Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter
This is the entrepreneurial education I wish I’d had. A few years ago, I thought I'd made it as a Founder. My app was topping the charts, I was winning awards, having drinks with the Queen at Buckingham Palace (she laughed at one of my gags, sure), but as my business started to fail, I realised I had so much more to learn. The trouble was I found most business chat too stuffy, surface level or braggy so I started Secret Leaders to get behind the mask of entrepreneurship. I speak with the best Founders and business experts to learn how great companies are built - especially the things that normally get left out, like their mistakes. We cover the most important stuff, from fundraising to hiring, habits to mindset, so you can learn how to build a successful business. And no, you don’t need to get into an ice bath at 5am either...
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Contact: hello@secretleaders.com
201
You don't start your company to end up in court...
Michelle is determined not to repeat the same mistakes she made at Songkick at Supercritical, the climate tech startup helping businesses actually achieve net zero.
35 min
202
Why do we clean our bottoms with toilet paper? ...
Miki Agrawal was forced to become an entrepreneur having started her career, in her own words, as an awful employee.
39 min
203
Kraken - from growing up poor to founding Europ...
40 min
204
Killing Kittens - the world famous sex party tu...
This is the story of Killing Kittens, the cult-like sex party, founded by Emma Sayle. “Everyone starts talking to each other and mingling and then you'll see maybe a few couples disappear off into a room, or you know a group of girls go off. One minute you've got a packed bar and the next minute it's only 10 people in the bar and everyone's gone off into different rooms, getting naked, having sex, doing whatever. It’s like Dante's Inferno, limbs everywhere.”
42 min
205
When and why to pivot your life, with doctor-tu...
How do you live a happier, healthier, more productive life? This is the question that doctor-turned-YouTuber Ali Abdaal is obsessed with.
39 min
206
The startup that all other startups will want t...
With a couple of exits under his belt, Andrew Gazdecki saw first-hand how broken the process of selling a company was. So he’s now fixing it.
40 min
207
Lora DiCarlo - the sex tech startup that made C...
“When I was about 28 or 29 I had a squirting orgasm, I completely lost my mind. I couldn't tell if I was having a religious moment or a seizure, or maybe both or neither. As I lay there on the cold tile floor staring at the ceiling, all I could think was, oh my god, how do I do that again? And more importantly, how do I do that again by myself?”
41 min
208
Saved from the Nazis, she started a unicorn sof...
Dame Stephanie Shirley, known as ‘Steve’ for reasons explained in the podcast, escaped Nazi persecution before founding a software startup in 1962 with just £6 which provided employment to hundreds of women when they weren’t taken seriously in the workplace.
42 min
209
How exponential technologies will change the wo...
“Technology does not appear from nowhere, it is closely allied to the shape of society. And if you have exponentially changing technologies, they will force changes on society, or create a gap.” Humans coming second best to technology isn’t a new subject but our guest today, Azeem Azhar, has a new, thoroughly researched take on it which goes further than anything we’ve seen before.
41 min
210
Ethereum fallout - how the second biggest crypt...
How many of us are kicking ourselves for not investing $100 in Bitcoin in 2010 - it would be worth almost $48 million today. Someone who’s not kicking himself is Anthony Di Iorio, co-founder of Ethereum, the massive open-source blockchain, which is home to Ether, the second biggest cryptocurrency in the world.
42 min
211
The other way to build a massive tech company -...
Most investors didn’t understand the concept. Most non-technical entrepreneurs at the time didn’t get it either. But Howie Liu, Co-Founder and CEO of juggernaut Airtable, had the conviction to bet the next 10 years of his life on it. And now it’s worth nearly $6b.
43 min
212
How to build a business at 16, recover from a $...
What would you do if you sold your business and effectively retired at the ripe, old age of 28? Phenomenally successful serial entrepreneur Norman Crowley took just three weeks before jumping back into business.
41 min
213
Overcoming crippling anxiety and how to get wor...
In this candid conversation, Mathilde shares why she was so unhappy as an intern before starting Front, meeting her co-founder, her Y Combinator experience, meeting Patrick Collison - CEO of Stripe, why dealing with anxiety has been so challenging, and why she considers discipline and transparency to be important skills for happiness and success.
40 min
214
Breaking startup scandal: how blood pressure me...
We’re covering a breaking startup scandal - the UK’s very own version of the Theranos story. This is an audio exclusive. When Sara McCorquodale, Founder and CEO of CORQ and a former journalist, first heard what Tarilian Laser Technologies had done, she knew she had to investigate their 13-year scam. This is what she found.Key takeaways Building a company on a sham blood pressure deviceWhy people still invested in TLTDoing due diligence by proxyThe ego of founders
42 min
215
The American fixing the race problem in UK vent...
“Impact X exists because I'm tired. And there are a lot of people who are tired of asking the question - what to do to improve the lives of black Britain? We've been having this conversation for a long, long time.” Meet Eric Collins. He’s done some work for President Obama, built some of the world’s biggest tech companies, is the host of a new TV show on Channel 4 called ‘The Money Maker’, and is the CEO of Impact X, a venture capital fund in the UK for underrepresented founders. Key takeawaysBuilding your network from universityGoing from $5 million to $70 billion in 3 years at AOLFunding underrepresented entrepreneurs
42 min
216
How to build a $65b company, with Twilio Co-Fou...
