My Favourite Failure: "We signed a deal with the devil" Glenn Poulos

Calm.com - Michael Acton Smith tells the story behind Calm, Moshi Monsters and Mind Candy,: Michael Acton Smith OBE is a man who's been described as the ‘tech version of Willy Wonka’. From setting up popular e-commerce websites with university friends to extravagant online games Michael Acton Smith has always had a drive as a maker. His biggest success, Moshi Monsters, grew to over 100 million registered users and expanded to over 150 countries around the world. It’s not all been plain sailing though. His businesses have come within days of missing payroll and after booming success Mind Candy has found it challenging reproducing it’s second hit. More recently our esteemed guest has focussed his attention on raising awareness and building businesses in the mental health space - an area very close to his heart with the meditation app - Calm. by Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter

65 min listen

Photobox: Graham Hobson (Co-Founder) on how he built a £400m business: Graham Hobson is the Co Founder of Photobox, the digital printing powerhouse that employs 1,000+ people across Europe, and exited for a reported £400m+.But it wasn’t a simple journey - 16 years in the making, including 5 where they scaled back to 3 people, Graham shares the highs and lows of their tumultuous ride to eventual success. Before that - a life in the city, in banking’s glory years, where he saw every immoral act under the sun happen in the office before his eyes - he has lots of experience and insight to share through his career, and is well worth the listen! by Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter

72 min listen

Prince Andrew on supporting the UK's next big companies by Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter

62 min listen

Blippar: Jess Butcher building a business and a family: Jess Butcher is the co-founder of Blippar - the augmented reality giant. Founded in 2011, Jess has over 250 colleagues and as of 2016 raised a total of $100m valuing the business at a reputed $1bn and it’s also reported that they turned down an acquisition of £1.5bn. Jess gives us an insight into the founding days of Blippar and also what it's like building a behemoth of a business while also raising a family.This episode of The Secret Lives of Leaders was recorded at Stockton House in front of a live audience at the Foundrs Unconference. by Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter

63 min listen

Project Everyone: How Gail Gallie reached 7 billion people in 7 days: How do you go about creating a better tomorrow? Project Everyone co-founder Gail Gallie thinks that we should all get involved. It starts with something small, and then expands into something great. Working as a producer for Radio 1The challenges of being the CEO of an ad agencyDriving awareness towards a sustainable futureLinks:Project Everyone The Sustainable Development GoalsFull show notes: http://www.secretleaders.com/ by Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter

61 min listen

Entrepreneur First: How to build unicorns with Alice Bentinck: Alice started her career in McKinsey and on the day she was going to sign to start at google, got convinced by her business partner Matt to just start this with her instead, and though it was incredibly tough starting up - she’s never looked back. They recruit 100 technologists every 6 months, put them into teams, help them develop ideas - but unusually give money to people who might never have met before, who might not even have an idea, and get them to just start. More recently they raised a fresh £40m fund to invest into people, to turn them into companies. by Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter

48 min listen

Social Chain: Steve Bartlett is young and hungry: Our guest in this episode is probably responsible for the funny tweets you saw, or that ridiculously viral campaign that captured your imagination. At 24, he’s one of those guys who has already had the life experience of most 40 year olds, with offices in Manchester, Berlin and New York, plus spending a small stint living in San Francisco as an Entrepreneur in Residence advising Bebo for their relaunch, he’s accomplished a great deal in a short period of time and shows no signs of slowing down. At the age of 18, Steve Bartlett dropped out of school and embarked on his first business, Wallpark - a social media venture connecting students with similar interests around, essentially a digital social notice board. He then exited that business in 2013 and Co Founded the Social Chain, having met a young guy called Dom McGregor, who had a unique knack of creating multiple twitter accounts and growing the shit out of them, and from there they’v by Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter

57 min listen

Not On The Highstreet Co-Founder Holly Tucker: Our guest this week is the lovely co-founder of notonthehighstreet.com, Holly Tucker (previously known as “Hurricane Holly”). Join us for an hour of inspiration, as Holly shares her secrets for balancing family, happiness, and business, as well as her journey towards finding her ikigai. Creating notonthehighstreet.com together with Sophie Cornish at their respective kitchen tablesWhy Holly advises entrepreneurs to trust their internal compassesFull show notes: http://www.secretleaders.com/ by Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter

63 min listen

Skimlinks: Alicia Navarro on how to build an advertising giant: Our second Australian guest in a row for our 10th episode of Secret Lives of Leaders. This episode we have the pleasure of hosting Alicia Navarro - the co-founder and CEO of Skimlinks. Known for her energy and enthusiasm, Alicia has been in the heart of the tech scene in London for over a decade. Her company has gone through many highs and lows along the way as well as receiving over $20m in venture funding. Alicia gives us an insight into running starting and then running a high growth company as well as what she gets up to when she's not working. by Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter

56 min listen

Seedcamp: Reshma Sohoni tells us how to be a successful VC: Our guest this week is one of the best networked ladies in UK tech, as the Co Founder of not only the first ever, but also arguably the most successful Seed Fund in Europe, Seedcamp. By only part-selling their stake in their most successful investment, they’ve already returned their entire fund back, as the high profile FinTech unicorn Transferwise was originally developed before Reshma’s eyes and with her support and brainpower. With over 200 investments to her name, its not fair to focus only on their largest, as they’ve backed many really exciting winners, which she’ll be talking to us about in this episode. With her roots from India, teenage years in America, and an MBA in france, it’s Europe she’s chosen of the 3 continents to call home, and it’s fair to say she’s had a huge impact on the technology scene. by Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter

71 min listen

Moonpig: Nick Jenkins and the £120m card company: Nick Jenkins is the founder of Moonpig.com - the wildly successful personalised E card company that sold for £120m to photo printing giants, Photobox in 2011. More recently he’s been an avid angel investor which saw him becoming more of a household name every sunday night as a dragon on BBC1’s Dragon’s Den. As both his own seed investor, and a sole founder - he shares his unique journey from startup to exit, and we learn about his background, and indeed how he got started on the founder ladder.But it wasn’t all smooth sailing - like many, he’s failed along the way, and he also went all in with 100% of the money he’d made in his career. by Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter

74 min listen

Traffic & Copy: Vincent Dignan on how to growth hack your way to success: Today’s guest is the self styled Jesus Christ Superstar of the organic viral growth world, Vincent Dignan. He puts the M in Millennial, the G in Growth and the WTF in Fashion. A man who very much practices what he preaches, and a true obsessive for the American personal branding school of thought - he knows that to stand out, you have to really stand out. And he does this to perfection.In his own words - his mission is to help as many founders and companies grow in the fastest way possible using bespoke techniques, tactics and software most people don’t know about. Whilst his over sharing and very un-British attitude towards self promotion doesn’t resonate with everyone - it’s categorically impossible to ignore Vincent once you’ve made contact, and underneath all the outfits and image is simply a guy interested to see how he can help others succeed with the knowledge he’s accumulated. From living off benefits to by Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter

55 min listen

Babylon Health: How Founder and CEO Dr Ali Parsa Plans to Make Healthcare a Utility for Every Human on Earth: Our guest this week is the founder of Babylon Health: Ali Parsa. What Ali chose to do is nothing short of noble: trying to make healthcare affordable and accessible to everyone. Tune in to hear the lessons and advice of a very ambitious and opinionated human being.Coming to the UK as a refugee and steering clear of negativityBuilding Circle and, later on, BabylonThinking big, acting big, staying human by Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter

66 min listen

Mr & Mrs Smith: Tamara Lohan MBE taking on Expedia and Booking.com: Tamara Lohan MBE is the co-founder and CTO of Mr & Mrs Smith Hotels. She started Mr and Mrs Smith with her husband James 14 years ago, and has been at the heart of one of the best loved internet brands in Britain, but it in fact started as a publishing business; a guidebook for people like her who wanted to explore the luxury boutiques across the country and discovering the real gems and stylish weekends away in unique hotels. They sold 10,000 copies in their first 6 weeks, but fast forward to today they have over 100 staff spread across London, LA, Singapore, New York… and have had contributions from celebrities ranging from Stella McCartney to Cate Blanchett. by Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter

65 min listen

Daniel Priestley -- Bestselling Author & Entrepreneur (Key Person of Influence, 24 Assets, Oversubscribed): Our guest in episode 9 is the bestselling author Daniel Priestley. Hailing from Australia Daniel was already a success before he moved to Europe. He used writing as a way to get his thought process down while running his own business and along the way his books is what he is most well known for. His catalogue includes the titles “24 Assets”, “Oversubscribed” and “Key Person of Influence”.Along the way Daniel has built huge businesses, advised celebrated entrepreneurs, broken world records, raised millions in venture capital and fundraised hundreds of thousands of dollars for charity. by Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter

73 min listen

ustwo Co-Founder Mills on Building a Fampany (aka Family Company): Our leader du jour is Mills, aka Matt Miller, co-founder of ustwo, an international digital product and service studio. Mills tells us all about how they created ustwo and developed an App Store App of the Year, and why they will never ever sell their fampany (for those of you late to the table, that’s a family company).The story of how ustwo was formedHow they created a global smash hit mobile gameWhat’s next for ustwo and for Mills by Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter

66 min listen

Founders4Schools and Scale Up Institute: Meet Sherry Coutu CBE, a Serial Entrepreneur and Angel Investor Turned Philanthropist. by Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter

50 min listen

Founder of Stellar, Ripple and Mt Gox Jed McCaleb: On Cryptocurrency and the Hardships of Entrepreneurship: Mt. Gox founder Jed McCaleb is a cryptocurrency legend. Today he talks about the hardships of being an entrepreneur. We chat with Jed about:The basics of cryptocurrency (it’s mum-friendly)Why he picked the name e-donkey for his companyThe time he built a butanol lab in his girlfriend’s apartmentHow Mt. Gox was originally started as an online trading exchange for Magic: The GatheringWhy even as an incredibly successful entrepreneur he still struggled to get Stellar off the ground by Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter

45 min listen

Unruly - From lecturer to millionaire. Sarah Wood tells all.: Today we are joined by one of the best known, and certainly most liked entrepreneurs in the UK - Sarah Wood from Unruly Media. The tl;dr on Sarah is that she went to University of Cambridge, then became a lecturer at the University of Sussex, then she Co Founded Unruly, sold it for £114m to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp a few years later, and now teaches a course back at Cambridge whilst maintaining a role as CEO at the company she helped build. In this episode you'll find out what Unruly does, and how Cambridge University responded to her suggested classroom title she teaches entitled “ Mashups, memes and LOLitics, online video culture and the screen media revolution” by Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter

74 min listen

Draper Esprit: The first ever public VC fund - Simon Cook: Today’s special guest is one of the key Venture Capital investors in the UK, the CEO and Founder of Draper Esprit, Mr Simon Cook. Most recently, Simon has focused on disrupting the traditional VC structure by taking his company public on an IPO that raised over £100m of ‘permanent capital’ as he calls it which he intends to use to grow the UK’s influence globally.He has been involved in some of the best known deals in the UK including LoveFilm, Graze and Trust Pilot. by Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter

59 min listen

Songkick: Pete Finlay on Burnout and Growing Too Fast: What are the ingredients needed for a successful startup adventure? Pete Finlay, formerly Pete Smith, co-founder of Songkick and Silicon Milkroundabout, has a few pieces of advice for first-time founders that could make all the difference in the world. - Songkick’s birth, infancy and later years- What made Songkick different from other online concert discovery tools- Pete’s experience with burnout and his advice to first-time foundersFull show notes: http://www.secretleaders.com/ by Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter

62 min listen

Vorsprung Durch Technik - Sir John Hegarty (BBH) tells us where that came from!: Our guest this week is the advertising giant Sir John Hegarty. As the co-founder of ad agency BBH and creator of acclaimed campaigns for brands such as Levi’s, Audi, BA and Johnnie Walker, Hegarty has been a leader in the advertising industry for more than 50 years. In our interview with him he reveals some of his creative tricks (lose the headphones) and “when the world zigs, zag” – words which went on to become the BBH’s mantra. by Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter

62 min listen

Planet Organic: How Founder Renée Elliott Wove Together Love and Food: Our guest this week takes life and food seriously. Meet Renée Elliott, the founder of Planet Organic, a principled, thoughtful, and always kind entrepreneur, here to offer some valuable life lessons and sound business advice. The journey of Planet OrganicThe investor nightmareCo-founder trouble and starting to work with her husbandLiving the life in Tuscany for three yearsCo-creating a business and life-skills academy for women by Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter

55 min listen

Café Rouge: How Co-Founder Karen Jones Creates Brands People Come Back To: Our guest this week is Café Rouge co-founder Karen Jones. Fortunately for you, Karen comes equipped with plenty of actionable advice on how you can create a brand people actually come back to. How Café Rouge was builtSelling Café Rouge and creating Punch TavernsWhat makes a brand a winnerKaren’s advice to entrepreneursFull show notes: http://www.secretleaders.com/ by Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter

63 min listen

Uber's first invester - Jason Calacanis the GREATEST angel investor of all time (his words) and host of This Week In Startups: Today’s guest is the guy who got lucky nine times: Jason Calacanis is an angel investor with a serious point to prove - his one piece of advice to his 18 year old self would be to stop mucking around, move to Silicon Valley and the Bay Area and get to work NOW. Join us as we discuss:The secret to angel investing.His obsession with wealth and power.Why the people who will change the world are not always likeable and why he likes working with them. How he rebuilt after the dot.com bust. by Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter

63 min listen

ClassPass: How Payal Kadakia Built A Fitness Empire: Today’s guest is Payal Kadakia, founder and executive chairman of ClassPass. Payal started ClassPass in 2011 a business that was born out of her love for dance. We chat about:How learning to dance at a young age gave her a way of life and a way to think about the challenges that lay ahead.Why there were crickets when they initially launched ClassPass.How she brought her team in and the importance of passionate generalists.How to hand over the reins and move into a new role in the company. by Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter

50 min listen

Just Eat: How David Buttress Co-Founded and Built a £5.5bn Company: What does a successful startup need? Two friends with a vision, a huge amount of hard work, and a basement. Just Eat former CEO David Buttress shares his journey. - The Just Eat journey: how two colleagues working in a basement created an empire with a valuation of £5.5 billion- Their story with getting funded - What made Just Eat stand out from other food delivery servicesFull show notes: http://www.secretleaders.com/ by Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter

68 min listen

Blippar and Shazam: A live chat with visionaries Jess Butcher and Dhiraj Mukherjee: If you want to know what it takes to start and run a technology company, then you need to listen to two of our most visionary guests, Jess Butcher, co-founder of Blippar and Dhiraj Mukherjee, co-founder of Shazam. Key takeaways How the Blippar vision has evolved over timeFinding the balance between motherhood and running a tech companyThe highs and lows of being a co-founder Creating ShazamHow they got around any law infringements to get the musicGetting early adoption through smart marketingLinks:https://www.secretleaders.com/jess-butcherhttps://www.secretleaders.com/dhiraj-mukherjee by Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter

81 min listen

WeTransfer: Damian Bradfield tells us about the art of the stunningly straightforward file sharing: WeTransfer President Damian Bradfield shares his trials and tribulations, and how they grew the disarmingly simple file sharing site into the amazingly popular service it is today.We chat with Damian about:The early days of WeTransfer: no money and huge ambition in AmsterdamHow StumbleUpon helped them launchBootstrapping and keeping their full-time jobs until 2015The two fortuitous things that happened in WeTransfer's early daysWhat Damian believes the future of the internet is going to beAnd what he’s like as a boss by Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter

58 min listen

Charles Tyrwhitt: How Founder Nicholas Wheeler Went From an Aston Martin to Global Domination: Our guest this week is a man who enjoys taking high-achieving to new levels every morning while eating breakfast. Meet Nick Wheeler, the founder of Charles Tyrwhitt, the shirt company on a mission to make it easy for men to dress well. Nick’s previous ventures and how he started and grew Charles TyrwhittNick’s infatuation for learning from mistakes, over and over and over againThe do’s and don’ts of hiring when you’re a small companyHis advice to entrepreneurs worldwide by Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter

57 min listen

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My Favourite Failure: "We signed a deal with the devil" Glenn Poulos

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