Founder Stories

Do you really need a technical co-founder to build a tech business? Toby Scregg doesn't think so.  He’s built a VC back startup, a technology business, invested in tech companies and he's never written a line of code.

In this episode of Founder Stories, James Green talks with Toby, founder of Blue Mongoose, an agency that uses agentic AI development to build software for companies.

Toby is candid about the mistakes: building a team too early, the pull of "just one more feature," the trap of raising VC money when it's the wrong fuel. And he's clear-eyed about what's genuinely changed: why he moved off no-code, what AI coding tools now make possible for non-technical founders, and where he draws the line on what they can't do.

For any experienced professional weighing up the move from a corporate role to starting their own business, this is a conversation with someone whose done it, more than once, about de-risking that decision.  Toby discusses validating cheaply, staying small, selling it yourself, and being honest about how much money you actually need.

DQventures helps experienced professionals de-risk the journey from corporate employee to founder — your 0-to-1 co-founder. If you think you're ready to start your own company, apply at DQventures.com.

• Watch this episode on DQventures YouTube Channel
• Thinking about leaving your corporate job to start your own business?  Apply to DQventures
• Follow James Green on LinkedIn 
• Follow DQventures on LinkedIn

Most first-time founders start by building a product. Marcello nearly did too.

He came to DQventures with an idea for a social listening platform — another piece of software in a space he already knew inside out from 15+ years in pharma and biotech, including roles at Novartis and Biogen. What he left with was something different: a business built on the real-world patient insight he already had, not the tech wrapped around it.

In this episode, James Green talks to Marcello about:

• Why "too much polish, not enough answer" is the trap most agencies — and most first-time founders — fall into
• The moment he realised the software itself had no value: "It's just workflows that have been digitised"
• Why he skipped procurement entirely and sold directly to biotech CEOs on LinkedIn
• Why deep domain expertise, not seniority, is the real advantage experienced founders have
• Where Common Synapse stands five months in: two paying clients, three delivered projects, and case studies in hand

Find out more about Marcello's work at commonsynapse.com

If you're thinking about starting your own business, explore DQventures.com

#entrepreneurship #startups #derisk

• Watch this episode on DQventures YouTube Channel
• Thinking about leaving your corporate job to start your own business?  Apply to DQventures
• Follow James Green on LinkedIn 
• Follow DQventures on LinkedIn

Caroline Sandqvist spent 15 years in HR before building CLVR Benefits — and her biggest advantage was simple: she was the customer she was building for.

In this Founder Stories episode, James Green talks with Caroline about why understanding your customer that deeply changes everything. Because she'd lived the problem — employees who couldn't tailor benefits to their life stage, payroll teams drowning in cross-border admin — she knew exactly what to build and what mattered. Her "user interviews" started as conversations in her own HR network.

They cover why being close to the problem is an unfair advantage, why a tech co-founder won't speed you up, and why selling comes before building. 

Find out more about Clvr Benefits or connect with Caroline on LinkedIn

Topics: Entrepreneurship, Corporate Exit, Customer Discovery, $10M Business, Leadership, Founder Journey, Startup, SaaS.

• Watch this episode on DQventures YouTube Channel
• Thinking about leaving your corporate job to start your own business?  Apply to DQventures
• Follow James Green on LinkedIn 
• Follow DQventures on LinkedIn

A 35-year career at Ford took Anoop Chaudhuri from the factory floor to Chief People Officer across four continents. Then he tried building his own venture — while still employed.

In this Founder Stories episode, James Green and Anoop unpack common issues founders face when launching new businesses, illustrated by Anoop's first startup idea - My Hero In Me (which failed validation) and the consulting business he subsequently built, which allowed him to quit his corporate career.  

Anoop has never considered My Hero In Me a failure — because he tested it before betting his career, and stayed employed throughout.

An honest conversation on corporate exit, managing risk, and the founder journey for experienced professionals.

Topics: Entrepreneurship · Corporate Exit · Leadership · Founder Journey · Startup

Key Moments

• 0:00 — Intro: a founder story that didn't go to plan, and why that's the point
• 2:00 — From the Ford factory floor to Chief People Officer: 35 years across four continents
• 9:00 — The origin of My Hero In Me and the gap Anoop saw
• 13:00 — Why HR teams don't buy: pivoting from B2B SaaS to a bottom-up app
• 19:00 — The R-rate experiment: 0.25 to 0.5, and the decision to park it
• 22:00 — Was it failure? Why Anoop never saw it that way — and why he didn't quit
• 32:00 — Validating excitement against what paying customers actually think
• 38:00 — Leaving corporate on his own terms: planning runway, managing risk
• 43:00 — The empty inbox: business development as a learned skill
• 46:00 — "The first person you sell to is yourself"
• 47:00 — Repeatability and referrals: how the lessons compounded into a real business
• 50:00 — Niching down when your instinct is to stay a generalist
• 54:00 — Anoop's pitch: clarity, care and commercial performance

• Watch this episode on DQventures YouTube Channel
• Thinking about leaving your corporate job to start your own business?  Apply to DQventures
• Follow James Green on LinkedIn 
• Follow DQventures on LinkedIn

Rachel Crampton never dreamed of being an entrepreneur, but she built a B2C tech platform without raising a dollar from investors and while still working full-time.

In this episode of Founder Stories, host James Green sits down with Rachel, founder of Juurnee, a marketplace connecting long-haul travellers with companions who will fly cheaply or freely in exchange for helping out on the journey.

For senior professionals who have spotted a real problem in their industry but cannot afford to gamble their career on it, this is what de-risked entrepreneurship looks like.

00:00  -  The viral Facebook post

02:30 — Meet Rachel: a flight with three kids under four that started a business

05:00 — Why incubators wouldn't work: the quit-your-job problem

08:00 — Finding DQventures and what changed

10:30 — Why B2C is hard, and how Rachel cleared that bar

12:15 — Why she chose revenue over raising money

14:30 — The pivot: from commission to lifetime subscriptions

16:30 — The Google Sheet MVP that taught her the business

20:00 — From manual service to real tech platform

22:30 — How a Channel 7 feature broke her Slack

26:30 — Choosing the right developer on a real budget (meet Toby at Blue Mongoose)

34:30 — The biggest learning: an MBA on steroids

36:30 — Would she do it all again?

37:30 — Outro and where to find more episodes

Find out more about Juurnee

Follow Rachel on LinkedIn

• Watch this episode on DQventures YouTube Channel
• Thinking about leaving your corporate job to start your own business?  Apply to DQventures
• Follow James Green on LinkedIn 
• Follow DQventures on LinkedIn

Rob Bryson left a 20-year career to build a recruitment agency in Asia.  He still earns less than he did before he made the leap, and he still wouldn't change it for a second.

If you're a senior professional toying with the idea of going out on your own, this is the conversation you don't hear on startup podcasts.

In Episode 01 of Founder Stories, James Green, co-founder and General Partner at DQventures sits down with Rob Bryson, founder of WeNetwork.  WeNetwork is a recruitment business now operating across seven countries in Asia Pacific and was DQventures first portfolio company. Rob spent over two decades in senior roles at Michael Page and Robert Walters, transforming Robert Walters' Indonesia business into a 50-person, multi-million dollar operation. Then, at the peak of his corporate career, he resigned.

This episode is for experienced corporate professionals — VPs, directors, country leads — who feel the pull of entrepreneurship but are worried about the risk.  Rob and James cover the stuff most entrepreneurship podcasts skip: timing (it's never right), the financial reality of leaving a high salary, the risk to your family and your relationship and why 45-year-old founders outperform 25-year-olds.

Rob is candid about the moments he questioned the decision, the bad hires, the loneliness of running a service business, and what no one tells you before you resign.  He's equally candid on why he'd do the same thing all over again and what his journey has taught him about what it really takes to build a multi-million dollar business.

0:00 — "I remember shaking when I resigned"
2:30 — For experienced professionals thinking about quitting corporate
4:00 — Why timing is never right to start a business
8:00 — The real financial risk of building a startup
12:00 — Why startups won't make you rich (and what will)
16:00 — Are you actually cut out for entrepreneurship?
21:00 — The risk to your family no one talks about
24:00 — Why experienced founders outperform young ones
28:00 — An honest review of working with DQventures

Find out more about WeNetwork

Follow Rob on LinkedIn

• Watch this episode on DQventures YouTube Channel
• Thinking about leaving your corporate job to start your own business?  Apply to DQventures
• Follow James Green on LinkedIn 
• Follow DQventures on LinkedIn