James Jenkins-Yates — founder of the world’s largest Airbnb management company — went from a flat in Pimlico to 6,000 listings, £160M in host revenue, a Series A… and then lost it all to layoffs and COVID.

In this uncut conversation he tells Enrico:
• Why quitting UBS at 24 was worth the chaos  
• The £30 k Tube-ad gamble that exploded growth overnight  
• Raising VC money vs. building profitably (hard lessons)  
• Layoffs, depression and rebuilding during the pandemic  
• How Europe is falling behind on tech — and what founders must do

0:00  Cold-open: why no one really gives an F
3:00  Wall-Street banker to coding an Airbnb side-hustle
8:30  Triples rent on 1 listing – the Airbnb light-bulb
15:00 MVP landing page & first £20 k accelerator funding
21:30 Tube-ad gamble → the “global domination” growth spurt
30:00 Seed-round chaos, impostor syndrome & 40-person team
38:30 Series A (£4 M) – scaling to 300 staff in 6 cities
48:00 Burn-rate reality: October layoffs & mental crash
57:00 £70 M rival Hostmaker rises… then implodes
1:05:30 Buying Hostmaker for £250 k – fire-sale deal
1:14:00 COVID wipes 95 % revenue – survival mode & furlough
1:23:00 Rebuilding with a franchise-style “partnership” model
1:31:00 Redefining success after near-bankruptcy
1:38:00 UK–EU innovation gap, AI future & next startup bets
1:44:00 Final advice to founders, sign-off

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