5 Star Founder is a podcast created by Founders for Founders.

I believe everyone you will ever meet, knows something you don't.

Each episode features a founder, from a variety of backgrounds, sectors and entrepreneurial stages. With whom I hope to learn, celebrate, understand and get a deeper insight into their world.

We will cover everything from what drove our founders to start their company, to what keeps them awake at night.

Biggest regret to date, as well as their career highs and lows in their journey so far.

Unlike most of the people we have featured in this series, our guest took a highly unusual path to her entrepreneurial journey and that was one of the main reasons I wanted her to be on the podcast.

Now, I must admit I took way longer than I normally do preparing for this episode. To be honest, I am feeling a bit nervous.

Most of the interviewees we have had on so far have been your run of the mill founder whereas today our guest, Victoria Lee not only trained as a journalist, but get this, she used to work for a couple of major newspapers in the UK. Imagine if you will an out of shape bloke having a kick about with a premier league player. One good, the other not as much. That is literally what you are about to witness.

I’m kidding of course, I spoke with Victoria pre show and she is lovely, but I hope she will forgive me and go easy on me, if my interview technique is all over the place.

Victoria is the co-founder of 100 Pound Social, a company that was founded in 2017.

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love businesses that say exactly what they do on the tin. 100 pound social, literally helps business owners achieve a positive social media presence, generate new business leads and helps keep companies top of mind via their social channels.

Prices literally start at 100 pounds a month.

I am not yet a customer but from what I have seen, I would have no qualms recommending the service to others!

Welcome to the show Victoria!

5 Star Founder is a podcast created by Founders for Founders.

I believe everyone you will ever meet, knows something you don't.

Each episode features a founder, from a variety of backgrounds, sectors and entrepreneurial stages. With whom I hope to learn, celebrate, understand and get a deeper insight into their world.

We will cover everything from what drove our founders to start their company, to what keeps them awake at night.

Biggest regret to date, as well as their career highs and lows in their journey so far.

Like me, Domenica started her illustrious career in sales, where all the best founders start obviously.

Domenica has held a number of roles with a variety of industries from print, display as well as communications and advertising too. She set up Emerging Communications 5 years ago, before that she ran and sold a digital marketing agency. Which I hope we can find out more about.

Emerging Communications provides consultancy and strategic advice on entering and marketing to the Chinese market which comes with it’s own challenges I’m sure.

Aside from leading the growth of her company across Europe, Domenica also works for a number of global organisations at board level, providing advice on their China market entry and subsequent digital strategy. Which I’m sure is keeping her and her team super busy!

When not working, you will find Domenica enjoying time with her daughter or practising yoga.

Welcome to the show Domenica!

5 Star Founder is a podcast created by Founders for Founders. 

We believe everyone you will ever meet, knows something you don't. 

Each episode features a founder, from a variety of backgrounds, sectors and entrepreneurial stages. With whom I hope to learn, celebrate, understand and get a deeper insight into their world. 

We will cover everything from what drove our founders to start their company, to what keeps them awake at night. Biggest regret to date, as well as their career highs and lows in their journey so far.

Today we are joined by an OG snacker, and foodie Sara Trechman the co-founder & director of Well & Truly.

She co-founded her company with her sister in law, simply to solve their own problem!

They loved snacking but didn't want to pig out on junk ingredients, the idea for the business came about when they were having a drink after work at a bar in soho (often where I get my best brain waves too).

Not only is Well & Truly stocked everywhere; Tesco, Sainsbury's, Amazon, Ocado, underneath the distinctive packaging the snack is on the right side of tasty and the wrong side on unhealthy!

Sarah lives in London studied business studies at Leeds and worked for corporates companies. Like many of us before finally taking the plunge together with Maria. Outside of the office, Sarah can be found climbing mountains, I don't mean that metaphorically I mean actual mountains where she met her husband with whom she has a 2 daughters with!

We hope to find out more about her and also about her brand Well & Truly.

Welcome to the show Sara!

5 Star Founder is a podcast created by Founders for Founders.

I believe everyone you will ever meet, knows something you don't.

Each episode features a founder, from a variety of backgrounds, sectors and entrepreneurial stages.

With whom I hope to learn, celebrate, understand and get a deeper insight into their world.

We will cover everything from what drove our founders to start their company, to what keeps them awake at night. Biggest regret to date, as well as their career highs and lows in their journey so far.

Our guest today is Philip Udeh, founder of Brain Füd.

He founded Füd after struggling for many years with chronic fatigue due to Sickle Cell Anaemia. (Sickle Cell means: that your red blood cells are sickle shaped rather than smooth and round. This leads to blockages that deprive organs and tissues of vital oxygen-carrying blood). Disillusioned by high sugar and artificially sweetened energy drinks, he decided to create something better.

What started as a search on google for “food technologists in London” back in 2015..Has now ended up being a fully funded brand that is in supermarket shelves and widely available! During this did I mention he appeared on BBC’s Dragons Den and also ran a successful Crowd Funding campaign!

The company mission is to provide the world with some “Feel güd energy”.

We actually met when we shared the same office space a few years ago.

The first impression I had of Phil was of a well dressed dapper don. As I got to know him and his team I have been super impressed with what he has built so far and am curious to see where he will take this company!

Welcome to the show Phil!

5 Star Founder is a podcast created by Founders for Founders.

I believe everyone you will ever meet, knows something you don't.

Each episode features a founder, from a variety of backgrounds, sectors and entrepreneurial stages.

With whom I hope to learn, celebrate, understand and get a deeper insight into their world.

We will cover everything from what drove our founders to start their company, to what keeps them awake at night. Biggest regret to date, as well as their career highs and lows in their journey so far.

Our guest today, Nick Rogers is the most “experienced” Founder we have had on this series so far. He started his career in tech sales (like all the best people obvs). I say experienced in air quotes not to suggest age, something my team tells me you should stay away from saying. In the woke day and age we are living in.

He is the first founder we have had on the series, who not only sells actual hardware that you can touch and feel but does so successfully all around the world!

The company itself is based out of Bristol. It exists to satisfy an unmet need for the computing performance that powers horsepower hungry industries such as high frequency trading and cutting edge scientific research. They take the view that there's enough risks in business without making the hardware you use, one of them.

I’m hoping to learn from the many ups and downs he has faced in the last 20 years and stories which we hope we can all learn from!

He joins us from Bristol.

Welcome to the show Nick!

5 Star Founder is a podcast created by Founders for Founders.

I believe everyone you will ever meet, knows something you don't.

Each episode features a founder, from a variety of backgrounds, sectors and entrepreneurial stages.

With whom I hope to learn, celebrate, understand and get a deeper insight into their world.

We will cover everything from what drove our founders to start their company, to what keeps them awake at night. Biggest regret to date, as well as their career highs and lows in their journey so far.

So far in this series we have only had founders of marketing, advertising as well people who have set up some uber cool FMCG brands.

In the interest of fairness and to balance the “5 star founder podcast universe”. We thought it would only be right to have someone who is a serious numbers man!

Our guest today, Conrad Ford, has not only worked for major financial institutions but also built one, from the ground up too!

I actually first met Conrad, when he hired me to make some videos for the company he had founded, Funding Options! I’ll never forget, when we went to pitch him, he mentioned they called him “One Take Conrad!” And to be fair to him, on the shoot day, he lived up to his name!

You can really tell, when someone knows their subject matter well, when they are able to take even the most complex ideas and articulate it in jargon free, simple to understand language.

I was on the shoot and I can honestly say I learnt more about finance and funding, in one day than I did with all the time I spent with my accountant!

Welcome to the show Conrad!

5 Star Founder is a podcast created by Founders for Founders.

I believe everyone you will ever meet, knows something you don't.

Each episode features a founder, from a variety of backgrounds, sectors and entrepreneurial stages.

With whom I hope to learn, celebrate, understand and get a deeper insight into their world.

We will cover everything from what drove our founders to start their company, to what keeps them awake at night. Biggest regret to date, as well as their career highs and lows in their journey so far.

Although it took a while for their diaries to sync up, I am glad it happened. Because this is the first episode where we have both the co-founders of a company take part!

When you are a business founder you end up meeting a lot of people not just in your industry but in other sectors, who are in their individual journeys themselves. I can honestly say, Josh & Markus are 2 of the soundest guys I’ve met in the last 3 years! 

