Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter & Chris Donnelly

In this live episode, hosted by Alex Depledge, Anne-Marie Huby and Alain de Botton discuss the benefits of building for-profit companies for social good, the role of government in social good, and the challenges faced by charities. They also explore the anxiety around capitalism and the importance of identifying market gaps for new businesses to make a positive impact. Thought-provoking topics include reimagining the honor system in business and the different behaviors and motivations of investors and founders.

We are all for throwing two fingers up at the establishment, and who better to do that than an LGBTQ, black, woman investor? Meet Arlan Hamilton, Founder and Managing Partner of Backstage Capital. Backstage Capital is a fund that invests in under-estimated founders that are defined as women, people of colour and members of the LGBTQ community, who together represent the biggest economic opportunity for investment.Arlan’s latest book, It’s About Damn Time has been received with critical acclaim, because given the state of play in the world right now, it really is about damn time. She’s an inspiring hustler who’s come to venture capital from a completely adjacent industry. Just a few short years ago Arlan was homeless and now, 5 years on, her $10m boutique venture fund has invested in over 130 startups. She takes capital from an increasing list of big name investors, such as Mark Cuban, who trust her decision making to back the next generation of founders. “I didn't believe when they said things like, ‘you're not networked enough’, or ‘you're not connected enough’. I thought that was BS. But I did respect the ones who said, ‘you've got to really get your chops figured out’ and thankfully, no one could be more sure of that than myself, like, no one could be harder on me than I could be on myself.”We chat about: Becoming a venture capitalist Fair feedback during fundraising The ignorant assumptions VC make about underrepresented founders Preparing founders for investment The power of saying no How she maintains her mental health Links:Book - It’s About Damn Time --SponsorsVorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleadersVanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleadersVertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders--NewsletterSign up here: https://secretleaders.email/You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

Mental health disorders are the global epidemic of our times and according to WHO, the instances of anxiety, depression and suicide rates are climbing, globally. On this special live episode of Secret Leaders, two amazing guests, Damian Bradfield and Mills, open up about their personal experiences with mental health. “I've come to realise now that everyone has some form of mental health without a doubt. And actually, the more I talk openly about it, the more I realise that many people are in a similar situation. I'm not special in that respect, dealing with life, dealing with being married, having kids, growing up, companies, losing money is hard.”In the words of the iconic Steve Jobs, the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who actually do. But that comes at a price. “Startup founders are estimated to be twice as likely to suffer from depression, six times more likely to suffer from ADHD, three times more likely to suffer from substance abuse, ten times more likely to suffer from bipolar disorder, twice as likely to have a psychiatric hospitalisation and twice as likely to have suicidal thoughts than the general public.”Join us as we do our best to shine a light on the seriousness and severity of mental health without losing touch with the lighter things, and learn the tips, tricks and hacks to dealing with mental health issues from two incredibly successful entrepreneurs.We chat about: Why the image of success sets us up for failure How their mental health disorders manifest Growing a company and living with ADHD Their reasons for going to a therapist Company culture and mental health The link between depression, anxiety and control Links: WePresent App - Collect App - Paper Presentation tool - Paste Book - They fuck you up Book - Johann Hari - Lost Connections --SponsorsVorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleadersVanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleadersVertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders--NewsletterSign up here: https://secretleaders.email/You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

As an entrepreneur, creativity is the name of your game. And who better to hear from than the king of creativity himself, Mr John Cleese. Yes, that’s right. John. Cleese. You’re welcome. Where do we begin? John’s (Mr Cleese?) talents are boundless - actor, comedian, screenwriter, producer and author. The co-founder of the infamous Monty Python’s Flying Circus, the creator and star of Fawlty Towers has taken the time to look back on his writing processes and accomplishments as a series of creative experiences to share and inspire. And he’s distilled his thoughts into a short (an hour long read), beautiful guide he’s cunningly entitled ‘Creativity’. Even if you have no desire to break into screenwriting, John has lived a lifetime of creativity and there is so much that we mere business folk can learn from him, including his secret process. “You have to create a space where people don't come in and interrupt. And you have to have a sufficiently long period of time for your initial agitated thoughts to settle, so that you can then play, and play in a very relaxed way, not cudgelling your brains and furrowing your brow, just thinking, I wonder if, what would happen if, and why did I suddenly think of a hippopotamus? That sort of thing.”So grab a cuppa and let John’s wisdom guide you. This one really is a corker to kick the season off with. We chat about: What we can learn from children about creativity Our emotional facilities aren’t helped by modern living John Cleese’s secret process There’s no such thing as a mistake The importance of rehearsal Resting for creativity Links: Creativity - John Cleese Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind - Guy Claxton --SponsorsVorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleadersVanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleadersVertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders--NewsletterSign up here: https://secretleaders.email/You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

Marcia Kilgore is a serial entrepreneur in the truest sense of the term. Not content with creating just one globally renowned brand, Marcia is responsible for Bliss Spa, Soap and Glory, FitFlop, Soaper Duper and now Beauty Pie. But how did she become Queen of Startups?Bliss Spa, her first startup in NYC, saw her give facials to Demi Moore, Courtney Love, Christy Turlington, Bette Midler and Calvin Klein to name drop but a few regulars. She sold this to world leader in luxury products LVMH, before turning her hand a couple of years later to Soap and Glory. From there she founded FitFlop, Soaper Duper and now Beauty Pie, an exclusive buyers club for luxury beauty products, without the luxury beauty bullshit.“I love the part of a business where you're really struggling to figure something out and it's really hard and you're solving real problems and really moving that dial every day and able to create new things. But when it sort of gets masked out and it's not about creating new things for customers anymore and you get too far away from it and it's charts and spreadsheets, that's not really my thing.”Rather than discuss just one of these behemoths, Marcia is incredibly candid about all of them, talking about the genesis of each, her entrepreneurial journey and the mistakes she’s made along the way. “There usually comes a time in my businesses where people say, ‘Oh, you've got to stop doing customer interface, you've got to stop doing the copywriting, you’ve got to stop doing the naming of the products’. And actually, that's what I do better than other people. So I shouldn't stop doing the part that I love doing. That was, I suppose the mistake that I've made in the past.”We chat about: What set her on her entrepreneurial path That urban legend about Jean-Claude Van Damme How LVMH wooed her Stopping your brand getting watered down Learning to deal with the big companies Lifting the lid on the beauty industry  --SponsorsVorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleadersVanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleadersVertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders--NewsletterSign up here: https://secretleaders.email/You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

DHH, creator of Ruby on Rails and CTO at Basecamp, discusses remote working, the evolution of Basecamp, the transition to remote work, and the importance of HR management and work-life balance.

Jeppe Rindom, co-founder and CEO of Pleo, transitioned from management consulting to revolutionizing financial management in Europe. He shares the journey of starting Pleo, focusing on tackling workplace issues and building a strong company culture. Jeppe emphasizes the significance of trust in financial data handling while navigating the challenges of securing funding and adapting leadership styles. The discussion also highlights the importance of personal happiness at work and Pleo’s future plans for growth and employee empowerment.

Do you want to cut your carbon emissions to zero and save money on your energy bills? Introducing Bulb, a green energy company founded in 2015 by Hayden Wood and co-founder, Amit Gudka. Together they wanted to change the energy industry, to make it better, by making energy simpler, cheaper and greener. “We saw all the new technology from solar panels and batteries and smart meters changing the relationship that homes have with the grid. The home of the future [has] solar panels on the roof, there's an electric vehicle in the driveway, and that home needs an energy supplier that it could trust, because its energy needs need to be managed.”Today Bulb has grown their members to 1.7 million, adding more to their ranks each day. And with a team of over 700 people spread across London, France, Spain and the US, running a company that aims to use technology to reduce costs, improve efficiency and provide outstanding customer service hasn’t been an easy journey. “A lot of the feedback we got in the early days was: ‘sounds too good to be true’, ‘where's the catch?’ ‘It doesn't make sense, you know? Why are you doing this?’ ‘Why hasn't somebody else done it before?’”So what does it take to build and lead Britain's fastest growing company? “This is where I think I have really struggled to be honest, I found this job very difficult. And I feel like I'm really just at the early stages of my learning on how to do it. I think I do have tendencies to be a perfectionist. And I think it's helpful sometimes, but generally unhelpful. You have to not let perfectionism get in the way of excellence.”We chat about: The genesis of the idea for Bulb Angel investors and EIS Struggling to get customer sign ups Developing as a leader and giving employees autonomy Handling the pandemic and pivoting on a sixpence The importance of company mission in recruiting --SponsorsVorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleadersVanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleadersVertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders--NewsletterSign up here: https://secretleaders.email/You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

If you’ve ever wondered how entrepreneurs without a specific idea go on to found a unicorn startup from their bedrooms, then this episode of Secret Leaders is for you. “One of the things that really strikes me that's changed over the course of the last 10 years is the level of awareness of what's possible. When we decided to start GoCardless, most of our friends just thought we were unemployed and couldn't get a job.”Today’s guest is one third of the British equivalent of the PayPal mafia, Hiroki Takeuchi, co-founder and CEO of payment giant GoCardless. GoCardless is a global payment network taking the pain out of getting paid for more than 50,000 businesses worldwide from multinationals to SMB, processing over $15 billion of payments annually across more than 30 countries.Hiroki and his fellow co-founders Matt Robinson (who now runs successful property tech startup Nested) and Tom Bloomfield (who has recently stepped aside as CEO of challenger bank giant Monzo) have raised over $120 million across 7 rounds of funding, securing $75 million in their latest series E.But it’s not been an easy ride. “The first round of investment that we raised was definitely the hardest. I think we had something like 64 ‘no’s’ before we got our first ‘yes’.”Hiroki has been on a real journey, not just professionally, but personally too, having to physically rebuild his body after a horrific cycling accident in 2016 that left him paralysed from the waist down, drastically altering how he manages himself and the business day to day.We chat about: The hardest part of starting a business The hockey stick growth curve How to mentally prepare to fundraise When co-founders leave the business Choosing a CEO and building a leadership team The future vision for GoCardless Links: Nested Monzo --SponsorsVorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleadersVanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleadersVertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders--NewsletterSign up here: https://secretleaders.email/You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes

“When have you actually been thirsty? We have water everywhere around us. There are taps, there are showers. It's this infinite resource for most people, yet for the marginalised 10% of the world, it's something that they've never known.”Scott Harrison is a former club promoter turned CEO of Charity: Water, a hyper transparent non profit organisation that in 13 years has raised over $500 million and brought clean drinking water to 11 million people. You’d think with these numbers under his belt Scott would be content to sit back on his laurels and congratulate his hard work. Far from it. “Did I ever think I could raise half a billion dollars for clean water? And the real answer is 13 years later, this is a fraction of what I'd hoped we could have done. I mean, yes, it's a lot of money, but it's water, for crying out loud. We should be able to rally the world, clean water for humans, clean water for children. When I go to bed at night, I'm not patting myself on the back. It doesn't feel like success. It feels like a fraction of the potential achieved.”This strong desire to help others hasn’t always driven Scott. For 10 long years he lived (in his own words) a truly ‘degenerate, hedonistic, sycophantic lifestyle’, filling up clubs with beautiful people, taking copious amounts of drugs, smoking like a chimney and drinking like a fish, with a gambling addiction and a pornography addiction. It all came to a head one day when he realised there was nothing redemptive about his life. So he stopped and asked himself what the opposite of his life would look like, and he thought, doing something for others. “What if I volunteered for a charity? What if I volunteered for some sort of humanitarian mission for one year and tried to give instead of take.”And so Scott: the second chapter began. This is an inspirational episode everyone needs to hear. We chat about: From nightclub promoter to charity founder Creating a hyper transparent charity The three pillars on which Charity: Water was founded How he’s innovating the charity sector Why apathy is his biggest challenge Don’t be afraid of hard work Links: The Spring - The charity: water story - YouTube Donate - Give The Gift Of Clean, Safe Water | charity: water Thirst - Scott Harrison --SponsorsVorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleadersVanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleadersVertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders--NewsletterSign up here: https://secretleaders.email/You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes