The Founders Playbook

The energy transition runs on critical minerals, and right now there are not enough of them. The blocker is time. The average critical minerals project takes 18 years to go from first drill to operational mine, and Luke Cullen, founder of Material Difference, thinks that has to change. A former mining industry professional turned Cambridge researcher, Luke developed a method for reducing uncertain...

What if a robot could give a surgeon steadier hands for the movements too small to see or feel? That question, asked during Daniel Bautista's PhD at Imperial College London, became Symmetry Surgical. Current surgery depends heavily on a surgeon's mechanical skill, and tiny differences in speed or angle change how a patient hears, sees and recovers. Daniel's team is building a compact robotic platf...

What if a brain implant could do its job and then dissolve? That is the question Maria Cerezo-Sanchez asked during her PhD at the University of Glasgow, and it became the foundation for Neurobite Technologies. Current neural implants are made of rigid electronics, essentially a sewing needle left inside a jelly-like organ. The brain fights back with inflammation and scar tissue, degrading the impl...

Jason Norman is not the kind of founder who set out to build a company. Two years after finishing a PhD in liquid crystal lasers, he was in the right room at the right moment when his supervisor's decade-long work on flexible pressure sensors needed someone to take it to market. That opportunistic leap has become FlexiSense, a company developing low-cost wearable pressure sensors that could transf...

Why can’t most life science researchers access the advanced microscopy tools that already exist? The technology is there. It has been for decades. But it’s too expensive, too complicated, and built for the wrong people. Dr. Peter Tinning, an optical physicist at the University of Strathclyde, spent years embedded in life science labs and watched researchers revert to hundred-year-old methods the m...

What if the solution to plastic pollution was already swimming in the ocean? Lucy Hughes asked this question as a design student, and it led her from a Sussex fish processing plant to winning the international James Dyson Award. MarinaTex is developing home compostable materials from seafood waste and algae that biodegrade in under six weeks—stronger than the plastic they replace. The company star...

When 90% of people say they would prefer a painless patch to a needle, why has no one brought one to market? Everyone assumed it was a science problem. Henry Dunne discovered it was not. Through intensive customer discovery, Henry and his co-founder learned that microneedle technology works. The patents exist. The science is proven. But previous companies focused on perfecting the patch while igno...

What happens when the market for your technology disappears before you finish developing it? Adrian Pugsley faced exactly this challenge when solar water heating was overtaken by photovoltaics, leaving his PhD research without a clear application. In this episode, Adrian shares how he pivoted thermal diode technology into switchable insulation, a solution to the growing crisis of overheating in mo...

What if you could build a space company without venture capital? Sara Alao is proving it is possible. Her company, Stars Edge, is developing satellites that can fly lower than anyone has flown before, delivering better connectivity and resolution for everything from disaster relief to financial services. In this episode, Sara shares her unconventional path from aerospace engineering to acting to m...

Brilliant founders are building the future everywhere, not just in America. Real founders. Real constraints. Real strategies from entrepreneurs building world-changing companies across the globe. The Founders Playbook is a podcast for entrepreneurs building companies outside the American tech bubble. Host Neil Marshall, Development Director at ChangeSchool London, brings you hard-won lessons from...