Secret Leaders

Andrea Berchowitz is the Co-Founder of Vira Health, a tech startup taking on problems in women’s health, starting with menopause. Andrea worked at McKinsey and then the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation but this is her first time as a Founder. What’s tougher than she expected? What’s surprised her about the switch? And what would she advise others thinking of making the move? Plus we discuss: How to pick what to do with your career   The reality of menopause Stereotypes of engineers  The kind of work that’s difficult to do remotely How to manage people Feedback isn’t what people think it is  -- 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 her

Giles Harrison, the Co-Founder of Sculpd, is riding high now but his first startup ground to a painful halt.  Having quit his job in a bullish mood to found a matcha tea business, he soon found out how difficult startups are - and how much more difficult physical goods businesses are compared to digital ones. Find out how he failed - what went wrong - and what he learnt from it.  ... We'd love your feedback: hello@secretleaders.com  Check out Yotpo, our exclusive sponsor - if you want to grow your ecommerce business: yotpo.com/secret Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So you’ve heard people talking about the metaverse and have been wondering what they’re on about? You think you get it one minute but then someone else says something and you’re none the wiser? Yeah, sounds about right. This is why we’re pumped to be interviewing Sebastien Borger, the Co-Founder and COO of The Sandbox, who are a market leader in the metaverse. The Sandbox is the place where brands like Starbucks, Gucci and Nike have been buying virtual land so they can deliver experiences to their fans.  Sebastien is a serial entrepreneur who’s always been obsessed with the idea of making his own games and turning players into owners. After three successful startups, he’s on the brink of greatness with The Sandbox, but the chances of them ending up one of the ultimate winners of the metaverse is still very small. How many of the early internet businesses are around today? It didn’t work out for the likes of Napster, Yahoo and MySpace. Will it work out for The Sandbox?  We talk about: What you learn as a seri

Amanda Perry tells us what it’s like to go bankrupt after flying high with her baking business. She’d been featured in Vogue; her cupcakes were flying off the shelves - she thought business was easy. Until it wasn’t, and it was her who was personally on the hook… How do you even go bankrupt from starting a company? What impact does it have on you? And how do you recover from something like that?  Amanda’s now the successful Founder of Soup Agency but this is a cautionary tale for anyone thinking about starting a business. ... We'd love your feedback: hello@secretleaders.com  Check out Yotpo, our exclusive sponsor - if you want to grow your ecommerce business: yotpo.com/secret Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s pretty rare that investors have to ask the Founder they’re speaking to if they’re in a warzone, or insist they have to leave their country for somewhere a little more ‘peaceful’ but that’s exactly what happened to Yaron Galai, the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Outbrain. Yaron was a captain in the Israeli Navy before smashing it out the park with a few startups he founded.  Yaron’s latest company Outbrain (founded in 2006) is one you may not have heard of but you’ve probably used - they power recommended articles on loads of the world’s top news sites.  They nearly merged with their biggest competitor (Taboola) a year ago only for that deal to not work out and float instead on the Nasdaq for $1.25 billion.  As Yaron says, an exit is a great outcome but a terrible plan, so what was his plan? How has he got multiple exits under his belt? What are the secrets to his success?  We talk about: The struggle for funding Israeli military/life/work balance Parents investing to make sure their children got paid Exiti

Steve Witt knows what it’s like to make a lot of money… and lose it all. He knows what it’s like to go from sipping mai tais on the proverbial Caribbean island to sleeping on your mate’s sofa because you’ve got nowhere else to go. And he’s gone through that twice. Find out what happened and how he picked himself up again. ... We'd love your feedback: hello@secretleaders.com  Check out Yotpo, our exclusive sponsor - if you want to grow your ecommerce business: yotpo.com/secret Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

BorrowMyDoggy is the kind of brand that just sticks in your brain. Once you’ve heard it you can’t unhear it.  Today we’re talking with its Founder and CEO Rikke Rosenlund who had an idyllic Danish childhood but still doesn’t own a dog. Find out how she built the company bit by bit - and how they're helping the 25% of dogs who are depressed. We talk about: What your parents say behind your back The issues with dog care in the UK People finding love through pet sitting Real reason women founders get less funding -- 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit meg