They co founded JoyResolve an award-winning lifestyle & homeware brand that believes in bringing joy to people through form, function and resolved solutions.

They focus on the consumers’ evolving needs of well-being; while promoting creativity and reconnecting people with the present moment through tangible experiences. I’m keen to understand what they mean by that. The company’s  breakthrough product was The Barisieur - a Tea & Coffee brewing alarm clock that raised over $800,000 on crowd-funding platforms and is now in over 52 countries.

Out of all the companies we have featured on this series so far, JoyResolve has probably received the most amount of prestigious press coverage. I’ve seen lists of media outlets they have been covered by includes: The Times,  FT’s How to spend it, GQ,Hypebeast, elle, Evening Standard,T3, Monocle, and the list goes on..

If I remember correctly the first day we met, we actually ended up heading to a trendy club in Hackney.

Although it was a school night we ended up bonding over a few pints and tequila shots. (by few I mean a lot and shots I mean a bottle!)

Welcome to the show Josh & Markus!

5 Star Founder is a podcast created by Founders for Founders.

I believe everyone you will ever meet, knows something you don't.

Each episode features a founder, from a variety of backgrounds, sectors and entrepreneurial stages.

With whom I hope to learn, celebrate, understand and get a deeper insight into their world.

We will cover everything from what drove our founders to start their company, to what keeps them awake at night. Biggest regret to date, as well as their career highs and lows in their journey so far.

Ellie is the founder and CEO of Truffle, who are a social media agency and partner to some amazing brands. She proudly leads a team of strategic creative geniuses.

I was once invited to have Friday drinks with her team and I can tell you they work hard and play even harder.

Anyone who has worked with or met Ellie can feel an awesome energy and a great vibe that transmutes to her team too!

She is here to talk to us about her journey so far.

I am particularly keen to catch up with her about her recent re-brand and how she has been working remotely with both her clients and her fab team!

Welcome Ellie!

5 Star Founder is a podcast created by Founders for Founders.

I believe everyone you will ever meet, knows something you don't.

Each episode features a founder, from a variety of backgrounds, sectors and entrepreneurial stages.

With whom I hope to learn, celebrate, understand and get a deeper insight into their world.

We will cover everything from what drove our founders to start their company, to what keeps them awake at night. Biggest regret to date, as well as their career highs and lows in their journey so far.

Katy Howell is the founder and CEO of immediate future, the company was started back when it was all about blogs, myspace and things that we have all long forgotten about.

Back then, Facebook was literally just a physical book, Twitter was an ornithologists hobby and ClubHouse used to be called Oceana in Kingston.

Immediate future is one of the UK’s most respected social media agencies. When the team isn't busy winning awards or delivering talks at well respected institutes. They are working with household names and global brands!

The company proudly focuses on not having ninja’s, rockstars or guru’s but a passionate team of serious marketers with expertise in social media!

Anyone in business knows making it past the first year is difficult,  5 years is rare, rarer still are companies who have made it past the decade mark! However Katy’s company is closer to the 20 years mark!

I personally hope to discover what Katy’s secrets to reinvention, relevance and recruitment is!

So it is with great pleasure that I welcome Katy!

5 Star Founder is a podcast created by Founders for Founders.

We believe everyone you will ever meet, knows something you don't.

Each episode features a founder, from a variety of backgrounds, sectors and entrepreneurial stages.

With whom I hope to learn, celebrate, understand and get a deeper insight into their world.

We will cover everything from what drove our founders to start their company, to what keeps them awake at night. Biggest regret to date, as well as their career highs and lows in their journey so far.

Anders is our first non UK founder, we have had on the show!

The reason I was keen to get him on was because, although the parent company of Novicell UK has been going for 20 years. Anders pulled a proper viking move on us.

He set up Novicell here in the UK in 2016, where he pretty much had to start from scratch, I’m quite keen to understand what his biggest wins, challenges and learnings have been. How he adapted to the local customs and ways of doing business here as compared to his native Denmark.The learnings from hiring a team to a sizable number and growing.

I know he enjoys watching football to pass the time.

So my first question has to be obvious!

How has the nation of Denmark been coping with possibly the 2nd biggest tragedy to befall her since the petition to delay world cup 2018 in order to allow Lord Nicklas Bendtnar to recover from his injury was denied?

Welcome to the show Anders!