The Founders Lounge

Sam Oliver started his entrepreneurial journey when he was just 22, founding Eydin Property, a property investment company. He then pivoted to tech, creating LeadPro, a successful property marketing software that he took from zero to a multi-million pound cash exit. Now, Sam is diving into the world of AI with his new startup, OpenFi, which is revolutionizing sales processes using conversational A...

Jodie Cook started a digital agency at age 22, fresh out of university. Over 10 years, she built her agency into a successful lifestyle business before selling it for 7 figures using her proven "success system" blueprint. Then she soon started Coachvox, and startup that helps coaches make an AI clone of themselves. Jodie chronicled her entrepreneurial journey in her book Ten Year Career...

James Roycroft-Davis is a serial tech entrepreneur, mental health advocate, and investor. He has founded multiple companies, including his latest startup Baseline which aims to support people with bipolar disorder through an app-based platform. We talk about: - Losing a job and starting a business - First startup: Productizing his mom - Running a business with spouse or family member - Challenges...

Noel Andrews is the CEO of JobRack, a company that helps businesses hire remote employees in Eastern Europe and South Africa. He bought the business when it was very small and has grown it to a 7-figure company. Noel is also exceptionally good at building relationships, surrounding himself with interesting people and organizing all sorts of fun activities with other entrepreneurs. We talk about: -...

Roei Samuel is a serial entrepreneur who started one of the world's most successful eSports platforms at just 22 years old, growing it to over 8 million monthly users before selling the business for millions. He then founded Connectd, a platform connecting startups with investors and advisors, which he scaled to $6 million in annual recurring revenue and 80+ employees in just a few years. We t...

Loukas Hambi is the founder of two multi 7-figure agencies. The first one, Hambi Media, was recently sold to Soar With Us. And his second agency, For You Advertising, became the fastest-growing TikTok agency. He’s helped 150+ DTC brands scale to 7 and 8 figures and spent over £150M on creative. He also started a few of his own DTC brands. We talk about: - Lessons learned from the legendary Felix D...

Peter Nixey is a serial entrepreneur who started working with AI way before it was cool. His first startup, Clickpass, was in one of the first 5 YCombinator cohorts (together with Dropbox and Disqus). He’s currently running Intentional, a task/time management software company. He’s also starting an AI focused venture studio. We talk about: - The experience of being among the first Y Combinator sta...

Richard Hadler is a 2x exited founder. He sold a B2B marketing agency and a D2C ready-to-drink cocktail brand. He’s a director at Odin and a Co-Founder of Founders Capital where he’s now focused on investing in startups.  We talk about: - Turning around a struggling publishing business at a young age - Scaling an agency business to 80+ employees - How to build a highly profitable agency - Starting...

Jonny Plein sold his first company, Pouch, for 7 figures after just 2 years. But he’s gone through all the worst entrepreneurial ups and downs throughout this journey. They got 5 out of 5 offers on Dragons’ Den, grew 10x overnight, then had to fire the whole team. Now he raised £2M for his next startup, YASO, helping brands enter the $1.7tn Chinese ecommerce market using social commerce. We talk a...

Alex Macdonald is a  Co-Founder of Velocity Black, which was acquired by Capital One for a reported $297M. Now he’s a Co-Founder and CEO of Sequel - an investment platform for the world’s best athletes. He’s also an angel investor in 40+ companies. We talk about: - One of Alex’s first jobs: buying distressed companies for $0 - How Alex got the idea for Velocity Black - What it takes to build a com...

Lex Deak is a serial entrepreneur, Dragon's Den winner and founder of a venture capital firm. With his latest tech startup, Basket, he raised millions in funding to revolutionize the online shopping experience. In this episode of The Founders Lounge, we talk about: - The one thing that fuels Lex’s drive and business success - Building and selling his first company - Building a social network and a...

Sam G. Winsbury is the founder of Kurogo, the UK’s leading personal branding agency. He works closely with some of the best founders in the UK to build massive audiences with millions of views. In this episode of The Founders Lounge, we talk about: - What helped Sam start a successful business straight out of uni - The biggest lesson from working with 7, 8 and 9-figure founders - Building your net...

