The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - E32 Michelle Kennedy - From Matchmaking to Motherhood

Episode Date: May 15, 2019

From co-CEO of Badoo, a dating-focused social network worth over a billion, to sitting on the advisory board for Bumble to launching her in own app in 2017 with co-founder of Deliveroo Greg Orlowski, Michelle Kennedy is a force to be reckoned with. She ...

Quick one, just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio. And thirdly to to amazon music who when they heard that we were expanding to the united states and i'd be recording a lot more over in the states they put a massive billboard in times square um for the show so thank you so much amazon music um thank you to our team and thank you

to all of you that listen to this show let's continue michelle thank you so much for for joining me today i've uh i have been very excited to to do this podcast because we've not seen each other for a long time. A long time. You've changed your hat. I know. It's actually in my bag. Oh, good. But this is Steve and then the other hat is Stephen. So when I do like, you know, public stuff, I put on the trilby style hat and then this is more cash. So I'm feeling cash today.

Got it. Which is credit to yourself. So you are someone that I met several years ago when you were working on Bu and we had like a client supplier relationship back then um bidu as many people will know is a is a billion pound yeah um in the dating space and it's achieved tremendous success you were the co ceo of bidu at one point um but since then you've gone on to do some pretty inspiring things and a number of my listeners on this podcast have been insisting I further the audience the guests we've had on into other realms and dating has been one of them people have been in search of a real empowering inspiring female CEO and leader because I've the feedback speaking honestly I've had is that we haven't had as many

on so I've got a lot of things I want to ask you today um and all I ask as I do with all my guests is just for um honesty as much as possible I can't help that amazing that's a good one so here's where I want to start to speed up the the process of getting to know you before I dig into those elements and it's a little game I play with all of my guests um and if you're up for it, of course, are you able to tell us your life story in 30 seconds? And this is a good way of filtering out the significant moments, etc. But are you up for it? Love it. Okay, cool. So looking at the timer, three, two, one, go. I started life as a corporate lawyer. I moved into the dating industry. I became deputy CEO at Badoo. Had a little boy.

Decided I needed to do something in the mother space. Created Peanut. Peanut launched a year and a half ago. And we have 350,000 moms using it. You did that in 16 seconds. That's a really good one. Ah, that was a good one. So Peanut.

What is Peanut? Peanut is an app to connect like-minded women who happen to be mothers and it's really thinking about how do we solve this issue of women who are entering this massive life stage and life change and yet there was no product which is modern cool feels fresh and speaks to this entire generation of women who have an expectation that things will be mobile first that they'll feel like it's for them and not feel like it's for their mum and take a move away from some of the slightly more old school forums and and other products out there and really think about creating something for this modern woman who happens

to be a mother and that's peanut if i'm a mother and I download Peanut and you're the CEO of Peanut, what are you hoping for me to come away with or get from Peanut in order for you as a CEO to consider it a success? I just want you to have an experience of finding someone who's like-minded and to find support. They say it takes a village to raise your child, right? But we don't live in our village anymore. We live everywhere. We move for different reasons. And so it's about finding that support network. If you make one valuable connection, if you get one piece of advice, if you meet your best mate, if you just feel better about the fact that you're up at 2am and there are thousands of other women doing the same as you, then it's a success for us.

Why are you trying to solve this problem? Why you? I had my little boy, went back to work. How old is your little boy now? He's going to be four, he's four and a half. He's going to be five in December, which blows my mind. So I think when I met you, he was a babe. And when I had him, I just felt frustrated by the products that were out there there was nothing that I felt was relevant to me and more importantly I felt it was patronizing and a little bit infantilizing that the products that were out

there aimed at women who are mothers just didn't respect the other parts of who she was as a woman it didn't respect the fact that I was also a businesswoman or also a partner, sister, daughter, whatever it might be. You know, we're so many different things. Motherhood is definitely the best part of who I am, but it's not the only part. And so I wanted to create a product for other women who maybe felt the same. So why me? I took everything I know about dating and creating romantic relationships and applied it to women to help them find connections on a platonic basis and then the product has evolved from there and you do you have a co-found um I do uh my co-founder um is Greg Orlowski he was the uh co-founder of Deliveroo.

He's from a technical perspective. He's kind of less hands-on. These days we have a bigger team. And it's, you know, still me kind of pushing forward on the vision and the kind of the growth because that's the part which is so exciting and so important. So are you the only sort of full-time hands-on founder i am is that how lonely is that it's tough it's really hard actually i don't think

anyone really talks about how lonely it can be as a founder um your job is hire make sure there's enough cash set the vision but part of all of that is keeping the team excited upbeat motivated and that is great when things are great and when things are feeling a bit tough or you're having a tough day you haven't really got anyone to share that with now it doesn't mean that I can't you know share it with Greg or share it with with um you know a mentor or other people but um it can be quite challenging sometimes because it's all on you. What are the things when it comes to being an entrepreneur that are written in the, I don't know, the like the fantasy, the like, because it's almost quite glamorized these days, the thought of

like starting your own business, there's, you know, so many quotes like be your own boss, live your dream or someone else is going to live it for you. And it all kind of frames it in this really positive aspirational light. But I'm sure as a founder yourself and especially in the tech space where it's particularly there are particular challenges. And in many respects in the tech space, it's almost like a like a yes or no answer to the product whereas in my business it's uh success is kind of a direct result of how good I am at selling and um you know I do you know what I mean whereas from running a tech business previously it was really does the market give a f about this right um so what are the things as a tech founder that you think are

inaccurate when you think about the perception of entrepreneurship? You know, it is a constant, constant, all-consuming story. That means I wake up, I check peanut and I check my emails. That's before I do anything else, before I go to sleep. Sometimes in the middle of the night, I do the same um it is completely all-consuming it is not a given that people will want to use your app just because you've created an app it is not a given by any means there are thousands of apps released on the app store every day and unless you have a really strong route to market a really strong brand narrative and you have product market fit there is absolutely no guarantee that anyone's going to use the product you're creating. And there's so many people that come to me,

I've got an idea for an app and it always makes my heart sink a little bit because I'm always like, don't start with the app. Don't start there. Apps are really expensive to build. It's really hard. Unless you know what you're looking at, you're going to like burn through money pretty quickly.

There are ways to test what you want to build without having to go all in with the app, right? That's just a fact. And so I think that things that I know, getting visibility on an app store, really challenging, unless you know how you're going to do that. It's really hard. And that's a key factor in growth. Getting people to understand what you're doing and why you're different and why they should care, again, really challenging. Getting investment, you know, we're all very aware

that it's hard to get investment as a woman, not impossible, but it is challenging. It has its own challenges. And I suppose because you can only be what you can see. And if I can only see like, you know, older white males around me who are controlling the checkbook, that can make it challenging for me in terms of how do I get in there? How do I have the confidence to go and pitch what I'm saying? How do they understand the product that I'm building? Do you have self-doubt because of that? Oh, massive. But I

have to say it's a huge sweeping generalization, right? There are people that you meet all the time who won't get what you're doing and that's fine. There are people who you'll meet, they don't care that I'm a woman, they don't care that this is a product for moms, they care about the market size and business opportunity and how I'm going to tackle the problem. They're the people that you want on your side. They're the gems. And they do exist. You just have to find them. Self-doubt is something that can consume you if you don't keep it in check. And I suppose it's just having that element of what's the worst that can happen? Seriously, what's the worst that can happen seriously what's the worst that can happen I can try and I can build something people don't like it I'll try again and I'll keep trying um but that's not for the faint-hearted where does your desire to even

try and build something come from why why don't you just and this is a question I ask well a lot of people is why of all the stress that it is involved with being an entrepreneur why don't you just get you know normal jobs things like you know yeah I I had a I was gonna say a normal job there was nothing normal about my previous job actually but I had I worked for someone else I worked as part of someone else's business I I created things for someone else's business. I loved every minute of it. I loved what I did. But there came a point for me, and it doesn't happen to everyone, but there came a point for me where I wanted to go and try something because I had a concept and I felt that there was a market that really deserved a product and deserved something better. And no one else was going to approach it in the way that I

was no one else is thinking about the dating industry and moms um you know the two are fairly like polar extremes um no one was thinking about my thoughts about building the product or brand in the same way um and I felt like that should be me to go and try it. I feel like if this wasn't to work out, let's say, you would try something else though. And where does that desire to keep trying stuff come from? Because obviously in this instance, in hindsight, you can say, oh, I tried it because I felt a problem. But really your perspective is to try and build something

from nothing probably. That's what it sounds like. You know what I think? I never, I didn't always have this mindset and i think it's really important to note that you can change your mindset i trained as a lawyer and i was a corporate lawyer um and i was doing a lot of m&a and the very real fact is as a lawyer you are trained to spot risk and you find the risk and you do everything you can to avoid the risk and you yourself, it's completely the opposite when you're an entrepreneur, you see it and you do it anyway. Be aware of it, but you're going to do it. It was only through time that that

mindset changed where I was like, okay, I don't want to be the risk person anymore. I don't want to be that mindset. There are other ways to achieve things. And, you know, Andre at Bidu really changed my mindset about that. And I owe him a lot in terms of challenging me to think in different ways. There were times that I despised what he had me doing because I didn't want to go out and door to door hawk an idea that he had, but actually it was the best learning I ever had because I learned to think about things in a different way. If everything went wrong with peanut tomorrow, would I try something else? Yeah, I think that I really strongly believe if there's something wrong, or there's a problem, and you want to fix it, why can't it be you? Like, why can't you be the person

to do it? And if that's a rhetoric that I want to pass on to my son, and if that's a rhetoric that I want other women to feel inspired by, then I have to stand by it and do you think it's do you think it's harder for women to be successful entrepreneurs than it is for men no I don't think so um I think there are more challenges um I think there are obstacles I think it's becoming better um I think that what's important is we keep having conversations about it and we keep enabling women to feel able to try um on my own personal um standpoint i for a long time had a really really big fear of failure i still do to a certain extent but that worry of if it all goes wrong what will that mean about me and my capabilities and ah and it's only actually by spending a lot of time with engineers when engineers are like, what? But failing is how you get to the right answer.

What are you talking about? That you kind of start to think, right, it doesn't matter. So, yeah, I don't think it should be harder for women. I think there are obvious challenges. And I think we're having conversations trying to make it better. I read somewhere that of the 90,000 Kickstarters that were started over a certain period, I can't remember, only 30% were started by women. And the general trend is that there are less female entrepreneurs

than male entrepreneurs. Why is that in your mind? I know that it's a complicated set of factors, but... I think it's, you set of factors but i think it's you know there is that harvard study which says that um man and woman go for an interview for a job both uh the woman is kind of has the qualifications for it the man doesn't the man gets the job because he goes in and he kind of talks about his potential and the woman goes in and talks about where she is right now and she talks you know quite factually and um i think that we have to help women to feel like it's not self-promoting it's not a bad thing even if you are self-promoting you know this is about opportunity

creating those opportunities um diversifying what we see at investment level diversifying what we see at investment level, diversifying what we see at the top tables so that we know that we have mentors or role models. Getting young girls at school involved in the same things as boys so that it's not just the boys who are playing Lego or Minecraft or any of these things which are really thinking developing their minds in kind of problem solving but girls are doing it too so that there's just such a full spectrum of things what we do know is this women-led businesses women businesses which have women on their boards perform better or and they outperform because it's a diversification of what we have why wouldn't we want that it's good for everyone it's good for business good for the economy it's good for women so if we know that those businesses perform better let's get more of them i couldn't agree more social change has a is led by a woman yeah a remarkable one as well doing a much better job

than i could do um so on the point of um I guess like sacrifice what are the things you know it's it's having a four-year-old the sacrifice is quite unique as well because it's it's I guess it's time with a child and having a child in general there's tremendous sacrifice but what are the sacrifices that you've had to make in order to um pursue pursue this dream you have? Sacrifice. It's really interesting. No one's ever asked me that, you know.

Really? And I think it's really important because you have to kind of be eyes wide open when you're going into this. It is all consuming. And it means that there will be things that for my son I might miss or I'll go to and I might miss something for work and then feel horrendous about it. And there is that constant like kind of juggling of the guilt. What do I feel more guilty about?

That can be hard. But even on a more, you know, basic level, sacrifice, I had a nice salary. I had a nice life and I don't have that anymore you know I hustle hard and I work hard and I I don't take a salary from from peanut currently um because I really want it to push forward um I believe in it and that means that there are things that I can't do that I used to do um I don't go out with my friends as much as I used to I am that boring person who considers whether they can really afford to take that one night to do. I don't go out with my friends as much as I used to. I am that boring person who considers whether they can really afford to take that one night to see their friends because

the next day they've got a full day of meetings. And am I going to be on my top of my game? There are sacrifices in terms of personal relationships. It will take its toll on some of your friendships. Not all of your friends will understand that you are consumed by this thing that you're doing and that inevitably your conversation or your mind space might turn to it that can be hard not everyone will be on the journey with you that can be hard do you ever worry that even if you succeed it might not be worth it no I don't worry about that it will be worth it because if I can just change one woman's experience of motherhood, if I can just change one woman's perspective

on what it means to have this title mother, then it will be a success. And so the fact that there are women meeting, connecting, not feeling lonely, not feeling isolated, not feeling like they don't really fit within the description that's success so no I don't worry about that you mentioned um you mentioned having to take like a like a salary cut something that I same I had to do the same when I started a social team uh three and a half years ago. What role does money play as a

motivator in your life? And how has that changed over time? Because for me, when I was 18 years old, I was convinced I was doing it. I wanted to start a business to become a millionaire. And I would look at mansions and cars and I'd fantasize about them. And then at 25 years old, 24, 23, when I first got an offer to like sell the business, I remember 18 year old Steve showing up on that day. And he was literally went on auto trader and right move like to look at what I could buy. And then that weird moment of confusion when I realized that I didn't want any of these things. And then I questioned why I was doing all of this. I had to almost try to refine my why, because if I realized it wasn't about money then then why was

I working so hard why was I getting up every day why am I not seeing my family right um so what role has has money as a motivator played in your own life when I was um a junior lawyer my my very first role um as a junior lawyer I was paid 17,000 pounds a year and I felt rich. I'd gone from being a student. I felt like it was the most money in the world. I felt that anything was possible. And I was a lawyer and I was earning this salary. And, um, it was only when I started to live and realize actually that's not going to take me so far um that you you know that you start on that almost like a treadmill of the more money you have the more you spend and um I certainly really you know have always worked hard I've always had a tremendous work ethic because I think that's just something that I took from my kind of early career. You had to. And I earned well of money at some point excite me? Yes,

but not because I want to stop working, because maybe it will give me the opportunity to do something else. People always say, you know, what's the goal? I don't know. In 10 years time, I would like to have my own fund that invests in women, for example, because I know that that was a challenge. I'll be able to do that if I get to a point where I've exited peanut and I've made a life-changing amount of money so it it impacts me in terms of I want to work hard and I want to achieve things it's not the motivator in terms of I want to have a nicer car or um because I I don't know I just feel that that's, it's like quite immediate. And do you think, what role does money play in your happiness?

And happiness generally? You know, I don't know. I didn't come from money. I worked hard. I didn't, I want to give, it's ironic. I didn't, you know, I went to school in Peterborough and now I want my son to have a better life than I did. And I want him to have more opportunity than I did. And I work hard for that.

But equally, I want him to understand what working hard is. And I want him to understand that, yeah, you get up at six and you grind and that's how it feels. And some days it feels amazing and some days you're like the walking dead and that's okay. And like, I want him to experience those things. And yet that massive like contradiction of, and yet I also want you to go to a better school than I did. And I want you to have more opportunity than I did. And I want you to see parts of the world that I never saw and still have never seen. So is it linked to happiness? It's not happiness. It's linked to security.

I have an obligation to have a secure home for my son and a secure future for my son. And money is linked to that security. But what's more tied to happiness is like the integrity of work ethic and the integrity of feeling like, yeah, I did that for us. And you can do it for you. And that kind of reward, I suppose, that sounds really corny. I don't mean it to be corny. And I think I'm asking this question for myself more than anything, because you're an entrepreneur. You've been in the working world longer than I have.

So what are the other things that you've figured out make you happy? You made me sound really old there, Steve. I'm not that old. You're just a couple of years old. I am actually old these days. What are the other things? Professional integrity. Never really thought about that when I was younger.

