The Naked Founder

James Batchelor knows more than most about the highs and lows of building a business. Before launching Alertacall, he'd already started 11 businesses. But nothing prepared him for the challenges of building a technology company designed to improve the lives of older and vulnerable people. Inspired by his grandmother Eveline, Batchelor sold his first home to fund Alertacall and spent years battling...

What does it take to build a £15m global fashion brand with your childhood sweetheart?   In the opening episode of season two of The Naked Founder, host Chris Maguire meets Ross Menghini, who co-founded bridal fashion brand Six Stories with his wife Lucy.   The couple met at nursery, started dating at 16 and went on to work for Manchester businesses Social Chain and Apadmi before taking the plunge...

Ahead of the launch of season two of The Naked Founder podcast, BusinessCloud has produced two special bonus episodes featuring highlights from the first season. Each episode brings together 12 compelling stories and valuable lessons from the entrepreneurs who appeared on the podcast. Their insights cover everything from securing a celebrity investor, the importance of being paranoid in business,...

Ahead of the launch of season two of the Naked Founder podcast, we’ve produced two short bonus episodes featuring highlights from season one. Each episode contains 12 founder stories from the entrepreneurs we interviewed. The advice touches on a range of issues, including raising investment, mental health, seizing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and the impact of AI. The 12 founder stories featur...

When Daniel Burton’s nine-year-old daughter Ella asked for a £300 hairdryer, his response was simple: ‘Build your own.’ Burton is the guest on the season one finale of The Naked Founder podcast, where he explains why it’s vital that children understand the value of money. That conversation with his daughter ultimately led to the launch of IONI, an independent British technology business created to...

Dez Derry’s story is one of resilience, ambition and the power of dreaming big.   Born into a traditional Indian family in Walsall in 1982, Derry suffered years of physical abuse before he and his two younger brothers were adopted together by a loving white family.   Derry went on to become a successful entrepreneur, launching the digital marketing consultancy that evolved into customer acquisitio...

As group managing director of Mazuma Mobile and data erasure specialist ICT Reverse, Craig Smith oversees businesses with combined turnover of more than £50m – but it wasn’t always like that. At the start of his career, he took a 70 per cent pay cut to become an office junior because he believed it would broaden his business horizons. After spending more than 30 years in the industry, Smith has ea...

Suzanne Waring is arguably Britain’s most straight-talking boss. She’s the managing director of The Helping Hands Group in Lancashire and says honesty and trust are her absolute non-negotiables. It’s the reason why she’ll never employ ex-prisoners or agency staff. “I don’t want anyone who has dropped out the back of a prison van working for me,” she said. “Let someone else give them a second chanc...

After a successful corporate career, Ruth Percival became a founder in her 50s and has grown Contollo Group into a £37m business in just two years. Ruth Percival had seen the highs and lows of corporate life before becoming a first-time founder in her 50s – and she’s been making up for lost time ever since. Just two years after launching built environment consultancy Contollo Group, she’s made fiv...

Adam Ward is the CEO of Airtime Rewards and told The Naked Founder podcast about the two events that changed the course of his life. In March 2023, the collapse of California-based Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) left him fearing the worst. All of Airtime Rewards' money was tied up with SVB, leaving Ward facing an anxious wait before HSBC stepped in and guaranteed all deposits. The other life-changing m...

Three-time founder Jennie Johnson has experienced the highs and lows of being an entrepreneur. She sold her first business, Kids Allowed, after growing it to eight sites and 500 colleagues. However, she closed her second business, parenting app My First Five Years, after realising she couldn't achieve the traction needed to make it sustainable. Now she's back with her third business, Vets at Home,...

Clare Roberts OBE is one of the UK's most successful female founders. The CEO of Kids Planet Day Nurseries is part of the rare 'Superscaler' community of UK women who have founded businesses generating more than £50m in annual revenue. She founded the business with her dad, John, in 2008 after struggling to find flexible childcare for her daughter and deciding there had to be a better way. Today,...

Sean Brown is the founder of tech startup Versori, which was acquired earlier this year by US tech giant Avalara. The deal was remarkable because Brown and Daniel Jones had only founded the next-generation integration platform specialist four years earlier. However, success has not come without significant sacrifices. Brown recalls leaving his wife and newborn child to attend the Y Combinator prog...

