Daye are on a mission: to close the gender pain gap, and overcome historical gender biases in medical research and product innovation. They launched their first product, CBD tampons in 2019, with a focus on sustainability and pain relief, and have since branched out to other products supporting vaginal health, including their latest product- vaginal screening using a tampon sample.But they're not stopping there- hoping to democratize access to insightful gynaecological health information which is not typically available through other providers or through the NHS.At the time of recording, Daye have raised several rounds of funding, including a recent £10m Series A, after building a consumer subscriber base of 60,000 for their tampons; and are now expanding into tampons as workplace perks too with a business proposition! There was so  much to unpack in this episode: - From Valentina’s journey as a solo founder - To how Daye reached the first 1000, 10,000 and 50,000 customers- To testing products - Building a brand and voice- Constantly evolving as the CEO of a fast growing company- And raising nearly £15m pounds.LinksCheckout DayeCoaching for your team with MoreHappiCompany wide therapy with SpillOnline Therapy via BetterHelp or TalkSpaceRevenue based finance via UncappedLegal support via SeedLegals

Most founders dream of going public- but what happens after you ring the bell, if share prices tank, and the company you used to leap out of bed to run is destroying your mental health?For anyone who hasn’t heard of Eve mattresses, they were one of the first companies in the UK to offer a mattress in a box- and the countries fastest retail IPO at the time they went public just a couple of years after launching. They disrupted the standard business model of having to invest in retail stores where customers could try before you buy. Their tube adverts still hold records for brand awareness. On this episode, we talk to Kuba Wieczorek, co-founder of Eve. He’s talked openly about the toll the company took on his mental health, and why he’s much happier running a lifestyle business today- branding agency Kuba and Friends. In this episode we discuss: How Kuba became a co-founder at EveWhy IPOing is the biggest thing he’d change if he had his time at Eve againHaving a mental breakdown he couldn’t legally talk about with friends and family, for fear of insider tradingWhat a brand is and isn’t - clue it’s not the logoAnd, which startups should and shouldn’t worry about brand and how to balance when to investLinksCheckout Kuba's new company, Kuba and Friends here

Recorded live from Sifted Summit, this episode unpacks the challenges of fundraising as a diverse founder, practical tips on fundraising, and what we can do at individual, organisational, and systems levels to fix inequities in the startup ecosystem.Our incredible guests are:Simi Lindgren is the founder of Yuty, tackling bias in AI to match customers based on ethnicity, skin type and medical condition to the best beauty products. They raised £500k in their pre-seed, making Simi just the 10th black female founder to gain VC backing in the UK. Nick Telson took his first startup, Design My Night, to exit with just £500k in Angel funding. Since the acquisition, he's angel invested himself, and has just raised £1.6m for his new startup Trumpet at Pre-seed, based on 1800 pre-launch signups.Farah Kabir is the founder of Hanx, a sexual wellness and contraception company, busting the taboos on women buying intimacy products. They've raised £1.8m in angel funding.Fundraising resources mentioned on the showCheckout diversity focussed funds and collectives like: Ada Ventures, Google's Black Founder Fund and Latino Founder Fund, Pink Salt Ventures, Case for Her, Cornerstone VC, Proud Ventures,  Fundraising resources via we are radiklAdvise on angel investing via Angel Investing SchoolCommunities like DiversityX, IfWeRaise, Hold VCs and investors to account with the Glassdoor for VC's Landscape.vcAnd listen to more fundraising tips on Nick's Podcast, Pitchdeck

What is a female urinal and why does it matter? Ever walked past a massive queue for the ladies, while the queue for the mens is non-existent and wondered why? Ever wondered what the solution is? Women have to urinate more often and on average for longer than men. Plus, we have more reason to visit the loo (typically we take on more care duties for children or adults who need assistance, plus menstruation ).  Our toilets also take up more space, so we tend to have fewer places to go, because venues focus on equal square footage of toilets, not equal access to facilities.Enter Peequal, whose founders Amber and Hazel were fed up with having to choose whether to visit the bathroom or get food in intervals and at festivals. So far, they’ve raised £250k for their innovative take on a women’s urinal which has already been rolled out at festivals like Glastonbury and Wilderness Festival, and saw international demand before they even had a working prototype. Investors include Tom Blomfield, founder of Monzo.In this episode we cover: The power of cardboard prototypes and watching how customers use urinals (without being arrested)Why Glastonbury made the perfect early evangelists venueHow constructive conflict can be the key to happy co-foundingHeart in mouth moments from pitch decks missteps to manufacture mess-upsGetting on BBC’s front-page and drumming up international demand with a prototype that didn’t work, and they were almost too embarrassed to showFundraising tips Plus much more!Links: Checkout Peequal hereFollow Peequal on instagram here or Twitter hereRead Invisible Women hereGet data on how investors view your decks with Docsend Seed legals explains ASAs hereFounder catalyst offers free ASA here Convertible notes explained here

Meet serial entrepreneur, angel investor, musician, physicist and self-professed big geek Chris Howard!Chris has raised millions in investment for his own startups, taught entrepreneurship by giving founders £100 and a raspberry pie, and started to invent an "anti-accelerator" at his new startup, The Rattle. In this episode Chris shares: How he wrecked his first startup after raising $2.2m for it, by ignoring product market fit3 questions every prospective founder should ask themselves (in the voice of batman)The difference between market and invention led entrepreneurshipTips on how to reach out to investors and what to look for in themPlus much moreLinks: Checkout the Rattle hereRead Rattle's pitch deck hereFollow Chris on LinkedIn hereAnd watch one of his Cold Reads here

Meet Foong, reformed Consultant turned Founder, who loved her colleagues at PWC, but found she lacked Purpose in her work. When Foong made the leap, it was to Matchable, a company intent on helping people like her find more purpose by volunteering their specialist skills to startups and charities; which are impact heavy but resource poor.Today, Matchable has projects ranging from transforming Columbian farmers into cacao entrepreneurs using Blockchain, to helping children deal with grief using Augmented Reality and AI; and clients ranging from Seed funded startups like Heights, to massive names like Dentsu International, Deutsche Bank and Primark.In this episode we unpack: A different path into entrepreneurship - applying for a role on a partially validated ideaWhy focus groups often give false positivesHow Matchable kept testing revenue streams and customers to find the right fitThe importance of recognising what you can't do as a founder! Designing a work culture where extroversion isn't the defaultPlus much moreLinksCheckout Matchable hereRead Quiet by Susan Cain here

How do you test a blood testing business, when none of the co-founders come from a clinical background? What happens when your entire investor pipeline disappears overnight? What do you do when customers just aren't buying?  And what's it like scaling a health tech startup from 0 to 130 staff, and over a 100k customers? The person to ask is Eliot Brooks, co-founder of Thriva and former COO. We spoke the week Eliot stepped down to make space to explore  new entrepreneurial endeavours; after 7 years spent building the company.Thriva have raised £11m so far, including £6m raised in 2019, and £4m in 2020 based on growth rates at the time of 100% year on year. In 2022 they were number 7 on the Financial Time’s list of Europe’s Fastest Growing Companies. In this episode we asked Eliot about: His path into entrepreneurship, and where the idea for Thriva came fromHow you test a health tech business in the early stages…. Can you be lean and agile? Do you need totally different approaches?Scaling a business- Expectation vs reality, what were some of the early guesses that had to evolve as they grew… Lessons learned fundraising as first time foundersHis plan to step down: why now? How do you phase yourself out as a founder?And much more…LinksGive Thriva try

What do you have to do to make your customers love you so much, they'll get a tattoo of your logo? Especially when it's a "boring" B2B tool for writing better cold emails... Lavender's founder William Ballance may not quite have gotten his own head around why customers love them this much; but he's certainly cracked building a product and brand customers rave about. There's a lot to learn along William's journey as a serial founder, whatever your industry or business model. In this episode we discuss: Pivoting businesses, from Alumni networking to a tool for cold emailThe importance of finding your early adoptersThe psychology of salesCommon mistakes first time founders and serial entrepreneurs make and practical tips to avoid themThe power of remote working for product ideationThe importance of gamification Building a consumer style brand, for a B2B businessLinksGive Lavender a tryConnect with Wiliam on LinkedIn, and take up his generous offer of office hours for fellow founderGet inspired by Lavender's LinkedIn brand

Design thinking is a buzzword we hear a lot in the startup space- but what is it really all about? Should you be trying it? Is it too late to get started? And how might it speed up your route to market and loyal customers who keep coming back for more? In this episode, Hattie is joined by Nirish Shakya, a design thinking and user experience design expert. For the past 15 years, he has been helping organisations across the UK, Europe and the Asia-Pacific create impactful customer experiences by empowering teams to put their customers first, collaborative creatively without the fear of judgement and innovate faster.He also has his own show, Design Feeling about developing greater self-awareness, creative confidence and meaning, as we design . On it, Nirish interviews top industry leaders and experts from design, technology and creative industries to share hard won insights to help listeners know themselves better and become more impactful problems solvers with more meaning with joy. In this episode of Not My First Guess, we unpick: What design thinking really is, why it matters and how we as founders can practically get better at itPractical skills like rapid prototyping (testing the core risks in your idea and product quickly) and how anyone can get started, even if they've never done user experience design beforeWhat founders should know when working with and briefing design teamsSome of the biggest takeaways Nirish has had from experts on his own podcast, Design FeelingAnd much moreLinks: Listen to Nirish's podcast, Design FeelingGive rapid prototyping a go with Balsamiq Email Nirish: Nirish@designfeeling.coExplore UX courses at General AssemblyRead Inspired by Marty Cagan

After earning few thousand euros selling toasties at school, you may think founding a company would have been Anieke's first stop post university. But a horrendous hackathon experience initially put her off the no sleep, stinky side of entrepreneurship. Instead, she started out in the corporate world, though quickly made her way into Venture Capital, where she invested in Social Impact ventures at Rubio. Her desire to sit the other side of the table never wore off though, so she quit to start her own company, taking with her the VC mindset and key questions to ask when launching a new, high growth venture. Testing a few ideas in parallel, it wasn't until she made customers cry with her proposition to help people connect with much loved children remotely, that she doubled down on Peekabond. In this episode she shares:How being a VC changed how Anieke approached founding a companyThe importance of early testing: including how making prospective customers cry convinced her to double down, and how Anieke tested the product with ppt and then no code before investing in buildRunning a co-founder dating  process for both her co-founders, and the yucky questions you need to ask early And much more! LinksTry Peekabond hereRead more about the Mom Test hereLearn more about OnDeck programmes hereTry 50 questions for co-founder dating hereTake the Barrett Values Test hereBuild a clickable prototype on Bubble.io or AdaloListen to Hattie's previous interview with Tessa Clarke hereRead YC's warning to startups hereRead Tessa's article on the need for a cockroach plan hereFollow Anieke on LinkedIn here