‘I’ve raised millions but money doesn’t make you happy’
More Founder Stories
Fancy-dress costumes, robots and £1bn
This is a story about robots, a six-year-old company worth £1bn, and a costume-wearing CEO. This incredible ‘unicorn’ business is on a mission to disrupt how surgery is done around the world. So, how did this unicorn with more than 500 staff come about? Read their amazing story here…
THE MOMENTS THAT MADE ME AN ENTREPRENEUR: FROM PLAYGROUD RACISM TO BAD BOSSES
23 Years Ago The future co-founder of Universal Partners FX gallops to school with a rucksack crammed with Haribo. He’s ten years old, and Dhaval Patel’s classmates mob him in the playground and give him their pocket money for the sweets. Each Monday, Dhaval buys a bag of sweets with his allowance, sells it, then buys two bags on […]
‘Don’t Do What You Love, Do What You’re Good At’
Trying to talk to Sarah Willingham without saying “success” is like trying to eat a doughnut without licking your lips. And when the inevitable happens during the first few seconds of our conversation, the Dragon’s Den star does what comes naturally to her – and in her warm and charismatic manner, she takes control and sets the agenda…
How we grew by 400% and hit 7th in the Fast Track 100
400 and 25,000. In the Ooni story, these two numbers stand out like haggis on a Hawaiian pizza. The first is the company’s percentage growth over the past 12 months. The second is the minimum starting salary for new Ooni employees in the UK. Few companies exhibit such steep growth or raw recruitment power, so how has this Edinburgh-based hardware company done it?
The quiet tech entrepreneur who’s modestly building a half-billion-pound empire
It’s not about having gleaming offices, hiring tons of staff and shouting about how successful you are. These can be the trappings of ego-trippers. Effective entrepreneurship is more often about coming up with an idea, proving the concept as cheaply as possible, and scaling it as quickly as possible.
‘The reality of being a founder…you make it up as you go along!’
Passenger Clothing sells durable outdoor clothing and accessories directly to the consumer. Based in the New Forest, it prides itself on being a responsible brand rooted in nature, connection and wellbeing. The company promises to plant a tree for every order and uses lower footprint materials like recycled cotton, hemp, recycled plastic and organics. In addition, its headquarters is powered by UK-generated renewable electricity.