Simon Swan is on track to create a one-man £1m+ startup, with a little help from former England cricket captain Michael Vaughan. Two-time founder Swan is the latest guest on The Naked Founder podcast and his second business, Uthful, is already profitable after less than six months. Uthful is a health supplement business and it’s a far cry from Swan’s previous enterprise, Manchester-based talent ma...

Tom Dunlop turned his back on an Olympic dream to launch LegalTech Summize and said a degree of paranoia is healthy in business. Earlier this year, Summize raised £40m in a Series B investment round and has just acquired the key assets and staff from Seattle consultancy InnoLaw Group. After swapping a successful badminton career for a legal one, he became an in-house lawyer at AppSense, where he m...

Mark Stuart is on a mission to make Stuart Energy Europe’s leading power generation business. He founded Stuart Energy in 2017 alongside his father Fred and brother Lee, and the company has been named in the Sunday Times Best Places to Work list for three consecutive years. But following in the footsteps of a successful parent comes with its own pressures. “You see great footballers that have sons...

From being raised by an alcoholic mother to fighting off a sex pest and coming out as gay at the age of 30, Sam White has faced more challenges than most. She is the award-winning CEO of female-focused motor insurance business Stella Insurance, which has offices in Manchester and Australia, and is the latest guest on The Naked Founder Podcast. No-nonsense White brings a new meaning to the phrase '...

Derry Green knew his Dragons' Den appearance would transform the fortunes of his business, The Secret Garden Glamping, but even he underestimated its power. Green had become a social media sensation when he built a glamping pod for his kids in his back garden during Covid and turned it into a business. The success of The Secret Garden Glamping saved Green from financial ruin, but even he had no id...

Vicar's daughter. Accidental entrepreneur. Published author. Founder. Award winner. Disruptor. There are plenty of ways to describe myHappymind CEO Laura Earnshaw. Another would be: in demand. Last year, 16 investors wanted to back myHappymind before Earnshaw eventually chose LDC.  She has also spoken out about the lack of women in the investment world and her mission to equip every child with the...

Jen Atkinson is a legend in the travel industry and has grown her business, Travel Seen, to nearly £60m turnover. She told The Naked Founder podcast that female founders need more self-belief if they want to scale their business. “One of the reasons that women particularly struggle in the world of scaling a business is investment and that self-belief that they can ask for £10m and get £15m, as opp...

Matthew Scullion is the founder of British unicorn Matillion and told The Naked Founder about the ‘crazy’ world of AI. His business joined an exclusive club of only 41 UK unicorns in 2021 when a $150m Series E funding round took its valuation beyond the magical $1bn mark. He estimates Matillion has invested ‘many, many tens of millions into Maia’, which is its AI data automation platform. Scullion...

Russell Teale was juggling the pressures of business and family life when he thought he was having a heart attack. Tests later revealed he was having a panic attack but the near-miss changed his life and his outlook. He’s the founder and CEO of Vivify, which today employs 500 people and is set to grow turnover from £8m to £12m this year. At the same time, the startup has given more than £10m back...

James Laithwaite has been described as rugby league’s unluckiest player after fracturing his left leg four times and breaking his neck during a career that saw him play for Warrington Wolves, Toronto Wolfpack and Bradford Bulls. However, from the depth of despair, he launched premium meal prep delivery firm FuelHub in 2019 with his wife Michelle. Today the company is working with some of the UK’s...

As the co-founders of Pareto Law, Jonathan Fitchew and Andy Sawer were inseparable. For 26 years they shared the same office and, when away on business trips, even shared the same bed rather than book separate rooms. One look at his best friend’s empty desk after he died in 2021 was enough to convince Fitchew that he could never work there again. In this episode of the Naked Founder podcast, he di...

In the events industry, Holly Bennett (Moore) is almost as big a name as the stars she rubs shoulders with. From Robert De Niro to Kylie Minogue, and from Gary Barlow to McFly, Moore has worked with them all. However, behind the confident exterior, Moore has wrestled with crippling OCD. At one point, on New Year’s Day 2012, Moore was unable to carry on and rang the Priory to be admitted. Moore has...