I Left an $800M+ Dating App to Build Tinder for Mums

0:29You never make the coffee. the corporate ladder. You've proved people wrong. You've been hugely successful. So why would you risk it all to start again with a tech business, but this time not as an employee, but as the founder? This is Michelle Kennedy's journey. She's about to share the bold decisions, brutal lessons and big wins from her path and why building your tribe will be the key to your success. Don't forget, subscribe wherever you're watching or listening to this show. It means we can bring you even more incredible guests. If you haven't yet, please hit the follow button. If you have, thank you very much.

1:05Here we go then, in partnership with IFS, it's time to welcome Peanut CEO Michelle Kennedy and go in the room where it happened. Why are you choosing this particular room to take us into? I think this room is one that I'll never forget. It actually changed the course of my life and that is no word of a lie. It is a room in a restaurant in a hotel in Soho. And I was meeting the founder of Badoo. Badoo was a huge dating platform at the time. I'm saying platform because this is pre-app. We were web-based. And there was this website called Badoo. At the time that I was meeting the founder, it had 52 million users and I'd never heard of it.

1:55I was like, this is crazy. But OK, I didn't really even know anything about tech, actually. I don't think we really had a tech scene in London. And I was asked to go and meet this young guy under the premise of he's built this amazing business. He needs a lawyer to work in-house for him. Why don't you go and meet him? And I walked into the restaurant and there was him and one of his advisors. And he's very young looking, disarmingly young looking. He's older than me, but he looked so young, like boyish. And these big eyes looked at me and I was like, hi, I'm Michelle. And he was like, what do you eat?

2:33First question, what do you eat? And that was it. By the time you left the restaurant, had your mind changed about that? Oh my gosh, I was so nervous. I wanted that job. So by the end of that lunch, I was like, I hope I get that job. I want to work with him. I want to learn from him. So apart from telling you that you were going to go on a great IPO journey, and a big business journey. What else did he say that left this kind of pretty non-plus lawyer at the start of the conversation feeling very different by the end of it? So it was a really interesting dynamic. I felt his advisor would lean back and say a few things to him every now and again.

3:11So you're kind of speaking to two people. Yeah, and it's hard selling yourself in that situation. Really, really difficult. And, you know, but again, there's something courageous about being 26 where you're just like, if you don't like me, don't look. You know, I know I can go on and do something else. So you don't have as many of the hang-ups that you do. The older you get, the more you think, oh gosh, I shouldn't have given that answer. I just kind of gave the answers that I thought were, made most sense to me. In some ways, you're in the sort of perfect sweet spot there where you're not 21, right?

3:45So you've got enough experience without too much experience. So you've still got the naivety that everything's going to work out fine. So the one thing as a lawyer, and even if we never have lawyers with whatever the future brings from an AI perspective, there is a discipline that comes from working your ass off night after night. You're in the office till 2am, 3am. You don't think anything of it becomes life. So there is a discipline that comes with that. And with being around your clients, you're in board meetings with them. You're getting the deal done for them. You just learn how to communicate with people in a very disciplined way.

4:23So you do have some polish, which I think is important, and probably got me to the table, right? Got me to walk into the room. But the thing that closes the deal is the fact that, I mean, I wasn't arrogant. I wanted to learn, and I was probably like having a puppy at lunch. A disciplined puppy. A disciplined puppy who would take the treat. Yeah. But also, you know, wanted to, like, get excited about building something. I'd never built anything before. That sounded cool. So you took the job? Yep. How many other women were in this business? I think there was one. And she was an EA. Of course she was.

5:02Yes. So you're the only non-assistant female in the business? Yeah, at that point, yep. What year is this now? This was 2010. Okay, so 15 years ago. Yep. As a woman in a tech business who's not working as someone's assistant. Yep. What was the experience? uh tough i not only was young but i looked young and probably had that demeanor of wanting to please as i mentioned before um and it was hard yeah i would walk into board meetings we had quite a complicated um structure and i would walk into board meetings and i'd always been told by a female partner when i was a lawyer you never make the coffee the partner makes the coffee as soon as you make the coffee, you become the junior in the room.

5:50Never do it. So I had this in my head, don't make the coffee, don't make the coffee. And I was asked to get the sugar in this board meeting. I thought, I either get the sugar and become the assistant, or I make it clear that I'm asking someone else to get the sugar. And I looked and I said, leave that with me. And I called someone over and I saw the whole room watch me do it. I thought, that's the right thing to have done. and it was hard and I was absolutely shaking because really it's so much easier go and get the sugar machine. But also you're a nice person, right? You get sugar for people.

6:22Of course, who wouldn't do that? Of course you do it. But that was the moment where I had this partner's words in my ear, you don't make the coffee. So that was it. And there were tiny little wins like that, but I had to constantly think about. And you're consciously not being yourself. That is consciously going against what you feel, which is, of course I'll run around and get a sugar. Doesn't matter. Of course, I'll do something. And I made loads of mistakes too, by the way. I did loads of stupid stuff like asked to, you know, can you do, take such and such for a drink while we do the business?