Jeff Lawson is the co-founder and CEO of probably the biggest company we’ve ever had on the show, Twilio. Since its founding in 2008, Twilio has grown to 4,500 employees, annual revenue of $1.74 billion, and is valued at $65 billion. But how did Jeff get there? How do you build a company like Twilio?Key takeaways Learning how to start companies and how big companies workReinventing yourself if you want to stay CEO Having difficult conversationsIPOing on the day of the Brexit vote
42 min
217
Fighting P Diddy, managing Gwen Stefani & Nas, ...
Before he was the manager for Nas and Gwen Stefani, before he was the producer for the film 8 Mile, before he was getting into fights with P Diddy and 50 Cent, Steve Stoute was an entrepreneur. He’s always been an entrepreneur - starting out shovelling snow and selling mortgages. And boy has he got some stories to tell, like what Roger Moore said to him when 007 met Steve and Bono in a bar in Monaco. Find out how Steve is turning the music industry on its head as the founder of United Masters, having recently raised $50 million from an all star trio: Apple, Google and Andreessen Horowitz. Key takeaways The impact the rise of hip hop had on himTaking advantage of every opportunityFounding the record company in your pocketHis darkest days as an entrepreneur
42 min
218
Building world’s best elite match-making servic...
How does elite matchmaking work? What is the business model for such a niche? What does it cost? And how did Rachel Vida MacLynn, the founder of The Vida Consultancy, widely considered the best elite matchmaking agency in the world, get into it in the first place? From starting up to international expansion, download and listen to this week’s Secret Leaders to find out. Key takeaways The role of psychology in matchmakingFinding customers for elite matchmakingFunding and international expansion
40 min
219
Learn the art of negotiation with Chris Voss, F...
Want to know what it’s like to negotiate for a person’s life? Want to learn the secret of great negotiation? Want to find out why a deal can break down with no warning? Chris Voss, CEO of The Black Swan Group and former chief international hostage and kidnapping negotiator for the FBI, takes us into the murky world of kidnapping and explains how you can negotiate like your life depends on it.
40 min
220
How Gorillas became Europe’s fastest ever unico...
Kağan Sümer is the founder and CEO of Gorillas, a grocery delivery service which promises to have your order delivered to your door in under 10 minutes, at retail prices. They’ve been blowing up. Recently launched in the UK, they’re the quickest ever European startup to be valued at over $1 billion and they’re only just getting started. Find out how they’ve done it and how your supermarket shopping is going to change in the next few years.Key takeaways Kağan’s path to GorillasGorillas phenomenal growthThe mega funding round led by Coatue ManagementHiring for behaviour, not skills. The four values of Gorilla
38 min
221
Healthily: Building a “moonshot” for the health...
Most of the founders we speak to have already achieved much of their startup’s mission, but today’s Secret Leader is in the midst of a much longer journey with his company. Meet Matteo Berlucchi, a serial entrepreneur and the founder of Healthily which has spent several years building their product to a point where they can play for the ‘big prize’. Key takeaways What is success and failureSelf care is the self service of healthcareHow to make a company like Healthily profitableSelling the story of Healthily to investors
35 min
222
Myprotein: How to bootstrap a £500 overdraft in...
Oliver Cookson founded the sports nutrition business Myprotein in 2004 with just a £500 overdraft, selling it to The Hut Group seven years later having kept 100% equity. The deal ended up being worth north of £350m for him. So how did he pull it off?Key takeaways:Achieving £1m EBITDA, still fully bootstrapped Selling Myprotein to The Hut GroupWorking on the board with people he’s in litigation with
47 min
223
Double Jeffardy: the story of Seedrs and its ve...
How did two Americans called Jeff come to lead Seedrs, one of the UK’s leading crowdfunding platforms? And why did their planned merger with bitter rivals Crowdcube collapse? In today’s ‘Double Jeffardy’ episode, Seedrs Co-Founder Jeff Lynn and CEO Jeff Kelisky share their experiences and learnings - from the biggest missed opportunities with scaling, to what the CMA got wrong with the merger.Key takeaways The biggest mistakes Seedrs made in the early daysSeedrs vs Crowdcube, the rivalry When Jeff realised he needed to hire a CEOHow to integrate a new CEO into a founder-led companyThe failed mergerHow to get motivated again when a merger like that collapses
51 min
224
After his startup IPOd in record time everythin...
Founders dream of being early to market, garnering flattering press, watching their product fly off the shelves and IPOing in record time. For Kuba Wieczorek, Co-Founder and former Chief Marketing Officer of Eve Sleep, the dream became a reality. And then the wheels came off.Key takeaways The meteoric rise of eve SleepThe fastest ever British retail floatThe toll of eve on his mental healthKnow what you’re building
43 min
225
Bolt: Markus Villig skipped university at 19 to...
Markus Villig was 19 when he decided to spend the $5,000 his parents had saved up for university on starting a business instead. His initial goal for Bolt, then called Taxify, was to solve Tallinn’s (Estonia) taxi problem. By 25 he was the youngest unicorn founder in Europe and had shown that Uber wasn’t going to win everywhere.Key takeaways Building his first company at 17Starting Bolt in the face of UberThe hardest challenges he faced as CEOScaling and fundraising Not diluting the company’s focus
37 min