This is the first episode in our new bitesize series (10/15-minute episodes) dedicated to failure. Trinny Woodall’s an A-lister now, and the Founder of Trinny London, but before all the success she experienced a soul-crushing failure around the dotcom boom. Find out what happened, what she learnt from it - and how you should think about failure. ... We'd love your feedback: hello@secretleaders.com  Check out Yotpo, our exclusive sponsor: yotpo.com/secret Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What we’re taught at schools is a real pet peeve here at Secret Leaders. Why are we mucking about learning Latin when we could be learning about stuff like nutrition and personal finance - genuinely useful subjects that will help us lead happier, more fulfilling lives? That’s what Max Rofagha thought when, after exiting his previous startup, he didn’t know what to do with his new found wealth. The content on the internet, the advice he was getting, just didn’t cut it - so he founded Finimize. Their idea is to help more ‘ordinary people’, i.e. retail investors (not professional investors) do more with their money, and the company has done pretty well. They were bought last year by Aberdeen (abrdn), making Max the youngest Exec of a FTSE 100 company.  How has he done it? What has he learnt about business building that’s delivered two exits from two companies? Let’s dive in… We talk about: What Berlin used to be like Why you should grow up with computers What you should do with your savings Why people don’t

If you’ve been on holiday - if you’ve been anywhere you’ve Googled - you’ve probably used Tripadvisor. It’s just one of those names synonymous with the internet, and it’s not just because their SEO has been amazing - they’ve been going for 22 years.  Extraordinarily it’s had the same person leading it all this time - Steve Kaufer, who’s finally stepping down this year.  Tripadvisor has been through a variety of management changes along the way, which have forced Steve to adapt but he’s still here, although not for much longer. Find out why now’s the time he’s leaving. We talk about: The unlikely birth of Tripadvisor The difference between hindsight and wisdom How to handle a business which loses 90% of its revenue  The most renewed thing on Tripadvisor How to manage change in company ownership  -- 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 clou

When you’re first dreaming up a business idea, you imagine it at its best - as if your execution was perfect and your resources unlimited. When your friends ask at a dinner party, you say you’ll have Gordon Ramsey teaching cooking and Christina Aguilera teaching singing. Your friends laugh, you cheers each other - and carry on with your meal. But in the case of today’s guest, David Rogier, he’s turned that dream into a reality. Everyone thought he was mad, and pointed it out to him at various stages, but here we are with MasterClass, valued at $2.75b last year according to CNBC - and with the craziest line up of teachers you’ll ever see in one place.  How has David pulled it off?  And all this from a man who was bullied as a child over his stutter.  We talk about: His grandparents meeting in Auschwitz Getting over his stutter How to choose which business to launch How he started Masterclass The real art of storytelling The hardest things he’s ever done Why he kept going when everybody told him to stop

How do you buy a ski mountain? How much does it cost? And how do you turn it into the biggest ski resort in North America - Powder Mountain? That’s the kind of thing we wanted to know when we sat down with Elliott Bisnow, who shot to startup fame as Co-Founder of Summit, a now legendary events series which attracted speakers like Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson and Jessica Alba. He’s now the proud Co-Founder of Powder Mountain which is insanely cool. And not bad for a college dropout, although, to be fair, that’s now a pretty common trend on this podcast: drop out of university to start something and make it big. We have a lot of dreamers on this show but Elliott’s dreams are legitimately crazy. Find out how he turns them into a reality and: The book that changed his life Homeschool Building a business with your Dad The tiny first Summit event The real value of co-founders Buying Powder Mountain The most difficult feedback to hear -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleader

It’s not often you meet real life prodigies but Kieran O’Neill might just be one. By the time he was 19 he’d been sued by Disney and his company had been bought by Carl Page, the brother of Google Co-Founder Larry Page. And then he dropped out of university to start another successful business, because, why not? “At that point I discovered what I want to do for the rest of my life - build things. And I began building a tool that would track which of my housemates was best at a particular game.” Today Kieran is the Co-Founder and CEO of Thread.com, a place where you can get clothes that actually suit and fit you - a reaction to the typical online shopping experience which often results in loads of returns. Plus, plenty of people don’t back their own style - including Kieran.  “I keep a text file with various ideas in. And at this point had about 10 that were on not a shortlist, but a medium shortlist. Nine of them were for other people, problems they had but problems I didn't have personally. The problem I had

Building a successful startup is about lots of things but a tonne of people get the first step wrong - picking the right business to launch. So how do you pick the right one? Well, our host and the Co-Founder of Heights Dan Murray-Serter is in the hot seat today answering that very question.  This is the second episode in our semi-regular series with Dan, showing what it’s really like to be a Founder, warts and all. The first episode was released on January 18 and we left things at a critical point for Dan and his Co-Founder Joel. Dan wasn’t motivated by what his company had pivoted into. They wanted to give the money back to investors. But things didn’t go the way they planned… -- 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 Si

One of the extraordinary things about the startup ecosystem is the kind of company that gets celebrated. Most of the time, they don’t make money. They bounce from one funding round to the next, and only a tiny % eventually make it. They’re the kinds of businesses that would’ve made our grandparents shake their heads. Today’s guest, Tom Leathes, the Co-Founder and CEO of used car marketplace Motorway, is different. The first few companies he built were bootstrapped, profitable and he sold them for more money. Which is basically how business worked for centuries. But then Tom found himself leading a VC-backed startup and things didn’t go so well. It was the first time he and his Co-Founders had failed. So after that experience they re-set and they’ve come back fighting with another VC-backed business, Motorway, which was just valued at over a billion pounds. Find out about the key learnings that have made him successful - and lead to a different outcome for Motorway. -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: h

If you’re in the UK and you like your peanut butter, you’ve probably come across Pip & Nut, the brand named after its Founder and today’s guest, Pip Murray. Pip started the business when she was 24, at her kitchen table, with a blender and some nuts.  But plenty of people start businesses like that so what makes her special? How has she managed it?  Oh, and we’ve also got the return of the king, Rich Martell, Co-Founder of Secret Leaders, who went to university with Pip and was one of her early investors. He couldn’t resist the chance to join Dan in the interview chair - and so he could ask Pip the difficult questions. Like how do you actually get your product listed at Tescos?  -- 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 Si

It’s amazing how important business seems until something really important happens, like a war breaks out. For Aleksandr Volodarsky, Founder of Lemon.io, which connects companies with software engineers, although he and his colleagues had gotten used to operating in a conflict situation since 2014, he was still stunned when Russia invaded. And the most useful thing he can do now is to keep the business going so it can support the war effort - including his employees who’ve gone off to fight.  Find out what it’s like in his shoes right now. What’s going on with his team. What’s it like on the ground. -- 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 he

Look, we’re going to tell you straight - this is a blinding episode - and that’s because we’re talking to a man who is unflinchingly honest about his Founder experience. On the outside it looked like Adam Bierman had it all. He was the Co-Founder and CEO of MedMen, a cult phenomenon and the world’s first cannabis unicorn. They were seen as the Apple of weed and they looked unstoppable.  But in 2019, a year after hitting its all time high on the Canadian stock market, the company had lost 95% of its value. Adam’s personal wealth was also up in smoke because he hadn’t listened to his advisors - instead of diversifying his assets, he’d bought even more MedMen stock. And then came the lawsuits. Adam is no longer with the company and was in a reflective mood when he sat down with Dan. So what on earth happened? Why did he leave the company? And what has he learnt from all of this?  -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001

What’s particularly shocking about Nick Telson’s success with DesignMyNight is how deliberate it all seemed. They set themselves a target each year, achieved it and moved onto the next one until they’d hit the numbers they needed for the exit they wanted. How many businesses do that? And it was the first startup he’d ever founded… Nick explains how they sold the business - the actual steps they took - which isn’t a process that most people know about unless they’ve been lucky enough to go through an exit themselves. And in classic startup style, it looked like the whole deal was going to collapse on the day of signing until an unlikely hero stepped up. Since exiting DesignMyNight, Nick has founded Horseplay Ventures, and more recently Trumpet, a mixture of Squarespace and Canva and Slack for sales decks. It sounds like something I would use, tbf. Despite his success, throughout his time leading DesignMyNight, Nick kept one aspect of himself relatively hidden - his sexuality. Find out why and what he’s doing a

It’s the stuff entrepreneurs dream of. Houzz, a marketplace for home renovations, evolved from an evenings and weekends passion project into a multi-billion dollar company with investors queuing up to get a slice of their proverbial pie. So how did the two Co-Founders, husband and wife Adi Tatarko and Alon Cohen, do it? “I think, in retrospect, delaying it and bootstrapping it, the way we bootstrapped it without even understanding that this is what it is back then helped us tremendously down the road.” “Go invest the first six months and validate and see that this idea can really scale, people will really use it, you're really invested in it, and you really love it. And then you will not need to prove these things to investors.” Find out how they secured an investment from legendary investor Mike Moritz in a matter of days - and what they did next to dominate their category. -- Sponsors Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 a