Matthew Stafford is an angel investor with several successful exits. He is a co-founder of 9others, a monthly problem-solving dinner event for entrepreneurs, which has been attended by thousands of founders. He’s also a co-author of the book Find Your 9 Others - The Questions To Ask Yourself As You Start Up And Scale Up. In this episode of The Founders Lounge, we talk about: - Matthew’s recent 3 s...

James Church is the co-founder and COO of Robot Mascot, the UKs leading pitch agency. He's a #1 Amazon best selling author with his book, “Investable Entrepreneur”, where he shares his unique methodology for creating a pitch that convinces investors. James has been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine, on numerous industry blogs and podcasts, run mentoring sessions at Tech Hub, Google Campus and...

Alexej Pikovsky is the CEO and founder of Alphawell Brands, a holding company under which he currently operates a 7-figure growth agency and a fast-growing wellness ecommerce brand. Early in his career he spent two years at a $3 billion private equity fund, gained board-level experience and led a EUR 226 million sale of a portfolio business. Then he went on to start the UK’s largest CBD marketplac...

Olly Richards is an entrepreneur, investor and author of 50+ books. He runs his £10M online education business, StoryLearning, working only 6 days a month. He started his career as a jazz musician and a teacher, and then step by step started building what’s now a massive audience and an 8-figure business. Show notes: - From a jazz musician to an online entrepreneur - The secret to 50% profit margi...

End of year special episode is a mix of the best moments from our podcast in 2022. I thank all of you for taking the time and watching, and I hope you are getting massive value out of it. In this episode, we talk about warrior mentality, relationships, building businesses to be sold, and scaling an e-commerce store from 0 to 1. Brought to you by Judge.me - the ultimate e-commerce product reviews s...

Paul Blair is a military veteran turned entrepreneur. Over 20 years of experience in leadership and high-pressure situations in the military served as a great and unique background to start a business. As an entrepreneur, he has launched, grown, and sold businesses in the property, financial services, and pet product sectors. Today he’s still involved in several businesses, but his main focus is o...

Ryan McDaid is the co-founder of Fonez, an Irish electronics store which he took from 0 to €10M in revenue. He recently took a back seat and decided to instead focus on his property business and life coaching.    Brought to you by Judge.me - the ultimate e-commerce product reviews solution. If you’re looking for a job in an inspiring, profitable, and fast-growing UK-based startup, check out https:...

Joseph (Jos) Battle is a UK-based serial entrepreneur who experienced the highest heights and the lowest lows of the entrepreneurial journey. His entrepreneurial skills and mindset were obvious already in his childhood when he started making money with various “lemonade stand” types of businesses. He thrives on seeking new opportunities and bringing them to life. Throughout his several business ve...

Nick Telson is a London-based serial entrepreneur, angel investor, podcaster, startup mentor, and public speaker. He’s currently a co-founder of a new B2B sales tool, trumpet, host of the Pitch Deck podcast, and a co-founder of an angel investing venture arm, Horseplay Ventures. He previously co-founded DesignMyNight and managed to grow that to 100+ employees, 15,000 SaaS customers, and 8m monthly...

Jordan Schlipf is a serial tech entrepreneur and early-stage investor. Today, he’s the founder & CEO of the Rainmaking Venture Studio, the world's first investment-only Corporate Venture Builder. They raised tens of millions of Pounds to de-risk the process of building new businesses by building them in partnership with large corporations.   In this episode, we talk about: Jordan’s story Jordan’s...

Primoz Bozic is the co-founder and CEO of WeCreateCourses - an agency producing educational digital products in collaboration with experts. In two years they took the company from 0 to 1 million EUR revenue with very healthy profits and serving tens of thousands of customers.   Brought to you by Judge.me - the ultimate e-commerce product reviews solution. If you’re looking for a job in an inspirin...

Alex Banks is the founder of the Through the Noise newsletter and Tribescaler SaaS business. After studying finance & accounting at one of the world's most reputable universities, he didn’t find a comfortable job like most of his classmates. Instead, he mastered social media, content writing, and storytelling. In only 10 months he grew his Twitter account to 100k followers and his newsletter to ov...

Nick Mason is the founder and CEO of Turtl. He always had an interest in psychology, which led him to take some of the psychology research insights and build them into a B2B SaaS business. Turtl was started in 2015 and had been successfully growing since then. They’ve recently raised a £10M series A investment round. Their clients include Bloomberg, Cisco, Allianz, Capita, Baker McKenzie, and many...