Startup Microdose

Luke is the founder of Testcard, an award-winning and venture-backed medtech startup which allows users to test themselves for a number of medical conditions at home and receive instant results. Luke is a highly experienced founder and he gives us a candid and humorous account of the successes, failures and learnings that have led him to this point in his career.

Lu is the founder and CEO of Blooming Founders, a co-working space and support network focused on nurturing and scaling women-led businesses. She is also the author of ‘Dear Female Founder’, a collection of letters written to their younger selves by female founders around the world. Our discussion focuses on Lu’s experiences as a female founder and the particular challenges faced by the growing number of female entrepreneurs in the business community.

Rupert is the founder of Spareroom which he started in 1999. He had moved to London seeking fame and fortune as a musician with the best band name of all time. But the biggest struggle he faced was finding somewhere great to live. He is one of the seminal examples of a startup founder solving their own problem. 20 years later Spareroom has 2 million visitors a month, is rapidly expanding in the US and has never raised a penny of investment…

Jack is the founder of the Centre for Human Health and Performance on Harley Street in London. Formally trained as a doctor but not constrained by it, Jack vexed his superiors by persistently dabbling in ‘silly computer stuff’ and spending time with Douglas Adams, creating the universe in ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’. This 'silly computer stuff' turned into several venture-backed companies and couple of exits. But the 160-hour working weeks it required to be a doctor and an entrepreneur, left Jack physically and mentally spent. He used the returns from his companies to start the Centre for Human Health and Performance where his world-class team helps elite athletes, cancer patients and now entrepreneurs to optimise their health, wellbeing and performance.

Pär is the founder of Sting, an eco-system for startups based in Stockholm that empowers entrepreneurs to build global companies. Since 2002, Sting has supported 241 startups (an astonishing 70% of which are still active), helping them attract a combined 429M euros in private capital. We discuss Sting’s systems-based approach to startup coaching and their innovative financing vehicles improving outcomes for entrepreneurs, investors and even the Swedish government. We also talk about why Sweden has more unicorns per capita than any other country; and discuss the Dali Report which explores the cognitive traits common to successful founders.

Nikolai is the co-founder and COO of wealth management platform EXO Investing which he started with school friend Lennart Asshoff in 2016. Backed to the tune of €16.5M at seed by ETS Factory and Ariane De Rothschild, their mission is to unlock private banking for everyone. The platform allows users to build a unique portfolio and keep it optimised daily by using AI algorithms built over 30 years at ETS Factory. But as we discover, the EXO platform is only the first step on a greater mission to build something much bigger for the fintech/finance-as-a-service eco-system…

Will is the founder and CEO of Hummingbird Technologies. The vision for which came to him on a hospital bed during a two-year fight with cancer. Happily recovered, Will is now realising that vision, using the most advanced machine learning and computer vision techniques to deliver actionable insights on crop health. The company, which is backed by investors including James Dyson and Horizons Ventures, has won numerous awards including the CogX Best AI AgTech Product and the 2019 KPMG Best British Startup. Will gives us an inspiring account of how he and the team are optimising sustainable farming practices and transforming the agriculture industry.

Julien founded e-commerce giant Made.com in 2010 alongside Brent Hoberman, Chloe Macintosh and Ning Li. The company posted revenues of £173 million in 2018 up 37% from the previous year as it continues to expand geographically and refine its service in existing territories. He stepped back from his executive role at Made in 2017. He now works as a mentor, advisor and investor for promising entrepreneurs and their startups. Julien gives a meticulous account of the Made.com journey from concept to success as well as some insights into his future projects including mental health tech and blockchain-based asset management.

Andy was one of the early employees at Spotify. In his 5 years at the company, he helped launch it to the UK, US and Singapore and saw the company go from just a handful of early users to over 50 million in 2014. After Spotify and a trip to Burning Man, he launched airport app, Flio, before stepping back from his executive role there to start Sherpr in 2017. Sherpr is a door-to-door delivery and concierge service for sports equipment partnered with the likes of IronMan, Rapha and the British Heart Foundation. Andy is a load of fun and shares some excellent practical advice as well as giving us a candid account of his battle with anxiety at Spotify.

WeFarm is the world’s first peer-to-peer knowledge sharing platform for farmers. In just a few years, 1.5 million farmers have signed up and over 260 million messages have been exchanged leading to tangible improvements in farming outcomes and quality of life in some of the most challenging places in the world. Backed by a host of impressive investors including Local Globe, Silicon Valley-based True Ventures and Skype & Atomico founder Niklas Zennström, the vision is to become the global network for the biggest industry on Earth. Kenny is committed to enacting meaningful and positive change in the world by marrying commercial techniques with an impact-driven approach. His execution of this so far has been masterful and is a lesson to all entrepreneurs at this critical moment in human history. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Kwame’s mercurial career includes roles as a professor of design, a filmmaker and the founder of the most successful record label in the history of Portugal. His true calling is the solution of meaningful problems from a design, engineering and systems perspective. After meeting model Lily Cole who was working on a gift economy app called Impossible, together they decided that the Impossible brand could be so much more than one product. They now describe Impossible as an innovation agency, where they aim to create impactful solutions and enact positive change in the world using their own ‘planet centric design’ methodology. Their current projects include: Fairphone – an ethical smartphone; Bond Touch – wearable tech that connects loved ones; Navify – a cancer diagnostic dashboard; and Wikitribune – a crowdsourced news publication designed to combat fake news in collaboration with Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales. Enjoy!

Peter is a serially successful entrepreneur with a number of exits under his belt. His most notable was to Microsoft in 2006. That business then went on to become the most successful post-acquisition product in Microsoft history, earning Peter a congratulatory email from Bill Gates. He was also Head of LivingSocial in the UK when it and Groupon were the fastest-growing companies in the world. His latest project is Wagestream where his mission is to make payroll streamable and so put an end to payday poverty cycles while boosting employee motivation and retention. Peter is a Guinness World Record holder and a lively and entertaining character.

David’s 20-year career contains some remarkable highs: overseeing Lastminute.com’s $1.2bn exit to Travelocity, merging mydeco.com with Made.com, founding Tribesports and raising £2m from Adidas, acting as an NED for Simba Sleep and now as part of the founding team, alongside Brent Hoberman and Henry Lane Fox, of award-winning accelerator and incubator Founders’ Factory, (where we are fortunate enough to record these podcasts). But this glittering CV which David describes as ‘a drunkard’s stumble rather than a best laid plan’ is only part of the story. Despite the security of a wonderful career and loving family, David has been hospitalised by acute mental illness on three occasions. A story which he bravely shares at the end of the episode. This is by far our longest podcast - a testament to the breadth of David’s experience. His story and life learnings are entertaining and thrilling, while his strong views on the early-stage startup eco-system and fundraising will be of specific interest to entrepreneurs,

Barney studied at Oxford and Harvard Universities before working as a doctor for the NHS. His experiences juggling multiple pagers and sending faxes (yes, faxes!) on graveyard hospital shifts led him to start Forward Health with fellow doctor, Lydia Yarlott, and serial entrepreneur Philip Mundy. Their product is already saving healthcare professionals time and improving patient outcomes by providing a secure, efficient system for communication and collaboration. Featured in every big publication you care to name and with $5.2m in total funding since launch in 2016, their ultimate goal is to connect healthcare around the world.

This conversation is with Thea Alexander and Pip Murray. Thea is the founder of Young Foodies – a community platform supporting food & beverage startups as they try to get off the ground and achieve scale. They have helped a number of brands become market leaders in their niche including: WheyHey, Mallow+Marsh, Plenish and Pip&Nut. Pip is the founder of all-natural nut butter phenomenon Pip&Nut. Now stocked in most major retailers, Pip&Nut is the foremost UK nut butter brand. In combination, they give us a detailed expose on many of the key obstacles facing challenger food and drink companies in today’s and tomorrow’s markets.

Simon is the founder of Depop – a peer-to-peer social shopping app for creatives which boasts over 10 million members and $43m in funding to date. Simon started out in design and publishing. He created innovative sunglass brand RETROSUPERFUTURE, an experience which included an interesting collaboration with Kanye West. He also spent 10 years running PIG, one of the most influential independent magazines in Italy; and credits his experience there as one of the driving forces behind his idea for Depop. Simon is a product genius and draws upon the work of not only business people but also architects, artists and philosophers as he strives for mastery with the Depop product.

Wil disappointed his mother when he abandoned a career in corporate law to start ChannelFlip Media. Apparently he had a 'good feeling' after waking up one day with a business plan scrawled on a napkin. Six years later, on Christmas Eve, he sold the business to TV production giant News Corp. His mother was very pleased. He then became Head of Digital at Condé Naste. Managing a team of over 100, he was responsible for creating a digital presence for their many prestigious publications including Vogue, GQ and Wired. He is now the founder of Entale who are revolutionising the production, discovery and listening experience of podcasts and other audio content. With a host of amusing stories from his glamorous career and some incisive insights and predictions regarding the future of content and entertainment, Wil made for a great guest.

A serial entrepreneur, investor, philanthropist, diplomat, and author; Bill founded not one but two unicorn companies in the 80s and 90s. His ambitions are now always driven by the purpose of creating a 'world that works for all life'. His work includes: - CoderDojo, a volunteer-driven community which teaches coding to kids in 107 countries -WeForest, which aims to combat climate change and support communities through forest restoration and has already planted 20 million trees. He is also a General Partner at SOS Ventures and founded the world's first biotech accelerator, RebelBio. He lives on a small farm in Cork, Ireland where he lives as sustainably as possible and has not set foot on a plane for 10 years. He is a charismatic speaker and regularly hosts masterclasses in persuasion. It's hardly surprising then that we found this conversation inspiring.

Giles is the CMO of What3Words. What3Words is one of the truly visionary companies on the current UK tech scene. They have addressed the world by dividing it into 57 trillion 3x3 squares, each with a three-word label. Already used by Mercedes, the United Nations and the Mongolian postal service to name a few, Giles talks us through the astonishing applications and efficiencies created by a flawless address system. Giles is a master storyteller and thrilled us with tales of the creative ways he is bringing a new address system to the world including a treasure hunt in collaboration with Tomb Raider.

Ed is the founder of Flock – a UK government & Silicon valley-backed insurtech platform disrupting the insurance industry with its real-time risk assessment and pay-as-you-fly model. Flock’s first product caters to the $100bn drone market. We learn how Ed’s academic background in engineering and then AI and government policy set him on this path (and allowed him to meet Elon Musk along the way). We also talk about the current and future applications of drones; and what they might mean for the future of our cities and our world.