gawdat, former Chief Business Officer of Google [X], serial entrepreneur and author of “Solve for Happy: Engineering Your Path to Joy” (2017). Mo’s famous for bringing Google to 4 billion new users, but that’s not all he’s done. Throughout his career he’s also co-founded over 25 businesses (7 still survive today). He starts businesses that fascinate him, making sure none of them have a conflict of interest with his ‘full time’ job (first at IBM, then Microsoft and latterly at Google), coming up with a new idea every year or two. His book, “Solve for Happy: Engineering Your Path to Joy” (2017) was the result of 12 years researching the topic of happiness. Mo even created an algorithm and a repeatable well engineered model to reach a state of uninterrupted happiness regardless of the circumstances of life. “Happiness is not found outside you, you were born happy. Our default setting as humans is happy. But we grow out of happiness; we grow out of happiness because there are external influences that make us unhappy.” A lot of what Mo learned about happiness came from his experiences with entrepreneurship; born from the understanding that entrepreneurs are not only aware that things can go wrong, but they expect them to go wrong. Regardless of whether you’re an entrepreneur or not, if you’re wondering how you can find happiness again, post-COVID, this is an enlightening episode you don’t want to miss. We chat about: Why a business partner is more important than the business The impact of Solve For Happy Happiness is predictive Consumerism is destroying our planet Comparing COVID to Tetris Links: Action for happiness -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

From salty sea dog to captain of BrewDog in the space of a year. James Watt is the founder of the rocket ship brewery and brand known as BrewDog. Now valued at over $1 billion, this incredible startup began life in co-founder Martin Dickie’s mum’s garage. “No one wanted to buy our beer. Everyone told us to make beer with less flavour, with less bitterness, with less hops, that our labels looked stupid, like nobody wanted to know and we were working almost 24/7, sleeping on sacks of malt on the floor, filling bottles by hand, doing deliveries out of the back of my beat up Volkswagen car, and just going absolutely nowhere.” But it took a meeting with Michael Jackson (no, not that one), a punt at Tesco and playing two high street banks off against each other to give them the kickstart they needed. Today, BrewDog are well known for their rebellious marketing tactics and have recruited a clan of investors known as equity punks, raising £80 million through a range of clever crowdfunding campaigns. But how have they handled the COVID-19 pandemic? What have they done to ensure the nation’s thirst remains quenched - and how the hell have they produced and distributed over 250,000 units of hand sanitizer (free) to the NHS and charities? All the while operating the brewery AND adhering to social distancing measures? If you’re an entrepreneur, James has one piece of advice for you: “The only logical thing that my useless advice could be is don't listen to advice, which would also apply to this advice just now.” We chat about: From rebellious child, to quitting law, to making beer Overcoming the first disastrous year Fanvestors - advocate ambassadors AKA equity punk investors Developing the next generation of leaders from within the company The importance of culture fit when hiring Managing BrewDog through the pandemic Links: Book - The hard thing about hard things - Ben Horowitz App - Hop Drop -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

It's a tough time for many businesses right now, but one sector in particular is thriving - the world of delicious food delivered to your doorstep. Unlike the vast majority of businesses, these companies are growing exponentially, because of the lockdown. “Literally overnight, it's [Covid-19] essentially forced consumers who have never bought one grocery shop online to go, ‘Well, I might as well try this because there's queues around the block for my supermarket, which has got nothing in it, and every restaurant in the land is closed. So let me give it a go’.” If you’re an entrepreneur wondering how your food business is going to survive the pandemic, then you need to listen to this episode with the founders of two brilliant brands, Mindful Chef and allplants. Mindful Chef was founded by three school friends out of their tiny apartment in 2015 and now makes 5 million meals a year. allplants on the other hand was launched by brothers JP and Alex in 2017, and have already served 1 million plus meals and recently launched Europe's largest dedicated plant based kitchen. With names like Sir Andy Murray and Victoria Pendleton thrown around, and nuggets such as ‘frozen is the most neglected technology in the UK’, this episode is jam packed full of information that all aspiring foodie entrepreneurs need to take note of. We chat about: The positive impact of Covid-19 on the food industry How to increase volume of production while ensuring employees are social distancing Issues of sourcing new suppliers to meet demand How to manage overnight growth Maintaining the culture of the company with so many new employees -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