Not that I didn't have it. I just didn't care. Like, what's that to me it's everything i want people to know that i act with integrity and i want to act with integrity and i want to work with people who do um and that is really important and has become so much more important the older I get right um interesting because my mum used to say this weird thing of like show me your friends and I know who you are and I think it I think about it a lot I think it more and more as I as I get older um and so that that is important to me um the importance of that network there are people that I met along my journey who i never really understood why they might be important to me later in life and yet they are

um and just culturally within peanut being a good person being a good person doesn't mean you're weak being a good person doesn't mean that you're ineffectual it just means that you are acting with good values those good values might be I'm telling you that you're not doing a very good job today that's okay that's still good values because at least you're being open and you're acting with integrity and that's important and your intent is good I think that's the important thing exactly that and you're not trying to rip someone's self esteem apart you're trying to make them happy by being better in the future exactly and it's good for you and it's good for them and it's good for the business it's much worse to think you're being kind by kind of not really telling them or digging on them a bit but not really getting to the point

and then discovering that actually you've you know really destroyed their confidence because that little dig that you've been delivering every day is really like buried somewhere within them um that's no good for your business either right so um that's become more important i think so my next question is an interesting one right so um kind of links to something you said earlier but um talking about dark days and sacrifice etc one of my worst ever days professionally you might might be, you're familiar with it. Am I? Because it involved you. Did it? What was it?

So this was, this was in our second year when we got hacked. Oh. Okay. So I've spoken about this on the podcast multiple times, right? And my audience on the podcast have probably heard me talk about this incident about three times, 6am in the morning, driving to work, get an email from my CFO saying, you didn't mean to send that to me did you pulling over um with dom and then that continuing all day arriving at paintballing at 8 a.m with my team and um discovering that we were getting a lot more emails of that nature um pulling everybody back from paintball to go to the office pulling up at the office and realizing that all of our clients including you had been sent very personal very malicious very offensive emails including the uh marketing director of the nba the marketing

director at fox who was one of our biggest clients at the time and dealing with that backlash um probably the hardest the hardest single day I I've dealt with because I didn't have the perspective I have now so I was still quite young in my like my experiences of going through tough difficult situations and handling them probably today it wouldn't be it'd be much easier to handle um I've got a question and I've been meaning to ask you this do you remember that I do now but I had I haven't thought about that probably since it happened and here's something I've always wanted to know and I think because I've spoken about this on my podcast before it'll be really interesting you're one of those people that received an email of that nature yeah can you talk about it from your perspective as a client? And what happened then?

Because we have our perspective. We know what went on our end. And I've never known what went on it. So I remember it now. It wasn't about me. It was about someone in the team. Was it? Yeah.

And so I remember it. I mean, I remember receiving it. I remember getting the email about it, you know, listen, we've been hacked and, you know, you're not the only one. We're really sorry. What did I think? I suppose at the time I, you know, just being honest, I probably thought it was unprofessional.

I thought that, gosh, is like quite lambasting um I think I probably would have appreciated a phone call from you at the time I think we spoke maybe the next day or but at the time I was a bit like huh um but to be honest then I moved on with our day you know it was one of those things that happened um I haven't thought about it since so the question is what's your toughest day and are you able to share that what's the one day when I when I say that to you that jumps out and you think fuck that was the day that I nearly didn't yeah I've I've had some pretty tough days dark days um with peanut um one of them is kind of work related, but, but nothing to do with directly peanut. Um, it was a personal relationship, uh, with someone who I really considered to be a

friend. Um, and it broke down in the most like dramatic and catastrophic way, um, for reasons that I just didn't really understand. And it wasn't actually until very recently that I started to understand them. And they still don't, you know, that's gone past, but that was very, very low. And it was a member of the team? It was someone that I had formerly worked with. Okay. And it hurt me in a way that I didn't know was possible when it comes to business. I think the reason that it felt so bad and made my day feel so low or the time feel so low is because I really wanted this person to be on the journey with me because I'd been part of a journey with them. And that felt really hard lonely betrayal what was it like a bit of despair

a bit of confusion self-doubt because they didn't believe in you no no it was something far more um basic than that but um I started to think I don't want this actually maybe this is not what I want maybe I just want to go and get that nine to five and not like raise my head above the parapet and kind of stand out and you know have this product and be a founder and I want to go and run someone else's business again, is actually what I thought. So they shook your self-esteem on? Exactly, yeah. That was hard. And what's your best ever moment in the last,

specifically with creating Peanut? What's been the moment you're most fond of? I think it was seeing Peanut at WWDC, which is the big Apple developer conference. And cook's on stage and in the background and there and there's little peanut like there's my little face bobbing around um and then they later did that kind of um conversation around um peanut being the first like and then meet the developer on the new app store, we were the first company they featured. We were four months old. We were genuinely, I just couldn't believe it.

I couldn't understand that our tiny little company of five people had created something where people at Apple knew who we were, let alone they were talking about us at the biggest event of the year for them um it was also cool because like you know average person in the street wasn't seeing it it was like like our peers it was like people who were at WWDC developers engineers like other geeks for want of a better word that were seeing us and that was to me really exciting um I felt so proud it was testament to Pina and the team and it was testament to Apple like even knowing who we were and recognizing yeah and recognizing what we were doing for for women who are mothers that was massive it will always be one of the best days even though I forget to enjoy it so that's your that's your best day and on the other hand we've got like your worst days yeah what's your average day like what's your like your average like routine

I don't think you know yourself I don't know if there is an average day I mean it really depends yesterday was very much like an office day and I was, it really depends. Yesterday was very much like an office day and I was, you know, really doing a lot of data work, speaking with the team about product and priorities and that kind of thing. Today has been a bit more, I've been to investors, I've had some calls, I'm having a great chat with you. I've got another, like, so it's a bit more random.

Some days we're working on like branding and marketing so there is no like average day I suppose the days when I come home and I feel like nothing got off that list nothing moved off that list they're the days where I but you're knackered yeah and you feel like you've been on it but nothing's really changed they're the days where I suppose I feel the most um like this has been an average day and I don't mean average and kind of normal just average in terms of you know different yeah what you mentioned earlier about relationships and the impact that um running a business has had on your relationships but you know from my own experience as a

single guy still yeah you know actually since we met I've done I did have a girlfriend for about a year but um but being a single guy still I've seen the impact on romantic relationships and trying to find people that understand what my world is like um I noticed that you've got a massive ring on your finger oh thanks you're married not bad I am um what impact is if you're able to share running a business like this and creating a business from nothing had on the romantic relationships? That is really hard. And that, again, is something that no one ever really speaks about and no one really told me about. I'm really, really, really, really fortunate in that my husband is a bit older than me. And he has his own career in a different totally different field but he's really really supportive and I don't just mean supportive to me I mean to our home life

he's really like 50 50 with Finn my little boy um everything is a shared like obligation or like juggle so tomorrow is finn's first day at school um and i am going to drop him off and pick him up because i really want to do it but then i have to go to sweden for a couple of days for an investor event and then rich will be on and it's his kind of over to him and we really share that and i'm really fortunate for that I'm also really fortunate for the fact that he is like the biggest team peanut supporter and like he's like our biggest stalker he finds like weird bits of press that we didn't even know we had um he's he's really like fully involved but also because he's an amazing cheerleader and will always say you know keep going or you know doesn't matter if if that one

hasn't worked out what about the next one or whatever it is um he he's amazingly proud and supportive that said it is hard I travel a lot I'm away from them both that's really tough um how do you keep a relationship alive when your your mind is all consumed with your your company which becomes you know whether you like it or not in some respects has to become your priority at certain points how do you then juggle being a mother but then also being a wife and a partner that's so hard I mean it is really hard sometimes we're having a conversation and I'm only partially participating because in my head I'm thinking about all the things that I need to do um that are peanut related. I think it's about forgiveness, a lot of forgiveness in

our house. I'm sorry. And a lot of kind of, okay, I understand. And, you know, we have to be like that. And communication, if I'm being shit, he's very clear about it. And, you know, vice versa, if I feel like he's not really understanding what I'm working on or going through, I'm pretty vocal about it. I think it's just accepting. We're human, right? We get stuff wrong all the time. Sometimes I'm the world's most amazing mom. And sometimes I'm not. And sometimes I'm killing it at work. And sometimes I'm not. And that's just the way it is. And it's about getting over it and giving myself a bit of a break I sent Finn to school he wasn't in fancy dress it was a fancy dress day I felt like the worst mum in the whole world Finn probably hasn't thought about it since I'm still

scarred sure but like I'm trying to like move on from that and like next time I'm never going to make that mistake again right so it's just about balance juggle whatever and um with with all the struggles and all the sacrifices and such there's there's often consequences for um entrepreneurs that are much deeper and I think one of the big things that has taken a greater share of conversation in the world of being an entrepreneur and a founder and a CEO along with the the thoughts of you know like loneliness is all of our um what's the word all of our the importance of taking care of your mental health because it is so lonely and yeah because it's high stress high pressure and working within like a tech um startup and a startup in general there are unique pressures that nobody will really understand that

has a nine-to-five job where they don't have to worry about the bank balance making sure everyone gets paid um when it comes to mental health and entrepreneurship what are the things that you think are important and have you have you been through any of your own battles that you're able to share? I'm an insomniac. Okay. I really don't sleep very well. And I'm getting better. But there was a period of time last year where it was unrelenting. Every night I was maybe sleeping for an hour or two.

And it was like having a new baby. And the honest truth is not sleeping is so detrimental to your health. It is like a form of torture. And when you're trying to run a business with clarity and be visionary, and yet you feel a bit like a zombie, that's really tough. And I had to do something about it because it was it you know just really getting on top of me you can't function um and also I you know you look skinny and you just you just don't feel like the best version of you um and that was pretty tough um do you know what caused that and was it was it a new thing in your life or was it um

I would say it was relatively I've never been an amazing sleeper actually since I had my little boy before that I was literally that person who would sleep in a nightclub and that didn't bother me but like since then my sleep was not as great um I think the cause was anxiety like being new to being a founder. As you said, knowing what it's like to keep the lights on, knowing how much runway you've got, what your burn is, you know, are you going to raise money again? All of those things. Is the product working?

Crazy things that pop into your head at 3am and make you sweat and your heart race. And that can be really tough. I started using an app. Which one? Calm. Calm. Yeah. heart race and that can be really tough um I started using an app um calm yeah uh for sleep stories to help me get to sleep like the meditation stuff wasn't really working because I couldn't really lose myself in the meditation my thoughts were just even louder but the sleep stories were good Stephen Fry like talking to you about lavender or whatever that was pretty good um and that did make a big difference not checking my emails past 11 o'clock and you know turning my phone onto airplane that

made a difference um not having a glass of wine every night and you know all of those that did make a difference so I think um that's that's all had an impact people don't really talk about it and I suppose there is this element of a little bit of bravado right sure I founded this company I'm gonna make it work I'm not gonna be like a nutcase or I don't want anyone to think I'm like crazy or whatever there's a stigma which is right which isn't which isn't conducive with being a you know a leader right exactly that's it they almost act in opposite of like well the stigma and i've got to be clear on this the stigma i'd say the oldest the old stigma of having mental health issues was people would run from you because you're weak and you can't

control yourself and you're you know you're out of control and the the association of a leader is someone that's in control that's strong that is um to be followed and and that're out of control. And the association of a leader is someone that's in control, that's strong, that is to be followed. And they kind of play opposites, ends of the spectrum. And does anyone want to hear that their CEO was up at 2am with the sweats because she was freaking out about, I don't know, runway? No, no one in the team needs to know that.

That's my issue um and so I suppose it was just finding different ways and outlets to manage that um and just recognizing that you know it's not good to work on no sleep I think I think all of the um CEOs and entrepreneurs that I've interviewed on this particular podcast have said the exact same thing, but I've never heard it from them until I've asked. And when you think about it, it makes perfect sense because the type of person that has to be the leader and has to care about all of those things is going to be most susceptible to things like anxiety and loneliness and other forms of mental health issues that are derived from the role. So I think it's important to talk about more.

Definitely. For sure. How do you want to be remembered by your son, let's say? Oh, by my son. uh i want to be remembered by finn as someone who worked tirelessly but played tirelessly with him too like i always want him to feel like we have fun and we have serious moments too but we go out and we do things we went to see matilda the musical last weekend and it was you know just trying to make it so that um he knows that mummy works hard but she always has time for me it's really important to me we're reading like we're

working our way through Roald Dahl at the moment so we read a chapter of George's Marvelous Medicine every night and it's really important to me that that's our thing um and I want him always to remember that we had our things. Sure. Two more questions then. My next one just sprung to mind. You're a remarkable role model for all entrepreneurs, but because of the point of relatability and people seeking out a role model that they can relate to, as I do for young black men and certain minorities I've found, you'll form, you'll probably, you probably found already that you are a much stronger role model to people who can relate to you.

So I'm a 18 year old young woman looking to start a business. What is your advice to me going into the business world and specifically I want to start a business in tech um I think my advice is speak to as many people as you can get information from people learn from people be around people you can go into a business for a day and shadow someone and sit and watch them and unless you're asking what they're doing why they're doing it most people want to tell you most people want to help you anyway so um just getting in and speaking to people is really important um what do you mean by tech tech could be engineering tech could be product tech could be marketing I'm uh I'm uh

it's fine it's fine for it to be vague exactly and the point is there are no limitations and when I was growing up definitely I was like the first person in my um family to go to university and the messaging was always you can be anything you want as long as it's a doctor a lawyer an accountant or a teacher and that was what I was with, work hard and go and be one of those things. Okay, I went with lawyer. I liked Ali McBeal at the time. You're too young. You can Google it.

And I think that that was so prescriptive and I never knew what the big wide world, I never knew what was out there. So it's okay to go and explore and find different things. And not to know. And not to know. Read, go read, speak to people, read about it. Like don't be like hard on yourself and prescriptive and then be dogged and get a thick skin

because you're going to need it. Some of the, like you're going to get rejections or you're going to, you know, get things wrong. It's okay. As long as you're kind of pick yourself up and get back and do it again how do i know if my idea is good though um you have to speak to people you cannot create a product for yourself you have to speak to people everyone says yes everyone says it's great my mom my sister my best friend yeah no good as much as that's amazing um you have to go and speak to your user base. And so even with Peanut, I spoke to one woman and then every,

I would always get that woman to introduce me to another woman, right? So it's not my network. So that woman would then give me the number or email address of another woman and I'd speak to her and get her view and on and on. And what it also meant is when it came to launch Peanut, I had a hundred women who I could go and see the product with and say here's what you helped me build what do you think they're natural ambassadors for your product they're going to go and share the word that was really important amazing last question then um the table was set up right now has four edges right so it has like

this this bit here this bit here this bit here we can this we're gonna have delivery because that's the okay yeah business and we're gonna invite four guests to this table dead or alive oh who are those guests and why and also want to know what what we're ordering from delivery but such a good question who are we having i'm gonna say two really random ones we're gonna have jackie kennedy okay jackie oh i don't know who that is i know i knew you were gonna say that because i could tell by your face that steve like jfk oh jackie oh jackie okay we're gonna have we're gonna have jacklyn kennedy um because i have a friend who is just completely all knowledgeable about the Kennedy family and it really is something that I find so interesting that she's so into it um and she got

me into it and I watched the Natalie Portman movie and I got really into it so I'd love to sit with her she was a cool woman um and I think the other person um i would like to have the founder of um verve clico the champagne um so her husband um died and she uh was amazing and changed the label to yellow so you know the label is yellow and no champagne was yellow and she was label to yellow. So, you know, the label is yellow. And no champagne was yellow. And she was basically this unbelievable, like, female champion hundreds of years ago. Better check that fact, but a long time ago. And really was like at the forefront of the kind of changing a perception,

taking something that was there and loved and respected and changing the perception slightly and running that business. And, you know, how amazing. What stories she could tell. So they're the two. There's still two more. Weird. What?

I thought it was. Four seats. This is. Four seats. Okay. They're my two. I'm going to go with Frida Kahlo. My little boy to go with Frida Kahlo. My little boy is obsessed with Frida Kahlo.

He's got this book and he reads about her all the time. And I've got this like weird flower thing that I wore for some fancy dress. And he's always like, wear it, mummy. You'll look like Frida Kahlo. I don't know anything about art. I'm really ignorant about art. I just have feelings about stuff that I like. And I don't, you know, it's not something that I grew up around.

And it's like something that I actually have to try hard to understand. But I do love her stuff. And I love her story. And I'm interested in her story with Diego. And so I think she would be amazing and fascinating. She would be number three. And number four, I'm going to bring my best mate Sophie along because I think she's a journalist for the BBC. And I think that the thing that I find most interesting about Sophie is that she is so nosy and has brilliant questions

so she would make sure that we got all of the best information out of those women nice and what would we be eating yeah that's a good one I eat so much junk food I'm a terrible I'm terrible for it um so it's your favorite food we'll just go for that. I love pasta. Pasta. I like Vietnamese. I like steak. I have a feeling you like pasta. Yeah. Italian. Italian. More important than the food is the wine. Okay.

A really good red Italian wine. Right. We'll have the best night. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for your time, Michelle. I've really enjoyed it. And I'm sure there's going to be a lot of people that want to reach out to you for various reasons. But where can we find you?

What's the easiest place to get in touch um probably instagram these days or peanut okay amazing um thank you so much and i'm sure we'll continue our conversations off the microphone thank you so much thank you you