Tech Startup Stories

In this episode of the Tech Startup Stories podcast, Natalie Binns speaks with Emmanuella Tordman , also known as Khadijah, co-founder of Drdogood , about building a healthtech company designed for the realities of African healthcare systems. The conversation explores how Khadijah’s own delayed diagnosis revealed structural gaps in medical record keeping, continuity of care, and healthcare afforda...

This episode is a little different. Natalie Binns is under the spotlight as Donna St. John steps in as guest host for a behind the scenes reflection on the first year of Tech Startup Stories. Together, they talk about why the podcast started, what Natalie’s learned from speaking to founders across industries and geographies, and how those conversations have shaped her perspective as a founder and...

Renting should be simple, predictable and stress free, yet most renters face the same routine: multiple bill setups, scattered logins, confusing dates and rising costs. In this episode, founder Hussein Akins joins Tech Startup Stories to share how he is reinventing the renting experience through Bills Included . Hussein talks about the moment he realised the problem was bigger than his own frustra...

What happens when a landlord, engineer, sales leader and legislator builds a startup to fix one problem… and ends up transforming an entire industry? In this episode, Founder and CEO John Bradford reveals how he bootstrapped Petscreening into a nationwide platform used across long-term rentals, student housing, manufactured housing, vacation rentals, and even US military bases. John talks candidly...

PocketTrainer founder Janos Laszlo joins us to talk about building a startup around one simple idea: small wins create long term change. We discuss how he shaped the product, what he learned from early users, the reality of staying motivated as a founder, and why focusing on incremental progress has been his most effective strategy.

In this episode, we explore how Oyinkansola Adebayo built Niyo Labs into a mission led tech company transforming access to skills, opportunity, and economic mobility. From early community roots to a scalable gamified learning platform, Oyin shares the realities of growing with purpose, navigating challenges, and staying true to the people she serves. A powerful and honest look at what it means to...

In this episode of Tech Startup Stories, join host Natalie Binns as she talks with Max Greenwald , CEO and founder of Warmly, about how a failed Tinder-for-co-founders app accidentally launched his career in sales and marketing technology. Max shares the unconventional path from Google engineer to startup founder, why he believes building products is easier than getting messaging right, and how Wa...

Ken Rapp , CEO of BluStream , shares the story behind building a platform that solves the biggest gap in customer experience: what happens after the box arrives at your door. After his own guitar cracked from lack of humidity care, Ken realized brands have all the product knowledge customers need but no way to deliver it at the right moment. In this conversation, he explains how BluStream creates...

Savannah Price never expected to end up in fintech. After six years as a professional show jumper, a family mental health crisis led her to discover that bank statement data could predict when her siblings were struggling. That insight became Serene , an AI platform helping financial institutions support vulnerable customers. Savannah shares the emotional reality of founder life, how she paired so...

Michelle Coombs needed to scale her MSP consultancy without cloning herself, so she built Oprising , a platform helping managed service providers optimise their service delivery. In this episode, Michelle shares how she went from working on a help desk in the late 90s to building a SaaS startup while balancing client work and single parenthood, including her experience bootstrapping with a £10K gr...

Richa Kaul , CEO of Complyance , shares her unexpected journey from strategy consultant to startup founder building across three continents. She reveals how she raised funding with an American founder mindset in the UK, the importance of validating your idea before building, and why she deliberately avoided marketing for nearly three years. Richa also offers straight-talking advice for female foun...

João Cabral left a steady paycheque to build Nexum Pensions around a simple idea: let pension contributions follow the person, not the employer. He talks through the jump from security to startup risk, why multiple small pots persist, and how Nexum fits into HR and payroll with minimal effort. We cover the early pilots that became a working product, the first moves with providers and employers, an...

Dr Michaela Kendall , CEO and co-founder of Adelan , shares how to turn breakthrough energy tech into a business that scales. We cover first-market focus, why the first factory matters, how to build supply before creating demand, and the commercial rule that keeps teams grounded in customer value and cost.

In this episode, Toni Hopponen , founder of LandingRabbit , joins host Natalie Binns to talk about LinkedIn-led growth. Toni shares how posting regularly built him a loyal audience, why commenting can be more powerful than posting, and how founder visibility can replace cold outreach. He also reflects on lessons from building and selling his first company and how those experiences shaped LandingRa...

Season 2, Episode 4: Elena Boos, founder and CEO of Visionary Farms, joins host Natalie Binns to discuss how technology can create healthier business environments. She explains how smart plant systems are transforming offices, why persistence matters when building a hardware startup, and what it means to lead as a female founder in B2B tech.

Braydan Young , co-founder of SlashExperts , joins host Natalie Binns to talk about the fun of starting again. From Coffee Sender to Sendoso and now SlashExperts, Braydan shares why he loves the zero-to-ten chaos, what he’s doing differently this time, and how peer-to-peer selling is reshaping B2B sales.

Season 2, Episode 2: Sameer Narkar, founder and CEO of Konnect Insights, joins host Natalie Binns to share how he built a global SaaS platform by putting product at the centre. From coding alone in a small office to scaling in 30+ countries, Sameer’s story is about continuous learning, relentless innovation, and why true growth only happens with a great product.

Rachel Curtis , CEO and Founder of Inicio AI , joins host Natalie Binns to explore the human side of artificial intelligence. They discuss how AI can help vulnerable customers in financial services, why empathy matters as much as efficiency, and what it means to balance innovation with responsibility when building a mission-driven B2B Technology startup.

In our final episode of season one, host Natalie Binns looks back on 25 powerful startup stories, from finding product-market fit to navigating failure, exits and everything in between. Tune in for key insights, founder highlights and a sneak peek at what’s coming in season two of Tech Startup Stories!

When a key client pulled the plug, James Ker-Reid asked himself a simple question that changed everything. In this episode, he shares how Autelo was born, the marketing gap he’s solving, and how mentors helped him go from idea to paid beta with clarity and conviction.

Fuzey co-founder Alex Boyce joins Natalie Binns to share how the team identified a shift in their user base and chose to reposition the product around the customers who were already getting the most value. Originally built for independent professionals, Fuzey began resonating with small service teams, leading to a clear, focused pivot. This episode dives into product positioning, customer listenin...

Fuzey co-founder Alex Boyce joins Natalie Binns to share how the team identified a shift in their user base and chose to reposition the product around the customers who were already getting the most value. Originally built for independent professionals, Fuzey began resonating with small service teams, leading to a clear, focused pivot. This episode of Tech Startup stories dives into product positi...

George Smithies and Aaron Vousden join host Natalie Binns to talk about building innDex, a construction tech startup founded on friendship, field experience, and a mission to fix the day-to-day frustrations of life on-site. They share how they went from engineers to entrepreneurs, why trust was key to getting off the ground, and how they're scaling a practical, builder-first platform in one of...

Eli Portnoy, serial founder and CEO of BackEngine , joins Natalie Binns to talk about why staying close to your customer is essential at every stage of the startup journey. In this episode, Eli shares how he built BackEngine after experiencing first-hand how easy it is to lose direct access to customers as your business grows. They discuss product feedback loops, building with empathy, and what it...

How do you go from running a service to building a SaaS business acquired by Adobe? In this episode, ContentCal co-founder Andy Lambert joins Natalie Binns to share how his startup journey began with a spreadsheet and turned into a scalable, customer-first platform. From early scrappy growth to the power of content-led marketing, Andy shares honest lessons every founder should hear.