If you’ve been caught out raising money for your startup during this complicated time, then you’ve come to the right place - you’re in good company. In this episode of Secret Leaders we’ve pinned down VC extraordinaire, Fred Destin who is primed to answer not just our questions, but your questions too. Why should you take advice from Fred? Because he’s the founder of Stride.VC, a £100 million seed stage fund focused on operating in London and Paris. Before starting Stride, Fred was a general partner at Excel and of the 17 investments he led, 10 have exited and 4 are active value drivers, including 5 companies in excess of $1 billion in value - these include Zoopla, Deliveroo and PillPack. His portfolio has a total enterprise value of more than £10 billion, and he generated in excess of £700 million in exit value to investors. All of which makes Fred someone worth listening to if you’re wondering what the hell you’re going to do for money now that the world seems to have shut down. Because if there’s one thing we all need right now, it’s someone who is able to give us a direct and honest account of where the funding environment is at today. “By the way, when we raised Stride, we talked to 420 investors, and we had 1,000 meetings. So I know fundraising for startups is painful, but I mean, I honestly have pitched the same story probably 800 times over”. We chat about: The reason he’s not investing in new startups currently Revenue based financing The role of VCs and venture capital during a global crisis Likely sources of finance going forward Growth plans for startups experiencing short term rocketing of demand Where founders should be conserving or spending capital Links: http://stride.vc/ -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

Today’s guest is someone we’ve had on the show before, in fact, he kicked off season 4 for us. So don’t be confused and think we’ve got our seasons muddled up. We thought we’d invite Cal Henderson back onto the podcast because his company, Slack, is one of only a few companies that aren’t in a tailspin currently. They’re facing an entirely different dilemma - they’re scrambling to keep up with demand, what with the majority of the world now in self-isolation and having to work from home (WFH). “One of the challenges of remote work for folks has always been the boundary between being at work and not being at work. And that's, you know, that's one thing when it's individuals, and [another] when it’s an entire company in one go.” If you’re wanting to hear the story of how Slack started, take a listen here, because we don’t rehash it in this episode. Instead we talk with Cal about Slack’s sudden increase in user numbers, how they’ve responded to the crisis as a global company (they have employees and offices around the world), as well as what decisions they are making with regards the platform and its new features, as well as offering advice to listeners about productivity and how to work productively, when WFH. So if you’re taking five minutes out from juggling your kids and your day job, this episode might be the very tonic you need to get you back into the WFH headspace. “In many ways as a company, we were built for this kind of thing. Like, we didn't start Slack because we thought there'd be some kind of global pandemic that forced people to work from home.” We chat about: Slacks features that enable greater productivity Tracking the impact of the virus around the world How Slack enables distributed work Looking after your mental health when isolated The importance of great internal communications when WFH Links: https://www.yourheights.com/ @stewart -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