6:58Oh yeah, sure. And then afterwards you're like, no, I should be in that room, not this room. You know, I did do some of those things. But you just learn. You learn how it makes you feel and then you don't want to feel like that again. You don't do it again. And how did it feel? Oh, shit. It makes you feel shit. It's totally awful. And I have this expression with one of my friends, knock your glasses, right? You know, when you're wearing glasses and someone hugs you and knocks your glasses, it's a bit embarrassing. You have to fix them. It makes you feel like someone's knocked your glasses. It makes you feel, oh, all that work that I've just done to get us to this point.

7:31And you don't recognize what I've done because I've been dismissed to go and entertain the accountant, for example. Nothing wrong with accountants. Very important. many of my dearest friends but I want to be in the room where they're making the business decision you want to be in the room where it happened right absolutely I want to be in that room exactly and then we were you said it was tough you said it was hard um I've seen interviews where you've described the the atmosphere is unforgiving could you go deeper on that and actually really tell us what the sort of lived experience was like for you back in 2010 I think that um if anyone's ever been to a conference and you walk in and everyone is standing in little groups talking to each other and they all seem to know each other and you don't know a single person in that room unless you walk in and someone moves their shoulder to include you hi nice to meet you you hover around the with your coffee or with your wine the most humbling experience so horrendous and it felt like that every day and that's that's how it felt until you know you get a bit thick-skinned and you go home you tell your friends and your friends say well you wouldn't do that in real life so then you kind of get elbows and you start moving in and you have to walk in and say hi I'm Michelle I remember going to um there was a big tech conference it was called Le Web and I remember speaking on stage at Le Web and afterwards you know everyone was networking all in their closed groups and I walked out and I thought I don't need to speak to any of you now because I've done my bit but had that environment happened before I went on stage, I think it would have swallowed, consumed me, taken everything from me.

9:11So, you know, it was hard. And was it because you were a woman? I don't even think it was consciously because I was a woman. There were just no women. So if you know each other, of course, everyone greets each other. Everyone has that kind of rapport. And if you're not part of it, it is very, very difficult to kind of push your way through. I also think now, think about the composition. We're not there yet, but there are so many more women building these kinds of businesses. It's not unusual to see half the room be women. But at the time, yeah, you would look out on a sea of faces. And, you know, if you saw two women in the audience, that was a win.

9:55And before your skin was thick. And it's a shame, I think, in so many ways that you have to develop a thick skin to be okay at work. right um how did it feel like what emotionally when you were in a low moment or the lowest point that you can recall actually how low was that i think the worst for me was i just had my son so um let alone the fact that we didn't really have senior women in the organization we certainly didn't have anyone who had a baby right so that was already really unusual so i remember having Finn and I went back to work super early and we were working on what became Bumble actually so we were kind of doing these things and there was one night and someone from that team was meant to come over to my house for wine meet Finn hang out because obviously I was a new mummy and she didn't come.

10:55And actually what she did was went to the bar with the team. And it wasn't just that she didn't come, it was that I didn't get the call up to go because I'm a mum now, so I don't obviously do anything in the evenings. And I was gutted. I was like, I made all of this happen. We're working so hard. We're doing this amazing thing. And I'm sat at home drinking wine on my own, watching you guys on Instagram all together in the bar that you could have just said, look, I'm not going to come, but why don't you try and get a sitter and come out? And that was, yeah, that was pretty shit. That felt bad. But you know what?

11:36By that point, I was like, F you. Tomorrow I'm going in and we're going to, it's a new day and I'll arrange the drinks for Friday night and I'll be there giving you all a glass when you walk in. You know, it's that kind of thing. But it took me a long time to get to the point where I was like, I'm defeated, but I'm defeated for six hours. So for people listening to this who feel defeated at the moment, what advice would you like to give them? I've been there. I get it. Feels horrible. Also, you are human, so you can't just be like, I don't feel like that anymore. No, you do feel like that. Of course you feel like that.

12:11The most important thing, I think, is what you're going to do about it. How are you going to make sure you don't feel like this again? So you have to feel the moment, and then you have to think, how do I not feel like this again? And the only way I think that you can not feel like that again is to be like, take the control back, take the power back. So that's what I had to do that Friday. I was like, I don't want to go out on a Friday night. I actually do want to be at home with my son, like snuggled on the sofa, but I had to take the power back. So that was like, I'm arranging drinks, be here at seven.

12:41And I was the one there to greet them. Changed the story. I'm a mom, but yeah, I do do evening stuff, like news flash. Um, so it's just about, can you find a way to take the control back or take the story back or take ownership back? And it's not easy. And, you know, you need, you need a friend, you need a bestie, you need someone, partner, whoever it is, you can download it to and say, I think I'm going to do this, get some feedback. And, you know, you'll find, you'll find the right one. It won't always work. And you might have had that person outside of the office, but inside Badoo, you were the only senior female.

13:19So was it lonely? Oh my God. I mean, it was crazy lonely at times. Also, you know, Andre is, and I have said it before and, you know, I do believe this, he's a genius. So the challenge of working with someone who is a genius is they're really, really difficult people. He's an unusual guy. and it means that sometimes you're left trying to work out the conversation you've just had and what the expectation is of you you haven't got anyone to talk that through because you're meant to know so that is very isolating because you're like I can't really say to anyone because I'm meant to have my shit together and know what's happening that is very hard it's very hard it's one of the unusual things I think about working with high performers and you know I've interviewed hundreds of them over the years they've struggled to see the world through other people's eyes they don't understand why you wouldn't be as committed to the journey as they are all of these things are the reason why they are the founder of a multi-million or multi-billion pound business absolutely but all of that has a price for the people who are working with them and around them absolutely and you either get on board the rocket ship this is what i used to say to people around me who would complain i'd be like you're on the rocket ship we'll go and get the train i don't mind but we're not the train we're the rocket ship so you can get on with us or you can take a pass.

14:38I'm not forcing you to be here. That's fine. It's not for everyone. But when you're on that rocket ship, I mean, it's addictive. You can't, for me, I couldn't get off. I mean, including it meant taking my six-month-old to Andre's house on a weekend because we were doing a business deal or whatever. And, you know, I've got Finn playing on his kitchen floor. Andre's house, no toys, obviously. Playing on the kitchen floor while I'm, you know, trying to do a deal or whatever it might be. or, you know, we're going on a holiday, but it's not a holiday, it's a business thing. And, you know, I arrived there and I've taken Finn and there's no crib.

15:14I'm like, he does need to sleep somewhere. There were a lot of those moments, but you're on the rocket ship. And I wanted to learn so much. And I did learn so much from this man. But even at the lowest, lowest parts, and there were low parts, um you know when you get that 2 a.m call and you're like oh just no no more tonight um but you pick it up and you you do the work again or whatever it might be um but for him i wouldn't be here so how can i be anything other than grateful for the journey but you still need boundaries right what was the secret you found uh setting boundaries no i'm not good at that I can't give advice on boundaries.

15:58I did not have boundaries. He was my first, apart from my son, and, you know, much to my partner's irritation, but he was my first thought in the morning and my closing thought at night, apart from Finn. I did not have boundaries. And I can't rewrite that, so I can't say that that was right or wrong. But that's how it was. I think that's an important point, actually, for us to discuss when it comes to being in these incredible rooms. it's very trendy to talk about work-life balance. It's very trendy to say you've got to make sure that you're servicing every area of your life. And I think that it's the right conversation to have, but I don't think the answer is you either have work-life balance or you're failing because I think there's a point in your career if you really do want to make something of your career where actually work-life balance is not necessarily possible.

16:48Would you agree? I know it's a really hard conversation, right? But I think we have to talk about it in a really truthful way as two people that have been involved in business and around business for a long time i certainly haven't always got the balance right but i also think that the success that i've had in business is probably because i didn't get the balance right so i'm there's two parts to the answer and the truth of the matter is it takes a village literally i had a six-month old son and was building what became, you know, groundbreaking in so many ways. And I didn't do that because it was me and my son and my partner.

17:28And that was it. I had my mum who lived with me Monday to Thursday to look after Finn. I had resource at home. Like I really was not doing this alone. And so it's very easy for me to say I gave everything. I was absolutely dedicated to what I did. I did, but I had loads of people around me to support that. My best friend didn't have a child at the time. She was there. I had support and many people don't have that. So it's not necessarily about work-life balance. It's about work need and necessity, which is I have to work and I want to work and I love what I do, but I actually don't have the village.

18:09I don't have support. I don't have anyone around me. And I think they're not the same thing. And I remember, I remember being that girl I read lean in I was leaning so far in my nose was on the floor I was like Cheryl I'm here and that book truly I think kind of didn't really acknowledge or realize the fact that not everyone has a village a support network nannies child care help in the home whatever it might be if you've got elder parents if you've got literally anyone who you have to care for work-life balance it's not balance it's like work life all in one I'm trying to do my best to service too so um yes I didn't have boundaries yes I worked like honestly I when I think about some of the things I used to do I stopped getting invited to stuff by my friends they were like you never come and if you do you stand in the corner on your phone talking to Andre all night so don't come.

19:08I was that person, but I had so much around me to help me be that person. And I think to pretend otherwise is a total disservice to every woman who is doing all of the things and doesn't have the village. I mean, I get frustrated with this narrative of we are the same 24 hours in a day, or you have to fully dedicate yourself to work. And you're totally right. You know, I'm now 47. You don't feel as young. You don't have the energy. My parents are in their late 70s. I've got two small children. You know, I don't live in London anymore because it's better for my family that I don't live in London.

19:41All of those things have a cost, right? And so we can't say that I have the same opportunity as a 22-year-old with no commitments. And it's so unhealthy for people to put out these narratives, I think, in the world of business that if you want it, just go get it. I can't fucking go and get it. Because I've got all these other things I've also got to go and get. That. It's really important. It's actually one of those things where I remember when I was starting peanut. And I'd read this interview, you know, you're prolifically trying to find role models because there weren't many women who were, you know, founding business.

20:13And there was a founder of a business and she said in an interview and it went viral, when you're a founder, there can be no plan B or C, it's plan A or nothing. And I was like, well, that doesn't fit my narrative because I've got a mortgage and a baby and other things that I have to do. And I need plan B, C, d e f g like i'm all the way through to z are you kidding and so it is so deeply unhelpful to compare the two it's not the same thing we're all doing it within the framework or the infrastructure that we've built and it's probably why you see a gap of women between and i'm gonna say women because generally speaking that's the role that we take but there is a gap between women from kind of 32 up until end of 40s, creating and starting business.

21:07You see women who are doing it 50 plus, but you don't see so many in that group. And the reason you don't is because we've got all of the other stuff to do. We can't take the same risks. It's not the same thing. And, you know, I've had a career where I've managed to have two children, get married, carry on working in television, and setting up businesses. Not once has anyone ever said to me, who's got the kids' debt? That's exactly right. Not once? A hundred percent. I remember seeing, this is, there was a, during lockdown, there was a very popular audio app where people could join conversations in an audio room and they'd raised a lot of money off the bat.

21:47Yeah. And not only had they raised a lot of money, they'd done a secondary. So the founders took money off the table day one. Firstly, no woman that I know ever was allowed to take money off the table day one but we won't go there um and they had a job advert and it went viral amongst all my friends because the job advert was basically you've got to be here 24 7 that you know dedicate your life we're in for the long haul be in the office blah blah and the way it was worded was basically so no woman can take that job really certainly no woman over 30 who or you know and um it was celebrated and applauded and i probably understood that whole narrative until i was living my own version of it and i was like i know we have to try and change things we have to try and make it different and that's why this conversation is important because you have done that so let's talk about this part of the journey now because there was something lovely that you said which is everyone expected you to ask the dumb question because you weren't a tech.

22:50You were a lawyer, right? So therefore you were able to ask the questions nobody else was able to ask. But you also always got the answers because you were the lawyer. No one could not tell you because you had to have the information. So with that mindset that you were taking into business, but with this shadow over the top of you of women aren't successful in tech because different things are expected with the kind of adverts that you've mentioned for Clubhouse and other things, you're in this world where it's not expected that you are going to take the path that Andre took. Yep. Yet you did.

23:20Yep. So at what point was the fire lit in you to not just be a lawyer for someone else's founder business, but actually when did you start thinking, hold on, I could do this myself. I could be a founder. So I'd started working, not really doing the legal stuff with Andre. So I was working alongside him and got this rather unusual title of deputy CEO And how long had you been there for at that time? I'm going to say not long, three and a half years, four years. And deputy CEO, what does that mean? And it basically meant I can do everything but make the final decision, final sign-off is his, but I get to do all the other stuff.

24:04Okay, we'll cope with that. I kind of was learning what we were going to do. And we started working on this thing that became Bumble. And so that for me was probably the bug of like, oh God, like building it from scratch. Don't forget, Badu was already huge when I joined. So that was never my baby. But being able to build something from scratch, well, this is amazing. Agonizing over the name and the color and the interactions on the screens and how are we going to market that? And who's the right person? And, you know, who's the right first hire and all of those things. And, you know, that was so exciting to me.

24:41I was like, wow, this is great. I love this. I want to do this. I want to do more of this. It was very hard to go back to caring so deeply about a tax-efficient company structure when you'd been building this product and you could start to see traction. And so, yeah, I suppose I did have that feeling of I'd like to build something. I had always been a bit of a hustler at school so I felt like wouldn't be completely out of the ordinary for me to try um and then I was in New York for a Bumble event and with her and I was like I think I'm gonna do something on my own and she was like love that for you have you told Andre I was like no and that was its own conversation well then we need to talk about that I mean it feels to me like the next room where it happened is you having a conversation with Andre that you're going to do something on your own.

25:32Yep. So how did you sort of say to him, like, this isn't the two of us doing this with you as the founder and CEO and me as the deputy CEO. This is now my thing. Bumble was flying. Yeah. And I was doing the day job. And Finn was two, he was coming up three, so like two and three quarters. And how long have Bumble been going for at this point? Well, from two years, from when he was like six months old. Okay. So just so I can get this timeline straight. in my head so do 2010 yeah and then when did you then at badoo think about bumble so uh bumble launched in 2014 so i've been four years at that point yeah okay and what were you what was your role in bumble board okay okay so actually before we get to what happened with peanut you know you were asking what other people would perceive as maybe dumb questions right in the business but that were vital for you.

26:28Yeah. Would you share with us the secret to asking those great questions? So when you're asking questions, you can't think about what the other person must think of you because you've asked that question. Rule number one, doesn't matter. So hard. It's so hard. It's so hard, but it doesn't matter if that person thinks you're a moron because actually they probably aren't thinking you're a moron. They're probably thinking, why is she asking this? Do I understand is she testing me that was a lot of what i was getting don't try and understand or or anticipate what people are thinking of you they're probably not thinking it yeah and then i think the second thing is um something more like what is you asked me what's the key to the getting the good question yeah um and the only way i can explain it is what is the answer you want what is the one thing that you're trying to understand?

27:26Because do you really care about the aggregator relationship and the technicalities of how it works? Or is what you're trying to say is, under what circumstances does this company have to pay us? Because that's really what I cared about. How do I get that money? And as soon as you understand the answer that you want, the question becomes easier. So I think it's that. It's like when you're doing PR and you think, what's the headline I want? And then you think about, okay, how do I create the story to get the headline? It's the exact same thing. How do I think about the answer that I want? And then what's the question to get that?

27:58Is there also an argument that we think it makes us seem stupid to ask the stupid question, but actually to the other people in business, particularly the kind of tech pros that you were working with, they're almost like, wow, she's so confident. She asks that question in front of everyone. That's powerful. I do think there's an element of that as well, you know? Yes, confident or interested or, you know, even if they did think I was stupid, what were they going to do with that feeling? They'd probably over-explain something the next time. Great, even better. I don't mind. Tell me it in stupid language, that's fine for me.

28:35Being thought of as stupid actually can be quite a superpower. It's disarming. I tell you that one of the most incredible gifts that I think I was given at Vadu is that I disarmed people because I could sit there for ages and listen and watch and learn and understand. And then I might make one comment and everyone's like, oh, so you can just disarm people. It's a superpower. So you've had to suffer for years. And then finally you decide to come up with this idea for peanuts, right? was there a part of you that thought if i do this i'm going to do it differently something happened i don't know if this is a popular comment but i'll say it something happened about through motherhood which meant that i became a little bit more empathetic yeah um what happened i don't know i can't tell you thinking emotions i don't know but i just became a little bit more empathetic to things.

29:34So that's the first thing. And then the second thing is anyone who's worked in a really big organization and then goes to start something. It is so humbling. There is no HR team, finance team, IT help desk. You are all the things. So all of a sudden, what's the point in me going and having an ego the size for who? I've got a team of three people, you know like there's no ego I can have no ego with that so you know we would go to I remember going to this baby rave that's the thing in Camden and we had these like foam fingers made like rave fingers and who was going to give out the rave fingers me there was no people me and Finn actually in a peanut sweatshirt and one of my best mates who I dragged along with her son that's who was going to do it so it's sublime to ridiculous and I just closed a fundraising round the week before and there I was handing out foam fingers and so it's the most humbling thing ever and you just change as a result of that that you have to change I think well let's talk then about how peanut came to be because it's so I hate using this phrase but it's actually trendy to want to be a founder now everybody wants to be a founder nobody wants to be an employee yep they all want to be the person that discovered the business, everyone wants to make out that they are a self-made person.

30:58They did it all on their own. And that's what making a founder makes them feel like. Yeah. But let's talk about the actual price of being a founder. Yeah. So can we go into another room? Yep. Would you take us into the room where you believe you kind of made the decision that Peanut was going to happen? I had been talking about Peanut since I had Finn aged two months when I was like, I've got zero friends who are having babies. I am so lonely I'm bored also not popular but I was bored I'd gone from being around people and running a business and being involved all the time I was at home in winter on my own with this tiny little baby who I was loved so much but was so scared of him he was so perfect and needed so much from me and I didn't know what the things were that I was meant to be doing and I was longing for any kind of connection with anyone that I just didn't hadn't formed so um when I saw my friends who didn't have kids I'd be like I just need to I wish I wish we had the app like we've got for you know and I wish I could just find other mums but you know just other mums who want to go on a walk with me or whatever it was and so I would talk about it a lot and uh one of my girlfriends in the end was like dude you've just got to like maybe do that because it's so boring talking about it all the time I was like right um and then I did what everyone does when they have an idea which is absolutely nothing went back to work bumble became the thing and the obsession and then when that was on the way I kind of lived with this idea and Finn was going to um nursery that was the real catalyst and I was like all these other mums had put names down for schools I was like, hey, they're two.

32:43How do you know to do that? And it was like the older he was getting, the more the problem, the bigger the problem. And I think I needed more women in my life, the older he was getting, not less. I needed them more. And so that was that kind of thought process of I'm going to do this. and I went back to London and I sat in Andre's office with him and another guy and I said, I'm going to go. I'm leaving. I've got this idea. Did they know it was coming? I mean, I think he knew that I, yes. I'd made it clear that I was not up for staying much longer. Right. I had an extremely long notice period. 12 months notice period.

33:26So, you know, there was some of that stuff to work out and was it also not did he not try and say well you've come up with this idea working here so we all deserve a bit absolutely not are you joking no way Andre was like mums you want to build something for mums oh he wasn't he wasn't interested that's brilliant he was like what he's like this is not in my wheelhouse absolutely not I assume he's not a parent he is now wasn't then though wasn't then we agreed that I'd stay on the board of both companies so I stayed on the board of Bidou and I stayed on the board of Bumble and I'd go out to board meetings and I did that until we were ready to launch.

34:02And then I was at a board meeting for him and I'd stepped out to do a pitch call to an investor. And I think he was like, don't come to my board meeting and do your pitches. And we had a little like, he was like, what's going on? You think that's what he felt or he said that? No, I think that's what he felt. and so we had a moment where he was like are you doing that thing then you're not coming back i was like i'm not coming back and that was it it's really interesting isn't it that budu and bumble had taken over your life right you know you were identity they were my identity it was your everything yeah and then suddenly you have this idea for peanut and the thing that was your everything it's not yours it's not suddenly you're nothing but I bet it wasn't far off because suddenly you're like 100 % my life's now about peanut and that's a very interesting transition isn't it and for someone that's never founded their own thing yeah so hard to explain how it feels to own something isn't it it's terrifying I had firstly I'd walked away from my very very nice life really because I was well remunerated I had a really amazing lifestyle as a result.

35:18And I was walking away to what? Nothing. I had nothing. I had a deck. I had a term sheet. That was it. That's all I had. That's what I was walking away to. And a little squirrel savings account that was going to be my first couple of months runway until I'd raised some money. So it was terrifying and probably more terrifying than any of that, because that was scary, was my ego. Because I could not let this thing fail. What would it say about me? That I can run someone else's business or I can help someone else, but I can't run my own. I could never have had that be the narrative. So in that way, I suppose maybe that other founder was right.

36:03It was plan A or nothing, but I had to. I had to make it work. It was not an option to fail. Which is interesting for someone who had managed to learn to not care what other people thought about her. Yes. So, exactly. It's full of contradictions. But I couldn't. I could not fail. So, I suppose the question is, how do you deal with that feeling, that imposter syndrome, that doubt, that fear, like genuine fear that the thing that you're going to do, whether it's you starting out a new business or whether it's someone looking to get back into business? How do we deal with that? The truth of the matter is, and there are two parts, you have to love the thing that you're going to do so much that you can live it, breathe it, sleep it, walk it, talk it all day, every day.

36:53And I think when you have kids, that's especially important. Absolutely. Because you love your kids so much. Anything that takes you away from them. Anything that's taking me away from those two better be the, like, it better really mean something. And for me, that meant it better have purpose. it better do good it better make them proud it better inspire there were so many things that it had to be to make it worth it right and and I think many women will relate to that and men will relate to that like let's make it count let's make it worth it I think that feeling of like I couldn't go back in or I've stepped out and I don't know what my new role is all of that is based on the assumption that everyone else knows what the hell they're doing and the truth of the matter is none we're all just winging it every day every day sometimes we do it really successfully and sometimes we don't and and there is really no in between it is it is quite binary like that um and so when you're having those moments of like self-doubt under confidence um what's my purpose anymore how could i go back in um you have to give yourself grace to know that you're going to go back in and have many, many, many shit days.

38:09But you'll have one day where your experience is better than anyone else's in the room and you knew the answer. Or you'll have one day where you won the thing. Or you'll have one, you know, and it builds from there. So it's about taking that first step, knowing that it's going to feel hideous and giving yourself grace. And remembering the 21-year-old you that walked into the workplace, didn't have the first clue about anything you didn't think oh my god you know i'm gonna lose my job tomorrow actually i kind of always had that feeling of like they're gonna find me out um but you kept going and it's just uh giving yourself grace and keeping going if if you want to do it but it has to be something you deeply care about otherwise you know it's it's challenging and i'm not um belittling the work you did here at padu right or the challenge that yeah was presented to you but in some ways what happened at Purdue was easier because you didn't have a child to worry about you were young you had no commitments you were just like from what it sounds like 100 % into Purdue right yeah now you're starting out on your own and you have all of those thoughts washing around in the back of your head about fear and failure and doubt and other people's opinions of you but you've also you're married at this time yeah so you've got a partner that you know we all have to service our partners you've got a child yeah service your child yeah you've you've got all these other things going on in your life so did you press pause on any of those and go 100 % into peanut or are you saying that actually you're able to do both oh you'd have to ask my partner what he thinks about that what do you think exactly I think that the truth is the priority was finn one yeah peanut too rich life everything else after that and that included friends that included family yourself absolutely myself I was running on empty I was you know not healthy probably um slept very little didn't do any of the things that all of the things that we now even talk about We weren't talking about self-care or, you know, that wasn't a thing.

40:19I was in the States one week a month, every month. So it was rich working full-time? Yeah, yeah. So sometimes I could take Finn. So I had my mum living with us. I mean, that has its own, you know, challenge. So sometimes I could take Finn with, sometimes not. But I just wanted it to succeed. I believed in it so much. I just wanted this thing to really land. And then we had the pandemic. and all of a sudden I didn't have to travel. And, you know, that was another like guise of peanuts. So, and I had my daughter. And then it was less easy. Two children is much less portable. Yeah, I would say one is none, two is 10.

41:03Oh, I say one is one, two is 20. So yeah, same thing, right? So all of a sudden like life was different. I had a baby, it was the pandemic. I had just raised another round of finance. By the way, everyone thinks that that's like, oh, great, you had money. No, it meant I had another person sitting on my board asking me what I was doing and how I was responding to things. It was a really strange time. And, you know, that was another evolution of me trying to understand how I could manage and balance all these things. So what would a typical 24 hours look like in those early days of peanut for you?

41:36Oh, the early days were, I mean, insane. My co-founder was in Chicago. had to find the technical co-founder because at the time again it's very different world but at the time you could not get funding as a woman without a technical co-founder it was unspoken law how will you if you're not technical you better have someone else on your cap table who is the technical person and who did you find greg who was the co-founder of deliveroo and he just left deliveroo and i was like hey i'm built he'd just become a new dad actually and i was like hey I'm building this thing. Do you want to do it with me?

42:10And he was like, sure. You know what I'd love to find out from you is how you collect these amazing people. Because as a founder and a co-founder, I've watched from afar at people like you meeting people like him. And I'm thinking, how did you even make that connection? Like, I sometimes feel like I'm here and all these other amazing people are over here having conversations. Yeah, that was the most insane story. It was an incredible story. I had me and a deck and a term sheet. So I had an offer of investment. I've called Bart, the guy who used to be the CEO at Badoo, and said, can you look over at this term sheet for me?

42:48He looked at it. He was like, take it. It's great. Very vanilla. Great. And now I need to close the round. And to close the round, I really need to tell people who's on my team. And I am under massive restrictive covenants, meaning I can't hire anyone from Badoo. No one. so I was like well that's my entire network so how do I now find someone and I was chatting to a woman who used to she was an executive search person who used to hire people for me at Badoo and she said hey you know who you should talk to Greg's just left delivery and that was it was a flippant comment in a over a lunch I thought great I will and I reached out to him and I was like do you want to do it what did you say hi can we have a chat I'm building a product and I'd love your thoughts on it.

43:35Got on a call with him and I was like, this is what I'm doing and he was like, I want X percent of the business. I was like, sure. Let's go. And as we sit talking today, how many people has Peanut connected around the world? I mean, millions. We have five million monthlies. We have, I think a connection is made on Peanut every three seconds. Okay, so in the time that we've been sitting here talking. Think of all those women who've made friends. Isn't it so amazing? I get really, really emo about it because I feel like it's the most beautiful thing I could ever have built truly would you tell us actually how it feels to be the founder of a genuine purpose-led business yes that you um it feels frustrating at times because interesting that's your first emotion that you come to yeah you want so much out of life don't you I high standards but I feel frustrated because I feel like this is such an important product.

44:38I made less, arguably less important products in my life. This one is so important and I find it really frustrating when it doesn't necessarily get that kind of recognition. I'm making something where I think it's a universal issue that every woman has felt lonely at some point and she doesn't need to. like so it's this kind of the same thing this story could change your life this product could change your life it's the same thing and so you want it to have that universal reach and I don't want it to be someone saying oh it's that little mum app because it's not that I mean it's that too but it's actually something so much more than that this is about taking a stand and saying we know that there are topics and conversations that are specific to womanhood that you need to have, we've built you a platform for it.

45:32But for Peanut, where can you have those conversations? And that means that women who have gone through fertility treatments and felt like the loneliest woman in the world doing their third round of IVF and they find someone else who's doing the same, that means a woman on Peanut who carried another woman on Peanut's baby. They met on Peanut. They became best friends. One had cancer, couldn't carry her second child and her best peanut friend carried the baby for her. It's unbelievable to me. And that is the greatest honor of my life. What do you think of the future of the tech industry? I have a cross between like excitement at certain things and I've got nervousness and hesitation on other things.

46:18What are you excited about? Speed of delivery. We can just do things so quickly now. And we talk about it a lot in our team because I'm so excited by the fact that we can turbocharge when we're creating something and you know there aren't so many barriers to entry anymore that might be creative that might just be um a repetitive boring part of copy and test release um and we can do that it's quick and that's amazing and I have some concerns about guardrails and like what what does it mean for kids curiosity learning going and finding answers to things that is nerve-wracking to me and and I don't know if anyone really knows or if they do know they're not telling us and maybe that's more scary too but I think that there's such a huge unimagined part of the world and I find it really exciting but I just yeah there are things that I feel almost nostalgic for and they haven't left us yet.

47:24I still think our young people will be rewarded for being curious, right? I hope so. They'll just get more information for their curiosity and hopefully more accurate and honest information for their curiosity. But there is definitely a gap where we kept asking and we kept not getting the answers and we learned to keep asking. I think young people now will no longer need to learn to keep asking and they will get frustrated if the answers aren't instant. And what about the world for women in tech because i can't applaud you loudly enough for the fact that you were resilient and kept going in those tough times at padu surrounded by a very male approach to to the world right um which is not necessarily a bad thing but it is a bad thing when there's a woman in the room and the room doesn't allow that person to have a voice right which is why um it's so important to have diversity of thought and diversity of employees and business is it really any better because before this conversation i looked at the biggest owners of the biggest tech businesses in the world all of them were men and when i look at the guys that are involved in tech now that then they're like the world is rewarding people who are more bro than bro whether it's podcasting and joe rogan whether it's being a president and it's donald trump whether it's being a businessman and it's elon musk or mark zuckerberg it's almost like you have to be more of a bro than ever before to be accepted what's going on there i think we've got amazing women out there doing amazing things look at melanie from canva and what she's done and um we probably don't always shout very loudly about those stories but those stories exist and they're there and there are women like me who hold on to those stories and they're like I want to do that that's incredible that's exciting that's where I want to be so they're there and we want to hear them and you know we went through we we spoke about it just before but we went through an era of like fundraising porn or being a founder porn or any of these things that we completely glamorized or made into um almost like a cultish existence without really talking about what it takes and what it means and you don't need everyone to do that role Actually, there are other roles that you can do and it can still be incredible.

49:47So I think that there are stories to be told. It's people like you who help tell the stories. And that's really important. Because if we just keep telling the same stories, guess what? It creates the exact same type of founder and the exact same type of business or journey. You know, we've got the former CTO of OpenAI and she's off to do her own thing again. And she's got, however much she's raised, sub a billion, I think. um there's plenty to be excited about there's plenty of exciting women out there we just have to tell their stories so how conscious are you then in your in your new venture of not leading in the way that you saw some elements of leadership in your in your early career at padua so i think the answer to that is um some of it you just do and you don't even notice that you're doing it so for example i had my son and i wanted to get home to see my son and all of a sudden the only person who was going to ring me at night was who me like I was that person so I'm going to go home and I'm going to put Finn to bed and then I'm going to get the laptop out because as I said Greg was in in Chicago so you know I felt like I had another four hours to do with him while he was still online um but I didn't expect it of the team I didn't expect anyone else to be doing sitting in the office for the, you know, for the appearance or the sake of, because I wasn't doing it.

51:11I think very, very, very obviously and clearly now, if you have to do something, you're going to do it. You need to be with your kid this morning. Cool. I'm not interested in timekeeping. I know you're going to do the work. We're all adults. We all deeply care about what we're doing. Another benefit of like caring about the mission that you're on. And so I'm not like, it's not a timesheet situation where I'm like, well, you're not here today. So, or you're not here this morning and therefore you don't care about the business or you're not working hard. You have a delivery, whatever. I don't care.

51:44And I used to care. You know, deeply. If I'm being respectfully honest here, I would imagine that the Michelle at Badoo would have not been happy if someone rings up and goes, my kid's got a school play I won't be in this afternoon. Well, there were no kids. So that didn't happen. That was me. If there was anything in their life that was anything other than work i imagine you let me tell you it was it was things like you know and it wasn't peculiar to badu we all did it but you would get dinner in the office of you from 7 p.m we had dinner because if i was giving you dinner you were gonna probably stay and do that extra hour it's quite cynical but that's what we were doing now i can tell myself that that's because i wanted you to be well nourished but did of course that doesn't exist in peanut it's never existed, go home, go and see your family.

52:33I'm not, you know, I know that if there's something that needs to be picked up, you're going to pick it up. No one gets more upset than my team if something goes wrong. We shipped something last week and there was an issue with it. And, you know, the entire team looked crushed. I was like, guys, it happens. It's okay. Is there a value, though, to you as a leader that you saw the other side of the coin and you were responsible actually for the other side of the coin at times? Of course. I think, you know, even when I was a junior lawyer in a law firm you did not leave that office until the partner was gone you didn't even if it's 10 p.m absolutely you sat there even if you had nothing to do there was always something to do but you didn't go no way so there is a discipline to that it's why i speak about discipline and your discipline might be in dance or it might be in whatever it might be that gives you a sports person right that those there are disciplines that come with that that are vital And really, the only thing I care about is if you're a disciplined person.

53:29And if you have that in you, I don't care if you're at your desk for seven hours, who gives a shit. So you've now decided to write a book, right, about your experiences. And I was wondering, actually, coming into this conversation, how different is the book that you've written today to the one that you would have written when you were 25, 26? Great question. So It Takes a Village is really about women's journeys. and I think I said it before but if you can only be what you can see and the stories that you're being shown about motherhood are not your story you think that you are getting motherhood wrong or you aren't entitled to be mum um or you know you feel completely clueless I did because I all the stories of motherhood didn't represent my story of motherhood right I actually wanted to do other things or um I didn't feel perfect I felt I was getting it wrong but I didn't feel like I was like a slummy mummy.

54:25I just had no clue about this identity. And so the purpose of the book is really to say, here are loads of different versions of motherhood. Here's a single mum who makes it work. Here's a working mum who makes it work. Here's a working mum, because we shouldn't say that someone who is staying at home is a working mum. You're not staying at home, you're child rearing. Here's how she's making it work. Here's someone who lives with their in-laws, how they're making it work culturally. Is that better and more supportive? lots of different examples across that first year of motherhood and that's different to the book I would have written or been part of because I had no clue I didn't know what it takes a village means yeah I didn't much care I thought raising a kid actually meant having stuff cram got I did I really hadn't thought about much other than that I also then had Finn and thought it was about kpis like should he be sitting up by now should he be rolling what months are we on you know and what i didn't really fully understand is you get these little people who are people who you can't control and they don't care about your kpis um and what you need is just as much support as you can um and if you don't have it here's how to find it that's what i needed.

55:44And I think what I love about the idea of the book is that we are still so opinion driven when it comes to parenting. So much. So a good example would be you should go straight back to work because you've got to show your kids that it's important to work. And then other people going, how dare you go back to work when the one thing your kid needs is their mother and father at home. And then you open the newspaper and you see a new mum and the paper is like, oh, she's kept her baby weight. You go two pages on and it's like, oh, she quickly got thin after having a baby and it's like isn't it time we stopped having opinions about how people decide to be parents particularly how they start to be mums yes you're absolutely right in fact the newspaper this weekend was such and such baby figure back and then i went on social media and there was a woman who was telling us all the dangers of putting your child into nursery i was like great uh so what should we do when we want to work and what should we do when we need to work And so the purpose of the book is stories, telling stories about women who have made it work for them in their circumstances.

56:44And those circumstances are many and plentiful. With some experts who say, do you know what? Good decision. Does that work for you? Good decision. Here's another option. And guess what? It's also a good decision because there is no right way to do it. And it really just takes lots of examples of women making it work. Look, thanks for a great conversation. And thanks for putting all your knowledge into a book. Thank you so much. That's great.