If you’re wondering how on earth you’re going to hold down a full time job while working from home AND educating your kids for the foreseeable future, then you need to listen to Koru Kids founder Rachel Carrell and Tech Will Save Us co-founder Bethany Koby. “Lower [your] impossible expectations. It is not possible to work full time and also homeschool kids full time, at the same time. It's just not possible. And just don't listen to anyone who implies that it is. We are working really hard to come up with new services to help people make one plus one somehow equal three.” Koru Kids, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, was building a whole new childcare system, recruiting, training, matching and managing over 1,000 nannies in London every single day. Having had to pivot hard, Rachel explains the impact that coronavirus has had on her business and how she has taken nannying online. Tech Will Save Us co-founder Bethany has created a play led home learning system focusing on creativity and technology, delivering fun and learning advantages to 4-12 year olds. Bethany explains how they had the foresight to switch their attention towards their digital channels last year, which so far has saved their bacon. So if you’re a founder wondering how to turn this current situation to your advantage, download and listen to this episode. “We need to make sure we get through this as strong as possible, because this will put us in an even stronger position in the next six months, to hopefully really raise our strategic round, with even better metrics and with even better evidence of the necessity of the product, and the kind of joy and efficacy that the product is actually bringing to families.” We chat about: How Covid-19 has impacted their investment and distribution channels Why the whole childcare system needs an overhaul Why innovation is key to pivoting and ultimately survival The spotlight on the ed-tech space Why you need to create rhythms to suit your family -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

Kicking off series 5 of Secret Leaders are two fantastic guests - Ali Parsa (CEO and founder of Babylon) and Dr Ranjan Chatterjee. Ali has been on the show several times before - firstly on his own, and secondly for one of our live events where he shared the stage with Michael Acton-Smith, founder of Calm. In the light of the current global crisis, nobody knows what the world is going to be like when the dust settles at the end of this pandemic. And this is what we discuss in this episode - what the business and social impact of the coronavirus on society will be. Because currently, it isn’t looking good. The economy is tanking. Borders are closed. Everyone is practicing social distancing. The strain on political leaders is evident. And the pressures on the NHS are close to crippling it. Ali Parsa is one of the best placed people in the world to talk about some of the predicted health impacts of the virus, in particular what he’s seeing in his own industry of healthcare. Dr. Ranjan Chatterjee is also incredibly well placed, and comes at it from how to handle things on a more personal level. His podcast is the number one UK podcast in health and wellness, and he has set himself a personal mission to help 100m people realise they can be the architects of their own health. “I worry about what is the consequence of shutting down society in terms of mental health problems: depression, anxiety, isolation, the sort of things that we were already struggling with in society two months ago, even one month ago, pre-lockdown, we were struggling with these.” We chat about: Accessibility to health care Comparison of prevention versus cure What global healthcare might look like in the future The consequence on our health of shutting down society What you can do in isolation to look after yourself Links: https://www.secretleaders.com/ali-parsa https://www.secretleaders.com/the-future-of-healthcare Feel Better, Live More -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

We’ve all been there - back from a hard night’s boozing and hungry. Most of us would simply eat some toast and hit the hay, but then most of us aren’t Will Shu, founder and CEO of Deliveroo. “I was like, wow, you know, you can't get any decent food delivered here when you've been boozing. Then I was like, wait a minute, maybe I should start something that is a late night delivery service for food that you can get in like half an hour. You want it for McDonald's or BK.” And so from a late night boozy idea, everyone's favourite takeaway service delivery unicorn company, Deliveroo, was born. Today this incredible company that began life in a shared flat in 2013, with Will and four other riders delivering food, has seen off the competition in the form of Uber Eats and received significant investment in their latest funding round (to the tune of £450m) from Amazon, valuing Deliveroo at over $4 billion. Widely regarded as one of the most dynamic and impressive founders in the European entrepreneurship scene, we couldn’t think of anyone better to see this series off in style than Will. “I think for me, what I love more than anything is primary research. Talking to customers, talking to riders, talking to restaurants, and doing that in different markets. That really energises me and just understanding what are the problems they face and how can we solve them? Like that, to me is super motivating.” We chat about: How Just Eat influenced him, but not in the way you think The genesis of Deliveroo How Deliveroo was funded and its expansion internationally The idea behind Additions and the challenges they’ve overcome with it How Deliveroo has revolutionised the eating out economy His thoughts on the gig economy The challenge of being a CEO when he’s not a professional executive -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

“I think the worst thing is every morning when you wake up as a founder and you pick up your phone, you think what will I discover that will ruin my day?” While your business might not care what your gender is, significant discrepancies still exist between the number of female and male entrepreneurs. As Baroness Martha Lane Fox quite rightly proclaimed, ‘you cannot be what you cannot see’. And so we’ve gone and put four female entrepreneur powerhouses together on the same live stage. We’ve put the same questions to them and their answers are as diverse as they are. This episode on female leadership and equality for International Women’s Day is a real smorgasbord of insights from some of the UK's leading female founders. Get the expert investor perspective from Reshma Sohoni, co-founder of Seedcamp. The non-VC route founder Renée Elliott, founder of Planet Organic. Alex Depledge offers the perspective from a consumer facing tech enabled marketplace, with her startup Hassle. And finally our technology software entrepreneur, Alicia Navarro, whose company Skimlinks has raised over $25 million helping publishers monetise advertising. “If being a woman is the hardest thing you have to deal with in your journey, sorry, you’re fucking lucky. Because that is the easiest challenge you're gonna have to deal with. If you can't handle that, if you can’t handle a couple of dickheads in the corner that belittle you, you're just not going to make it. I'm sorry, but that is the truth. It is hard and relentless. And if you can't handle people that make you feel like shit, that's like peanuts in the corner.” We chat about: Why not every business should take VC funding The toughest moments of their entrepreneurial journeys so far Their different perspectives on funding and financing a business How to choose your role models Links: https://www.secretleaders.com/reshma-sohoni https://www.secretleaders.com/alicia-navarro https://www.secretleaders.com/alex-depledge https://www.secretleaders.com/renee-elliot -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

If you found the film ‘The Holiday’ so inspirational it kickstarted a business that you went on to sell for over £50 million, then you’re in good company. You didn’t? Well you missed a trick. Not so Debbie Wosskow, co-founder of AllBright and former CEO of LoveHomeSwap (a subscription based home exchange business) who on a plane home from a ‘holiday’ in the Caribbean watched the movie and thought, ‘does this even exist?’ But LoveHomeSwap wasn’t Debbie’s first successful business, nor was it her last. So what is her secret to successive business success? She credits her formative years for her entrepreneurialism (not that her family would have called it that), and she credits her business acumen to her first business Mantra, which she calls her 7 year business education. With the mantra of ‘what’s the worst that can happen?’ it’s safe to say that Debbie Wosskow is an entrepreneurial powerhouse and a female force to be reckoned with. She’s had an independent government review into the sharing economy named after her, she’s a member of the Mayor of London's Business Advisory Board, she sits on the board of the Women's Fiction Prize, in 2016 she was awarded an OBE for services to business, and in 2017 she co-founded AllBright with Anna Jones (former CEO of Hearst), to celebrate and champion women at all stages of their careers, to inspire change. In this episode of Secret Leaders Debbie is brutally honest about what it takes to succeed, and she provides a number of insights that future entrepreneurs would be wise to take note of. So sit back and learn from the best. We chat about: How her early years influenced her career Why her first business Mantra was a 7 year business education Why is her mantra ‘what’s the worst thing that can happen?’ The story behind LoveHomeSwap The impact of strategic investment on Love Home Swap What you need to do to survive as a sole founder What you need to do to achieve a work/life balance as a female entrepreneur Founding Allbright Links: Believe. Build. Become.: How to Supercharge Your Career (Book) -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

You may know that LoveFilm became Amazon Prime Video, that part of the deal was public knowledge. What you may not be familiar with is the wrangling, the deal making and the allegiance swapping that went on behind the scenes to get the deal across the table. In this very special live episode of Secret Leaders we once again sit down with serial entrepreneur and angel investor, best known for creating Lovefilm and being an early investor in Secret Escapes, ‘the subscription guy’ William Reeve and VC Jedi, Simon Cook, to discuss the ins and outs of one of the most complicated business sales in recent history - when LoveFilm sold to Amazon. Because this deal wasn’t straightforward in the slightest. A series of unusual mergers, buyouts, disputes and much more led to this being one of the more complicated deals of both their lives. In fact, the only way to explain how convulated the deal was, is by comparing it to the plot of Game of Thrones. Simon was the VC on the board throughout the whole deal and Will was the founder of LoveFilm, yet neither of them are 100% clear on what went down. It’s very rare to hear such insights from such a high profile sale, so grab a notebook and pen and learn what it takes to not just grow a subscription business, but how to sell it to a behemoth like Amazon. “They [Amazon] could see we were winning. They said ‘we do not believe in being a loser in anything we do. We'd much rather have a small piece of the winner, than a big piece in the loser.’ And that was their indication they'd much rather sell to us than compete with us.” We chat about: Building up LoveFilm and plonking flags in Europe Why competition drives business forward and sparks innovation Why they teamed up with Amazon to defeat Netflix Lessons learned - venture debt, paying attention to working capital and why raising venture capital is the worst thing a business can do Links: https://www.secretleaders.com/william-reeve https://www.secretleaders.com/s01e15-simon-cook -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

Today’s guest has been a high achiever since he was a kid, completing his computer science GCSE at 11, his A-levels at 13, and receiving a Masters from LSE by the time he was 20. Some child geniuses burnout before they achieve great things, not Rishi Khosla. Rishi, according to LL Cool J, is something of a phenomenon in the world of entrepreneurship, and we are wont to agree with him. Co-founding OakNorth, Europe's highest valued FinTech company having raised over a billion dollars in funding to date, in only four years, Rishi is considered one of the stars of the industry. And OakNorth is just his most recent headline. He’s an early stage investor, investing in several businesses including PayPal and Indiabulls. He’s already co-founded a company, Copal Amba, a financial research firm which was scaled to 3,000 employees and sold to Moody’s Corporation in 2014. And he helped establish the family office of the steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal amongst many things. With OakNorth he estimates they’ve created about 12,000 new jobs in the UK and 13,000 new homes. And has anyone ever thanked him? “How can I put it? I guess, I've always been sprinting through life, recognition hasn't been what I focused on. I focused on results.” His advice for aspiring entrepreneurs? You need to have enough hunger inside of you, you’ve got to have fire in your stomach, to say ‘there’s only Plan A’. We chat about: Working with Jack Welch at GE Establishing the family office of Lakshmi Mittal Meeting Peter Teal and Elon Musk Building Copal with business partner Joel, brick by brick Meeting Son at SoftBank and how he pitched him Why only 5% of unicorns are profitable -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

Have you ever wondered what the meaning of life is? Of course you have, you’re only human after all. Well, today’s guest, Alain de Botton, philosopher and founder of The School of Life, has not only wondered the same thing too, philosophising this age old dilemma, he’s also written a book on the subject. Actually, he’s written well over 15 books as a solo author and collaborated on countless others. “I was a young man who really wanted to know the meaning of life. I wanted guidance in the big questions. I wanted to know why I was anxious. Why I might be sad. What love was. How to secure love. What a good relationship was. What friendship was. What a satisfying career might be. I wanted to know all of these things. And really, there were very few clues in my education.” And so as well as writing on meaningful topics to help elucidate these deep subjects, Alain also founded The School of Life. He set it up in 2008 with colleagues, friends, supporters and his family, with the aim to offer an emotional education, focusing in particular on the issues of work and relationships. From a vague plan his business has fast grown into an organisation that now not only provides a home for developing the tools for people to lead a more fulfilled life, it supports countless businesses, enabling them to get the most out of their employees, and vice versa. So if you want a more fulfilled life, start by listening to this podcast with a modern day thinker. It’s truly insightful. We chat about: How his upbringing shaped his early existence The School of Life and its inspiration How to cope with crippling anxiety in your work The connection between food and your state of mind How the School of Life can help your business Why his deepest fear is catastrophe Links: Religion for Atheists How To Think More About Sex The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders -- Newsletter Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/ You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes